Hiring for the Future Tense

A track record tells you how someone performed in a receding world. Hiring well now means reading for the one that is arriving...

Not every prediction about AI and the corner office is worth taking seriously.

The genre runs ahead of itself. Boards seating AI agents next to the directors. The CEO as curator of machine-generated insight. The org chart dissolving into something that assembles itself around problems. Some of it is already happening, in pockets. Most of it is the sound of an industry talking itself into a future it cannot yet see. For a technology this good at prediction, the predictions about it are remarkably bad.

Underneath the noise there is a real shift, and it lands on the part of the business where I spend my time.

I have spent my career running C-level executive search across technology, commercial, and financial functions, for private equity and venture-backed, founder-led B2B and B2B2C technology businesses. A good share of that work is for European and Nordic CEOs, investors, and founders hiring senior US leaders, which means I often run a search for a role that does not yet exist within the company or that they have tried and failed. I have also done the other version of this work, building and running talent functions inside the kind of companies I now recruit for. From either seat, the question is the same. What are we actually hiring this person to do, and what evidence can we verify that they can do it?

For most of that time, the answer to the second half was a track record. You hired the CFO who had taken a company public, the operator whose numbers were a matter of record, the commercial leader who had carried a number through a particular order of magnitude. On my team we call it execution pedigree, the things a search has always read well. Scale, M&A, value creation, the go-to-market motion, functional and domain depth. It was most of the read, and a good one. The past was the best available evidence of the future.

That assumption is weakening across every C-level role, and the CFO is where it loosens first.

A recent piece in Harvard Business Review by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic put a clean frame around why. His argument is that AI is commoditizing expertise at the top of the organization. For a century, leaders rose because they knew more than the people around them, and they proved it with the right degrees, the right experience, and a record against the conventional measures. A great deal of that knowledge is now available on demand. A model runs the scenarios, optimizes the supply chain, and reads the market faster than anyone in the building. When hard skills become easier to copy, the difference between one leader and another shifts to the parts that resist automation. Judgment under ambiguity, how fast someone updates their thinking when the evidence changes, and the self-awareness to know the limits of their own view. Chamorro-Premuzic is the chief science officer at Russell Reynolds, so this is a man describing the same market I work in, from the research side of one of its largest firms.

He makes it concrete with the CFO. Set how the role is described now against how it read a few years ago. The competencies trending up are data analytics, machine learning, cloud computing, and scenario modeling. The ones becoming table stakes are technical accounting, auditing, and regulatory mechanics. Those older skills have not stopped mattering. They have become the floor. The CHRO is on the same path, pulled from administering people toward designing how people and machines work together. The repeatable work is automating. The rest is what you hire for.

The market data says the same thing in colder terms. Protiviti’s most recent global finance survey found AI use among finance teams at over 70%, more than double the year before. BCG’s work on the widening AI gap found that leaders who have built around the technology are pulling away from their peers in cost, margin, and return on capital, and that the gap is compounding. And Gallup, surveying senior executives at the start of this year, found only around one in eight saying AI had changed how the work actually gets done. Most organizations are not there yet, and that gap is the one a hire either closes or widens.

The track record is only half the read

Here is the practical problem. A track record is a record of the past, and the part of the job changing fastest is the part no past contains.

So we read for a second thing now, alongside execution pedigree. For lack of a better phrase, we call it AI skill and will. Not whether a candidate can talk about AI. Whether they have personally changed how they think and decide because of it. Those are different people, and the difference is easy to miss if you are only listening for the right words.

The tell is specificity. The leader who has actually rewired their own work names the tools they use and the decisions those tools changed. They can give you a before-and-after from their own week, not their team’s roadmap. They reason in probabilities when the ground is uncertain, rather than waiting for the ambiguity to resolve before they commit. Ask them about a strategic bet that went wrong, and they can name the precise moment they realized it, and the signal they had missed. The leader who has only sanctioned AI at the org level cannot do any of that. They speak about it in the third person. They cite the program, the governance, the metrics. They have handed exploration over to a chief AI officer and carried on deciding as they always have.

Both can look strong in a first conversation. Only one of them has changed.

What a title does not tell you

This is where the new boxes on the org chart get misread.

