I’ve reviewed 30+ standing desks in my home office over the past 5 years. Everything from $350 cheapies like the Artiss to the fully specced hardwood monsters like the recycled Messmate UpDown Pro+. All of them have wobbled – to an extent.

This is ironic, because I know from my ties to the industry that Australian consumers prioritise standing desk stability over any other feature.

So, what the? How does one square this apparent contradiction?

Every Standing Desk Wobbles Eventually.

There is no contradiction.

“Is this desk sturdy?” is one of the most common questions consumers ask – but it’s the wrong question. It’s too binary.

Almost every desk is stable at sitting height (and if you find one that’s not, run!)

So the more meaningful question is – does substantial wobble appear below your typical standing height, and how severe is it?

Above: Measure your standing desk height like this, but reduce it by about 2cm to offset for the height of the standing mat (you’ll need one to ensure your feet don’t hurt – trust me).

Australian Standing Desks Are Reasonably Stable.

The good news is that most standing desks on the Australian market don’t wobble a lot. You could buy any desk in my review and be OK.

Of the 30+ desks I tested, only the horror show that is the Otto Newhaven from Officeworks and a few cheapies from Amazon failed the test – badly.

Some were certainly better than others, but I think there’s little value in debating which sufficiently sturdy desk is the sturdiest.

For me, stability is non-negotiable – the desk must clear that certain (admittedly difficult to measure and standardise) threshold to pass.

Once it does, I care far more about the features that meaningfully distinguish it from its rivals.

Your best bets here are UpDown and Desky.

The former has two locations across Australia (Dee Why in Sydney and Hawthorn in Victoria) that you can visit. Desky, meanwhile, has 5 locations across Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales.

Why Do Standing Desks Wobble?

Stability is rarely a result of one feature that makes the desk feel bulletproof. It’s usually a function of many variables adding up.

In case you’re wondering, glides are little wedges that sit between the leg columns.

Think of them as doing the same work as cartilage does in your knee joints – they act as a cushion that prevents hard metal parts from grinding against each other.

Above: Cheaper desk brands (e.g., Ikea) have top-only glides, which are worse at keeping the desk stable.

Problems with glides arise for three reasons:

Quick release legs can also undermine stability.

Some manufacturers have started to introduce legs that simply snap into position. Just push on a lever and hey, presto – the leg is attached.

Unfortunately, this mechanism can introduce stability issues – especially over time. I’ve reviewed several desks with this design (the EverDesk, which is no longer in production, as well as the Dora Pro by 9am Home.

Both passed, but were noticeably less stable than desks with a traditional leg attachment system.

The other two factors that typically cause stability issues are user errors:

The second point is particularly important – because it’s within your control.

You likely won’t rip up carpets in your house just to improve the stability of your standing desk. But you can be smarter about your gear choices.

As guys (yes, it’s always guys), we love to flex out WFH setups.

But while clamping multiple monitors to an arm clamped at the rear of your desk vastly improves your Instagram feed, it also makes your setup less stable. That arm is a long lever that will amplify any play you introduce into the system.

Steven

Shots fired. The war is on. That’s what I could not stop thinking about as I was assembling the UpDown Ergo Elite in my home office.

Every part I lifted out of the box gave me a case of déjà vu.

Not only because I’ve assembled 25+ chairs over the past 5 years (and sometimes every chair part looks the same), but because the parts reminded me of a chair I’m familiar with – my current favourite mid-range ergonomic chair, the ErgoTune Joobie.

UpDown partnered with ErgoTune’s supplier to bring a nearly-identical competitor to market. But it differs in a few important ways I’ll talk about in a moment.

5 Things I Love About The UpDown Ergo Elite.

The Ergo Elite pleasantly surprised me. I was expecting another me-too ergonomic chair.

What I saw was a legitimate contender for my “best office chair in Australia” award.

1. You Sit Like A Rockstar.

Above: The UpDown Ergo Elite cuts a handsome shape. Broad angled edges at shoulder level contrast nicely with curves in the seat and the armcaps.

On first impression, the Ergo Elite is a remarkably comfortable chair.

I find that the first time you lower yourself into any chair, you immediately register either a “hmm, not sure about this” or a “hell yeeeees” type of experience.

The bucket design has a contoured seat and backrest, and these add up to make you feel cradled – almost hugged – from all sides.

15 adjustment points make it easy to find your ideal ergonomic position. You get everything you’d expect at this price point:

Above: Side view of the Ergo Elite offers a fairly typical ergonomic chair aesthetic.

You also get an integrated footrest – which, although easy to scoff at as a Boomer-only utensil – is surprisingly usable.

Slide it out, recline the chair fully, and you end up in what I refer to as “dentist chair mode” – a couch-like experience perfect for binge-watching Netflix.

The leatherette pad on the footrest is also a nice design touch.

2. Best-In-Class Armrests.

The Ergo Elite’s armrests are the strongest part of the chair. I can’t fault them – almost.

For example – if you make the armcaps soft, their durability will suffer. But if you make them durable, they’ll irritate people’s forearms and elbows.

Above: The outstanding armrests are covered in soft leatherette.

Ergo Flex erred on the side of softness for sure, making these the most comfortable-feeling armrests I’ve ever used. Period.

Super-soft, large and without hard edges, they never dig into any part of the arm at any angle.

This is partially due to Ergo Elite’s ability to tilt the armcap – a rare feature, and one I haven’t seen since reviewing the (30% more expensive) Sihoo S300.

3. Two-Piece Lumbar Support.

Above: Dual lumbar pads have a gap in the middle that can dig into your back.

Speaking of the Sihoo S300, that was the only other chair I ever encountered that had a two-piece lumbar support.

While a single horizontal pad can feel like a hard roll always pressing into your back, two independently hinged pads can offer more comfort – because they are better at contouring themselves to your back.

That’s the theory, at least. What does it feel like in practice?

Exactly as intended. Much better than a single roll design, actually.

I was expecting something gentle – probably the two pads look gentle – but the real-world experience is that of an urgent, confident pressure against the C-spine.

You can make it friendlier using an independent depth control knob. Height control is also possible, but it’s synced to the backrest height control – much like the original ErgoTune Supreme was.

You can feel it against your back if you move off-centre – especially if you also recline.

It’s not enough to become irritating, but it does mean the backrest doesn’t eventually disappear, as it tends to with single-piece backrest chair designs like the Steelcase Series 2 or Haworth Fern.

4. Solid Build Quality.

Above: The contrast grey trim panel on the rear and the splashes of chrome break up the monotony of black plastic.

UpDown’s build quality is exactly on point for its $699 price.

You get hard injection-moulded plastics – and surprisingly, a metal base. Mazel tov!

