By Erica and Matt Chua, on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET “India is cheap,” has been stated so many times that it must be true. Have you ever seen evidence though? Before visiting I heard anecdotes that it is cheap, things such as “a hotel costs $1/night” and, “I spent less than $5 per day.” Even though millions visit India annually, I never found any evidence of how cheap it was until I actually visited myself. Continuing on with our careful book keeping, while in India we tracked our daily spending, item-by-item, to understand how much India costs. After four months in India I can definitively say, India isn’t necessarily cheap.
Here are the numbers, broken into cost per day of countries we’ve visited. The bold numbers are the lowest amount for each major travel category. In a couple cases I excluded outliers that I know aren’t apples-to-apples comparisons. For example, the “Accommodations” and “Food” costs of Nepal are skewed because many trekking hotels provide accommodation for free if you purchase your meals there, therefore the actual costs of each category is a blend of the two. Sri Lanka’s “Sightseeing” costs are similarly skewed, therefore excluded from being called the lowest cost. As you can see, while India is the second cheapest country we’ve visited overall, in no individual category is it cheapest.
BEHIND THE NUMBERS
The reality behind the numbers further dispel the myth that India is cheap. The quality of budget travel experiences in India is shockingly low. When paying similar prices to other countries, budget travelers in India receive substantially less quality, comfort and safety for the money. India is correctly referred to as cheap because it is not a good value. Here are some examples of how little money in India gets you even less.
The bathroom of the most expensive place we stayed in India, $20/night in Kolkata. After fighting a brilliant battle the cockroaches won. We ceded the bathroom to them and used the shared bath.
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Erica and Matt Chua: Is Indian Travel Really Cheap?
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Jan 15, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET The new buzz word in the world of tech entrepreneurs is cherry-picking. It’s used as a verb, as in “You can cherry-pick your customers based on targeted demographics.” These MBA types like to have shared lingo because it makes them sound smart. I like to learn it so that I can pretend to fit in. I never really do fit in, but it got me thinking about cherry-picking and where that expression came from.
I believe that life is a bowl of cherries. Lately I have been affirming that belief on a daily basis with the intention of creatively visualizing a brave new 2013 for me. So far it’s working. But often when I get all excited about a goal or a new year’s resolution it goes through the following cycle: Hope, Action, Reinforcement, Bold Action, Rejection, Defeat. Repeat.
 I’m trying to break that cycle with my “no fear” new year’s resolution. I suspect that cherry-picking may be part of the problem. If life is a bowl of cherries, and that is the symbol of beauty in the world, then it must hold true that
Cherry-picking = Nitpicking.
Aha, there’s the rub. I picture some lesser version of myself going to Whole Foods and literally picking out cherries one by one to get the best. But they are all cherries at Whole Foods! Granted the cherries at this store could be dubbed Whole Paycheck but they’re going to be delicious and it can’t possibly be worth my time to pick them out one by one.
I tell myself- “Just buy the bag. Enjoy the cherries. Don’t be nitpicky.” It’s not even as unpredictable as Forrest Gump said about the chocolates. You do know what you’re going to get- a cherry! If it’s no good then you spit it out along with the pit and you move on. (Do those of you out there who are dating see where I am going with this?) You still have a bowl of cherries.
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Nancy Slotnick: A Bowl of Cherries
By Julie Rath, on Fri Jan 11, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET 
Peter Elliot Blue
Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to live and work in a city with so many fantastic style resources. But then I go into a store like Peter Elliot Blue, and in short order I’m reminded of how fortunate I am. The flagship Peter Elliot store opened on the upper east side in 1977 — the first independent retailer to carry the line of another young style pioneer you may have heard of, Ralph Lauren. The store has a superb selection (suits/shirts/ties to outerwear to casual clothes and accessories) and is always gorgeously appointed, as you can see above and below. I love how the each pile of pants at left is cleverly wrapped in a belt.
If you haven’t yet seen my Behind the Scenes video, part of it was shot at Peter Elliot Blue. Here I am, browsing before the shoot. The clients in the video couldn’t get enough of the store either — they each walked out with purchases!
If you haven’t been over to Peter Elliot Blue yet, I encourage you to check it out. It’s a true NYC style experience. The store is located at 997 Lexington Ave, at 72nd St.
