By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Oct 21, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET For every story on LivingIF, there is a backstory. Here are two unforgettable experiences we had due to Couchsurfing, both of which led to trip highlights. Let us know in the comments if there are any stories you’ve read here that you wanted to know more about how they happened…
HE SAID…
I wonder what our trip would have been without Couchsurfing. Staying with strangers, all around the world, was one of the most memorable experiences of the trip. The problem with Couchsurfing though is that it is a logistical challenge. Instead of heading to a central area to find a hotel, you have to head to residential areas, then find a person. Arriving in a new country, without a phone, trying to find someone inevitably leads to memorable situations. Nothing was quite like getting from Japan to South Korea.
Getting to South Korea meant exiting Japan, leaving Japan meant a last night out on the town that went from bar to bar to karaoke to sunrise. Taking a quick nap we had some takeout sushi for breakfast and headed to Tokyo’s Narita Airport. Narita is a city about an hour away from Tokyo, so we gave ourselves plenty of time, and casually switched trains from the metro to the suburban rail lines. Simple enough, just go to Narita, right? WRONG, never go to Narita…go to Narita Airport! They are very different destinations.
Arriving in Narita we realized our mistake and had burned our extra time. We ran out of the train station and asked a taxi driver how much to get to the airport. Translating on his phone he estimated it would be $120 and take over an hour…he recommended we take the train. Running back into the station, I saw a person who looked about 18 and asked him, “do you have an iPhone?” He responded, “hai” and handed it to me. Think about this for a second, on a train platform he just handed a complete stranger his iPhone…that’s Japan for you.
How did our best meal in South Korea happen? Trains, planes, buses and running.
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Erica & Matt Chua: Behind the Blog Couchsurfing
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Oct 21, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I was amused to learn that the show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ is doing away with the phone-a-friend lifeline. There was Meredith Vieira with her big smile and syrupy voice explaining that the time had come to take away the lifeline that has been a staple since the beginning of the show because too many friends were using the internet (doing Google searches) to help the contestants. No kidding. Did the show’s producers just figure that out? It was plain to see the progression from the early years of the show when contestants would call wicked smart people to today when they just call people that are really fast at doing on-line searches. What’s next, “ask the audience” to check their iPhones at the door of the studio? Let’s face it lifelines are enabled by the web. Should we just get used to it or is there something more important than a game show going on here reflecting on the state of human interaction.
This comes as no surprise to anyone with a teenage daughter. When is the last time you shouted to your teenager, Get off of that phone you have been talking for an hour? It is far more likely that you have said, get off of that computer and do your homework or no text messages during dinner. It is obvious that phone-a-friend has been replaced with text messaging and Facebook walls. Phone conversations have been replaced with an always-on lifeline connecting friends in real time. Answers, information, advice, entertainment, and connections are all available 24/7. Conversations are now just fragments, short poorly spelled text messages, or 140 character epithets.
 Is the loss of phone-a-friend necessarily a bad thing? Maybe new web-enabled lifelines are expanding our universe of possible friends and opening up new opportunities for deep engagement. I think that may be true but there are serious questions that need to be asked about real human engagement. I worry that the web and social media platforms have become the driver more than the enabler. Are we “friending” people because they are web-savy, spending a lot of time on social media sites, and quick to return our text messages? Or are we “friending” smart, interesting, caring people that leverage the web to enable connections and who will be there when you need them the most? Will these connections stand up to the crises that we all will face when personal engagement and support is critical? Is “friending” even the same thing as being a friend? I wonder if we have become so focused on our follower or friend counts on-line that we are forgetting what true friendship is really about.
Seems to me that lifelines are more about the people at the other end of the line than about a connection to the web. Technology is a great enabler that can help us to be better friends but it is not a replacement for the hard work of being a good friend. There will be times in all of our lives when we will need to say, I would like to use a lifeline. If it is all right with you I would like to hold on to my phone-a-friend.