None of the chair’s body panels feels flimsy or cheap to the touch. And the whole thing feels satisfyingly heavy – without being difficult to drag around.

This is also the first chair I’ve ever used where the upright lock position has a legitimate lock.

Not so the Ergo Elite. Lock it in a tasking position, and you feel zero wobble. What kind of sorcery is this, UpDown?

But the build quality of the controls is a mixed bag. Some are fantastic while some are just “meh”. It’s as if every one of them was designed by a different team:

Thing is, these are purely UX observations. I’m not worried about the controls’ longevity – because all major components are covered by UpDown’s outstanding 10-year warranty, which I’ll discuss in a moment.

I’m also not worried about the longevity of the chair’s mesh. It’s certainly on the more utilitarian side, and what it trades off in softness it gains in robustness.

5. Ridiculous 10-Year Warranty.

Above: Dentist mode activated. Cue Netflix and popcorn.

Mid-range office chairs typically offer 3-6 years of warranty. Cheapies from Amazon offer 1-2. Premium luxury brands like Herman Miller and Steelcase offer 12.

UpDown decided to offer 10.

And they’ll cover the most important stuff, too – i.e., mechanisms and structural components.

Chairs aren’t just a piece of furniture. They’re a statement about our identity – and we tend to outgrow them psychologically in parallel to wearing them out physically.

A 10-year warranty means you’re far more likely to “feel ready” for a new chair than the chair falling apart on you.

Which is excellent – and means you spend roughly $70 bucks a year for the next decade on seating. Bargain. And if something does go wrong, it’s an UpDown problem – not your problem.

6. Handsome Looks (To An Extent).

Above: The Lumbar depth mechanism offers two settings. Here it is in the open, “firmer” position.

OK look.

As I’ve said dozens of times on this blog, ergonomic chairs are never pretty – unless you pay closer to $2,000 for more advanced materials and engineering (e.g., fully integrated backs and weight-sensitive mechanisms).

However, some brands are better than others at stylising them – and the Ergo Elite is one of them.

I particularly like the chair’s front and 3/4 front angles – they remind me of the premium Humanscale designs, like the Liberty.

And the same square-ish edges differentiate the chair from the plethora of el cheapo ergo chairs, which for some reason always look like they’re melting.

3 Things I Dislike About The UpDown Ergo Elite.

The Ergo Elite has a few issues. It also doesn’t have recline tension control, which is an unusual design decision.

1. Dynamic Backrest Support Is A Gimmick.

Above: Lumbar depth control is on the right. The dynamic backrest support lever is hidden just behind it.

The ErgoTune Joobie has it. Apparently the UpDown decided the Ergo Elite must have it, too.

But it’s just as useless here as it is on the Joobie.

But in reality, it just reduces the depth of the seating position when you lean back, making the chair a little bit less comfortable.

Worse, it does this with a sudden mechanical “clunk” that catches you off guard when it happens.

I never use it. You’ll never use it. Ignore it.

2. Looks Like Every Other Ergo Chair.

Above: From the rear, the Ergo Elite looks familiar – because it looks like just about any other ergonomic chair.

Have a look at the photo above – have you seen this chair before?

I’m willing to bet that if I lined up 20 ergonomic chairs from different manufacturers side-by-side, even the owners of their respective businesses would struggle to pick out their chair from the bunch.

On one hand, that’s fine – because it works well, and if something isn’t broken, why change it?

On the other hand, wouldn’t it be nice to see something different? Even a little bit?

For example, I would love to see an ergonomic chair at a $700-ish price point with a solid backrest that hides all the controls within it. Like the Fern does.

Just sayin’.

3. No Recline Tension Control.

I’ve left the worst till last.

Where’s the recline tension control, UpDown?

By not including it, you’ve turned off everyone who likes to sit with the recline unlocked, balancing the tension against their body weight.

I weigh 110 kg, and leaving the lock open means I rapidly travel backwards until I’m in the (admittedly impressive) 150-degree recline position.

People who weigh roughly 80 – 85 kg will be fine – because their weight will roughly match the default tension of the chair. But lighter people will remain stuck upright, while people like me will be stuck lying down.

I’m not sure how much money UpDown saved by not speccing this feature, but I’m sure it wasn’t a lot. It’s a huge miss.

How The UpDown Ergo Elite Scored.

The Ergo Elite scored fantastically overall. The strongest areas are its ergonomic chops and warranty. The weakest – return policy.

Key Takeaways:

The UpDown Ergo Elite is:

It’s great for a very specific type of person:

My Verdict On The UpDown Ergo Elite.

Uff. This is a hard one. The Ergo Elite is an excellent chair, and is outstanding value for the price. But is it better than the OG – the ErgoTune Joobie?

Its warranty and armrests are the standout features. No other chair under $1,000 even comes close in those departments.

But these gains come at a price – namely the Joobie’s lovely fabric-infused mesh and the recline tension adjustment.

For me, the tension control is a must-have, and I don’t keep my chairs for longer than a few years, which is why the Joobie is still #1.

But you may be different – in which case, the Ergo Elite is a great pick.

Steven

Saving money on executive outplacement is easy. Choose a mass-market vendor, give the departing leader a digital platform and a handful of coaching sessions, and record the difference as prudent budget control.

The invoice will almost certainly be smaller. But it will obscure the fact that the cost just exploded elsewhere – because the decision damaged the:

That is the problem with generic executive outplacement. The immediate saving is visible, but the long-term cost is not.

Your Leadership Team Is Concerned.

Leadership exits are rarely as private as organisations imagine. You may negotiate them behind closed doors, but they will be interpreted in full view of the people whose opinions matter most.

The executives who remain will watch exactly how you handle the departure. Not the press release – the substance:

Every senior leader watching makes the same quiet calculation: that is what will happen to me.

Research into organisational downsizing supports this.

Outplacement is just one part of the redundancy process, but it is one of its most significant parts.

(Related: Concierge-Level Executive Outplacement Service).

It tells the people who remain whether the organisation’s stated values survive contact with an inconvenient decision.

Senior markets are tightly networked. Departing executives talk to former colleagues, search consultants, and board members. Yes – the same candidates you might try to recruit next year.

The story of how someone left often travels further and lasts longer than the story of how they arrived.

The Hidden Cost Of Generic Outplacement.

A generic program may save the organisation several thousand dollars. That saving is immediate and easy to report.

The exposure it creates is delayed and considerably harder to trace:

None of these costs appear against the outplacement budget. Or even the HR budget.

They surface later as high employee churn, operational drag and missed sales targets.

HR celebrates the operational win – because they’ve streamlined their vendors. Finally! Everything related to onboarding, managing and offboarding on the same invoice!

But this “win” just triggered a set of second-order costs – for HR and for the organisation.

(Related: Concierge-Level Executive Outplacement Service).