By Josh Bowen, on Thu Jan 10, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I have written a blog about this topic many times but at this very moment I am watching the Biggest Loser on NBC. Jillian Michaels, Bob the trainer and some other guy are imposing their fitness will on a select group of people for the world to see, all for a cash prize determined on how much a number on a scale decreases. Does anyone else see something wrong with that? First of all, I have been known to push people beyond their limits and I am by no means scared to make someone sore or scream uncle. However, pushing around a number of 300 plus pounders and treating them like United State Marine Corps privates doesn’t sit well with me. Neither does judging a contest by a number (yes it is “reality” TV but these things give people complexes). There are great things about weight loss shows but I often think this drives your everyday gym goer to obsess about the scale, when in all reality it’s not the end all be all. And as a side note, you have to inspire change in people not demand it. To get the very most out of a person, you must INSPIRE them to do it themselves, not force them into submission. This is not what personal training is about.
Off my soapbox. Back to the topic at hand….
 I’ve often wondered about certain strategies gym goers employ. The one strategy that has vexed my mind is a ritual of sorts and a lot of people do it every day. You know if you do something every day and expect a different result, that makes you crazy rightJ. It is at like the Holy Grail, the very reason people come to the gym and try to eat right, it’s the difference between a good day and a bad day, it is the end all be all. It is stepping on the scale! Don’t try to pretend you don’t do it because we all are guilty, especially in a place where there are scales and we are trying to lose weight, gain weight or stay the same. But the very fact people are control by this instrument, this measurement of body mass can be alarming and skewed. The end all be all may not be “all” it’s cracked up to be.
Let’s back track for a second. What are we trying to do? Most people? Answer is losing weight. Statistics show the most common goal for any gym goers is losing weight. But that should really be the goal? The answer is yes and no. If you are 50 lbs overweight and you need to lose 50 pounds then I would say losing weight would be a great goal for you. However, if you are trying to lose 10-20 pounds, does it really matter what the scale says as long as your body fat changes? Of course not! I tell clients all the time; if I could have you weigh the same weight you are today and look 100% different, would it matter what the scale said? 9 times out of 10, the number didn’t matter.
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Josh Bowen: A Lesson from the Biggest Loser
By Lisa Miller, on Wed Jan 9, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET I used to ask myself how I could become part of a world of solutions that create peace, if I as an individual, did not really feel peaceful most of the time. How could I have happy peaceful relationships if I knew that my own happiness and sense of peace was dependent on external factors that were fleeting at best: new jobs, latest diet, purchases, trips.
This was a distressing awareness, especially because I was professionally drawn to the fields of family counseling, social work, rehabilitation, motherhood! How could I represent health and vitality without living it in the way of enduring longevity?
To live at a heart-aware level of consciousness, where taking the deep breath that integrates head and heart can create profound changes, is really a simple process actually.
We begin with ourselves, with self-care strategies, and they become not only magical remedies for daily stress-reduction, but they serve as the foundation of how we extend ourselves forward into our personal and professional relationships, into the community, into the world.
Simply, meditation and deep breathing as regular practices can do it for you. There is no club to have to join, no equipment to have to buy, no complicated process to learn; it involves just sitting quietly and allowing yourself to clear your mind and in effect, to strengthen your heart, immune system, spiritual life.
By sitting in silence and really breathing for just 20-30 minutes out of 24 hours in the day, compelling scientific evidence shows the effects of decreased fight/flight response by way of lowered blood pressure, reduced production of stress hormones (like cortisol), and reduced anxiety.
 But most compelling is how we feel in the remaining 23.5 hours of the day. There is no separation between our minds and bodies; when the mind is relaxed, physiology relaxes, rebalances, and can respond rather than react to the environment. Responding to the external world of chaos and change from a heart-head integrated place, can only come from an internal world of restful awareness.
This was an amazing realization for me and brought on some profound changes that I could never dream possible for myself. And the realization didn’t come from the data and information about how reactive, restless, and irritable I tended to be; it came as I began to feel the results of the actual practice of sitting in silence and breathing for at least 20 minutes a day.
Meditation and deep breathing are tools for rediscovering the body’s own inner intelligence. Practiced for thousands of years, it’s not about forcing the mind to be quiet; it’s about finding the silence that’s already there and letting it lead the way through your life.
Here are brief instructions for a personal meditation and deep breathing practice. If you are interested in personal coaching or in having me lead a workshop in your community, get in touch. For today, this can be a first step into this amazing realm of mind-body-soul medicine that reduces stress, strengthens immunity, and begins to open that space in yourself that transcends space and time.
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Lisa Miller: Meditation — A How-to Guide for Beginners
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET The decorations are down, the kids are back in school, and the New Year’s resolutions have already been broken – yes, it’s time for the post-holiday blahs. But before you sink into a pit of January despair, feeling like there’s nothing fun coming up for ages, here are a few ‘glass-half-full’ thoughts to help keep your spirits up.