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun Oct 20, 2013 at 10:08 AM ET Courtesy of global champion personal trainer, and RP fitness guru, Josh Bowen:
By Julie Rath, on Fri Oct 18, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
Even George Clooney didn’t always get it right.
I’m all about instant gratification. Give me the choice between store-bought and homemade, and I will almost always go for the quick fix. My family calls it “Rathness” to want to get things done yesterday. Unfortunately, in my line of work, there aren’t always shortcuts. Obtaining a new wardrobe can take time, not to mention the tailoring that’s inevitably involved. One place where I can satisfy my Rathness, however, is with updating clients’ hairstyles. Call today for an appointment tomorrow, and boom, you’re well on your way to a new and improved you.
I get that the idea of changing your hairstyle can be intimidating, especially if you’ve been rocking the same look for several decades. But it’s defeatist to assume that if you’re past a certain age it’s too late to make a change. So what if you’re 40 years old and have been wearing your hair the same way since you were a kid? That’s all the more reason to consider an update, especially if you (and your spouse/partner) think it looks stale. If you’re on this site, chances are you’re already thinking a change may be in order, and perhaps hair is part of it. To that I say, dive in, go for it. If you don’t like it, it will always grow back in a couple of weeks.
That said, it’s key to go about your hairstyle upgrade thoughtfully so that you get your desired results. Below are 8 tips on how to do this.
1) Ask others with hair you like for the name of their hair stylist. (A lot of people have a hard time asking questions like this, but it’s not a big deal. Just say that your barber is retiring, and you need someone new.)
2) Check on a user-review site like Yelp in your area for a hairstylist who’s well-recommended for men’s scissor cuts (not clippers).
3) When you call for an appointment, see if you can go in for a consultation first. That way you can discuss your goals in advance and ask how s/he would go about achieving them before breaking out the scissors.
4) After you’ve found a stylist who’s the right fit, it’s imperative that you communicate clearly with him or her. Explain what your job is (including how conservative your look needs to be and what you typically wear to work), what image you’d like your new cut to convey, and how much maintenance you’re OK with. If you’re a chameleon and want something hip for outside of work, but conservative for everyday, tell the stylist. In many cases, all it takes is a subtle difference in how you fingercomb your hair when you get out of the shower to distinguish between looks.
5) Part of clear communication is bringing with you at least three pictures of looks you like. Hair stylist James Hernandez of James Hernandez New York says, “Texture and density play a big part in determining the end result. But where the visuals help is in capturing the concept of the look you are after, both what you want to achieve and what you don’t want. Any stylist that is opposed to you using visuals, I would be little leery of their understanding of the craft of haircutting.” Stylist James Joyce agrees, “In the conversation before starting the service, the stylist can decide what element of the pictures you bring is grabbing your eye. Sometimes it’s the shape of the head, and sometimes it’s the texture of the hair. Either way it’s a big help to have a non-verbal idea. Pictures can be printed off Google images or clipped from magazines.”
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Julie Rath: How to Change Your Hairstyle
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Oct 17, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET As many know, I am in the process of writing a book; titled “12 Steps to Fitness Freedom.” In the book I discuss a variety of topics but one in particular that is supremely important is goal setting. In the video below I discuss how to set goals and keep accountable to them. In my book I will be discussing, in more detail, the strategies it takes to have “fitness freedom.” Enjoy.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Oct 15, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET Right now the best hope for any solution to the Congressional stalemates over both the government shutdown and the debt ceiling seems to be a bipartisan effort spearheaded by Susan Collins and involving several other senators, mostly women. Which doesn’t surprise me at all. Many, if not all, of these female senators are mothers, and once a woman has dealt with the range of challenges from toddler tantrums to sullen teenagers with body odor, she can handle anything.