This is not an argument for buying the most expensive package available for every executive departure.

Support must reflect the executive’s seniority, visibility, career complexity and continuing relationship value.

Why Most Executive Outplacement Fails.

Most outplacement was built to handle large workforces being downsized. It comes in the form of “scalable workforce solutions”.

And for mid-level employees, that may suffice.

The career challenge a departing C-suite leader faces is structurally different.

(Related: Concierge-Level Executive Outplacement Service).

Only around 20% of senior roles are filled through job postings. The rest move through board relationships, private networks and retained search firms operating entirely outside the visible market.

They may be deciding whether to pursue another operating role, build a portfolio career, seek board appointments, enter consulting or reposition themselves for an adjacent industry.

Their success depends on their ability to make difficult judgement calls – and position the value of their skillset optimally in the context of broader market expectations, and competition from other candidates.

1. A Mentor Who Understands The Room.

The most immediate need for a departing executive is a thinking partner.

Someone who understands board-level dynamics, senior stakeholder relationships and the identity crisis that a redundancy can trigger.

It involves deciding what the next chapter should look like, identifying the most commercially credible direction and repositioning the executive’s experience around it.

2. Market Activation – Not Fake Access.

There is a significant difference between helping an executive create opportunities and circulating their resume to disinterested recruiters.

Many outplacement providers promise introductions – or an email blast to recruiters:

Distribution without demand is not market access. It is another form of theatre.

What the executive needs is a partner who can help them activate their network with tact – and tap into the hidden market correctly.

3. Emotional Grounding.

A senior-level redundancy is rarely clean.

It may involve legal sensitivities, non-compete restrictions, strained board relationships and years of personal investment in an organisation that is now moving forward without the executive in question.

The effect should not be trivialised.

Re-employment was associated with an improvement in symptoms, although the researchers appropriately described the certainty of the evidence as low.

For senior leaders, the practical disruption can be compounded by identity. Their role may have shaped their status, routines, relationships and sense of professional relevance for years.

(Related: Concierge-Level Executive Outplacement Service).

When it disappears, the challenge is not merely to find another salary.

It is to reconstruct direction without allowing anger, embarrassment or urgency to dictate the next decision.

It creates room for the executive to regain perspective, make deliberate decisions and engage constructively with the market.

A grounded former leader is better equipped to maintain important relationships, speak about the departure with restraint and move forward without creating unnecessary reputational collateral damage.

Why Arielle Executive Outplacement?

Arielle Executive Concierge-Level Outplacement recognises that senior leaders need fundamentally different support in transition.

They need one-to-one guidance from people who understand executive careers. Specifically:

The question for an organisation is therefore not: what is the most scalable program we can offer? It is: what could this exit cost us if we mishandle it?

One question produces a smaller invoice. The other produces a better business decision.

Irene

The basic premise around FIRE is simple – when your net worth is 25X greater than your expenses, you’re officially retired.

The math is even simpler.

You can technically live off 4% of dividends from your portfolio forever. All you have to do is embrace minimalism, saving between 50-70% of your income for a decade or two.

Then you’re “free” from having to work, as long as you never withdraw more than 4% of your nest egg in a single year.

In reality, the FIRE strategy (like every strategy) has a cost – a set of constraints you choose, together with the opportunity cost of those constraints.

You’re betting that the eventual “freedom” will be worth the sacrifice. But as I’m about to show you, most of the time, the opposite is true.

But FIRE isn’t about finances. It’s about identity.

Tell me what you think about FIRE, and I’ll tell you what your parents told you about your potential – and how much you believe in yourself today. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

(Related: Pepperstone Full Review – Pros, Cons & Verdict).

1. The False Promise Of “Early Retirement”.

Early retirement, in the form most people think of it, is a recipe for misery.

If you’re dreaming of the day that you give your boss the middle finger, so you can spend the rest of your days happily playing tennis, binge-watching Netflix and ranting about the government on #auspol while you live in a small country town on $50,000 a year – I have news for you.

Because it is not an escape from work that you crave.

You’re seeking an escape from meaninglessness. And the best way to feel even more meaningless is to spend your days doing sweet F A.

2. Retirement Is The Wrong Goal (Because Work Isn’t The Enemy).

FIRE exploded in popularity not because it is a smart financial strategy – but because it offers lost people meaning.

What makes FIRE proponents feel good isn’t the proximity to retirement. It’s that they’ve accidentally discovered purposeful striving.

They usually discover FIRE while in a meaningless job that offers little agency – and no coherent story of progress and growth.

The second one – the story – is the most powerful.

People don’t want to wake up each day and repeat a set of tasks. They want to know what these tasks mean.

The easiest way to achieve this is to give people a simple cast of characters – and place them at the centre of a heroic struggle. FIRE does this exceptionally well.

Above: Five characters in any FIRE story. But you can use the same characters to sell anything to anyone.

This story has been used to sell everything from religious cults (“death to the infidels”) to organic nappies (“multinational corporations poison you with microplastics to keep you sick”), Disney stories (“may the Force be with you”) and political candidates (“evil billionaires are controlling society”).

Step into the story – and receive an instant identity upgrade.

You’re no longer someone stuck in a small life and a dead-end job. You’re an open-minded free thinker who has courageously unplugged themselves from the clutches of a corrupt mainstream ideology.

(Related: Will Australia Go Into A Recession In 2026?)

Your unsatisfying job isn’t a result of your bad choices. It’s the system’s fault! And you were right all along – you simply lacked the secret knowledge to explain why.

This is where the trouble starts to happen. The person believes they’re free.

In reality, they’ve traded one dogma for another – often a worse one. This happens everywhere:

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with seeing yourself as the hero of a larger story.

In fact, this instinct drives much of human progress. Professional athletes cast themselves against formidable opponents. Political parties fight for better policies.

Even the local cafe I’m writing this from is fighting a small – but noble – battle against the onslaught of mediocre, mass-produced beans.

A compelling “Hero’s Journey” story gives people direction – and a reason to endure discomfort. But the price you must pay becomes exponential when the story becomes too absolute.

And unfortunately, for FIRE to work, it needs to be reasonably extreme – or you won’t meet your retirement number early enough to actually retire early.

(Related: Best Stock Trading Apps In Australia).

3. Lifestyle Isn’t The Enemy (But One Of The Greatest Rewards).

There’s only one thing FIRE adherents love to demonise more than they demonise work. It’s demonising lifestyle.

They reduce “nice things” to vanity, shallow consumerism and status:

The person spending freely is always suspect: making poor financial decisions or compensating for something.

If lifestyle spending is morally suspect, then not being able to afford it isn’t a limitation – it’s a virtue. They’re not missing out – they’re rising above.