– You don’t have to listen to any more Christmas carol muzak until at least next Halloween.
– It’s much harder to get a sunburn in cold, foggy, gray weather
– You have over 300 shopping days left.
– The dreaded ‘fiscal cliff’ turned out to be as anticlimactic as Y2K
– The kids are no longer sleeping til noon and then complaining they’re bored.
– Your inlaws have all gone home.
Meanwhile, there are tons of minor Jewish holidays coming up which we are happy to share with everyone else. In fact, it feels like we have one every other week, although most of us couldn’t define more than a handful. So with this week’s video, I’ve tried to clarify some common themes among Jewish holidays, as well as providing some upbeat gospel music to start the New Year on a positive note. (And yes, I know Jewish gospel music is an oxymoron, but this is the era of fusion where genres and ethnicities get blended in everything from social groups to cuisine, so think of this as fusion Jewish gospel . . . )
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Jan 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET “You never don’t know” is what my mother-in-law says when she means “You never know.”
It must be said in a Polish accent with the conviction that only a Holocaust survivor could pull off while using a double negative. So by the theory of transitivity, “You never don’t know” equals “You always know.” I’m going with that theory.
You always know.
If you can tap into your instincts, and distinguish them from anxiety, you always know. “Is he the One?” You know. “Should I have that opening line?” You know. “Should I write that email to reach out?” You know, but you don’t always listen to your gut. You talk yourself out of it.
Do you expect greatness to come your way or mediocrity? Or disaster? Murphy’s Law is more about Murphy than about a law of nature. I think Murphy attracted bad luck because he’s always expecting bad luck and it feeds on itself. Of course if you want to attract good luck you have to do the work. There’s plenty of good luck out there and it will come your way sooner or later. You just have to be prepared to seize your luck.
Here’s how: Let’s say you’re on a train traveling for the holidays, like I am right now. Let’s say you’re single and you secretly wish that the man of your dreams would sit next to you. You do hold out the hope for good luck. But you also dread the fat lady who talks your ear off or the crying baby that blocks the audio of Gossip Girl Season 2. Even though you’ve already seen it. You are tempted to just put your backpack up on the seat next to you, put on your headphones and go into “Do Not Disturb” mode. If you’re lucky, then the train is not sold out and you will get two seats to yourself. But is that what you really want?
If you know that you want more, you may have to put your “Cablight” on, as I call it, and try to show that the seat is available for the right guy. There is a strategy you can employ. Put the backpack up as you scope the crowd passing by. Choose your target. He may not be your Brad Pitt, but pick the best one of the lot of train travelers with your mind’s eye and start your training to attract what you want in life.
 As he gets about 2 seats away from you, move the backpack and look up. Make eye contact. This will be hard. Be vulnerable for a second and make it visible to him in your eyes. Then look away and go back to Gossip Girl so he doesn’t think you’re a stalker and he knows that you aren’t going to be annoyingly forward. Let him come to you. This should work if you do it right, with confidence and humility at the same time. It probably won’t though. Law of averages.
But if it doesn’t, get up and move seats. Why? Because you still have hope that there’s a better guy in another car. Because you’re willing to give up the comfort of a window seat near the Café car for the chance of finding something better. Someone better. Like Deal or No Deal with the universe. You believe that the banker has something good in store for you in that briefcase and you’re willing to take risks.
In the Harry Potter adventures, they say that the wizard doesn’t choose the wand. The wand chooses the wizard. What it means to turn your Cablight on is that you have to be in an open mindset for the wand to find you. And even if it finds you, you’ll have no idea how to use it unless you train. Train yourself to be bold and push past your comfort zone. And take the train. The only person you will meet if you’re driving in your car is the toll-booth operator. Really?!?
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET
Writes contributing RP John Y. Brown, III:
One of the greatest sins we can commit is to have a chance to get to know extraordinary people. And then not take advantage of it. And you never know when the opportunity will present itself. So always be ready to talk. Even when you’re not sure.
A picture of a cat siting on a column led to some chuckles from my wife and daughter but then a nice lady with a very professional looking camera decided to take the same shot. I nudged my wife and daughter and said, “Told ya it was a good photo to take.”
