By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Aug 27, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET The phenomenon of political spouses standing by their scandal-plagued husbands has become such a cliche, it’s even inspired a t.v. show – “The Good Wife.” We’ve seen women forgive men for infidelity, patronizing prostitutes, embezzling funds, or cringe-worthy texts, among other misbehaviors. But recently we’ve seen a whole new twist – not only is Maureen McDonnell (wife of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell) standing by her man in his corruption trial, apparently, she is letting him blame the whole thing on her. According to McDonnell’s defense, they couldn’t have coordinated any quid pro quo because their marriage was so damaged they didn’t communicate, and besides she solicited gifts from the tobacco-supplement-magnate because she had a crush on him, not because they hoped to exchange expensive goodies for political favors.
I don’t know what the real story is, whether this is an elaborate hoax or a messy public airing of a sour relationship, but it sure is gothic enough to inspire a Tammy Wynette-style country ballad.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Aug 26, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET Hiking the Himalayas shouldn’t be a dream as it is easier and cheaper than most people think. Want to cross this off your bucket list? You can indulge yourself in scenes like this for as little as $20 a day!
A view worth the walk from the Cho-La Pass on the Three Passes Trek.
Let me start with a quick intro: if I can do it, you can too. Traveling for almost two years has taken it’s toll on me. I probably couldn’t complete a 5k without requiring medical attention and have extra “padding” in places that need no padding. Prior to this my longest hikes were four days, staying in quasi-luxury New Zealand accommodations. In summary, you don’t need a Kenyan running partner to prepare for these hikes, reasonable fitness will suffice.
Part of the Annapurna Circuit, always surprising with beautiful views and unexpected changes from desert, to mountain, to lush oasis.
Read the rest of…
Erica and Matt Chua: Himalayan Hiking Logistics
By David Goldberg, on Mon Aug 25, 2014 at 1:30 PM ET “Now I’ll be bold as well as strong. Use my head alongside my heart.”
I Will Wait – Mumford and Sons
 In my last post, I talked about lessons I learned about myself during my continuing journey as an entrepreneur. You gain knowledge, mostly from your mistakes and your peers. You try to keep making constant improvements to your business, your team and your leadership skills. In the true entrepreneurial spirit of paying it forward, I thought I’d share some lessons about what I’ve learned about actually managing a business:
1. Be smart about funding. Raise money when you don’t need it, and raise it from the right investors. Don’t wait until you’re cash strapped to push the panic button, and look for investors who go beyond the wire transfer; those that will provide consistent guidance and be true coaches along the way.
This is clearly easier said than done. I have seen too many first time founders who have focused on the wrong things like valuation or control issues instead of getting investors who will add value beyond their cash. Some investors can actually harm your business- I was unfortunate to have a few of those in my first company and it had a very negative impact on our growth.
2. Fail fast. Most new ideas won’t work but you need to keep trying. Then, be ruthless about killing the ones that aren’t working and try to do it as quickly as possible. Time, money and focus are very limited resources in a startup. An idea that isn’t working can be a big drain.
3. Build a business, not just a great product or service. While it is fine to start with a great idea for a service or product and not worry about revenue immediately, you want to have a clear picture of where you will get paid and how you will build a sustainable business. Today, in the internet space, you can build interesting products quickly but it is much harder to build long term businesses with deep competitive moats.
4. Look at each market differently. When expanding beyond your own backyard, be prepared to address the specific concerns of multiple markets – a one-size-fits-all global strategy doesn’t work. Geo-specific insights, customer feedback, local case studies and social media channels are pivotal resources for establishing a voice that resonates with consumers in local markets across the globe.
5. Embrace competition. Don’t let competitors keep you from pursuing your idea. Good competitors can help your efforts by laying a foundation of credibility for your product category, help isolate your competitive niche and compel you to bring your best to the marketplace. We often wished we had more competition in my first business because we had to create the market by ourselves.
Running a start up today was different than it was 20 years ago. In 1994, when I started my first company, Incubators didn’t really exist outside of biology class. “Online” meant Compuserve and Prodigy on a speedy 28.8 modem. Mobile apps were eating Taco Bell nachos while driving.
Today, capital, knowledge, bandwidth and talent are in great abundance. What hasn’t changed is the belief that an inspired idea paired with an entrepreneurial spirit can lead to great things.
