#and makes corporate uncomfortable with putting me in client-facing posts

[petshopbutch]

got told by my higher ups that i make corporate "uncomfortable" (explicitly bc of the way i look, e.g. my hair and my jewelry) so it's official: new job hunt begins tomorrow.

[seraphtrevs]

New meta series! I'm going to start posting my grand theory of Kim with the tag #wexler v the system. I've got a LOT to say, but I decided to start with a small moment:

In 4x07, Kim has reluctantly agreed to help Jimmy keep Huell out of jail. Obviously she went into it as a favor for Jimmy, but it seems pretty clear to me after her conversation with Suzanne, the prosecutor, it became her cause, too, separate from helping Jimmy out of a bind. Why? Because the case against Huell was racist.

When Kim approaches Suzanne about the case, Suzanne remarks that Huell doesn't seem like Kim's kind of client, and Kim tersely replies that she disagrees, even though Suzanne is right - Kim is a corporate lawyer. This is a little odd. But Kim doesn't think of herself as a soulless corporate lawyer. She wants to help people, too.

Kim goes on to tell Suzanne that she's done her homework and learned that Suzanne has prosecuted several cases of civilians attacking police officers without asking for jail time, even when the officers in question sustained serious injuries like a concussion or a broken nose. Huell hit a plain clothes officer with a bag of sandwiches. No one was hurt, and he didn't know he was attacking a cop. Plus Huell has no history of violent offenses. She tells Suzanne that it's "unequal justice" - in other words, that the prosecution is being harder on Huell because he's black.

I think Kim genuinely thought Suzanne would agree with her once she pointed out the double standard. But unsurprisingly, Suzanne reacts defensively to Kim's accusation of "unequal justice," because she'd have to admit to herself that maybe she had some unconscious bias and she doesn't want to do that. And this is the face Kim makes when Suzanne snaps that there will be "no negotiation."

This is before Suzanne insults Jimmy. She's righteously pissed off. Suzanne again reiterates that Huell is not the kind of person that someone like Kim should take any interest in, and then she goes on to insult Jimmy, which just seals the deal. But the fight got personal for Kim before Jimmy was insulted.

Kim puts together a team of lawyers to intimidate Suzanne. Notably, two of them are black.

And here's the face she makes when talking about getting the ACLU involved because his rights may have been violated.

Yes, this is all a part of con, but Kim is making a point. This isn't just something she's saying to pull off the con. She believes it.

And this is why Kim reacts with a lot of passion when they win - not just the thrill of pulling off a con, but the thrill of pulling off a con for a righteous cause. The rich have all sorts of dirty tricks they pull to bend the law to their will. Throughout the series, she grows more and more uncomfortable in her role as a corporate stooge. This is where her passion is.

[anthropologicalhands]

ceg fic: miss do it right

title: miss do it right gift for: @clemdhoffryn for @crazyexvalentine word count: 4,885 summary: Valencia is ready to propose to Beth. The question, however, of when and where requires expert advice. Valencia & Heather, Beth/Valencia. notes: Happy Valentine’s Day!

~

“I need your help,” Valencia announces, breezing into Heather and Hector’s foyer, straight into the living room and perching on the arm of the couch adjacent to Heather’s current seat. “Also you really need to get a gardener—that trellis is leaning over.”

“Hector’s getting around to it,” says Heather, looking up from her magazine. “Hi, welcome back to West Coast, Best Coast or whatever. Didn’t I tell you to start texting if you were gonna come over?”

“I told you I was planning a wedding this weekend,” Valencia says archly, as if the mere statement of fact automatically absolves her of visitor’s etiquette. “Remember? In the group chat?”

“Oh, I remember. I just kind of generally assumed it was in New York. Since you do, you know, live there.”

Valencia pouts. “Come on, aren’t we hashtag gurlgroup4evah? Physical walls are meaningless. And I totally gave you a key to my place. You could do the same exact same thing to me and I wouldn’t mind.”

“That argument worked when you were in East Cameron, not East Coast. When am I ever gonna go to New York?”

“For me, obviously,” says Valencia. “Or for a Home Base conference, I guess.”

“They’re a West Coast chain.”

“So? Weren’t you planning on revolutionizing their corporate headquarters, or something?”

“I was, but that’s like, halfway through my five-year plan that I’m going to start next year.”

“Oh. Are you really not happy to see me?” asks Valencia, and she sounds just a tiny bit deflated, like she’s actually worried that that’s the case. Heather drops her magazine on the side table (occasionally, she marvels at how adulthood came upon her so fast—these have mermaid feet, irony unintended, that make her ridiculously happy).

“I’m happy to see you, Vee, can’t you tell?”

Valencia narrows her eyes. “Usually you’re happier.”

“You literally just walked in when I wasn’t expecting you for three weeks. Let me have a reaction time. And given your stance on Hector is lukewarm at best I’m still surprised to see you here.”

“I follow Hector on Instagram, and I happen to know that he has a surfing competition in Monterey this weekend,” says Valencia knowingly. “And I definitely know that you are always down for adventures, especially if there is just the right amount of drama.” Valencia wiggles her shoulders for emphasis.

