"Whoa! What are you doing?" I asked aghast. I had just walked into my daughter’s room as she was working on a science project. Normally, I would have been pleased at such a sight. But this time, her project involved sand. A lot of it. And, while she had put some plastic underneath her work area, it wasn’t nearly enough. The sand was spreading all over our newly renovated floors. (Harvard Business Review)

If you procrastinate (and most of us do), you’re in good company. Bill Clinton, Leonardo da Vinci, Frank Lloyd Wright, Victor Hugo, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Adams, Naomi Campbell, and Mariah Carey are all known for waiting until the last minute to do things. In fact, Fallingwater, Wright’s architectural masterpiece, was reportedly sketched 30 minutes before the client arrived at his office. (Fast Company)

On Monday, Angus Deaton, a British-American economist and professor at Princeton University, won the 2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work on "consumption, poverty, and welfare." As that description might suggest, Deaton’s academic interests are quite vast. His areas of research include "poverty in the world and in India," "health status and economics," and "household surveys." His list of papers and publications is similarly extensive. (Slate)

Dean Sybil Mobley was an advocate and supporter of the NBMBAA brand. Dr. Mobley participated in the association's first conference in 1979, Detroit, Michigan where she moderated a symposium on "Where Are the Opportunities for Black MBAs?" Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) launched their business school in 1974 with Dr. Mobley as the founding Dean. Since 1979, she advocated for the universities commitment to the association through their participation in the NBMBAA Case Competition and Career Fair Expo. In 2003, Dr. Mobley was awarded the NBMBAA President's Award for Outstanding Leadership. This award is presented to an individual or organization that has exceeded expectations in their service to the NBMBAA. From your NBMBAA Family, thank you for your service Dean Mobley!

Perhaps you’ve taken a new job, or your colleague was just promoted, and now your boss is younger than you. How do you put age aside and focus on what you have to learn from your manager? How do you keep your ego from getting in the way of your relationship? And what can you do to best support your boss—which is your job no matter your manager’s age? (Harvard Business Review)

Insecurity kills more dreams than lack of talent does. Believing things like "I'll never get promoted" or "I can't compete with the other businesses" will turn your self-doubt into a self-fulfilling prophecy. All of us experience self-doubt sometimes, no matter how confident we are. But, mentally strong people don't let self-doubt prevent them from reaching their goals. Here's how to keep self-doubt from holding you back. (Inc.)

To be a black professional is often to be alone. Most black doctors, lawyers, journalists, and so on – those in white-collar positions that require specialized training and credentialing – work in environments where they are in the racial minority. This comes with challenges. Beyond outright discrimination, which many still face, there are psychological costs to being one of just a few black faces in a predominantly white environment. (The Atlantic)

"I wish honestly that I could rewind time and go back and put that women’s equality issue into the culture from the beginning," says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Benioff’s business is growing hyper fast, and he knows he needs both halves of the population to fuel that growth. But Benioff, and anyone else who has tried to gender balance large organizations, also knows that one of the key obstacles to change is the culture created by the group currently in power. (Harvard Business Review)

Officials in the Treasury Department are discussing a radical and aggressive response to the fiscal chaos engulfing Puerto Rico that could involve a broad debt exchange assisted by the federal government. The proposal calls for the federal government to help Puerto Rico collect and account for local tax revenues from the island’s businesses and residents. (The New York Times)

In a mirror of a U.S. trend, senior bankers in Asia are jumping ship to join Chinese technology companies. In the past two months, Credit Suisse AG ’s head of China technology, J.P. Morgan Chase’s head of China health care, and the head of technology, media and telecommunications in Asia for Bank of America Corp. ’s Merrill Lynch unit have all left for Chinese tech companies. (The Wall Street Journal)

One program at Arizona State University’s business school has a brand-new price tag: $0. Starting next fall, the W. P. Carey School of Business plans to offer full scholarships to all incoming full-time M.B.A. students. The goal is to attract students with nontraditional backgrounds and career aims, and kick off a new business curriculum, leaders say. (The Wall Street Journal)

And you thought the MBA was all about the money and the prestige? A new study by Bain & Co. of some 1,500 MBA students and graduates found that the vast majority intend to prioritize "impact" over prestige and financial benefits in their careers. Some 66% of the women and 59% said they plan to put impact first. When asked what success meant for them, 62% of the women and 50% of the men selected impact as one of the top three success factors listed in the survey. (Poets & Quants)

Thousands of black job seekers and aspiring entrepreneurs were Orlando to shake hands with decision makers at companies across the globe. The National Black MBA Association is wrapping up its week-long conference and career expo. In nearly four decades, the event has earned a reputation for connecting recruiters with black talent. But that’s changing. 90.7’s Renata Sago went to the conference and spoke with members and partners who say they’re adapting to the new face of the association, which is starting to look more and more like a mixed palette. Here’s her conversation with 90.7’s All Things Considered host Crystal Chavez. (WFME)