The chief AI officer has gone from rare to routine in about a year. By IBM’s count, roughly three-quarters of large organizations now have one, up from about a quarter the year before. That speed is itself the warning. The box gets added far faster than the capability behind it. A company that appoints a chief AI officer has not thereby acquired an AI strategy, any more than the chief innovation officers of the last cycle produced much innovation. The title names the problem. Whether anyone solves it depends on capability, incentive, and culture, none of which arrive with a business card.

The same trap shows up one level down, in the people being hired. The leader who sponsors the AI initiative is not the same as the leader who has been changed by it, and the first is much easier to mistake for the second. Sponsoring is safe and legible. It shows up in board decks. What is harder to assess, and what predicts how someone leads through a shift like this, is whether the person in front of you has done the work themselves.

Which means some of the signals a search has always relied on now need to be discounted. A named AI program on a resume is org-level housekeeping, not evidence of personal change. Headcount managed says less than it seems, because AI-era leadership is about the quality of the structure someone builds, and running four hundred people well beats running two thousand badly. Revenue posted in a strong market is not proof of the judgment you need at an inflection point, when the tailwind drops and the call has no precedent. None of these are worthless. They are weaker predictors than they used to be, and the danger is hiring on them precisely because they are the easy ones to see.

What does not move

The same commoditization has already reached the search business. A model maps a market and builds a long list in an afternoon, work I would have paid an analyst weeks for not long ago. Research is becoming a commodity, just as executive expertise is.

I have written before about where that stops. The judgment does not move. A model can tell me what a candidate has done. It cannot sit across from them and tell me whether the confidence is conviction or defensiveness, whether they will go quiet the first time a board pushes back, or whether the moment they claim to have changed their mind ever actually happened. It cannot judge whether a candidate fits the culture they are walking into, or whether they and the CEO will work well together once the first hard decision lands. That read is the job. It always was. The technology has only made it obvious by clearing away the parts that were never the point.

Hiring for the future tense

Where this leaves me, in practice, is hiring more for trajectory than for record. Reading both axes, and weighting the one the past cannot show you.

The questions I care most about are no longer only about what someone has done. They are about how a person behaves when they are wrong, whether they can hold a strong view and still revise it, and whether they can work past the edge of their own experience without pretending the edge is not there. Those qualities travel into a role whose contents will keep shifting.

None of this makes the search easier. It was always easier to hire the person whose past matched the page. The harder thing, and the more useful one, is to read a candidate for what they could become inside a business that will not sit still long enough for anyone’s experience to stay current.

The executives who do well in this period are not the ones racing the machines on knowledge they are going to lose anyway. They are the ones honest enough to see what the machines now do better, and secure enough to spend their own attention on the part that is still theirs. Judgment, the self-awareness to know which is which, and the willingness to keep learning in public. Those were always the things that separated the people who grew with a business from the people the business had to grow around.

The technology has only made the difference harder to ignore.

Sources: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, “How C-Suite and Board Roles Are Being Reshaped Around AI,” Harvard Business Review (2026), drawing on Russell Reynolds Associates data. Protiviti, Global Finance Trends Survey (2025). Boston Consulting Group, “How Leaders Build an AI-First Cost Advantage” (2026). Gallup, AI in the Workplace (2026). IBM Institute for Business Value, CEO study on AI and the C-suite (2026).

What Europeans are actually saying about us right now

I’ve spent more than two decades doing business in Europe. I lived in Stockholm for 5 years. I still travel to Europe and the Nordics often, and a significant portion of my work continues to be with executives, investors, and operators from those regions. That gives me a different read on the relationship between the U.S. and Europe than what you get from headlines or polling, and the read right now is worth writing about.

Before I go further, a clarification that matters. There is no single European view, and I want to be careful not to write as if there were. Stockholm is not Milan. Warsaw is not London. The history, the politics, the way trust gets built in the room; all of that varies country by country, sometimes city by city. Anyone who has done real work across the continent knows the differences are not surface details. They are the work.

But after you account for all of that, there is still a theme. Something I keep hearing, in different accents and different rooms, from people whose judgment I trust. That’s what I want to write about.

The wariness was always there

There’s a view many Europeans have about Americans. You Americans, you’re talkers.

It isn’t quite a compliment. It isn’t quite an insult. It’s a diagnosis. We talk too fast, too loud, too confidently. We pitch when we should listen. We mistake enthusiasm for substance and volume for credibility. We leave the room thinking we connected. The people across the table leave the room with a different conclusion.