Heather leans forward, studying her friend. There’s something surprisingly spiky and Rebecca-like about her energy –not out of whack, not in a bad way, but it’s there.

“Everything all right, Vee?” Heather asks. “You’re weirdly hyped up. Are you on a Guatemalan coffee kick again?”

“Please, you know I’m on a kombucha cleanse right now.”

“Kombucha can do all this?” Heather gestures up and down Valencia, like her “this” is the new “it” and she’s Clara Bow. 

(Heather took a film class for like, three weeks in freshman year before she dropped it for being insanely pretentious.)

Annoyed, Valencia swats Heather’s hand away—all right, she’s not too far gone.

Valencia gives an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “No, it’s not the kombucha. It’s something way more important.”

There is a very meaningful pause; Heather waits, unsure whether it is done out of Valencia’s natural sense of making an entrance or for Heather’s benefit is a sincere question.

“I’m going to ask Beth to marry me.”

“Oh,” Heather blinks. “Wow.”

It’s not an unexpected announcement and given with Valencia’s usual careless confidence. But there is trepidation there, if one knows how to look for it.

“Does it seem weird? Tell me if it’s weird.”

“Uh, not weird, no,” says Heather carefully. “But given what happened a few months ago, I have to ask…”

“Yeah, we’ve been talking about it,” says Valencia irritably, waving a hand. “We’re on the same page. But I want it to be right, and I need help to make that happen.”

“Okay. And you’re asking me because…”

“Because Rebecca has a lot going on, and while I love the girl, I need someone who won’t let me get carried away with something way out of my budget.”

“That makes sense,” Heather agrees. “What about Paula?”

“She has that big case she’s presenting on Monday, and she doesn’t know Beth as well as you do.”

“True. That afternoon at the Korean spa means we’re bonded for life now, united by a great and terrible event.”

“You loved it. Didn’t you feel all nice and fresh?”

“Only because I had to grow a whole new layer of skin. I’m amazed Beth liked it; she was completely pink.”

“I mean, that happens if she steps out in the sun for five minutes without a hat,” says Valencia fondly. “But I’m not asking you to climb into a sauna, I’m asking you to help me propose to my girlfriend. Will you do it?”

“I mean, obviously. I’m a total romantic, so of course I’ll help.”

Valencia’s forehead wrinkles in a very pointed way. “You got married because of health insurance. I just need someone to tell me if I’m getting out of bounds with like, budget and expectations.”

“Wanting your partner to be healthy for the long run is very romantic.”

“Not enough to try to skip the actual wedding part,” grumbles Valencia.

“Who is asking who for help getting married, again?”

“Fair,” concedes Valencia grudgingly, though her smile undercuts some of her pretense. She kicks herself up and off the couch and gestures imperiously at Heather. “Now come on, we need to get going if we don’t want to be late.”

“Uh, we? Where?”

I have a vineyard in Temecula to make sure it is an ideal venue for my client, remember? We can multitask on the drive up.”

“Uh, now?”

“Why not?” With a flourish, Valencia pulls out a notebook that is already crammed full of post-its and other notes. “You can look at this on the way up. Plus, I can guarantee that we can ask to sample some of their viticultural offerings.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” Heather stands and stretches. “I did have a busy afternoon planned for contemplating my existence, but I’ll move for free wine.”

~

Valencia’s planner, much like her initial dream wedding plans, is elaborately and meticulously tabbed. Leafing through the pages, Heather briefly recognizes one of the strange commonalities between Valencia and Rebecca that reminds her that, as strange as the beginning of that friendship was, there’s a reason that their bond is as strong as it is. Valencia drives. It gives her a weird burst of fondness for them.

“You really thought these out,” says Heather, reading through a meticulous list of what it would take to plan a flash mob in Times Square with a reasonable budget. 

“Right? I mean, I have ideas for days. It’s what I do—dolling up other people’s bad ideas and persuading them that mine are better. I can do this forever.”

“Great. So, why do you need me?”

Valencia’s fingers drum against the wheel of her rental car, clearly annoyed. “Because I’ve been striking out. Like, these are objectively great proposal ideas, right? But I can’t decide which one is actually, like, the best one.”

“I can see that,” says Heather, eyebrows shooting up when she turns a page and sees an elaborate plan for a hot air balloon proposal scribbled out with angry red marker. “What are you looking for, then?”

“Something that speaks to both of us. Like, as awesome as my spacing is for the choreo, I know that Beth wouldn’t want a flash mob in Times Square.”

“Yeah, that seems like a you thing. A pretty specific you thing.” Heather shoots her an inquiring look. “Did you?”

Valencia shifts uncomfortably. “There was a time where I might have mentioned it to Josh.”

“Wow.”

“Hey, Josh is terrible, but if he choreographed a dance proposal, it would have been amazing.”

“Can’t argue with that.” One of the pages just seems to be a froth of white lace paper surrounding a list of names at its center. Heather squints at the neat penmanship, idly wondering if she needs glasses or if Valencia’s handwriting is just really that small. “Is this a guest list?”

