"The room isn’t empty because we stopped wanting to learn. It’s empty because we’ve made it harder to feed the hunger."

IN THIS EPISODE

Have you noticed that your interest in webinars, certificates, and professional cohorts has completely plummeted over the last couple of years?

You are not alone.

Sign-ups are down, virtual attendance is dropping, and the energy in professional learning spaces feels hollow.

In this special summer mini-episode, Aparna Rae digs into the data behind our collective white-collar exhaustion to share a working theory: We broke Maslow’s hierarchy.

Aparna breaks down the steep "cognitive tax" of job precarity, the quiet slashing of corporate training budgets, and the very real reason why your tolerance for generic upskilling webinars has completely cratered.

THE QUESTION WE'RE SITTING WITH

When organizations demand that workers "bootstrap" their own professional development during a historic decline in high-skill jobs, who actually has the cognitive margin to show up?

TAKE THIS WITH YOU

• Survival Mode is Cognitively Expensive: When you are calculating immediate bills or navigating layoff anxiety, your brain naturally prioritizes food, shelter, and caregiving over an abstract AI literacy course.

• The "Bullshit Meter": If a team has been cut in half while responsibilities double, workers have zero patience left for panel presentations.

• Learning Outside the W2 J-O-B: White professionals are rejecting hollow corporate upskilling, but they are deeply hungry for real, tangible skills 0 art, cooking, knitting, gardening, and connecting with nature.

CONNECT WITH US

Our digital home: circleback.club; aparnarae.com

Share how you’re experiencing learning and bandwidth in your own life: hello@circleback.club