So they continue to feed their family a steady diet of carbs and $8-a-kilo Coles chicken – while pretending it’s as healthy as $35-a-kilo organic meat and veges.

They take the family away to experience the exotic thrills of Wollongong.

Meanwhile, those “superficial shallow wankers” are using their money to buy adventures that only money can buy:

Don’t get me wrong – not every experience has to be extravagant. I love the simple things, like camping with the family.

In fact, I’ve done more camping in the last decade than most Sydney families. Do you know what I’ve consistently discovered?

When camping with “the boyz”, it’s perfectly fine to rock up to your campsite in a clapped-out wagon and spend the next few hours setting up tents, sitting outside with all the bugs and the elements, then passing out on your BCF air mattress.

But when taking your wife and kids, you’re infinitely better off towing in a decent camper or caravan.

Not a dodgy one that takes hours to set up and leaks. A real one.

Like a Patriot X1 camper – or a Zone Peregrine caravan.

But FIRE devotees will never believe this – because it’s a threat to their entire belief system.

The two ideas are not compatible. Either:

If the second one is true, the entire moral framework collapses. And with it, the “great little saver” identity on top of it.

So the scrooges protect themselves the only way they can: by dismissing or avoiding the evidence.

The FIRE devotee never travels to destinations vastly prettier than their low-cost town, and therefore never risks discovering that there’s more to life.

Because if the evidence ever did land, the domino run would be catastrophic for their identity:

That’s the real reason FIRE devotees stigmatise lifestyle. They’re not embracing financial discipline – they’re embracing an anaesthetic.

Taking the moral high ground over “superficial people” is infinitely easier than facing the responsibility of building a career – and a life – worth funding.

4. The Success Of FIRE Proves Its Faulty Reasoning.

Nietzsche had a quote, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”.

Victor Frankl later used it to explain how purpose offered Nazi concentration camp prisoners a tool for surviving extreme suffering.

This is what FIRE proponents are tapping into.

In doing so, they’re creating a “job” they actually like.

Suddenly, they have a number to reach. A date to anticipate. A skill set to grow. A level of discipline to practice.

What they don’t realise is that they could achieve the same through work – by becoming better at sales, running projects or driving a forklift.

Anything.

Ironically, many achieve this by starting a FIRE blog, and abandoning the idea of “retirement” altogether.

(Yep, if you own a FIRE blog filled with affiliate links and ads, you’re not retired, Financial Samurai. You simply swapped one job for another).

I get it, bad bosses exist. Mindless jobs at stagnant companies with no future exist. I’ve been in those jobs.

You ended up in a dud job. I get it.

There’s no need to declare the system is corrupt and declare that you’re joining the FIRE movement.

You just need to take responsibility for the views and habits that brought you into this job, and start making different choices.

5. FIRE Compounds The Wrong Asset.

FIRE works by tapping into the magic of compounding.

“Hold on to that dollar”, the devotees tell you, “because in 20 years it will be worth $10.”

“Let those fools spend their money on conspicuous consumption. They don’t realise how much that dinner, suit, holiday, car or TV is costing them.”

It’s true that a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck – because they spend too much money on “keeping up with the Joneses”, or because they’re stuck on a hedonic treadmill.

They spend money to impress people – or to buy membership with a certain crowd.

It’s also true that FIRE offers people the ability to learn the essential skill of delayed gratification.

But the obsession with savings creates tunnel vision – because FIRE, at its core, is an accounting system. And like all accounting systems, it only counts what fits neatly on a spreadsheet.

FIRE tracks the price of everything you buy – but ignores the financial opportunity cost of everything you forgo.

Which matters, because things that compound faster than money are:

Money compounds at seven to ten per cent a year – if you’re lucky. These assets compound differently. They multiply each other.

Competence builds reputation. Reputation attracts relationships. Relationships attract opportunities that were never advertised.

Savings compound predictably and slowly.

Skills and relationships compound unpredictably and exponentially – because their payoffs aren’t capped at the combination of your burn rate and market returns.

Extreme frugality has a price. When you spend your most productive decades optimising the bottom line of a small life, you choose not to build the skills for growing a big one.

You’re becoming a world-class expert at managing a shrunk pie.

For example, the decision to move from a large city centre into a low-cost regional area looks like a genius commercial move on your FIRE spreadsheet.

You will save $500K over the next 10 years – and “retire” 5 years earlier with that one decision alone.

But you’ll never know what could have happened if you stayed. What is the real cost of that conference you won’t attend, that relationship you won’t build, that business lesson you won’t learn?

That’s the part FIRE has little to say about.

Stick to the path with discipline – and there’s a good chance you’ll end up with a few million in the bank by your late 40s, a paid-off house (nowhere exciting), and decades of unstructured time to fill with pleasant pursuits.

If that’s the life you want, FIRE is arguably the most reliable route to it ever devised.

But notice what its mechanics can and can’t do.

Your burn rate can only go so low before additional savings make life exponentially harder to live.

And the capital markets pay what they pay – minus inflation (which, let me remind you, peaked at 7.8% in 2022, and has been well above the target range since).

FIRE doesn’t just predict a moderate result. It is designed to produce one.

Follow the formula and, barring an outlier disaster or stroke of luck, your destination is some version of “comfortable”.

So the real decision FIRE forces you to make isn’t “should I move my family to Wagga Wagga?”

It’s whether you want the safety of a moderate win – or the adventure of becoming a person capable of building something extraordinary:

The second path takes the view that your wealth is a downstream function of the value you create in the world.

You set your sights to build something worthwhile, and taking a chunk of it as your profit. Your career – or your business – becomes the vehicle for achieving this purpose.

For some, that looks like a nightmare. For others, it looks like the adventure of a lifetime.

Because here’s the catch: if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll quickly realise you’re not yet sufficient for the goal.

So growth becomes your North Star. Becoming more capable and commercially valuable. Expanding your earning power. Building domain expertise.

These are preferences – not exclusive, airtight categories.

People on the FIRE journey will likely develop skills (e.g., some choose to work part-time as tennis coaches). Meanwhile, people obsessed with building will need to learn financial discipline.

But in my experience, people have a strong preference towards one or the other as a central organising principle in their life.

Some people want to protect a smaller pie. Others want to learn how to bake a much larger pie:

Same salad. Two completely different lives.

6. Fire Promises Freedom – But Delivers Comfort.

The headline promise of FIRE is “complete freedom”.

No boss. No alarm. No need to swap your time for money. Do whatever you want, whenever you want.

But that is disingenuous. FIRE doesn’t remove constraints – it swaps one set for another. You may no longer depend on a salary, and your boss’ moods. But you now depend on the assumption inside your spreadsheet.