“No. I also really always wanted to do it at someone else’s wedding. Preferably Denise Martinez’s—”

“Valencia…”

“But that’s also not Beth’s style,” finishes Valencia slightly irritated. “Like I said, the proposal has to match both of us. I did learn from my mistakes, you know.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t,” says Heather mildly.

“And that list is out of date anyways. Denise got married last month and I hear that her and her new husband are already fighting.”

“Don’t sound so gleeful.”

“Sorry,” says Valencia almost contritely, merging off the highway. “We have a long history.”

“So I heard. We definitely need to unpack that some time.”

~

“Oh, this is perfect,” Valencia breathes, overlooking the gently rolling hills and the rows of twining grapevines.

“It’s pretty great,” Heather agrees, coming up besides her, hands tucked in her pockets. “It’s practically worth the sticker price.”

“Nothing’s worth the sticker price. I’ll get a better deal.”

“That winery owner guy seemed pretty stodgy.”

“I have my ways,” says Valencia enigmatically, which both impresses and concerns Heather in equal measures. 

“I don’t doubt it.” There’s a pause as they survey the scenery together. 

“Why wouldn’t you propose to Beth here?” 

“Hm?” Valencia turns to look at Heather, the arch of her eyebrows more inquiring than sharp.

“You and Beth. I mean, this place makes a wicked rosé—”

“Since when do you use wicked? That’s an East Coast word.”

“’Cause it’s a great word? And I’m from Michigan, which is kind of East Coast.”

Valencia pulls a face.

Heather rolls her eyes in response. “Whatever. But seriously, this seems ideal. It has a view, it’s romantic—it’s everything you wanted. And you and Beth have family here, so you can have a big party after she says yes.”

“It has a lot,” agrees Valencia wistfully. Then she sighs. “But it won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Josh and I used to come here. Too many memories.”

“Oh.”

“Right? Josh just ruins everything.”

“Okay, it’s been three years, I think you can lay off of Josh.”

“Nah. I’ve dedicated too much time into it. I’m going to be doing this until after we’re both married. Speaking of Josh, you’ve met Rosa, right?”

“Yeah. I like her. I didn’t know that you met her—”

“Oh, yeah. Nice girl,” says Valencia, sounding vaguely surprised. Given Josh’s previous type, Heather can’t entirely blame her. Valencia continues, “But for whatever reason, they work well together. We had a long talk - I warned her about all of his flaws, and she said that she knows and she was positive she could handle it. Then she complimented my earrings.”

Heather has to smile at that. She is the least well-acquainted with Josh of their friends (though she’s probably seen him in far more intimate situations than most people ever have to see their friends), so her personal frustrations with him tended to be from far briefer interactions, over much more quickly. She’s glad to see that Josh seems settled in a way that he hasn’t been since she’s known him.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” admits Valencia, softening a little. “I am actually happy for him. But I have to keep up appearances - we were together way too long.”

“That’s fair.”

~

Once the vineyard has been approved (and Valencia has worn down the owner to her terms), they head back to Heather’s place, open a couple extra bottles of rosé and buckle down.

“Too much hassle,” says Valencia, X-ing out what seems to be a plan for a private yacht.

“Too showy,” agrees Heather, marking off a flashing billboard. She turns the page and squints at a picture of a dark room lit by hundreds of tiny flames.

“Isn’t Beth allergic to those candles?” she asks.

“They would be soy,” Valencia protests, but rather hastily reaches across the page to mark it out. “Still, you have a point.”

“That’s also a fire hazard, right there.”

“I’m not Rebecca,” says Valencia irritably.

 “That’s still a lot of open flames. I’m just saying. Why not just go Big Fish and propose with a bunch of flowers?”

“I can’t. Beth’s allergic to flowers.”

Heather blinks.

“Seriously?”

Valencia shrugs. “Look, there’s a reason she hired me to do certain events that she couldn’t. She’s all about the hands-on activities. Pollen and natural phenomena - not so much.”

“Got it. So Big Fish is totally out?”

“Totally.”

~

Despite what Heather expected and the width and breadth of the notebook, they are burning through the ideas in the planner at an alarming rate. Valencia is clearly panicking too, if the two glasses of rosé are any indication.

“You know what would be great? The Met! Yeah, you could hide behind one of the exhibits to record, we’re surrounded by all this history, I’m sure they have something by Sappho in there, Beth loves her stuff—”

“Okay, just so we’re setting reasonable expectations or whatever, I can tell you right now that I am not going to New York just to help you propose,” Heather warns. “I have like, a household budget, and there’s only so much that I can dip into Hector’s accident fund and still have enough.”

Valencia lets out a little huff that indicates that while she respects Heather’s commitment to her budget, she continues to be less-than-impressed. It reminds Heather to text Hector and tell him that he might need to spend the night out with the guys—just because him and Valencia are no longer on murder terms doesn’t mean she can feel like she can guarantee his personal safety.