Years ago, I would illustrate that theory by imagining a mom tackling the Middle East – “Israel and Palestinians, if you can’t find a way to share the occupied territories, neither of you can play with them.” But these days it feels like that conflict pales by comparison to Washington DC. So how would my motherhood experience help me deal with the issues that have led to governmental gridlock? Well, for starters, many Republicans have cited public image as a key factor, i.e. “We won’t be disrespected.” Moms have moved way past that concern, once they’ve had a preschooler in a shopping cart say something embarrassing and loud to a packed grocery store. (Most of my friends dealt with things like “Why is that lady so fat?” or “Why doesn’t that man have any hair?” My personal humiliation was when my 4-year-old son announced loudy, “Mommy, you know how you said babies happen when a daddy plants a seed in a mommy? How exactly does the seed get there?”) So it makes sense that there are no women chiming in about how important it is that they save face.
Another issue raised by Republicans is their fear that once Obamacare is the law of the land, we won’t be able to repeal it because Americans will become “addicted to the sugar,” in the immortal words of Ted Cruz. That wouldn’t bother any mom who has given up trying to get her kids to eat anything but pizza, nachos and Dr. Pepper. (Or in my case, that even extends to my husband, to whom I had to explain that a bowl of Froot Loops didn’t count as a serving of fruit.) Or there’s the concern that by raising the debt ceiling, the GOP will lose its chance to ‘teach Americans a lesson’ about fiscal prudence. Most moms of teenagers have given up trying to ‘teach lessons’ – logical consequences often work best when we don’t plan them (like when my 17-year-old forgot to set an alarm on the day before school started, when he planned to do all his summer reading, so he slept til 4 p.m. It was a new personal record for him, but he also learned his lesson – which was to ask me to doublecheck he was awake, so okay, he isn’t totally on his own yet . . . . but I digress.)
Perhaps the biggest problem right now is the inflated language on both sides, comparing each other to Nazis, terrorists, etc. Moms know that yelling and name-calling don’t work (as tempting as they are), and often humor can be the best response. Plus we know that when our kids are young, they learn best when things are set to music, like the ABCs or the names of the states in alphabetical order (anyone who ever had to learn the “Fifty Nifty” song knows what I mean – I can’t complete a crossword puzzle without singing that song!). So here’s some humor, set to music, to explain why it might not be such a good idea to let the radical fringe take control of a party. (As one op-ed columnist noted, of course there are extremists on both sides, but there aren’t any Occupy Wall Streeters or throwing-paint-at-fur-coat-wearers-activists in Congress . . . )
“Join The Tea Party and &%@! The Facts”
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Oct 15, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I was watching Lena Dunham on Charlie Rose the other day and despite the fact that I’m not loving her new haircut and the second season of Girls is proving to be overly ambitious, I was inspired.
And I shouldn’t be so hard on her. It would be almost impossible not to choke under the pressure that she is facing at such a young age. Emphasis on the almost impossible. Which brings me to the part of the interview that was so inspiring.
When asked about how she accomplished such a meteoric rise, Lena quoted her Dad as saying, “Love the possible.” That stuck with me. Especially because I am trying to make that kind of meteoric rise happen in my life. So I am embracing that idea. My new year’s resolution is, as I have told you previously, (see my blog that quotes Will Smith’s new movie) to be fearless.
 When you are fearless, anything is possible. Or is it? I embarked on a quest to see what is possible and what is in store for me, on a Tuesday morning recently. I was hoping that a store front is in store for me. I was contemplating the fact that anything is possible if you believe that you can achieve it. How do you draw that line? Is it possible that I could go to one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city and procure a retail space by the end of the day without more than a stick of gum, $20 and a Metrocard in my pocket?
Well, let’s see what the universe said. I was able to procure a grilled cheese. And it was good. And then, as I was strolling around, following the path of whatever the universe sent me, I passed by an art gallery with a grafitti-esque painted canvas. It read: “Enough is possible.” Thank you, universe, I have my answer!
Here’s how I interpreted that. Not everything is possible. I will not win the Tour de France in my lifetime. Even if I use performance enhancing drugs and pass the drug tests in the post-Lance-on-Oprah era. But having a bike ride with my son on a weekday and still getting him to get his homework done- that is possible. And that is really great.