Hampton resident Wole Ralph competed on a team of MBA students representing Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business and won the National Black MBA Association Case Competition in Orlando, Fla. This is the second consecutive year that Robinson’s team has won the competition, which comes with a $25,000 scholarship. (Clayton News Daily)

Apple’s operating system faces more threats from malware in 2015 than the past five years combined. That’s the takeaway from a research report released on Wednesday by security firm Bit9 + Carbon Black. The report describes how the firm’s researchers discovered an influx of malware attacks on the Mac OS X in 2015 compared to previous years. (Fortune)

Five days after Microsoft Corp. opened preorders for its first-ever laptop, the Surface Book has sold out. The 13.5-inch device, which Microsoft has compared to Apple Inc.’s Macbook Pro, headlined Microsoft’s product event on Oct. 6 and immediately went on sale on the company’s website. Five days later, the purchase button has been replaced by an "email me when available" option, indicating all Surface Book versions, ranging from $1,499 to $2,099, are currently out of stock. (MarketWatch)

The startup culture is full of people who want to, and try to, but just can’t get their business off the ground. Why is this the case? Much of the reason has to do with the fact that many entrepreneurs don’t know how to take their business from point A to B. Point A is that brilliant idea in the mind of the entrepreneur. B is that subsequent, hoped-for state where the business is secure, established and making money. (Entrepreneur)

Entrepreneurs can really benefit from being emotionally nimble. Building reputable brands, communicating their expertise, negotiating, collaborating, and networking are all part of the daily grind and form the critical building blocks for long-term success. But, here’s the thing. Without emotional intelligence, executing these activities can be difficult at best. At worse, futile. (Black Enterprise)

Do good and get paid for it? If you know where to look this holiday season, you can find a job that combines both. This season, retailers will hire about 755,000 people from October through December – roughly equal to hiring last year, according to an analysis by outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Many of the holiday jobs will be with big-box retailers. But for many of Americans, working at a giant retailer stocking shelves or manning a register has about the same appeal as doing the dishes. (MarketWatch)

As states consider allowing employers to completely opt out of workers' compensation plans, NPR and ProPublica take a look at how the concept has worked in Texas. (NPR)

Online financial-planning tools have a habit of spitting out terrifying numbers when people use them to figure out how much to save for retirement. Most tools, from the AARP’s to the Social Security Administration’s, yield similar answers when one enters spending estimates, expected salary increases, and assets: They tend to advise their users (most of whom are workers in their 40s or 50s) to have 10 times the amount of their salary in savings before they retire. It’s a cutoff that some economists claim is too high, but it’s actually quite realistic—and presents a good argument for saving aggressively. (The Atlantic)

Don’t pledge money to an unknown charity over the phone or click on a link in an e-mail. The IRS recently issued a consumer alert about possible scams relating to the South Carolina floods. Scam artists have been making phone calls, sending e-mails and creating fake Web sites posing as charities that are collecting money to help victims of the floods. Some of these crooks won’t stop at stealing your money; if they get your credit card, bank information or Social Security number, they could also steal your identity. (Kiplinger)

Fortune’s Nina Easton chats with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch at Fortune's Most Powerful Women summit on October 14 in Washington, D.C. (Video) (Fortune)

At exactly 6 p.m. on any given weekday, the exodus begins at United Shore Financial Services LLC. By 6:05, "the parking lot is pretty much empty," says Ahmed Haidar, who works in client relations at the Troy, Mich.-based wholesale mortgage lender. United Shore is among a group of small firms trying a radical management idea notable for just how un-radical it is: a 40-hour workweek. (The Wall Street Journal)

Ever since the federal government started granting loans for higher education, the money has only been available for traditional, accredited colleges and universities. On Wednesday, the Education Department unveiled a pilot program that could change all that. As student debt loads for four-year schools have risen, with falling certainty that a job is waiting on the other end, many young people – and even mid-career adults – have looked to short-term intensive classes that might get them hired with less up-front investment. (The Washington Post)

Taking on Wall Street makes for good politics in the Democratic Party. And several of the candidates at Tuesday night's debate had tough words about big banks. That was particularly true of former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Although he didn't say so directly, O'Malley suggested several times that consolidation in the banking business was a big factor in the 2008 financial crash and that the U.S. economy remains vulnerable because of it. (NPR)

What's the definition of success? You might not feel like this is a sufficiently difficult question for you to bother pulling your dictionary off its shelf, but if you did, you'd probably find something like this: "the accomplishment of an aim or purpose." At first blush there are no surprises there -- I'm sure you all got this one right on third grade vocabulary test -- but take a minute and think a little deeper about that definition. If success is the accomplishment of an aim, you therefore need to have a specific aim in mind. There can be no success without a clearly defined goal. (Inc.)