Grace Clarke

I love hotel lobbies and coffee shops where I can absorb others’ energy without having to interact. I do need it to be extremely quiet, so I play brown noise on the Loftie app that goes with the sunrise clock and lamp you see everywhere online.

You may roll your eyes at this, but breathing! I’ve heard breath described as the remote control of our nervous system, which manages our mental cognition. Deep breaths create physical and mental calm, and this allows for my most useful qualities: a questioning mind, clarity (that’s hard), and fearlessness. It unfurls into other things I value: shrewdness, joy, empathy, self-awareness, integrity.
Most people want something tangible, so: whiteboard roll you can tape up anywhere. Just leave the backing on.

1. Laughing! It relaxes us, and when we’re less on edge, we’re better antennas for team dynamics better at uniting around an idea, and understanding how to individually motivate people.
2. Physically moving. Even standing up and stretching. Anything to break that tech trance from staring at your screen.

A good day starts with an early bedtime the night before. My days: blocks for meetings, blocks for silence, and blocks for rest.

For context, I was trained by a classic and very old fashioned magazine editor at Conde Nast, and as a result, I became an excellent organizer, great at creating processes, and ruthless about figuring things out. There is always a way. (Once, I needed to discreetly and urgently deliver a memo to my boss who was at one of three restaurants uptown, but I didn’t know which. After speaking with the GMs or securities at each, I found her and had one slip her a piece of paper. (You might say, “it’s a fashion magazine — that’s so dramatic.” Exactly! It was a secret, and I will never repeat it.)

Anyway, fifteen years later, I have a process or template for absolutely everything and will always share them. The ones people download the most are my monthly marketing planner and the personal annual plan framework.