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Aug 25, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  One of the great things about having the kids around the house this summer is the temporary return of snack food. But this summer is different; the snacks are all lined up in the cupboard in 100-calorie bite size packages. As if the packaging alone will ensure portion control and make snacking consistent with our attempts at healthy living. Of course it only works if you stop with one 100-calorie package, which I seldom do. While snacking I have been thinking about the idea of bite size packaging and wondering if breaking up big hairy social goals into 100-calorie bite size packages of work tasks would better enable us to harness the power of social media to get more stuff done.
Social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are incredible at stirring up the pot but not as good at serving the meal. I have been amazed at the way social media enables the exchange of ideas. The school doors are open 24/7 for life long learning. Diverse communities of interest arise spontaneously reacting to world events, spectacles, and provocative ideas. But how do we translate interest and commentary into action?
I am fortunate to interact every day with passionate and motivated innovators who agree that we must transform our health care, education, and energy systems. We also agree that the technology we need is available today to enable transformative change. This is our window of opportunity. Tweaking the current systems won’t work. We need real systems change and the key will be to unleash the power of social media beyond exchanging ideas to taking meaningful action. What if we could make it as easy to take an action step, as it is today to contribute and react to ideas? The way forward is to break these seemingly overwhelming social tasks down in to bite size 100-calorie packages so that social media enabled communities can engage by rolling up their sleeves and contributing deliverables that will advance these important causes.
We have to get better at asks. Asks have to be simple. Asks must be accessible at the point of interest. Asks should not require more than 140 characters. It has to be easy to say yes and to accomplish the bite size task. There should be immediate feedback on all completed tasks and it must be clear how the task fits into the bigger picture contributing to the overall social objective and systems change.
Social media platforms have the potential to move beyond talking about changing the world to actually enabling us to change it. We can accelerate progress by breaking down wicked goals in to 100-calorie bite size packages that are easier to snack on.
By Julie Rath, on Fri Aug 22, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET 
One of the crazy fun ways we spend our time here at Rath & Co. is styling grooms and groomsmen for weddings (sometimes the brides get in on the action too). I recently got pictures from a beautiful wedding I styled for Sarah Jenks and Jonathan Brajtbord, above, back in June. Sarah is a bridal weight loss coach, and Jonathan is a urologist — certainly a case of opposites attract in terms of her eastern and his western approach to health care, but it works. They were ridiculously happy, and not to mention all over each other, at every point in the wardrobe planning process.
Details: The color scheme for the bridal party was grey and pink. We got Jonathan into a winning three-piece suit from Simon Spurr, a white dress shirt from Michael Andrews Bespoke, a pink and grey stripe tie from Billy Reid, and a pair of black Lucchese cowboy boots (the man is a Texan, after all). The groomsmen all wore gray suits, white shirts, and the same Billy Reid tie as Jonathan. The couple wanted some uniformity between the groom and groomsmen, with Jonathan standing out marginally. So we opted for a three-piece suit for him and two-piece suits for the guys. And the ties matched the pink of the bridesmaids dresses. More pictures below.
Congratulations Sarah and Jonathan! You guys rock.
Read more about Sarah and Jonathan’s wedding here.
-Content provided by Rath & Co. Men’s Style Consulting. Read more: http://rathandco.com/2011/11/a-rath-co-wedding-sarah-and-jonathan/#ixzz35xMtTPeZ
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Aug 21, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  This week’s installment, is not necessary about “tips” but more so about perspective. I took on a new fitness challenge recently and it got my thinking about my time as a trainer and what it has taught me. I believe we can look at all aspects of our life and extract many learning experiences from it. Here are mine.
My 11 years in the fitness industry has taught me a lot about life. It has taught me what to do and in some cases what not to do. Life often emulates art and I have always thought of personal training as art, it makes sense that I have learned some important life lessons. In no particular order, these are the 5 things I have learned about life from being a personal trainer:
1. Anything can be achieved with passion.
I’m not the best personal trainer and I am far from perfect. I am however passionate, a word that is thrown around in the fitness industry more than anything. My definition is simply one who eats, sleeps, breathes their work. That I do. Fitness taught me how. Through ups in downs, passion has let me conquer personal issues as well as professional. An unrelenting quest to be the best version of myself was taught to me from my experience in this industry. I attribute everything I have accomplished personally and collectively due to that passion. Without it, I have nothing.