“Okay, fine. Skip to page sixty-eight.” At Heather’s disbelieving look, Valencia shrugs defensively. “What? A girl can dream in destinations.”

Heather does as she’s asked without further commentary. It’s not that Heather expected that helping Valencia plan a proposal would be simple. But Valencia knows her tastes—Heather was reasonably certain that her role would be as a yes woman and occasional financial wisdom rather than active decision making.

They aren’t using the couch or even the coffee table anymore—they’ve pulled off all of the cushions and have created a sort of nest on the floor.

“I can propose at a concert!” says Valencia, entirely too brightly.

Heather raises her head off one of the cushions. “You guys like going to concerts?”

“Not really? But everyone proposes at John Legend’s concerts, so it would work.”

“Beth likes John Legend?”

“Kind of? She doesn’t mind him but she loves Chrissy Teigen. And maybe we’d get some good karma from their marriage.”

“Not bad. You might also get drinks spilled on you,” Heather reminds her. “It could be sticky. Plus, other people might propose at same concert and steal your thunder.”

“Ugh, true. Plus, the scheduling doesn’t work out—he won’t be on tour for a good few months.”

Perhaps it is the tiredness, or remembering that she still needs to write up the shift schedules for next month, that prompts her to suggest, “Why not Home Base? I mean, you guys did agree to meet there. So, like, it’s sentimental.”

Valencia somehow looks affronted, disgusted and poorly hiding it, and despairing all at once. Heather would almost be impressed.

“I’ve been going to Home Base longer than you’ve been working there, Heather. I really don’t want to propose marriage at the bar where I used to pick up Elena from softball practice. It doesn’t feel right.”

Heather props herself up on her elbows so that she can look at Valencia properly. “Okay. What doesn’t feel right? It’s not going to be perfect.”

“I’m not going for perfect,” says Valencia irritably. “I gave Rebecca perfect, and look where that landed her. A perfect proposal would mean an island vacation, and dessert for Beth, and possibly sky writing. But it would also mean debt and she would so not be happy about that.”

 “Great. Is that the only thing you’re worried about?”

 Valencia’s hands twist against each other in her lap. Then they untangle and she dives into her purse and pulls out a small black box, which she sets on the table between them. Gone is her haughty event planner bravado, now Valencia just looks lost, more than Heather has ever seen her. 

“This proposal has to feel right because I messed up the first time.”

“The first time?”

“The ultimatum,” says Valencia glumly. “I don’t want it to be too much—it needs to be something that Beth would love to accept. Something that proves that we know each other and can be a part of each other’s lives.”

“Can I see it?” At Valencia’s nod of permission, Heather reaches over and opens the box to look at the ring.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t it? Moshe has a good collection. I’ve known this is the one for her for ages now. And…I want that feeling about how I propose. Does that make any sense?”

It does. Heather nods, waiting for Valencia to continue.

“It’s just…I made such a big deal about wanting to get married, and I want this proposal to show her that I know her, and it’s not all about me me me.”

“Of course.”

“That’s why I asked you. You might not be the biggest romantic of all of us, but you follow your gut about what feels right. And I want that confidence when I ask her.”

It’s both touching and terrifying to have that much faith in a person. Awkwardly, Heather pats Valencia’s shoulder. Valencia leans into the touch anyways, seeking whatever awkward comfort that Heather tries to give.

“You know, she’s going to love you whatever you do,” says Heather slowly. “And obviously, you know her well enough to know that these insanely awesome proposals are still awesome, just not right. We’ll find something better. And, like, I’m not gonna give up. You’re not going to leave California without a game plan.

Valencia gives her a tiny smile.

“Thank you, Heather,” she says. She looks ready to say more, but then there’s the sound of a very small gong being struck.

Valencia frowns, pulling her phone out of her pocket, scans the screen, and sighs. “I have to go. The client with the vineyard wants to meet now, of all times. I’m gonna go to her place, but when I get back, maybe we can just have a girls’ night in? No more proposal talk?”

“Sure, whatever you want. I can just duck out and like, get some more rosé. Just wines. Ablutions to drown our frustrations.”

Valencia smiles wanly and sees herself out. Heather waits until she’s sure that Valencia’s car has pulled away before hitting her speed dial. Heather is the coolest of her friends, even now that they are all responsible adults, and sometimes that means admitting that you are out of your depth.

~

Still, Heather isn’t lying when she says she needs to go pick up wines. She does.

At Il Cabino. Where Rebecca is waiting at a table for two, astonishingly early.

“You need to help me,” says Heather, not bothering with niceties. As frustrating as Rebecca’s flakiness can be, it is refreshing that she never gets insulted by Heather’s brusqueness.

“Oh, absolutely,” says Rebecca, eyes wide. “I know I haven’t been very good at that in the past, but like, right now I’m all ears.”

“Valencia is going nuts about proposing to Beth—”

Rebecca nods sympathetically. “Oh yeah, I know.”

“You know?”

“Yeah. She’s been texting me.”

Heather looks closely at Rebecca and only sees frank interest in the other woman’s gaze, no impression of jealousy or hurt. “Okay…so you know and you don’t feel left out?”