Think about what the 4% rule actually is. It’s a budget – locked in at the age of 40, that you can never exceed as long as you live. There’s a huge difference between:

That’s not freedom. It is existence firmly inside one’s comfort zone.

And for me at least, that’s a cage that lets me observe the outside world, but never step my foot in it.

It means being able to fund an expensive ambition, help someone you love, move somewhere extraordinary or absorb a major setback – without first asking whether it violates your withdrawal rate.

And unlike a boss, you can’t renegotiate with it or quit. The number is the number.

You can only pick up some extra work. But that no longer makes you “retired early”.

It makes you a relatively young person who chooses to work part-time – in yet another dead-end job.

7. FIRE Devotees Are Ungrateful Freeloaders.

Most people think of Medicare and other forms of social support as “government help”. But that’s a euphemism that hides the truth.

Nobody in government is helping you with their own money.

A more honest description is: “socialised safety nets, paid overwhelmingly by the most productive members of society through redistributive taxation.”

Consider a typical FIRE practitioner. Let’s say they “retire” at the age of 40.

Their effective tax contributions stop at this point – except perhaps a trickle of CGT and income tax they earn through part-time work.

Their usage of the system, however, doesn’t retire with them.

For another four decades (if they live until the statistical Australian life expectancy of ~80), they will continue benefiting from:

The most expensive decades of a citizen’s life, healthcare-wise, are the ones at the end.

Yes, they paid tax during their working years. (But let’s call a spade a spade – it likely wasn’t much). And so does everyone.

Is it OK to front-load 15 years of contributions, and then draw on the shared pool for 40?

But we live in a society that encourages individual choices, so FIRE practitioners are free to make the choices they want. They’re allowed to exit at halftime – while the rest of the team carries the ball.

That is part of our social contract.

And look – there’s an honest attitude for this position. It goes:

If FIRE practitioners talked like that, I would not have written this section. Living modestly off a shared system while acknowledging the deal is a defensible way to live.

But that’s not the tone, is it?

Spend ten minutes on Reddit FIRE threads, and you’ll find the opposite of gratitude.

You’ll find gloating.

The people still working – still earning, still paying the top marginal rates that fund the whole system – aren’t described as the system’s benefactors.

The typical FIRE devotee sits inside a small life, propped up by your taxes, sneering at you for continuing to pay them.

That’s the contradiction.

If you decide to practice FIRE, go right ahead. But don’t scoff at the system that you would not survive a day without. Be humble, collect your free money or use your subsidised service, and retreat back to your comfort zone.

If you want out – really out – then be consistent – and opt out entirely: the Medicare card, the subsidised scripts, the roads, the police, the education for your kids – the lot.

Nobody ever does.

Because the whole FIRE strategy only works if the “suckers” keep the lights on.

Steven

I’ve been geeking out over office chairs for about 5 years now. Dozens of them have graced my home office as I’ve searched for the best ergonomic chair you can buy.

On this quest, I’ve purchased everything from the cheap-and-cheerful Sihoo M90 to the eye-wateringly expensive (but not very comfortable) Herman Miller Aeron.

Secretlab chairs have never been my thing. The bulky gamer aesthetic has always been too garish for my liking – largely because I’m a 45-year-old married man with a kid.

As in, not a kid myself.

Above: The Pure colour options are 100% colour coded, so a Pure Black+ chair will be entirely black. A Pure White+ chair, meanwhile, will be – you guessed it – 100% white.

The Atlas, released in early 2026, attempts to solve this problem.

Secretlab decided to take a chunk out of the ‘adult’ ergonomic chair market by creating a chair with a more muted, slimmer aesthetic.

I got one in Pure Black+ leatherette option to maximise its sober minimalism, and take full advantage of the (allegedly superior) Nanogen option.

Above: Atlas retains some of that ‘sculpted bucket’ aesthetic, but the backrest is much slimmer than Titan’s, so it won’t take up as much space.

Reasons To Buy The Secretlab Atlas Ergonomic Office Chair.

Despite Secretlab’s attempts to give the Atlas a less outlandish look, it’s still a big chair – largely because the one-piece backrest is so tall.

Secretlab did a great job balancing the (impossibly) competing needs of nodding to its gamer heritage while distancing itself from it sufficiently enough to attract people like me.

It won’t overpower your home office in the way the Titan will, but it will not blend in, either.

Secretlab’s designers achieved the sleek look by miniaturising controls to an almost unreasonable level.

You won’t find ugly levers or buttons anywhere – all controls are tucked away into two dual-use mechanisms on either side of the chair.

Above: Right-hand-side control. The outer ring controls the height. The inner red tab controls the recline lock-off.

The knobs wobble a little more than I’d like, but this is a minor detail.

But before I delve too deeply into the chair’s build quality, let me talk about assembly.

It’s probably the best experience I’ve ever had assembling a chair.

The entire process is a carefully managed event in itself. It genuinely makes you feel excited about what’s inside.

A mysterious-looking box starts the show.

Above: Secretlab has clearly thought about the theatre of assembly.

You pop it open to discover assembly instructions – clear, beautifully designed, easy to follow.

Inside is a black envelope that looks like something Tom Cruise would receive just before embarking on yet another Mission: Impossible.

You can assemble your Atlas by referring to a giant poster or an A4-sized booklet. Up to you.

Above: The Atlas isn’t a difficult chair to assemble, and the gorgeous instructions make it even easier.

Most office chair brands just shrinkwrap components and throw them inside the box.

Secretlab’s packaging feels more like an action-movie reveal, where the hero opens a hard case and reveals every component of a sniper rifle, laid out with military precision.

I’ve never seen a chair brand do this – and it might seem like an inconsequential detail, but it reinforces the already positive experience.

Above: The packaging doesn’t feel like a bunch of chair parts.

Alright, I’ve raved about Atlas’ assembly process for long enough. What’s the actual chair like, Steven?

Did Secretlab succeed at building a legitimate ergonomic chair? Or did they create a gimmicky spinoff of the Titan?

Neither.

Because the Atlas would have been an almost-unbeatable ergonomic chair – if it wasn’t for two critical details (see my Reasons To Avoid, below).

It’s a shame, because it has so much going for it.

The build quality is rock-solid. I wouldn’t call it high-end, but it’s exactly on par for its $700-$1100 price point.

I hate when office chairs wobble or rattle, and, notwithstanding the somewhat loose control handles I mentioned earlier, I’m happy to report that none of these quirks exists on the Atlas.

The chair feels bulletproof.

Above: Stencilled logos are cool AF.

Seating position, meanwhile, is … nuanced.

I suspect Atlas will get a fair bit of hate online for being “too firm.”

Mostly from people who have spent the last decade in squishy gaming chairs – and expect Secretlab’s first ergonomic chair to feel like their grandma’s sofa.