2. If you want something bad enough you will do whatever it takes to achieve it.
My clients and clients of other trainers have taught me this. My client Rolodex is full of people who conquered the odds, all because they wanted it bad enough. In my book 12 Steps to Fitness Freedom I tell a story about a woman from Columbus who lost an extraordinary amount of weight and developed a community of enthusiastic people wanting to do the same. Or the woman who I have trained for many moons, who at first just wanted to be fit but now owns her own personal training business, all because wanted it more than other people. If you want it bad enough, you’ll go get it.
3. No one gets to where they are, alone.
I didn’t get to this point by myself. I had help…a lot of help. That help came in the form of support from others a long this 11 year journey. It also came in the form of detractors and negative people who taught me what I didn’t want be. No matter how successful you are, you got there with help. If I was never given a shot to train at Gold’s Gym in 2004, I would never be here today.
4. Bad times will always pass.
Obstacles are put in front of us not to stay and best us down but to leave after we have conquered it. I’ve seen it a thousand times, some one who goes through turmoil but keeps at it and never quits, always turns out for the better. If I have learned anything from working with trainers and clients is, regardless of the situation, if you keep at it, never waiver and never quit you will come out of the dark and into the light. It’s that simple.
5.Look to add value versus make money.
Money comes and goes like the wind blows. No matter how much you have you cannot take it with you. Having money is not impressive, adding value to other’s is. I have learned this through experience in the fitness industry. I have seen people with lots of money that truly had nothing, nothing because they were not adding value to others. The single most important lesson we can all learn is how to add value to someone else’s life. Whether it is to listen, be a shoulder to cry on or help a friend in need, adding value to someone means so much more than money. “Choose legacy over currency,” is a favorite quote of mine and it means to simple to add so much value to someone that you build a legacy and are never forgotten. A very important lesson.
I could write a list longer than this but for time purposes I will keep it short. Being in fitness has taught me so much that I feel honored to talk about it everyday. The lessons I have learned are so important not only to my life but the lives that interact with on a daily basis.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Aug 20, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET The past week has been a particularly sharp example of the connection between comedy and tragedy. Robin Williams’ suicide reminded us that there is often a dark side to funny people, and meanwhile the unrest in Ferguson, Iraq, and the Middle East have many of us exhausted by bad news and craving some comic relief.
Like many humorists, I often struggle with the seeming frivolity of what I do, wondering if my effort would be better spent trying to cure cancer or feed the homeless. But when I first moved to New York, I was fortunate enough to have a roommate who was getting her degree in oncological social work (counseling families of terminally ill patients). She brought a group of her colleagues to see me do a comic cabaret show, and they assured me that they couldn’t face the constant tragedy in their line of work without people like me helping them laugh and blow off steam.
Not that I’m equating my weekly songs with the genius of Robin Williams, but I do appreciate getting comments like, “Thanks for helping me laugh at a frustrating subject,” or “Keep the funny songs coming – it really helps!” (And those are a refreshing change from other comments like “Who told you you could sing, you clueless feminazi libtard?”)
I actually don’t even mind the negative comments, since they are amusingly deficient in grammar & spelling as well as logic. However, I have to admit, there is one frequent comment that irks me – “Hey, you should send your stuff to Jon Stewart!,” as if that had never occurred to me, and as if all I had to do was take the reader up on that fabulous suggestion and voila, I’d be appearing on The Daily Show. But since sending my weekly songs to the show’s email & Facebook page doesn’t seem to be working, I decided to try a more direct approach . . . .
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Aug 19, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET 
Vietnam. For a 20-something American the name signifies a war more than a place. I have seen the movies, but have little understanding of the place and conflict. I know we went due to the Domino Theory, but I never grasped how a theory became a war. I know we fought and lost.
I headed off to Vietnam without doing any research. It was only recently that I had learned where Vietnam was on a map. I heard Vietnam was a fast developing country with factories producing for the West. It sounded like many places I had gone, but on arrival it gave me some shock and awe.
When I arrived from Singapore I was surprised by how large, clean and new the airport was. It could have been in any developed country and was nicer than most American airports. The change was especially stark coming from Singapore’s Budget Terminal which was like the sanatorium in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The only airport hassle was picking up my Vietnam Visa on Arrival from a bureaucratic regime that was holding up 30+ people. Luckily, my visa processed fastest of anyone on my plane and faster than most on a plane that had arrived earlier. After gathering myself and belongings, I exited the airport expecting a crush of touts, taxi services and unsavory individuals that hound tourists in many airports. As I exited I was surprised by the calm and order.