“She made it very clear that I’m not supposed to help, and given my past record for helping Valencia with anything, I figured the least I could do is let her do her thing,” says Rebecca with remarkable understatement. “Anyways, I’m actually crazy busy. My singing lessons are turning my brains to mush.”

“Hm, and I was hoping to hear that you were actually working your pretzel stand so we could swap tips as fellow businesswomen.”

“Nah, I just let AJ take care of it. His rent is less than a hundred bucks, he can manage.”

“Right. Enough about your life, back to my problems.”

“Shutting up now.” Rebecca mimes zipping her lips.

“Thank you. But Valencia is driving me insane with rejecting every single proposal idea I have. And, like, my ideas are good. I’m good at organizing events.”

“Right. You guys are crazy good at that.”

“I suggested Home Base, kind of as a joke, and she nearly bit my head off.”

“I mean, Home Base is not super romantic. I had enough sex in the back room there enough to know.”

“What a coincidence, so did I,” says Heather dryly. “Which means I probably should pay for an extremely thorough cleaning, but that’s besides the point. If Valencia isn’t feeling it, it’s not going work. So I figured, I’ve been striking out, I might as well ask our local romance expert for tips.”

“Aww,” coos Rebecca, placing her hand on her heart. Then her expression shifts from soppy to self-deprecatingly wry. “You guys must really be in a tight spot.”

“Yep. So…what do you have for me?”

Rebecca looks thoughtful, not unfocused like when she goes in her head or is too absorbed in her problems.

“I mean, Beth isn’t a total romantic, but she likes to make things meaningful,” says Rebecca after a pause. “She wouldn’t be in these kinds of events if she didn’t. Maybe for Valencia, she’s asking Beth to spend the rest of their lives together. Ask her about if there’s any specific moment when she knew that she wanted Beth to be in her life forever. Like, I know you are big on how there isn’t one moment of magical epiphany and I totally agree, for the record—but she made the decision that it was gonna be Beth at some point. Maybe asking when and where would give her a few new ideas.”

It's an almost stupefying simple idea. Heather nods slowly. “Right. Like, what do they do together that makes Valencia want to spend every day doing the same thing?”

“Exactly. Like, it’s just about finding resonance, right? Something that reaffirms how they feel, but not in an artificial or contrived way. Just love.”

“Right,” says Heather, starting to smile. “Thanks, Rebecca. That helps a lot.”

Rebecca beams. “Any time. And uh, not to be mercenary or anything, but since I gave good advice, does that mean you can pick up the tab? Music lessons have really tightened up my budget and you did offer to take me out to happy hour, so.”

~

“You’ve been gone a while.” 

There’s a faintly accusatory tone to Valencia’s words when Heather gets back. She’s already sprawled over the couch, reading the magazine that Heather dropped earlier that morning.

“And yet, you still let yourself into my house. How was the meeting?”

“Okay. Honestly, it’s a good thing I’m in a personal crisis right now or I would have never agreed to do their wedding. Ugh, what annoying people. But, I promised, no more wedding talk. Tell me what’s been going on at Home Base. Don’t spare any details—I know you love that drama.”

“I do love drama. But before we get into that, I think I have one more suggestion that might help you with the whole proposal situation. Just one.”

“Okay?”

“I’m not a traditionally romantic person. You know this.”

“I do.”

“And I married Hector when I did because he really needed the health insurance. But I knew that I wanted to spend my life with him before that. He makes me laugh. He makes things light in my life. Even when he does something stupid like almost lose his toe.”

“That’s…surprisingly sweet, Heather.”

“Don’t say it’s wasted on Hector,” Heather warns.

“I’m not, but trust me, it’s hard.”

“Good. But that was a very roundabout, Rebecca-like way of asking: maybe think about when you decided you wanted to marry Beth?”

Valencia exhales noisily, slumping back against the sofa arm. “I’m almost never not thinking about it. When we’re at work together, when we’re talking, whenever I see her when I wake up in the morning with all of the light in her hair—” Valencia abruptly stops speaking, eyes wide.

Heather takes the opening.

“So there is a moment?”

“Yes.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes!”

“So you’re basically saying that she’s your sunshine?”

Valencia is too excited to be annoyed by Heather’s teasing. “Yes, exactly. She’s my sunshine! Which believe me, was sometimes the only thing that got me through this winter. It was cold.”

“I’ll bet,” agrees Heather. “New York isn’t exactly balmy.”

“Yeah, yeah. No, this is perfect.”

“So you know what you’re going to do?”

“Uh huh.”

“Are you going to tell me? Where will this event take place?”

“Our apartment. That’s our home now. It’s a shoebox and extremely uncomfortable, but it’s also ours. And mine. And that’s the first time I ever had something like that.”

Valencia actually sounds giddy.

“What do you think?” she appeals to Heather.

“That sounds just like both of you.”

“I think so.” Valencia looks conflicted. “But I want to share it with you guys too. Like, I want a little fun, otherwise I’ll just start crying and in the sloppy way, not the movie-style pretty way.”