That wariness predates this political moment by a long way. It is not new. What’s new is that the wariness used to coexist with something else, and that something else is what I want to talk about.

The part Europeans rarely said out loud

Underneath the love-hate relationship, for a very long time, there was a quieter conviction that Europeans rarely stated directly because doing so felt like a confession.

They believed in us.

Not in the swagger or the sermons or the slogans. In the underlying thing. The idea that across the Atlantic, there was a country, however flawed and however loud, where a person could remake himself. Where the rules bent toward possibility. Where the kid from nowhere could build something. Most of the European executives I’ve worked with would never have used the phrase “city on the hill,” but the feeling was there, and I have watched it in their eyes for twenty years, even while they were busy criticizing us.

It took some time to develop the meaningful relationships that I have in Europe. I stopped selling and started showing up. In a recent conversation with a Swedish CEO, he said that Europeans sometimes make fun of Americans, but when they dream of success, they dream in an American accent.

I’ve heard versions of that second sentence from executives in other countries, too, phrased differently each time, with different cultural assumptions, but the underlying note recognizable.

That belief is what’s changed.

What Trump did, and didn’t do

To understand the European reaction to this administration, you have to go back to that first line. You Americans, you’re talkers.

Trump is the ultimate talker. He is, in many ways, the European caricature of the American made flesh and elevated to the presidency. The volume. The certainty. The salesmanship is untethered from substance. The pitch that keeps going long after the room has decided. The willingness to say anything, contradict it the next day, and treat the contradiction as further proof of strength. Every quality Europeans have spent decades privately being wary of in Americans, he embodies and amplifies on a stage they cannot look away from.

That is why his presidency lands the way it does in Europe. It isn’t just that he threatens allies, demands tribute, talks about annexing territory, and treats seventy years of accumulated trust as a sunk cost to be liquidated. It’s that he does all of it in the register Europeans always feared was the real America underneath the polished one. He is the version of us they hoped wasn’t the truest version. And now he is the one in the room.

The European reaction is not what most Americans think it is. It is not anger. It is something quieter and harder to read.

It is disappointment, confusion, and an underlying sadness.

Most of the Europeans I know are genuinely surprised that an American president would behave this way, and more surprised, still, that the country elected him to do it. There is a contingent that expected exactly this from Trump and feels vindicated. But that group is smaller than Americans assume. The larger reaction, especially among the executives and investors I work with, is closer to bewilderment. They believed the institutions would hold. They believed the country would course-correct. They are still adjusting to the possibility that neither assumption was right, and that the talker they had always tolerated as a stereotype now sits at the head of the table.

The recent ECFR polling captures the cold version of it. Across 10 EU countries, the average is only 16% who now view the United States as an ally. About half view America as a “necessary partner.”

That phrase is doing a lot of work. A necessary partner is what you call a difficult supplier you cannot yet replace. It is not what you call a friend.

The warmer version of the same conversation, the one you only hear late and off the record, sounds different. It sounds like: we thought you were better than this. We needed you to be better than this. Not for your sake. For ours.

The sadness is real, and it is proportional to the belief. You cannot understand European disappointment in America right now unless you understand European faith in America before now.

What this means in the room

The takeaway is not that Europeans dislike Americans. That would be lazy and wrong. The executives I work with, across countries, industries, and politics, are still engaged. They are still doing business and hiring Americans. The relationships at the working level are intact, and in some cases stronger than they were, because adversity tends to clarify who actually shows up.

But something beneath the surface has shifted, and any American doing business in Europe right now needs to feel it.

The benefit of the doubt is gone. You used to walk in with a credit balance, the residual goodwill of Marshall Plans, shared sacrifice, JFK in Berlin, and Reagan at the Brandenburg Gate. That account isn’t just empty. It’s been closed.

Talk is being priced more harshly than it used to be, in part because the loudest American voice on the world stage right now is the one Europeans always suspected was the real one. The room you’re walking into has less patience for the long pitch and the big American energy than it did even a few years ago. The European across the table assumes you are performing until you prove otherwise, and there is a quiet sadness in him about having to assume that.

The frustrated, still-engaged middle

Most of the Europeans I know are frustrated with America. They are also, in a way they would rarely admit to an American’s face, mourning the version of America they grew up believing in.