Outside I met a Finnish man who was being hassled by a taxi tout, in hushed tones only good English speakers could comprehend we surmised that we were heading to the same area. I told him I wanted to take the bus and he agreed. The taxi tout told us the last bus had left as service ceased at 6pm. It was 5:55pm. We haggled to an agreeable price and the tout told us to wait in the parking lot. Realizing he may not be allowed to fetch passengers at the door, we obliged and waited. Minutes passed and the tout was nowhere to be seen. Then the bus arrived. With no taxi in sight we boarded the bus which was 94% cheaper than the taxi would have been.
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Erica and Matt Chua: Vietnam on Arrival
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Aug 18, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET  I would like to go to the new $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium in Texas to watch the movie The Matrix. I have no interest in watching a football game there. Full disclosure, I have never liked the Dallas Cowboys. I think it has something to do with a mean cousin who loved them and harassed me about it in grade school.
In a classic egomaniacal move Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones ordered a ginormous jumbotron that hangs 90 ft above the playing field spanning from one twenty yard line to the other, right in the likely flight path of many punts.
How big is this oversized HDTV? Its display screens are 159 by 72 feet and it weighs 432 tons. Talk about surround sound.
And talk about a design flaw. Their user experience expert must have been so focused on delivering an incredible experience for the fans attending the game that they completely forgot that the stadium was going to host actual football games.
How big a design error is this? You judge.
Christopher Moore, an Assistant Professor of Physics at Longwood University in Farmville, VA, blogged about the physics of punting on ilovephysics.com:
” A study in 1985 of 238 punts made by 24 different NFL punters found that punters typically don’t punt for maximum distance, but to balance distance with hang time. The study found that on average, NFL punters kick the ball at an angle of 57 degrees with an average speed of 60 mph. With these parameters, a NFL punt would have an average height of about 90 feet, which is exactly the height off the ground of the Cowboy’s scoreboard. Air resistance would probably decrease this number 10-15%, though. More important, though, were parameters for “elite” kicks. An elite kicker can boot the ball with speeds up to 70 mph. At the same average angle, that results in a height over 120 feet.”
The physics of kicking a football suggest that the jumbotron will be hit a lot. This is a huge design screw up and Jerry Jones should be forced to move the HDTV screen into his home where I am sure it would easily fit without getting in the way.
But no, this is the NFL where team owners rule the roost. Jerry Jones petitioned (probably more like told) NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell that a new rule would have to be created to accommodate punts that will inevitably hit the video screen. And it was done. The NFL announced the following new rule:
“If a ball in play strikes a video board, guide wire, sky cam or any other object, the ball will be dead immediately, and the down will be replayed at the previous spot”
That the rule will come into play is no longer hypothetical. In the third quarter of the first exhibition game played in the new venue between the Cowboys and the Titans, the backup punter for Tennessee, A.J. Trapasso, hit the jumbotron squarely and the ball bounced straight down. The punt was ruled dead and the down replayed.
During warm-ups before the game Trapasso had hit the screen monstrosity three times and the Titan’s starting punter, Craig Hentrich had nailed it a dozen times.
You would think they could have figured this out during the design process. There is no room for ego in good design and I still don’t like the Dallas Cowboys.
By Julie Rath, on Fri Aug 15, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET 
As I assume your plans this summer may involve some combination of burger-eating, alcohol-imbibing, and grass-sitting, I’ve decided to share some stain removal tips to help keep your holiday fresh and clean. Below are 5 main offenders and what to do if you have a run-in with them:
1) Red wine: dab with white wine.
2) Grease: add a can of Coke to washing machine.
3) Sweat: apply a paste of 3 aspirin tablets mixed with two tablespoons of warm water and let sit for 1 hour.
4) Ketchup: (this one’s a little more complicated) a. working from back of stain, flush with cold water; b. pretreat with liquid laundry detergent and let sit for a few minutes; c. rinse well; d. apply white vinegar with sponge and rinse well; e. repeat steps b-d a few times until you’ve removed as much as you think you can; f. pretreat with a pre-wash stain remover and launder; g. if stain persists, rub with liquid laundry detergent and soak in warm water up to 30 min; h. launder again.
5) Grass: soak in vinegar for 30 min then machine wash.
-Content provided by Rath & Co. Men’s Style Consulting. Read more: http://rathandco.com/2014/07/stain-removal-hacks/#ixzz38ftCqpUI
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