What is endemic to the idea that “Enough is possible” is that we need to take action, without waiting for perfection. How many times have you said to yourself “If only?”
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Nancy Slotnick: Love the Possible
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Oct 14, 2013 at 1:20 PM ET We visited over 200 cities around the world and took over 50,000 photos, but which cities were we the most shutter happy in? We each share our favorite cities to capture on film.
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HE SAID…
It’s hard for me to pick a best city for photography. I could put all the big cities we visited onto a dartboard and justify my pick being wherever the dart stuck. The big cities of the world are so full of life, diversity, and history that I can as easily insist that photographers must shoot Tokyo and Cairo as much as I can argue the same for London or Buenos Aires. There are so many fascinating cities in the world that it’s hard for me to recommend just one city, but my wife is making me, so, for today, I’ll say you absolutely, positively, necessarily, must shoot Istanbul.
Why Istanbul? Its unparalleled mix of history and modernity, religion and race. Existing since 660 BC, it is one of the oldest major cities in the world. That alone would be impressive, but it’s not just old, it was the capital of four of the world’s greatest empires, including being the capital of the Roman Empire. As though political power weren’t enough, it has been the religious center of both Christianity and Islam. Istanbul was literally the center of the world over a thousand years, connecting Asia, Africa and Europe…when that was the known world. As the center of the world, traders, conquerers and immigrants over the millennia have left indelible marks which are still visible to the modern photographer.
Photographers who want vibrant colors and beautiful objects, there is the 500+ year old Grand Bazaar. Those who want to get up-close to religious history need go no further than the Aya Sophia, one of the world’s oldest, grandest churches, directly across from the epic Blue Mosque. Those who seek diversity just have to start walking…a photographer will find a mix of cultures, foods and history in all directions. The longer a photographer wanders, the more beauty, detail and richness he will see. There is no other place like Istanbul.
Best of all? Istanbul can be visited in as little as 1-3 days, see our three day Istanbul Travel Guide here.
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Erica & Matt Chua: Best Photo Spots, City
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Oct 14, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET If I had a dollar for every person I have driven crazy popping those addictive plastic bubbles…….. Today marks the fiftieth birthday of Bubble Wrap, the ubiquitous stress reducer disguised as a packaging cushion. Did you know that this pop icon (pun intended) has over two million Facebook fans? Did you also know that its inventors parlayed Bubble Wrap in to the juggernaut, Sealed Air Corporation, with over $4 billion in revenue operating in 52 countries? My favorite part of the story is that the inventors didn’t set out to create packaging material at all. Bubble Wrap is a classic innovation and unintended invention story.
Bubble Wrap provides us with an almost too good to be true invention story beginning as the movie script demands in a Hawthorne, NJ garage in 1957. The narrative begins with two entrepreneurial-minded engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, who set out to invent plastic wallpaper with a paper backing. They thought there would be a market for plastic textured wallpaper. Yuck. Thank goodness there wasn’t. Company legend has it that Chavannes came up with the idea for Bubble Wrap while coming home from a business trip and his plane was approaching the Newark Airport. He was staring out the window on the descent and it seemed to him as if Newark was cushioned by the billowy clouds surrounding the city. And you guessed it the rest as they say is history.
I love this story. It reminds us of how most innovation happens. Creating new ways to deliver value requires combining and recombining ideas and capabilities across silos in new and unexpected ways. Our current assumptions and approaches to problem solving and solution development are never adequate. It is only when we open ourselves and our organizations up to the unusual suspects and ideas that we create real breakthroughs. Capabilities developed for one purpose are often underutilized until we learn how to connect them to potential new purposes. We must be open to the possibilities and quicker to experiment with different configurations, which often open up new product, service, and business model opportunities. Our initial set of ideas and approaches are almost always inadequate. Success finds those that put themselves in a position to capitalize on derivative ideas at the margins.
