By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Apr 29, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
HE SAID…
Mexican food. Bet you thought I was going to say family and friends, but seriously…imagine life without Mexican food. You can’t, can you? Living in the great USA you think Mexican food is a God given right. I fell into believing that the hardest part of eating Mexican food would be choosing if I wanted guacamole with that. Then I went to the ROW, that evil “Rest of the World” that doesn’t border Mexico and found that getting an OK burrito, fajita, or quesadilla is impossible. Here is my open apology to Mexico for taking it for granted.
Dear Mexico,
I hope you are doing well. I hope that you’ve been moving on and, as much as it hurts to say, I hope you’ve been as good to others as you were to me. I think about you constantly, there is nothing that compares to you. I miss your smell, how you made me feel when we were together, even when you made me sick to my stomach. I miss how you celebrated my birthday with a giant sombrero and “all-you-can-drink” birthday shots. My heart burns with desire for you today the way it did when I tried to drink your “special sauce” straight from the bottle. Mexico, I want you back in my life.
I know I’ve done so much to hurt you. I shouldn’t have blamed you for my party-ending flatulence, that was my fault, I know I have lactose issues, I shouldn’t have ordered más queso. Even then I knew that the New Year’s debacle wasn’t your fault as I claimed, I made the choice to drink a mug of tequila. Too many things I’ve blamed on you and for that I’m sorry. I’m an adult and I have to take responsibility for my choices because Mexico, I want you back in my life.
Mexico…we have so many memories together…we should make more.
I’ve changed, I understand how much joy you brought to my life. I miss the feeling of your massively thick burritos in my mouth. I miss the sizzle of the chicken on the make-my-own fajita platter. I miss your spice, your flavor, your mariachi, even if I am upset with you the day after. Please don’t make me beg, because I will. Please don’t make me watch soccer, because yes, I’m willing to even go that far. I’ll do anything you ask to have you back. Please, Mexico, come back to my life.
Mateo
SHE SAID…
Unlike trying to come up with my favorite place in the world this question is much easier to answer, the thing that there is no replacement for anywhere in the world are the people I left behind. I miss my family and friends back home more than any kind of food, activity or place. It seems that everyone who embarks on a long journey, regardless of the reason, becomes more aware of what is most important to them and what they value. Family and friends have always been important to me, but being away from them for so long has made that even more clear.
Read the rest of… Erica & Matt Chua: He Said/She Said — What Do You Miss Most From Home?
Capabilities are the amino acids of innovation. They are the building blocks that enable value delivery. Innovation is a better way to deliver value and is often the result of repurposing existing capabilities. Locking capabilities into rigid organization structures and proprietary closed systems gets in the way of unleashing new sources of value and solving many of the important challenges of our time. Innovation is about hacking capabilities.
A capability is simply the power to do something and is comprised of three elements, people, process, and technology. You might have the capability or power to make a mean western omelet. You possess the skill (people) thanks to hands-on training from mom, a recipe (process) handed down for generations, and a great cook top range, non-stick pan, and spatula (technology). Hacking the capability is easy. A Google search for western omelet recipes yields almost 25 thousand hits. That’s more variety than a lifetime of Sunday brunches. To stretch the analogy a western omelet capability can also be combined with other capabilities to open a cool restaurant, launch a cooking blog or cable television show, or to commercialize a new cooking utensil. Innovation happens when we enable random capability collisions resulting in new and unexpected ways to deliver value.
Perhaps a more relevant and timely example of the power and potential of hacking capabilities is Microsoft’s Kinect. Microsoft introduced Kinect on November 4th as a product extension to its Xbox franchise. Kinect adds a very cool capability for Xbox game players by getting rid of the hand held game controller and turning players into their own controllers. It lets players ‘be the controller’ with gesture recognition technology. On-screen menus are navigated by voice and hand waves. Game avatars are manipulated through body gestures. Microsoft and cool haven’t been used in the same sentence for a long time. Kinect is cool.
Microsoft predictably launched Kinect with it’s deeply ingrained proprietary product mind set. You could buy Kinect as a bundle with an Xbox or as a separate component to attach to an existing Xbox for $150. While Microsoft views Kinect as a product the global geek community views it as a capability. To geeks, Kinect is a powerful capability screaming to be hacked and repurposed for exciting new uses beyond its use as an Xbox extension. Hackers view Kinect as an interesting voice and gesture recognition platform complete with sophisticated cameras, software, and sensors with the power to detect movement, depth, shape, and position of the human body. What a bargain for only $150. It’s a hackers dream.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: Innovate By Hacking Capabilities
Having good jeans is not hereditary or otherwise beyond your control. But it does take know-how and patience. The wrong jeans can send the wrong message entirely. So this is one you want to get right. Read on for the definitive Rath & Co. guide to shopping for denim.
The Most Flattering Style
Just about everyone looks good in a pair of inky blue, straight-leg jeans. This is the first basic pair that I recommend everyone should have. It’s timeless.
The Best Style for Your Build
What does the perfect pair of jeans look like? Well, that depends on your physical proportions.