“Again, I can’t go to New York. Paula’s too busy and Rebecca is equally broke.”

Valencia’s eyes sparkle. “Okay, but what is the best way to visit New York without visiting New York?”

Heather has an inkling of where this is going.

“You’re going to livestream your proposal?”

“Of course not. I’m going to livestream after she says yes.”

“Oooh boy.”

Valencia flutters a hand. “I think she’ll be fine as long as the actual moment itself is private. She’s not like me—she doesn’t want to get a proposal in front of people. So…you think it’s good?”

“It’s perfect. Out of curiosity, why did you want to be proposed to in front of people?”

“I mean, it used to be a social-capital type of thing, but honestly, I don’t want all of West Covina there. I would want you guys, and my family to share the moment. Cause you love us, you love Beth…and it’s still nice to be the center of attention once in a while. But that’s me, not Beth. Now, enough proposal talk. Let’s crack these wine babies open.”

Heather nods, a little distracted, a new idea forming in her head.

~

“The drone was a nice touch,” Paula observes as the three of them crowd around Heather’s laptop in her kitchen a few weeks later.

“Not mine. That was all Valencia.”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe Valencia’s engaged!” Rebecca’s squeal is exactly what Valencia seems to want, she just beams all the brighter. From within the camera, Beth seems amusedly resigned, leaning her head on Valencia’s shoulder, admiring the ring.

“Well, since you have your girls on the line…” says Beth, and Heather smirks, the only woman of the lot of them who knows what’s coming, as Beth disappears out of their sight line, and emerges with a small velvet black box of her own.

“Oh my god!” Valencia’s squawk has all three of them jerking away from the laptop, but the general cacophony from Paula and Rebecca more than make up for it.

“A double proposal!” Rebecca’s grin is so wide that Heather’s own face aches in sympathy.

“Valencia, Valencia stop shaking me, I have a whole speech prepared, and I know it’s not a flash mob in Times Square—”

“I don’t care!” Valencia shrieks. “How did you—when—”

Beth laughs, giddy with adrenaline.

“Thank Heather,” she says, her voice clear even over the faint buzzing of the drone. “I called her for advice, and she didn’t give me any details, but she did say that if I wanted to propose, I might want to consider keeping the ring in the apartment. Preferably under the bed.”

“Heather!!” Valencia glares at her across the country, mascara running, but the smile on her face is impossible to repress.

“Told you I’m romantic,” says Heather mildly, but still smiling, pleased.

“I know,” says Valencia. “Thank you.”

She turns back to Beth. “But I thought you wanted a private proposal. Everyone’s watching us right now—”

“I did, and I’m glad I got one. But you’re not me. Valencia, you are a sun, and you draw all of us in your orbit—”

There is more, but Heather can barely hear any of it, between the screamlets coming out of the laptop and the shrieks echoing around Rebecca’s kitchen. Rebecca is punching Heather’s arm and saying something about she knew Heather was secretly a romantic at heart, she just knew it, and Paula is looking misty again, but Heather only has eyes for the two women on the other side of the screen, wearing rings and embracing so tightly it’s like the drone isn’t there at all.

What? She said she’s a romantic.

[scarlettlawyer]

Next attempt: Shelly de Killer and Pearl Fey!

Shelly de Killer:

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

- favorite thing about them: THE PERFECT COMBINATION OF ELEGANCE AND MURDER. HE’S JUST SO GREAT!!! I love the aura of absolute calm and aesthetic interlaced with imminent threat. Well, not absolute calm. He can certainly lose his patience. But he's not really one to raise his voice. It’s a quiet and terrifying anger if invoked. The veneer of calm is part of the gentleman aesthetic; the hint of anger is the imminent threat. Outside of his being angry, however, it’s still the same: even if he’s not angry at you, his mere job makes him intimidating. That’s inescapable. But his polite demeanour is still there. The combination of those things is fantastic. He will kill you if he must but damn if he isn’t going to do it in style.

- least favorite thing about them: I actually did have a reply to this come to mind, possibly connected to AAI2, and yet it slipped away shortly thereafter and now I cannot recall it, and after losing the actual reply I had I’ve honestly sat here struggling to come up with something. Like there were moments when I enjoyed his character a bit less, but... Hard to just list off a least favourite thing from that.

- ship(s): ...Oldbag. You have done this; you have planted this idea in the mind of my friend and I. Like okay I don’t actually ship it in canon OR in your fic, but the thought of it is so out there, and therefore amusing. And then my friend came up with this amazing JFA au running with the idea so, I do “ship” it specifically in the context of her au ahahaha. I love my friend’s idea of... him liking her and her not really being aware of it? Because it’s a reversal of what’s usually the case in canon. Let a guy be interested in her for once and have her be unaware of it. XD

Also just gonna tack this fic-related message(s) on randomly too but FOR CONTEXT TO BE FAIR THIS WAS before I read the ending which actually does address the death of Wendy’s husband and before the actual dynamic between Oldbag, Shelly and Benny had been elaborated on by the story:

(I ACTUALLY MEANT IN THE SENSE OF HAVING BEEN HIRED BY SOMEONE TO KILL MR OLDBAG BUT THEN MY FRIEND WAS LIKE “HOW DO I MAKE THIS ABOUT THE SHIP” LOL). Okay but maybe Mr Oldbag could have been an important figure in an au that someone would have reason to assassinate 🤔 :P

- BROTP(s): I guess Sirhan Dogen is the main candidate for this, although I haven’t thought about their interactions too much!