They still want the relationship. Many of them still believe that the American people are not the American government, and that the deeper bonds of culture, capital, and history are not so easily severed. They are hedging, building their own defense capacity, AI infrastructure, and payment rails. But they are hedging the way you hedge in a marriage that has gone bad but isn’t quite over. With one eye on the door, one hand still on the table, and a part of the heart that has not yet caught up with what the head already knows.

What they are over is being told how to run their economies by a country running fifteen trillion-dollar deficits. Done with being moralized at by a political class that has surrendered the moral high ground to MAGA. Done, especially with the talker. The talker, as a national stereotype, was always tolerable, even endearing in small doses. The talker-as-commander-in-chief is something else entirely.

If you are doing business in Europe right now, the assignment is straightforward, even if it isn’t easy. Be the American who proves the stereotype wrong in the specific country you are standing in. Listen more than you speak. Commit to less and deliver more. Show up in February, again in June, and again in November, when there is no deal on the table. Learn the country you are in, its history, its rhythms, and the way trust gets built there. The people across the table have almost certainly bothered to learn ours. And understand that when a European executive looks at you with that slightly distant, slightly tired expression, he is not being cold. He is wondering whether the country you came from is still the country he thought it was, or whether the talker on television is.

The honest answer is that we don’t know yet.

What I tell the European clients and friends I work with is that America was never a finished place. It was always an argument, conducted in public, between the country’s better and worse instincts. The light has dimmed before. It has been relit before. Whether it gets relit this time depends, more than anything, on whether enough Americans decide it should.

Rudolf-Wilde-Platz

What Defines Great Executive Recruiters in 2026

1. Great executive recruiters lead with inquiry—not assumptions

In 2026, great executive recruiters start every engagement by seeking a deep, contextual understanding. They ask disciplined—sometimes uncomfortable—questions about strategy, culture, constraints, and trade-offs, and they are explicit when clarity is missing.

This requires humility. Recruiters are expected to bring pattern recognition and market perspective. But the strongest practitioners resist the temptation to show skill too early. In complex, founder-led, or transformation environments, assumptions are costly. They lead to misaligned briefs, false positives, and wasted cycles.

High-performing recruiters understand that precision comes from inquiry, not bravado. They probe beyond titles and org charts into decision-making dynamics, leadership debt, operating cadence, and the realities behind the narrative. In nearly every successful search, the quality of the outcome depends on the quality of the questions. These questions are asked at the outset.

Inquiry alone is insufficient. Elite recruiters pair curiosity with follow-through. When they commit to understanding a market, role, or leadership problem, they do the work needed to deliver clarity.

2. Great recruiters reliably close the gaps they uncover

In 2026, this increasingly means blending human judgment with intelligent tooling. Research is faster and more accessible, but discernment still determines relevance. Great recruiters know how much context is needed to challenge constructively, calibrate candidates accurately, and avoid superficial pattern matching.

They do not confuse activity with progress. Instead, they focus on relevance and reliability. If they say they will get an answer, they get it. Over time, that consistency compounds into trust.

3. Great recruiters inspire confidence through a disciplined, repeatable process

The strongest recruiters do not rely on persuasion to earn trust. They rely on process.

Confidence comes from clarity: clear milestones, explicit decision points, shared evaluation criteria, and transparent trade-offs. Clients always know where the search stands, what is being learned, and why certain candidates are advancing—or not.

In 2026, credibility comes less from charisma and more from operational rigor. A well-designed search operating model—integrating market mapping, candidate calibration, feedback loops, and real-time learning—creates predictability in inherently uncertain environments. When the process is tight, even difficult searches feel manageable.

4. Great recruiters hold a high bar for the work

Exceptional outcomes need discipline. Great recruiters keep high standards across preparation, communication, documentation, and follow-through. They respect time—both their clients’ and candidates’—and they arrive prepared, grounded in data, and aligned on objectives.

Modern executive search is operationally complex. High performers treat that complexity as a system to be maintained, not a series of heroic individual efforts. They use technology to enhance—not replace—judgment, ensuring information is centralized, current, and actionable.

Critically, they own outcomes. They do not externalize failure or hide behind excuses.

5. Great recruiters are intrinsically motivated to improve

Finally, the best executive recruiters care deeply about the craft itself.