To be clear – an ergonomic chair isn’t supposed to feel soft and spongy. By definition. Don’t listen to those people.

In my view, Atlas has the right amount of firmness.

The backrest and seat pan do not physically flex. 

You sit wedged inside a bucket-style shell, much like you would in a traditional gaming chair.

But Atlas does allow you to move a little by pressing your various body parts into the foam.

It feels like a simulated flex of sorts – and makes the seating position less rigid than you might expect.

Above: The aggressive-looking side bolsters are actually soft to the touch – they’ll allow you to sit cross-legged (but you shouldn’t do it if ergonomic seating is a priority).

The recline, by the way, is outstanding. Secretlab opted for a classic synchro-tilt which, unlike gaming chair mechanisms, raises your seat pan by only 1 degree for every 2 degrees of tilt.

This means your feet don’t come off the ground when you recline.

The only minor downside is that it’s always a little reclined. The most upright position is 100 degrees at the sharpest angle, so you never quite get that perfect tasking feeling.

Reasons To Avoid The Atlas Ergonomic Office Chair.

Atlas offers you a choice of two sizes: regular and large. But don’t be fooled into thinking that the latter raises your sitting position. It doesn’t.

While seat and backrest widths increase by about 5%, the seat height stays the same on both sizes. 41cm at the lowest setting, and 48.5cm at the highest.

It also means the larger size caters to heavier people – but not taller people.

This is a bizarre blunder by Secretlab – for several reasons.

It also makes ergonomic forearm placement tricky, as desktops of many regular desks will be on a higher horizontal plane than you need (unless you have a height-adjustable desk).

Finally, Atlas’ seat depth adjustment is one of the deepest I’ve ever seen.

Its 46cm – 52cm maximum depth is huge and perfect for tall people like me with long legs. And yet, this opportunity to provide under-leg support is squandered by the low seat height.

So in a weird way, Secretlab created a chair with a seat pan that is too low for tall people, but a seat depth that is too big for short people.

Above: The exposed stitching is a beautiful detail that reminds me of expensive Audis.

The second downside of the Atlas chair is its tendency to trap heat. Thick, solid backrest and fake leather are the perfect recipe for poor breathability.

And poor breathability = sweat.

If you have a high metabolism and/or are overweight, I strongly recommend choosing one of the three fabric materials instead – that will help keep you cool.

Especially if you live in one of Australia’s hotter cities.

Above: The armcaps have a strong front edge that can dig into your forearms when reclining.

I like – but don’t love – the Atlas’ armcaps.

Their density is perfect – hard enough to provide support to your forearms, but soft enough not to irritate your elbows when you lean into them.

But their front edges are quite, um, sudden. If you like working in a semi-reclined position, you’ll notice them pressing against your forearms – and not in a soothing way.

The armcaps do pivot, and Secretlab wants you to believe that this replaces the need for a dedicated width control.

It can – but only if the front edges of the armcaps have a smooth taper. Which they don’t.

Or, more precisely, its lack thereof.

Secretlab made the controversial decision to remove all lumbar adjustments on the Atlas, arguing that the vast majority of users never adjust it, anyway.

On the surface, that’s an intelligent argument. It certainly matches my anecdotal experience – I dial in the lumbar once, and never touch it again.

Secretlab erred on the weaker side. The built-in lumbar support is flaccid. Almost nonexistent.

But this is the smarter decision – because you can always add more lumbar support using lumbar pillows.

Secretlab is more than happy to sell you a (very cool-looking) lumbar pillow for $99. I recommend you get one – your lower back will thank you.

The downside I’m worried about is that all these additions are pushing the chair’s price up.

If you’re tall, you’ll need a large chair, modified with about $100 worth of rollers and a piston, plus a $99 lumbar pillow.

Your total price for a Nanofoam model will be hovering dangerously close to $1,400. This is still competitive, but I fear it may be steep for many folks this chair is aimed at.

How The Secretlab Atlas Ergonomic Chair Stacks Up.

The Atlas scores below average for adjustments and warranty. But it compensates for those with superb aesthetics and good comfort.

My Final Verdict On The Secretlab Atlas Ergonomic Chair.

Uff, this is a hard one.

The Atlas is not a chair for short people. If you’re shorter than ~155 cm, the 46 cm minimum seat depth will likely press into the back of your knees and affect circulation. Stay away.

The Atlas can be an ergonomic chair for tall people – but only if you modify its lumbar and height using about $200 of aftermarket parts I described above.

The problem is, Atlas’ 3-year warranty (that can be extended to 5 years by posting about the chair on socials) jars against this figure.

$1400 is firmly in the premium chair category, where most brands offer 8-12 years of coverage.

If your $ 1,400 chair fell apart after 3-5 years of use, would you be upset about it? I would.

Because Atlas is not a boring office chair – it’s a beautifully sculpted statement piece that will elevate your home workspace while keeping you in a reasonably ergonomic sitting position.

That’s worth something.

Steven

I became an accidental standing desk “expert” about 5 years ago, when I wrote about my experience with the UpDown Pro. To my surprise, people read it – and asked me to write more reviews.

Fast-forward to today, and this blog is the #1 resource Aussies use to help them choose their ideal standing desk.

I’ve also learned a lot on this journey.

Turns out, the standing desk industry loves using marketing hype to stretch the truth (are you surprised?), so I thought I’d dispel some of the common myths I still see people fall for – despite my best efforts to educate them.

(Related: Ultimate Guide To Standing Desk Stability).

1. Not A Panacea For Health Issues.

The standing desk industry has been guilty of overstating the health benefits your standing desk is likely to deliver.

Buy one – and it will apparently fix your bad back while curing that chronic thyroid issue you’ve had since you were a kid.

But let’s get real – if you’re buying a standing desk to mitigate serious health issues, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

You likely have issues upstream (e.g., diet and exercise habits) that you’ve been avoiding – and need to address first.

Back pain, however, is a valid point. I’d stop far short of viewing a desk as something that will “fix” your back. But I recognise that the best way to avoid back pain is to ensure you switch between several postures throughout the day.

So, think of a standing desk as a tool that offers you an additional position to choose from – and this may relieve some of the discomfort you’re experiencing.

2. Calorie Burn Is A Myth.

Let me call this out as total BS, as well.

You won’t get skinny by using a standing desk. It’s marketing hype at its worst.

The difference in caloric burn between standing vs sitting is about 50 calories per hour. The naive conclusion is that this delta can help you lose about 1kg per month, because:

Now, 1 gram of your stored fat contains 9 calories, so in theory, an 8,000-calorie deficit is just shy of what you need to lose that stubborn kilo.

There are several issues with this argument. First, I promise you that you won’t be standing 8 hours per day (and if you do, you’ll quickly develop plantar fasciitis).