The woman with the professional camera overheard us and, along with her husband, laughed. And that’s all I needed. Over the next 20 minutes I learned that Matt Chua worked as a VC for 6 years before he and his wife, Erica, dropped out and became professional world travelers 2 years earlier. They’ve visited and written about 30 countries, mostly about economic development but also offering a sort of young person’s Trip Adviser take on each destination. (Think of Albert Brooks’ Lost in America —but working out. And going international)
Next year Matt hopes to find himself in Stanford’s MBA program. And deserves to be there. And if that still isn’t enough to pique your curiosity, their website is titled “LivingIF.com” with the tag line, “Living to never wonder, What if.”
Now, we are pleased to have Matt and Erica Chua join us as weekly travel columnists at The Recovering Politician, with their first column, cross-posted from LivingIF.com, below. Please help me welcome them to the RP Nation, and come back every Monday at this time to read about their next extraordinary adventure!
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Incomparable. Stunning. Choose your superlative…none will do the Everest Region justice. Nowhere else on earth is like it. Walking amongst the world’s largest mountains, admiring deep valleys and snowcapped peaks, will be one of your life’s highlights.
Here even view from the outhouses are spectacular…
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Erica and Matt Chua: Hiking Mount Everest and Three Passes Unguided
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jan 7, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET When a consumer product company wants to know how a new product or new marketing campaign will perform, it doesn’t rely solely on traditional market research surveys. It goes to test markets. It’s the right way to discover how the innovation will go over in real market conditions, without the risk of a national or global rollout. It also provides the test bed for optimizing the marketing mix to support the full-scale launch. Actual market experience, veteran marketers will tell you, never quite matches the results of quantitative and qualitative market research reports and what consumers say they will do behind the two-way glass of a focus group facility.
So here’s my question: Why don’t more firms employ the same approach to explore and test newbusiness models?
Anyone can map out new business model ideas on paper. It’s easy to do pro-forma analyses of how a new business model might work. And it’s not much more work to write up a fancy report embellishing on the potential of a hypothetical new business model. But until a business model idea sees the light of day in the real world, it is impossible to know if it will really work.
 Just talk to any successful serial entrepreneur about their experiences in starting new businesses. They almost never get the model right on the first try. It takes several iterations to find a business model that works on the ground and has the potential to scale. Most will tell you it’s a waste of time writing a detailed business plan outlining all the components and how they’ll interact. The better approach is to sketch out a business model concept on the back of a napkin, build a prototype, and then move as quickly as possible into the market to see whether it holds water.
The idea is to move as quickly as possible from concept to prototype to test, and then iterate until you land on a business model configuration that works and is ready to scale. Along the way there will be many failures. The trick of course is to fail fast and to capture learning that can be applied in the next round.
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Saul Kaplan: Put Your New Business Model to the Test
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Jan 4, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET One of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child is not being a role model for achievement (although that is important), or being present at many of their activities (although that is very important, too), or being actively engaged in molding their child to be a good citizen (although that is needed), or being a good financial provider (although that is expected).
Rather one of the greatest gifts a parent can give to their children, in my opinion, is regular transparent glimpses into that parent’s humanness. Not showing flaws or foibles for the sake of exposure—like showing off a war wound. But an honest reflection of what that parent is thinking, feeling, and experiencing (to the extent the parent really knows him or herself). In other words, not playing the role of “Father Knows Best” or “How I Became the Queen Bee” But rather the daily role of “Father (or Mother) Tries Hard Most Days and Gets it Wrong about as Often as he (or she) gets it Right.”
The other qualities listed in the first paragraph teach children how to “appear” and be perceived by others as successful. But a parent who is consistently transparent can help set an internal barometer for children that will serve them well—helping them to know themselves and trust their instincts. Not just seem to be holding it together.
 Of course, it’s important for children to grow up to exemplify model behavior, to be consistent and active and responsible. But I believe it is even more important for them to have the confidence be be real. To be authentic…..and not be confused about how to do that. And if they haven’t learned how by watching their parents it’s like expecting a child to know the native language even though it was never spoken in the home.
No one strives to be merely authentic as an end in itself. Or the related traits of transparent and self-aware. We strive instead to be successful, great, courageous, and a dozen other various forms of “achievement.” But authenticity is often the precondition for these so called achievements. And even when it’s not, it is the greatest consolation. A person who has a long resume but isn’t comfortable in his or her own skin, isn’t self-aware or genuine, is a shell of the person who has these attributes but, for the moment, possesses a slimmer resume.
The former is more like an automaton–a robot. A well trained animal who performs on cue and is applauded.
But the latter is someone who is worth getting to know and who has something meaningful to say. And is leading a life worth living. Not merely seeking to perform a life worth applauding.
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