Executive search in 2026 is competitive, demanding, and increasingly transparent. Those who stagnate are quickly outpaced. Sustained excellence requires reflection, resilience, and a genuine commitment to sharpening judgment over time.

6. Great recruiters follow up—relentlessly and professionally

Follow-up is not administrative. It is strategic.

In executive search, momentum is fragile. Decisions stall. Priorities shift. Candidates hesitate. Internal stakeholders go quiet. Without disciplined follow-up, even strong searches drift.

Great recruiters understand that follow-up is how you protect velocity.

They do not assume silence means disinterest. They do not let ambiguity linger. They close loops—with clients and with candidates. They confirm next steps, clarify ownership, and reinforce timelines. And they do it consistently, without theatrics.

This matters for several reasons:

1. It protects trust.
When you follow up promptly and clearly, you signal reliability. Clients and candidates feel managed, not left guessing. Over time, that reliability becomes reputation.

2. It preserves optionality.
Strong candidates are rarely sitting still. Timely follow-up keeps them engaged and informed, reducing unnecessary drop-off. It ensures that market momentum aligns with process momentum.

3. It sharpens decision-making.
Follow-up conversations often surface new data—hesitations, internal politics, compensation misalignment, cultural concerns. Ignoring those signals delays resolution. Addressing them early keeps the search calibrated.

4. It reinforces accountability.
A well-run search requires shared responsibility. Follow-up makes ownership explicit: who is meeting whom, by when, and why. This reduces drift and avoids passive process decay.

In 2026, where executive talent markets move quickly, and attention spans are fragmented, disciplined follow-up is not aggressive—it is professional.

Most searches do not fail because talent is unavailable. They fail because the process lost momentum.

Great recruiters do not allow that to happen.

Why do so many search firms look and sound the same?

Because many are built around selling services rather than applying experience to build enduring partnerships. They optimize for volume, process, and investor relationships instead of accountability, judgment, and long-term outcomes. The result is polished messaging, familiar frameworks, and recycled candidates—with little meaningful differentiation.

AMM Partners was built differently. We are operator-first and results-led. We apply hard-earned experience and disciplined judgment. Our cultural understanding helps us to place leaders who materially advance the business.

We focus on relationships with founders and operators. They are the individuals directly accountable for building and scaling the company. They deserve a search partner who understands their reality. We support the leadership journey from start to finish.

Our work combines deep relationships with precise data. We bring decades of pattern recognition together with advanced AI. This combination with market intelligence gives founders and operators the clarity to make informed leadership decisions. These decisions shape culture, performance, and long-term enterprise value.

We do not build our business around investment firms. Instead, we partner directly with portfolio company leaders. These leaders seek executives capable of driving transformative growth.

First impressions still mean something….

The Art of Interviewing: Balancing Individuality with Professionalism

Job hunting is a delicate dance—showing personality while proving professionalism. There’s plenty of advice about standing out, like dressing casually or taking an unconventional approach. While individuality has its place, securing the job still requires a strong foundation of professionalism.

The Power of Presentation

First impressions matter—yes, even on video. It may be tempting to dress down, but don’t. Focus on the basics first. Dress appropriately—yes, even for virtual interviews. Maintain a polished presence and be mindful of how you present yourself. These details contribute to making a lasting, positive impact.

Advice for Job Seekers

Timing is Everything

Be strategic about when and where you apply. Focus on high-growth organizations and stay alert to hiring trends. Reaching out when companies are actively expanding can significantly improve your chances of landing an interview.

The Power of Follow-Up

After an interview or discovery session, send a personalized thank-you note to each person you meet. Email is standard, but a handwritten note to senior interviewers adds a thoughtful, standout touch.

Punctuality Matters

Being late is never a good look. Arrive 15 minutes early for in-person interviews. For virtual meetings, log in 5 minutes ahead to test your setup. Every action you take reflects your professionalism and reliability. Remember; how you do anything is how you do everything.”

Preparation and Materials

For in-person meetings, bring printed copies of your resume or an engaging, concise slide deck. If it’s a video interview, send materials a day in advance. Be ready to share compelling stories about your experience and demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for the role.

Energy and Passion Win Jobs

Show intellectual curiosity, humor, and enthusiasm. Engage actively, lean into the conversation, and let your excitement for the role and company shine through. Employers notice and value candidates who bring authentic energy and commitment.