This argument falls apart when you consider that a large apple has roughly the same number of calories.

So, you’re far more likely to reach your weight loss goals by making tiny adjustments to your diet, rather than buying an expensive standing desk.

3. Custom Sitting Height Is A Bigger Deal Than You Think.

People who are either taller or shorter than average often struggle to find a comfortable, ergonomic position at a standard desk, because:

A standing desk is a game-changer here – not because it allows them to stand, but because it allows them to dial in the exact desktop sitting height they need.

This feature is priceless for many people because it allows them to sit with their forearms and thighs parallel to the floor.

4. Don’t Worry About Wobble.

Australians are more worried about their standing desk wobbling than they are about the Iranian uranium enrichment program.

Most of their concern is understandable – but misplaced. It’s true that most standing desks used to suffer from this issue. It’s also true that many desks in the US market still do.

We have better consumer protections, which lead to less garbage being sold. I’ve personally assembled and used more than 15 standing desks in my home office at this point, and I’m yet to come across one that has serious stability issues.

Not even the el cheapo Artiss from Amazon disappointed me.

In fact, the only desk that shocked me was the Officeworks Otto Newhaven desk.

Add a hardwood desktop, a PC tower, two monitors on heavy-duty arms and a drawer full of junk, and even the most bulletproof desk will wobble more. Because, um, #physics.

5. Accessories Make Or Break Your Desk.

The first thing you’ll think after assembling your $1,500 desk and plonking your computer on it will be, “Is this it?”

It will look bare. Unfinished. Because it is.

The desk you just bought is a foundation. What makes it pleasant to interact with – and vastly more usable – is the collection of accessories you add to it.

I wrote extensively about the must-have accessories you need for your desk, so I won’t repeat myself here.

Except to say that your non-negotiables are:

Last but not least – invest in cable management. Don’t leave cables dangling below the desk – it’s unsafe for kids, pets – and it kills the aesthetic.

Also, don’t know about you, but when my workspace is messy, I feel less organised. Less productive.

6. EOFY And Black Friday Sales Are Great.

If you’re on a tight budget, wait until one of those. You’ll easily shave a few hundred dollars off your purchase price.

In conclusion, your standing desk is just one component in your broader WFH ergonomic strategy. Your objective is not to eliminate sitting.

It’s to reduce static load on your body by encouraging regular movement.

Steven

Are you actively looking for your next leadership role? Before you speak to another executive recruiter, apply for another leadership role or walk into another interview, get clear on two things.

First, what is your ideal next role? Second, what is your value proposition?

Smart answers to both of these questions will save you months of wasted effort. Get them wrong – and watch one role after another slip by.

1. How To Switch Industries Without Taking A Step Back In Your Career.

The key to a successful industry change? Lead with transferable themes in your background.

But not all moves are possible. Arielle Executive’s Managing Consultant, Philippa Counsell, explains what’s realistic for you, and how to pull it off.

2. The Most Fatal Job Search Mistake Accomplished Leaders Make.

The more accomplished you are, the more career directions you have in front of you.

You’ll be tempted to appear flexible (e.g., “I can do transformation, growth, operations, or turnaround work”) – but that’s one of the most common and expensive mistakes we see.

Philippa explains how executives with complex careers accidentally shoot themselves in the foot by targeting too many directions – and what to do instead.

What is the best way to position yourself when your background is broad or unusually complex?

3. How To Make Executive Recruiters And Employers Notice You.

Your future employer isn’t buying your past activities – they’re buying a promise of future outcomes. Here’s how to sell your background correctly.

Philippa explains what a strong value proposition looks like – and how you can build one.

How Arielle Executive Helps Leaders Get More Interviews And Job Offers.

No senior leader builds a successful career alone.

Arielle Executive helps Australia’s executives remove the roadblocks that make job search harder than it needs to be.

Which of these roadblocks would you like to remove first?

I am applying for executive roles, but not getting traction.

I have a complex career that I don’t know how to sell.

I have an underperforming resume.

I have an uninspiring LinkedIn Profile.

I was recently interviewed by an Australian media publication about the ways AI will reshape our workforce.

I’m reposting the conversation below.

If you’re worried about your career – and want strategies for protecting it – this Q&A will help you think about the future more clearly.

What is the value of work in the age of AI?

A lot of human workplace value used to live in production.

You got praise for sending memos, managing busywork, producing spreadsheets and making PowerPoint presentations.

Even if production wasn’t directly your job (e.g., designer), it likely contained a significant amount of production work (e.g., sales teams preparing for client meetings and creating tenders).

(Related: How To Get More Job Interviews And Job Offers).

AI made production cheap and abundant. Anyone can now produce a slick deck or a clean prototype in minutes. So human value relocates to three things:

To preserve your career, you need to be strong in at least two of these domains. If you want to be a rare asset, you need to be a master of all three.

What does the future of jobs look like in an AI-driven economy?

For entry-level workers, work will shift from doing tasks to managing AI agents. 

There will be fewer mid-level managers, and the survivors will do less busywork and more architecting of hybrid agentic/human teams.

Executives will – for the first time in history – be capital allocators of companies with near-infinite production capacity. Their job will shift from asking “can we build it?” to “what is actually worth building?”

Once the decision is made, their role will be to lead rapid, iterative experiments that validate or refute it.

How will people earn a living as certain roles and salary structures evolve or disappear?

Let me give you the bad news. A lot of people will lose their jobs – despite what Sam Altmans of the world are telling us.

Software developers and content writers are feeling it already, with most now spending their days managing agents instead of writing code or polishing prose.

The good news is that it won’t be an “everyone is out of work” scenario. It will be a flip in what we view as scarce.

For a century, production talent was expensive and scarce. Soon, talent will be available on demand for a price approximating the cost of electricity.

That’s where the money will be – you’ll earn a living by climbing out of the doing and into the judging.

What are your broader thoughts on the future of work?

My view is that the standard career pathways will reorder.

For decades, people followed a similar preordained path: school, tertiary education, then the corporate world. A few weirdos like me decided to rebel and become entrepreneurs.

I think it will shift to: school, tertiary/entrepreneurship hybrid stint.

People with an aptitude for entrepreneurship will continue on that track. People who don’t will get corporate jobs.

Here’s my logic. If the most valuable skill ahead is judgement, you won’t be able to obtain it from theory. You’ll need first-hand experience.

So you will fund your own apprenticeship by building something – while you’re at uni. And unis, fighting their own fight for survival and relevance, will have no choice but to teach this skillset.

And I’m not talking about more Bachelor of Business (Entrepreneurship) programs taught by stuffy professors who read every book by Cialdini but have never set foot outside academia.

For the next generation of students, that will be freeing: their degree won’t be an empty credential to wave around, but evidence of their ability to build.