If you’re slim, try 7 Jeans Slimmy. Don’t let the name freak you out – these aren’t skinny jeans. The Slimmy’s are cut straight, without a lot of excess room in the leg and with a slight taper toward the ankle. I’ve had many conservative clients love the fit of these. Billy Reid’s Slim Jean is another good choice.
If your waist size is larger than your inseam and/or you need more room overall, check out 7 Jeans’ Austyn cut. Sometimes loose cuts (of anything, really) can make you look larger than you actually are, but these give you room to breathe while still looking flattering.
If your rise is low (this is the distance between your waist and the bottom of your crotch), Hudson’s Byron cut is an excellent option.
If there are any trainers that read my rants you can sympathize with me on the following statement made by a client, “My doctor told me not to squat.” Oh he did, did he? Well isn’t that great, what in the world am I going to do to strengthen your legs? Hold up! Do me a favor and get up and down from that chair. So you know what I am getting at. There are some uneducated people out there that tell patients to stay away from certain activities, not realizing that those activities could potentially help the situation. I’ve incurred this situation several times in the 10 years I have been a trainer, nothing surprises me.
I recently finished a grueling competition involving the squat, where a fellow trainer and I decided to see who could squat 250,000 pounds the fastest. So for 3 weeks we battled it out, squatting sometimes 30, 40, 50 thousdand pounds in a single workout. A feat I would not suggest, having done it, it was brutal to put it lightly. Regardless, through this contest of testosterone, my knees have not felt better in years. Why is that? It is not for the fact I wasn’t squatting heavy loads (Trent would probably say otherwise, he warms up with my max) nor is it because I have my knees alot of rest (I squatted 4-5 times per week). We will just call it faith in the squat but regardless, it just goes to show you that you can squat, under any conditions. As humans, we have too.
The squat is the most basic, primal movement that humans do. We squat when we get in and out of a car, we squat when we get up and down from a chair and when we have to go to the bathroom (#2 for men and always for women) we squat. So how on earth could someone tell me that I can’t squat? Most doctors are not as educated on fitness and it impacts the body, so its easy to tell people what to stay away from. If you have a bum knee its probably not wise to load a bar up with 300 lbs and go at it. But what doesn’t make sense is why you wouldn’t perform the movement at all, without weight.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Apr 23, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Sure, California has lots of advantages – fabulous weather, beautiful scenery, and being on the cutting edge of everything from computer innovation to right-turn-on-red. But there are plenty of drawbacks, besides the obvious (cost-of-living and housing prices are insane, New Yorkers like my father-in-law refer to our home as ‘the land of fruits and nuts’). And one of the biggest problems here is political.
Granted, I’m grateful to live in a state where my kids aren’t taught creationism in science class, or where I don’t worry that a personhood amendment is going to make my birth control pills illegal. But when lunacy happens on the federal level, there’s often not much I can do. For example, many people were horrified by last week’s Senate vote, blocking watered-down background checks on gun purchases (that were supported by 80-90% of all voters – one of the rare occasions where WTF? is a totally appropriate reaction). All the left-leaning organizations tell us we’re supposed to contact our senators and representatives and give them hell. But what do I do when my legislators are all very liberal women? I mean, am I supposed to call Dianne Feinstein and complain that the assault weapons ban, which SHE sponsored, hasn’t gotten further? That’s like the old borscht belt joke about the Jewish mother at a Catskills resort, complaining that the food was “just awful, I couldn’t eat a bite, and besides, the portions were so small!”
And while I am grateful to California innovators for all the advances in computers and internet connectivity, now I can’t pretend to be from another state. I get emails saying “Let Senator so-and-so know you’re angry about the background checks vote” and when I call the number, something in the system figures out what my zip code is and redirects me to Barbara Boxer’s office voicemail. I mean, technology is great, but that feels a little creepy to me, especially when I was getting really good at imitating a southern accent.
So to all my friends in red states who envy us in more liberal parts of the country, at least you can make some noise, and possibly some difference, by contacting your legislators. And trust me, I know your pain, I grew up in Orange County, which I like to think of as the red state in the middle of California. I was one of two students in my entire high school trying to drum up support for McGovern . . . . . and before you whip out your calculators, yes, I’m old, but not THAT old, it was my freshman year and I was only 13 and I can’t lie about my age because my teenage sons are good at math and lousy at keeping secrets . . . . oh never mind, here’s a song about being blue in a blue state:
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Apr 23, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
It happens when you least expect it. That’s what they say anyway. But I was always expecting it. And it still happened for me. It didn’t happen how I expected it. I met my husband on the street. When I was single, I had opened a dating Café with the idea in mind that necessity is the mother of invention. I had imagined that the right guy would just walk through the doors one day. But it wasn’t happening. So I set out to look outside my Café and take matters into my own hands. I met my husband within 2 weeks of that. (you can read the whole story here)
But my story is not typical, I know. Many people swear by the “least expect it” story. Here’s one example from this week’s post on the Matchmaker Café fan page:
@Britta Alexander: It was for me! I finally gave up on finding the one, moved into a loft in Brooklyn, practiced my violin day and night, and my future husband was listening to me through the walls. Turns out he was the roommate on the other half of the shared loft. So there’s a strategy: just move around and live with complete strangers!