- NOTP(s): I don’t think I’ve really seen any Shelly shipping haha...

- Game/case where I like them more: Gonna go with standard JFA case for this one, but AAI2 case 1 is also just really awesome. Particularly the whole hostage thing to help Edgeworth’s investigation out.

- Random headcanon: Not headcanons about the character himself but rather in relation to him; I like to imagine how scandalised Phoenix would be if he heard that yes, Shelly de Killer, that guy Edgeworth and law enforcement at large are so intent on apprehending? The guy who kidnapped Maya? Edgeworth totally spoke kinda casually with the guy a bunch of times, and was even assisted by Shelly (you could even stretch this to perhaps argue that he COOPERATED with Shelly). Even saw Shelly face to face during AAI2 and had a chat with him. Well, yes, context, but... :P Especially without context, Phoenix would not be pleased. Not that Edgeworth would readily offer up this information to him. I think Edgeworth is in a slightly awkward position with regards to Shelly post-AAI2, at least slightly more than before, given how much help Shelly was and now having actually interacted with him in person.

Another thing I was thinking of recently is that... I think that there could be a very secretive and select group of individuals working for law enforcement SPECIFICALLY dedicated to trying to arrest Shelly and gathering as much info as possible. A highly skilled and dedicated team of say 5-10 people, and all of the information they deal with, and about them, is absolutely top secret. The group itself is secret, even, because this is dangerous work. They’re all about trying to track him down, analysing all the data they’ve gathered, you name it. Not that they have much success. But they would also over time probably veer more towards less conventional methods. Delving deeper into the criminal underworld for information, going undercover... Honestly? The closest they might come to actually getting a hold of the guy in person... is to go undercover as a client. Finding out how to hire him. It’s an awfully dangerous game they would be playing and their covers would have to be airtight.

- Unpopular opinion: I wasn’t sure how I felt about him sparing Simon. I really gotta replay AAI2, get my thoughts in order. This ties in with the “least favourite” question but I wasn’t too sure about the whole thing where Simon was considered to have broken the bond of trust for not saying it was a double and yeah I just gotta, replay the game haha. But... if a client normally recounts the ENTIRETY of the circumstances to him, expected not to leave anything out, as opposed to a simple “I want this person dead”, then I suppose that makes sense....Actually, wrong question for this but I’ll add it as a headcanon anyway: when Shelly meets with a client, part of establishing that bond of trust is kind of like the client “confiding” everything thoroughly to him, like telling a story of everything connected to, and culminating in the assassination request. He wants to know not only the who, but the why. What’s the client’s connection to and history with the target? Was there a time when they got along, were they always enemies? Is it just a political or corporate matter? It’s not about justification - Shelly doesn’t care how “justified” a client is and he certainly doesn’t judge. He just listens. None of the added information is necessary to complete the job, but divulging so much information is a demonstration of trust and helps make it clear this person is real with motivations and not an undercover person trying to arrest him or something like that. It’s also kind of an added bonus to get to hear some of the tales of intrigue that result from such meetings with clients. In the context of something like this, omitting the fact that the “president” was a double is a very serious offense.

I was gonna go on another tangent but this is already long enough lol.

----

Pearl Fey

- I hate them / I don’t like them / I’m neutral / I’m ok with them / I like them / I love them / I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

(I do love her! Just not with as much intensity as some of the other characters this series has).

- favorite thing about them: She is adorable incarnate, she is strong, and very cute

- least favorite thing about them: The fact that she was not allowed to grow as a character at all post-timeskip. I have so many complaints about older!Pearl. They took a ~17 year old character and forced her into the exact same role and characterisation as a ~nine year old! She is restricted and kept the same, and it feels deeply unnatural and kind of uncomfortable to me. The whole thing around her height too, like... why did they go out of their way to make her so short and tiny? To reinforce that we are still supposed to see her as a 9 year old? I love trilogy Pearl, I love her so much, but I find older Pearl so boring and so uninspired on top of that undercurrent of discomfort. They did nothing new with her, but in a uniquely and unnaturally limiting way in the sense that she is trapped as her trilogy self. After the timeskip the games appear to have a weird preoccupation with infantilising her because I guess they think connecting back to the trilogy (instead of doing something new) is the only way to keep us caring about her??

And like... Yes, Pearl embodies and encapsulates the cuteness and innocence of children. That’s a big part of her character and I love her for it, and I would therefore be reluctant to let that go. There’s nothing wrong with preserving stuff like that when she’s older. All I’m asking is for the games to actually put at least one new spin on her; SOMETHING that can distinguish her from her younger self so I’m not left feeling like she did not change at all in nearly ten years. A slightly different design, one (1) distinct new and different thing that sets her apart from (and potentially at odds with) her younger self, and I’d probably be happy. I don’t like what they did with her hair either. It sucks. Should’ve gone with the gorgeous inverted pretzel style.

