Morning Brew - 🍓 Tart

Bad decisions aren’t limited to your teenage years. We all make them as adults, but they’re just different kinds of bad decisions—you move to a new city that isn’t for you, you’re stuck in a miserable job, or you stay in a relationship with “Mr. Perfectly Fine.” In these cases, you may know you made the wrong choice, but instead of turning back, you double down. You can hear your mom saying, “I told you so.” 

This decision-making pattern is called escalation of commitment. When you find yourself thinking this way, how can you recognize it, and how do you get unstuck? A recent episode of Adam Grant’s WorkLife pod tackles these questions. 

Professor Barry M. Staw at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business says this double-down tendency isn’t about sunk costs. It’s more about ego and FOMO. Classic Freud. We convince ourselves that we didn’t make a bad decision, because we’re afraid of what other people will think and we’re afraid that if we back out or give up, we’ll miss out and feel worse. 

Luckily, escalation of commitment is curable. The three steps: Separate the decision from the decision maker, process accountability, and take the stigma out of admitting failure. 

• “Just checking in” might be your least favorite text to get, but this collection of thoughtful downloadable postcards is a cute way to touch base with those you’re missing. Plus, everyone loves snail mail. 
• Peek inside a $13 million multicolor mansion. The Great Room looks like Candyland IRL. 
• Taste a lil bit of summer with this grain-free, dairy-free strawberry tart recipe. The strawberry and coconut combo is so light and refreshing. It’s a dessert worth bookmarking for your Fourth of July menu. 
• If you were a DECA superstar in high school, Son of a Pitch is the game for you. The site generates a brief—”a new (something) for (something)”—and you have to come up with the name, concept, and tagline. My pitch for a nightclub for dentists: The Floss Floor. 
• Sick of your G&T or Tito’s soda? Epicurious’s interactive cocktail recipe finder might help you find your new signature drink. 
• Enter a musical time machine with Radiooooo. Pick the decade and the country, and jam out. 1970s France is where it’s at. 

The last time you found yourself in a group huddle might’ve been with your AYSO soccer team, college’s intramural field hockey club, or company’s pick-up basketball squad. But huddles exist outside of sports too. 

On the latest episode of the Call Your Girlfriend pod, former CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin chatted with Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow about her new book, Huddle: How Women Unlock Their Collective Power. The book explains the power and community that can unfold when women lean on each other for support. 

Your huddle can be found at work, your CrossFit gym, or your mom group chat. And if you don’t have a huddle yet, no big deal. Baldwin admits she didn’t think to bring the women in her life together until her late 30s, when she was getting married. 

“The Thunderous Thought Leader.” “The Blabbering Bitcoin Boyfriend.”

Pardon us, we were just brainstorming Morning Brew-y names for all the new cocktails we’re creating with Bombay Sapphire.

This gin is so vibrant and well-balanced that it makes the ideal canvas for a little cocktail creativity. So whether you’re crafting a classic G&T or you’re lookin’ to get a little more funky, Bombay Sapphire is the perf base ingredient.

Where does Bombay find all that vibrancy, you ask? Science, readers. They vapor-infuse their gin with flavors extracted from their all-natural, sustainably sourced botanicals—which is a line you should totally drop while serving up your new gin-based cocktail.

Enjoy Bombay here.

• An underrated spring cleaning purchase: a woven basket. It’s a decorative piece, and when you’re not motivated to clean or you have to tidy up fast, just toss in your shoes, magazines, or knickknacks. You can find them at almost any home store, but Etsy has an A+ selection. 
• Gelato made from activated charcoal and tigernut flour sounds a little unappetizing, BUT Sacred Serve’s Cookies N Creme flavor will definitely change your mind. It actually tastes like cookie dough (albeit a healthier version), and the wacky ingredient list is only half the fun—the container is 100% recyclable, compostable and biodegradable. 
• You’ll never have to worry about a paper towel shortage again with reusable Swedish dishcloths. They make cleaning more enjoyable and less toxic for the environment, too. And for every Swedish dishcloth purchase, Free the Ocean pays for the removal of 10 pieces of plastic from the ocean.