Polish and Presentation

The details matter. Your attire and posture signal how seriously you take the opportunity. Even the shine on your shoes or the neatness of your background on video can have an impact. Presentation speaks volumes.

Know Your Value

During interviews, ask about the company’s challenges and opportunities. What problem is this role meant to solve? Be prepared to articulate what makes you a valuable addition to the team. Avoid overused phrases like “I’m a team player” or “I get frustrated easily.” Instead, connect your unique skills and experiences to the organization’s goals through specific, relevant examples. Reviewing the company’s culture section is an obvious way to gain insight here.

Final Thoughts

Interviews are your chance to blend professionalism with personality. Be prepared, dress for success, and approach the process with curiosity, enthusiasm, and a clear sense of your worth.

And yes—for in-person meetings, shine those shoes and clean that suit. For video interviews, be mindful of how you look on screen, adjust your lighting, and check your background. First impressions matter more than you think. Remember; how you do anything is how you do everything !

Happy interviewing!

How Your Physical Surroundings Shape Your Work Life

The past few years have prompted a reevaluation of many aspects of our lives, including the purpose and dynamics of our workplaces. Now more than ever, it’s evident that our workplaces shape and reflect key aspects of our identity, influencing both our performance and well-being. While there may be limits to the spaces available for work—and the extent to which we can personalize them—there are always opportunities, however small, to engage in placemaking. By drawing on the theory of workplace identification, which combines insights from environmental psychology, organizational behavior, and workplace design, the authors provide practical guidance on how to thoughtfully shape your work environment to support your growth, performance, and well-being.

The Importance of Place in Work

The debate over where and how we work remains contentious, with workers increasingly making intentional decisions about their environments — whether at home, in coffee shops, in transit, or in traditional offices. These choices matter because the places we work anchor our careers and shape our sense of self, often in ways we may not consciously recognize.

The Interplay of Place and Identity

Drawing on the theory of workplace identification, which integrates environmental psychology, organizational behavior, and workplace design, the article emphasizes that workplaces are more than backdrops for tasks. They are intertwined with our professional identities, reflecting who we were, who we are, and who we aim to become. Workplaces satisfy fundamental identity motives — offering a sense of belonging, continuity, and growth — but they can also hinder progress, leaving us feeling stagnant.

Steps to Craft a Workplace That Supports Your Best Self

  1. Audit Your Current Workplace
    Evaluate how each workspace affects your mood, productivity, and identity. Consider how it makes you feel, whether it supports task completion, fosters social connections, and reflects your professional journey.
  2. Evaluate the Meaning of Place Elements
    Reflect on whether your surroundings align with your aspirations. Identify aspects of your environment that support or stifle parts of your identity. Envision your ideal workplace and how it might enable the different facets of who you are.
  3. Engage in Placemaking
    Take intentional steps to shape your environment to better reflect and support your identity. Suggestions include:

    • Personalizing Your Workspace: Add meaningful items that connect to your professional and personal milestones.
    • Altering How You Use Your Space: Shift locations for different tasks to tap into varied energies and focus.
    • Finding Social Connection: Balance solitude with opportunities for collaboration or communal work.
    • Architecting Boundaries: Design spaces that help create separation between work and other roles in your life.

A Dynamic and Intentional Approach to Workplaces

Workplaces influence not only what we do but who we are. By auditing, reflecting on, and reshaping our environments, we can create spaces that enable us to thrive, foster creativity, and balance the many facets of our identities. Even within constraints, small but deliberate changes can have a profound impact, helping us become our best selves at work and beyond.

We are all still in recovery…

Over the past four years, we have endured profound and shared experiences that have reshaped our collective psyche: a pandemic that disrupted our sense of safety, repeated incidents of police violence and mass shootings, a war in Ukraine, an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, a divided electorate, and both sides unhappy in one way or the other with the Presidential election, and there will be more.

These events, both discrete and ongoing, have contributed to a phenomenon known as collective trauma. Unlike individual trauma, collective trauma encompasses shared memories of distressing events that communities process and revisit to make sense of their impact. This shared burden has intensified burnout, highlighted systemic barriers to mental health support, and driven many to reevaluate their priorities and values, seeking greater meaning and purpose in their lives.