NOT FOR SALE 🙌🏽

November 5, 2025 • Issue No. 23

In the last Sparkle Sheet, I told you the truth about how I was dealing with life in the midst of uncertainty (and how Brene Brown suggests we deal with it). But last night, I slept the best sleep I’d had in months.

I woke up this morning Disney-princess style, smiling and feeling hopeful for myself, my family, and my neighbors for the first time in a long time. Across the country in Virginia, California, New Jersey, Michigan, and Mississippi, voters supported candidates who are ready to act against injustice, to welcome and protect immigrants, and to promote ~radical~ ideas like access to food and healthcare. A lot of the winners were women!

Hearing the announcement that New York City has elected Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor in 2025 feels a lot like watching Barack Obama clinch the Presidency in 2008 during my freshman year of college. Hope is back, baby! One of the slogans from Mamdani’s campaign was the class solidarity call-to-action New York City Is Not For Sale and based on the votes it seems like that resonated with people. It definitely resonated with me.

We are bombarded with advertisements that tell us that money will solve our problems, even the ones that we have at work. Subway platform posters tease fancy HR and PM enterprise software, colorful emails invite us to luxurious conferences that promise networking and ‘upleveling’, and our social media feeds push sharp-looking work clothes to guarantee we’ll ace the interview.

But professional esteem and on-the-job satisfaction can’t be bought. I’ll tell you from personal experience: you can’t swipe your way out of stress or sadness. The stuff that matters — the stuff that really counts — demands something even more expensive than time, it requires heart.

So in honor of the hope I feel today and the momentous win of my city’s newest mayor (!!!) here are 4 sparkle-enhancing practices that aren’t for sale and can’t be bought, inspired by Mr. Mamdani’s underdog campaign.

1) Establishing Personal Connections (Price: $0)

🧔🏻‍♂️ About Zohran: Last week, I kept seeing clips of Zohran in the strangest places: doing Tai Chi at a senior center in China Town, drinking coffee in the parking lot at the cab depot, on the mic at a gay club and then an Afrobeats lounge in Brooklyn. He was always out talking to people and showing interest in their interests. Back in February when he was still polling in single digits, he was in a puff coat at the Rally for Trans Lives. When he made appeals for support, he didn’t ask for money and he wasn’t selling merch, he asked for volunteers and those people went on to knock 3 million doors over the course of the campaign.

💎 About You: You’re a team of one with no volunteers to spread the good word, but you don’t need a whole city on your side. Talk to people, knock on some cubicles, introduce yourself to employees and offer to show them the ropes. Be a person other people feel connected to off Slack. When you’re feeling alone, seek connection. We’re happier when we’re where our friends are. 

2) Cultivating Enthusiasm (Price: $0)

🧔🏻‍♂️ About Zohran: The Mamdani campaign’s video team seemed to be working around the clock to record and edit clips that helped the Internet get to know a State Assemblyman that almost no one had heard of a year ago. The videos seemed to follow the same format: Zohran walking down a random city sidewalk, gesturing passionately with his hands, and telling us about one of his plans. By July, people had seem him online enough to recognize him and Team Mamdani released a TikTok showing how much harder it was becoming to record videos due to frequent interruptions from people on the street. “I voted for you! I finally voted for someone who won something!” exclaimed one NYer exiting a bodega. A delivery driver pulled his e-bike over to ask for a photo. And it wasn’t all rallies and videos. Campaign events included a scavenger hunt, a soccer tournament, and a marathon-themed canvass event.

💎 About You: If you are happy to see people, chances are they’ll be happy to see you, too. Happy to support you, happy to talk about your work, happy to pop over to your desk and run an idea by you. Smiling and positivity catch on, but they have to start somewhere. Get creative when it comes to planning social check-ins, it might be time to swap your team’s happy hour with something or someplace new.

3) Anchoring In Your Beliefs (Price: $0)

🧔🏻‍♂️ About Zohran: Even as the federal government vilifies and kidnaps people who attempt to immigrate to the US, Zohran has made it clear that he believes in the mythos of NYC as a city of immigrants. Many of his speeches promote acceptance and celebration of all races, religions, ethnicities and more. He’s even talked about his own experiences as a child of immigrants and with Islamophobia during 9/11. In addition to sharing his past personal experiences, he followed up with action. He made campaign videos in at least 5 different languages — English, Spanish, Urdu/Hindi, Bangla, Arabic — learning just enough to speak to people in their own language. (Here you can see him struggling with Spanish, but I’m going to keep it silencio because I only speak Spanish un poquito anyway.) I trust that his beliefs are not just rhetoric, because I’ve seen him act on them.

💎 About You: Be the person that you say you are. If you say that you’re passionate about supporting women and non-binary people in the work place, show it. If you have a care-centered job like in non-profit or school, consider how you demonstrate your investment in the mission. If you’re on a corporate team, consider how you continue to shape your reputation by the work you do: how you do it, when you turn it in, and who you select as a collaborator. If you say it and you do it, people will believe it.

4) Advocating For Others (Price: $0)

🧔🏻‍♂️ About Zohran: I didn’t hear anything about Zohran Mamdani and his long-shot mayoral campaign on the day he announced. It wouldn’t be until a month later when he yell-asked Tom Homan if he believed in the First Amendment, after Mahmoud Khalil had been arrested and detained. I heard the clip on NPR, but you can watch it here. Zohran’s public profile would rise even higher when fellow primary candidate and U.S. citizen Brad Lander was arrested by ICE and Mamdani called for his release. Mamdani and Lander cross-endorsed pushing Mamdani to the coveted general election nomination.

💎 About You: Use your influence — no matter the size — to advocate for others. Small ways included giving credit where it’s due, or pointing out when another colleague is being mansplained. Depending on your role and scope, you may be able suggest junior staff for promotions or help someone get a foot in the door. People are likely to trust someone they feel has their back.

Two months before the election, Zohran announced that he could not accept another dollar from donors and urged people to donate their time as canvassers. Billionaires like Michael Bloomberg were donating to various Cuomo-supporting PACs until the very last second, but they couldn’t buy the outcome they wanted. New York City is not for sale and neither is your next level. If you’re looking for ways to invest in your career, start with the priceless stuff, the characteristics that can’t be bought.

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