So I tried to analyze the common denominator of these seemingly contradictory philosophies and here’s what I conclude. It depends how you expect it. If you have too much negative attention on it (i.e. why isn’t happening?!? I have such bad luck with dating!! L) then it can’t happen. If you feel entitled to meeting someone but are not doing the work on yourself, it can’t happen. If you are so busy working that your Cablight is not on, (like I was) then it can’t happen.
On the other hand, if you are open and willing to make yourself vulnerable without putting expectations on how or when, then the universe will work hard to send it to you. If you become grounded in who you are and move towards the life that you want to have with a partner, it will happen faster. If you are really ready, you will just walk out your door and the One will be there. If you read Britta’s story carefully, you can see that she was willing to move somewhere new and live with complete strangers! That takes courage and confidence. And by practicing violin she was developing her core sense of herself. She was not shy about the world hearing her. And that is very powerful.
Read the rest of… Nancy Slotnick: When You Least Expect It
Josh Bowen, The Recovering Politician‘s resident fitness expert — and The RP‘s personal trainer — was quoted in this Sunday’s New York Times Style section, in an article entitled “Fitness Playgrounds Grow as Machines Go”:
Josh Bowen, until recently the quality control director for the seven-state Urban Active chain, referred to the sweeping revisions the company made last year as swapping “Arnold machines” (as in Schwarzenegger) “for AstroTurf.”
Mr. Bowen, who left Urban Active when it was acquired by LA Fitness, said, “Gyms are way out of the times if all they have is machines.”
People spend all day sitting with machines, he said. “When they come into a gym, they don’t want to be sat down at another one doing three sets of 12.”
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Apr 22, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET
In the whole, wide, world I most wanted to visit the Pyramids of Giza. In fact, it was one of three things I wanted to see on this entire trip, yet it took two years to make it happen. The pyramids are worth the wait. They stand up to the hype.
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During the heat of the desert day exploring the area can be a tiring experience, but as the sun began setting the true beauty was revealed. At their least impressive, during the heat of the day, the Pyramids are a well-organized arrangement of rocks. Yes, they are enormous, but they are pretty plain. As the colors of the sunset start to hit them, the ancient tombs come alive with vibrant yellows and oranges.
Read the rest of… Matt & Erica Chua: Bigger than Imagined — The Pyramids of Giza
Need to turn around your company? Trying to start a movement? Want to change the world? Easy Peasy! Just turn it in to a game. Everywhere we turn, it seems there are experts claiming that the best path forward is to engage people with elements of competitive play. The business world in particular has gone gaga for gamification.
I thought games were mainly for kids, and the occasional ice-breaker or temporary escape from reality. Why encourage more of them? As adults, aren’t we supposed to set aside childish things and get down to work on the problems of the real world?
Truth be told, I have always loved games. Stratego was a mainstay among my school buddies. We spent hour upon hour lining up red and blue soldiers to protect our flags. My family’s Monopoly games were epic battles, beginning with the fight over game pieces. (No, I get the Scottish Terrier!) The side deals we struck and the arguments that ensued still liven up family gatherings. In college I became a professional Risk player. Tell me you didn’t learn about the challenges of fighting a multi-front war from playing Risk. Who among us hasn’t attempted to conquer the world by way of Kamchatka?
Games ruled – till it was time to make my way in the real world where they didn’t. By the time online games exploded onto the scene, I was so immersed in reality that I managed to ignore them. I’ve never created a level-80 character in World of Warcraft, won the staff of life in Spore, mastered an artichoke crop in Farmville, or knocked over any pigs with Angry Birds. But others have – hundreds of millions of them around the world. Already, 5.93 million years of total time has been spent playing World of Warcraft alone.
One response to this is to despair of all that wasted time. Imagine if only a fraction of it had been focused on improving our education, health care, energy, and economic systems. Another response, though, is to say: if you can’t beat them, why not join them?
Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken makes a strong case for leveraging game design and mechanics to work on the big social challenges of our time. McGonigal suggests that the four defining traits of any game – a goal, clear rules, a feedback system, and voluntary participation – can be applied to any challenge. She even says game-playing makes us better people. The book is a passionate articulation of why we should pay attention to what is going on in the world of games.
Read the rest of… Saul Kaplan: If All the World were Gamified
The polo shirt has been unfairly accused of looking boring, most notably in the summertime. The key to avoiding a polo snoozefest is, rather than having the same exact shirt in every color it comes in, finding a variety of styles and details that suit you depending on the occasion. There are loads of options to choose from: colored stitching to make it casual, or a contrast collar for pop, to name just two. Below are some of my favs for this season in 6 different styles.
1. Supersoft Casual
The small pocket, long placket, and contrast stitching (especially the unexpected diagonal lines to the right of the pocket) combine nicely to give this polo a laid back feel. I’ve gotten this specific top for a few clients, and they’ve all remarked on how soft and comfortable the fabric is. Billy Reid, $88.
Read the rest of… Julie Rath: On Avoiding Polo Shirt Monotony