 Let’s virtualize the inventor’s garage. Social media platforms and networks provide us with the enabling technology to quickly connect ideas and innovators across silos. We are getting really good at the connecting and sharing ideas part. What we need to work on is how to create more purposeful networks. We must practice doing more together. Self-organization is the next wave of creativity and creation but we will have to get better at moving beyond the ideas to put the ideas to work in the real world. Our virtual garage is loaded with ideas, tools, and motivated innovators. Free agents are beginning to believe that we don’t need intransigent large institutions to make progress. If purposeful networks can demonstrate progress on solution development and deployment capital sources will materialize.
I sense we are near an inflection point making this a very exciting time to be an innovation junkie. If I am annoying you with my incessant bubble wrap popping, too bad, it keeps me from bouncing off the walls during these exciting times. Happy Birthday Bubble Wrap.
By Julie Rath, on Fri Oct 11, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET “I hate shopping, except for the part where I am back in my apartment with new clothes.”
Does that sound like you? A prospective client once emailed that line to me. It made me laugh, but I get it. Shopping can be tiring, stressful and frustrating. Planning an effective shopping trip takes strategic thought. While it should be easy, often things get in the way. But, take it from me, shopping can be a smooth and seamless process. Below are 9 of my best tools and tricks for a well-executed shopping trip.
 Here’s a dressing room snap from yesterday as I was getting things ready for a client.
1) Find a good salesperson. Some of my best relationships have resulted from following my intuition in a store and simply walking up to someone, introducing myself, and explaining what I was looking to accomplish. A good salesperson will make shopping hassle-free – without an overbearing salespitch (more on this in #6). They’ll also give you advance info on when the sales are and in many cases ‘pre-sell’ items to you – which means you get dibs on things before they go on sale to the general public.
2) Shop when stores are least crowded, in the morning and early in the week. Try to avoid after work or the lunch rush.
3) Shop with a plan. No good shopping decisions are ever made by wandering into a store without an agenda. Have a list, printed out if necessary – I always shop with the client’s list in my pocket – prioritized by need and budget. Consider getting multiples of basics that work.
4) Once you’ve assessed your needs (conducting a closet edit can give you clarity on that), shop early. If you need an overcoat, but you wait until January to start shopping, you’ll be out of luck. The fashion calendar is quirky and requires you to think ahead. So spend time before each season begins thinking about what you’re going to need before you need it. Ask yourself, what did you run out of, or what were you missing last year? Put your answers at the top of your list.
5) Take a break when you need one, and bring reinforcements. Pack a bag with anything that will help you stay focused – snacks, drinks, etc. Hungry very quickly becomes hangry while shopping. What else might you want to have on hand? This may be TMI, but a client once had something in his teeth that was distracting him during a shopping session. I happened to have a package of floss with me, which he was grateful for. He took care of business, and we got back to business.
6) Be wary of overzealous salespeople. It gives me stomach pain when I look in new clients’ closets and see that thousands upon thousands of dollars have been spent on items that don’t even come close to working for them. Sure, the clothes are beautiful in many cases, but if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. In one case, a client was sold a whole slew of dress shirts from a major luxury brand that shall remain nameless – half of them were different sizes from one another (he had obviously been coerced into buying whatever was in the store), and most of them hadn’t even been bothered to be tailored. The sleeves were a good 5 inches too long on every single shirt. Remember, most salespeople work on commission, so they’re incentivized for you to buy more. If they’re telling you how absolutely amazing everything looks on you, chances are they aren’t being sincere. It’s actually a good sign when a salesperson tells you not to buy something.
7) Related to the above, make sure you buy your actual size, not your fantasy size. I frequently encounter people who say that they’re going to lose weight and that they should therefore buy things that are too small for them. That doesn’t work, and it’s a trap. You’ll feel awful about yourself if you have a closet full of clothes that don’t fit you. And how can you expect to lose weight feeling crappy about yourself? If you really are committed to dropping lbs, purchase a few things that fit you now. When you have clothes that fit you as you are and therefore look good on you, you’ll be more likely to take care of yourself and reach your weight loss goal.
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Julie Rath: Secrets from a Shopping Pro
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