Steven

“The market is impossible.” “Recruiters never respond.” “Employers are too lazy to understand my value.” “The whole system is broken.”

I see and hear this rhetoric all the time. Especially as I’m doom-scrolling LinkedIn on a Sunday afternoon – because it feels more productive than binge-watching Netflix.

(But is it, really?).

The market is tight. Executive hiring is slow. Recruiters are often overloaded, unresponsive and guilty of trying to fit square pegs into square holes.

(Related: How Smart Executives Prepare For Job Search In 2026).

Great People Are Absolutely Being Missed.

But there is a point where blaming the “system” becomes too convenient.

If you’re active in the market and aren’t getting the results you were expecting, ask yourself a harder question – have you done everything you can to beat the market?

This question feels less nice.

I’m here to give you agency – and concrete steps that help you land your next role 4X faster.

(Related: Can ChatGPT Create A Resume That Doesn’t Suck?)

Step 1: Elevate Your Executive Brand.

More often than not, when I view the LinkedIn profile of a person who feels overlooked by the system, I immediately see the problem.

The headline is generic. The value proposition is vague.

It’s sprinkled with familiar buzzwords like “strategic”, “commercial”, and “results-driven”. But it offers no insight into the person’s worldview, values or any other differentiators.

Moreover, claiming that you’re strategic isn’t useful – because at your level it’s table-stakes.

You need to demonstrate that you’re strategic – in a way that’s relevant to the business you’re targeting.

That does not mean the person lacks value. It means the value is not legible. Undifferentiated.

And that matters, because recruiters and hiring leaders are not sitting around trying to interpret your career like archaeologists dusting off a fossil.

Step 2: Supercharge Your Outreach.

At the senior level, you must not rely on job boards to land your next role.

You need to do outreach.

Cold. Hard. Outreach. Yep, the kind most people don’t like doing.

But most people don’t achieve what they want in life. And if you want extraordinary results, you need to do extraordinary things.

Most of it is untargeted. Generic. Often written in a way that makes it obvious the sender has done almost no research.

That is not outreach. It is spam dressed up as effort.

So rather than adding more faux sympathy to the pile, I’d like to show you what world-class outreach actually looks like in the wild.

Meredith Chandler recently shared the email she used to beat 1,399 other candidates and secure a Head of Sales role.

The reason it works is not because it is clever in a gimmicky way. It works because it does two things most outreach fails to do:

She did not open with a long explanation of why she was amazing (even though she is). She did not ask the hiring leader to figure out why she might be relevant.

Only then did she introduce herself as the solution.

Her experience section was short. The proof was easy to verify. The social proof was built in through mutual connections. The CTA was light. Even the P.S. showed she had paid attention.

That is a very different game.

Of course, the obvious objection is that you cannot scale this kind of outreach. Yes, that is correct – and is the point.

A message like this takes work. You need to understand the company, the hiring leader, the role, the team, the likely problem, the commercial context and the angle that makes your background relevant.

But that is exactly why it works – because almost nobody does it properly.

Most candidates are trying to win through volume. More applications. More recruiter messages. More LinkedIn connection requests. More “just checking in” notes sent into the void.

But senior hiring rarely rewards volume. It always rewards relevance.

Find a real business problem. Show that you understand the context. Connect your background to that problem. Make the proof easy to verify. Keep the ask light. Sound like someone who has done the work.

Because in a world of people churning out low-effort work, the overprepared person wins.

I don’t want to butcher Meredith’s own analysis of why her email worked, so I’m pasting it below for you to learn from – without edits. Enjoy!

#1 The Subject Line

Arguably make-or-break.

I used his exact wording from a recent LinkedIn post.

The best way to stand out amongst one thousand other emails titled: “Interested in the Head of Sales role” is to repeat their own words back to them.

#2 I introduced a problem.

I didn’t start with:
“I’m amazing.”
“I crushed quota.”
“I was the #2 out of 160 AEs”

I made it about HIM and his current situation: a growing team of AEs with no management.

#3 I named his team members directly.

I referenced people already on the team and the outcomes they were driving.

That showed I did my homework and already thought like an insider.

#4 Only THEN I introduced the solution:

Hire me.

Not before.

#5 I kept my experience section short.

Resume attached.
Metrics included.
Numbers spoke for themselves.

No four-paragraph story about one deal I closed in 2021.

(And yes, of course I also sent an Aligned Room )

#6 I added social proof.

I mentioned mutual connections he could quickly check with if he wanted validation.

Fast trust.

#7 I kept the CTA low pressure.

Instead of: “Are you free Tuesday at 2:00?”

It was: “If this is interesting, happy to chat.”

Execs are busy. I didn’t even expect a response for at least a week.

#8 The P.S.

Underrated part of cold emails.

Another opportunity to prove I researched the company. I understood the vision.

I paid attention.

Most people apply to jobs.

Top sellers run a sales process.

There’s a difference.

Even in interviews.

*Especially in interviews.

A few years ago, you could get away with a “me-too” executive resume. You know, the one that opened with a “Strategic Objective” and talked about your “results-oriented” and “dynamic” nature.

If you apply for a serious role with a resume like this in 2026, you can expect to hear silence. A lukewarm conversation with a bored recruiter at most.

Why the change? A perfect storm of factors:

What Boards & CEOs Care About In 2026.

You won’t land a serious executive gig just by talking about what you’ve done.

You’ll land it by positioning yourself as the answer to a painpoint that keeps Boards and executive teams up at night.

What do they care about? I’m glad you asked. Heidrick & Struggles surveyed 930 top leaders to find out what issues they are most – and least – confident about facing.

Above: Economic uncertainty tops the list (Sorry for the low-contrast, fiddly image).

If I was applying for a senior executive (VP, EGM, C-suite, Group Executive, etc) role in 2026, I’d make every effort to tie my achievements to the factors that CEOs and Boards are least confident about:

If you have direct experience with any of these four issues, you’re already ahead of the pack.

But even if you don’t, you can position your current experience in a way that gives you more credibility in one of these areas.

For example, if you wanted to highlight your ability to help a business during geopolitical uncertainty, think of the times you had to make difficult strategic decisions in a low-information environment.

Or think of times you protected margin in volatile conditions.

Or the time you’ve led people through a crisis without destroying culture or losing headcount.

And if you wanted to demonstrate your ability to deliver ROI on AI infrastructure, think of times you made confident bets on unproven technology – and won.

Don’t make the mistake of simply sprinkling “AI”, “resilience” and “transformation” throughout your executive resume. The market doesn’t need more noise.

Your priority when writing your resume is to reposition yourself through the lens of the business priorities I laid out earlier.

Because the person who secures the top role will be the one who makes the employer think, “This person understands the pressure we are under – and has evidence that they can help.”

Irene