Anyway I want to be given a reason to care about and be invested in older Pearl, an older Pearl trait that I can love older Pearl for...

- ship(s): Trupearl can be cute, but I don’t think about shipping much at all seeing as I vastly prefer her younger self, haha.

- BROTP(s): General “Pearl getting along with the gang” type dynamics haha.

- NOTP(s): Well, I do not like any implication that she has a crush on Marlon or vice versa. I really don’t like that.

- Game/case where I like them more: I’m not sure ahah. Good thing I’m trying to work through the games in Chinese on youtube so maybe I can brush up on my AA knowledge a bit.

- Random headcanon: Ok made this one up just now: When she’s slightly older she adopts the term “Narumayo” for her shipping of Phoenix and Maya. At least, the Japanese version of her where the characters have their Japanese names... lol. I guess her English-speaking self tried but failed to come up with a good name as the counterpart headcanon. Mayanix?

Actually, I guess another headcanon would be her being a hardcore shipper for any media she’s invested in. She moves away from shipping real people and onto characters, channelling all that energy elsewhere.

Or honestly, she could stick with real people and either become an Ace Matchmaker or overall consistently terrible matchmaker. Either’s good. If you combine the two, she could try to matchmake what seems to be an absolutely horrendous pair/combination of people, only for it to actually work.

- Unpopular opinion: Well, I think I already got quite opinionated above, and nothing really comes to mind to reply to this with. I might have been too harsh on older Pearl, but everything I wrote is what I genuinely felt and the impression that I was left with. That impression may be false, I’m not sure, but yeah.

[bibiko0838]

BARELY LEGAL (Chapter 10)

(KRIS’s POV)

Years ago, I wanted to spread my wings so I went to school in a different country. Away from my controlling father. Away from my overprotective and neurotic mother. I came later in their lives, way after they had given up on each other, and divorce was a paperwork and division of assets they never wanted to deal with. My father wanted to mold me in his image. I just wanted to be free from unhappiness that envelopes that house.

But I am my father’s son. The corporations we own and the people who depend on us for their jobs and livelihood mean a lot to my family. I will be the fifth generation owner of our business. Without meaning to, I found myself interested in the tiny nuances that make the business tick. A rather hostile attempt at a take over when I was fifteen made me interested in corporate law.

Xiumin was a classmate throughout our university years and until law school. We had known each other and were friendly. I like teasing him. We are roughly the same age but whereas I am an extrovert, he was the opposite. I loved talking to people, getting to know them and finding what makes them tick. Xiumin is the type to quietly observe and sit in one corner of the room brooding.

I like to be involved in group studies and hang out in coffee shops with strong wi-if signals. Xiumin disappears into the library. Or somewhere. On our final year in law school we somehow ended up as partners for a project. I followed him to his hang out because I was willing to break away from the monotony of school.

Eun Ji smiled at me shyly the first time we met. Then spilled coffee all over me. I didn’t even mind. I fell in love with her that instant. I flirted with her shamelessly and pursued her relentlessly. The first time I kissed her, I thought I saw stars. How can one tiny slip of a girl set my heart racing?

We were sitting on the warm sand on the beach, looking at the colorful sunset, she was leaning back on my chest when it finally dawned on me that I want this feeling of happiness to last forever. She made me smile again. Not the fake boisterous laughter I show the world to hide my loneliness. Not the practiced smile I give to my family’s business associates. Not the smile I give to my so called friends. But a real smile that shows the light she put in my heart. Seeing her smile, making her happy, these are the reasons I finally understood that happiness comes from within. Happiness comes from loving someone greater than you love yourself.

It was then that I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with Eun Ji. I want to marry her. However, she had only recently graduated and had already told me wants to work before settling down to married life. I would never be a hindrance to her dreams. So I quietly went around looking for a place where she can start working.

By chance, Jongdae mentioned that they needed a personal assistant with a paralegal or law background since work was starting to pile up. Xiumin was becoming well known in his field and is amassing a lot of work for their practice. Jongdae was not too far behind in his success and their fledgling practice is quickly making a name for itself.

“Hey Chen!” I need to stop blurting things out so and try to look cool.

“Wae? I’m busy.” Chen replied distractedly to me.

“Are you done hiring for that Personal Assistant job you were talking about last week?” I hope I sounded nonchalant. Eun Ji is perfect for this job but she has no work experience or personal connections in this industry save for me.

“Oh man! Do I wish! Xiumin and I are both too swamped to even post the job. And frankly I need help right now.” I can heard Chen sighing in frustration while papers were crumpling and shuffling on the background.

“Hey, my girlfriend is looking for a job. She just graduated last month. Background in paralegal too. Could you take her in for an interview?” Smooth Kris. Smooth.

“Yeah sure! But if you are just displacing one of your ex on us I swear I will kill you.” Jongdae cursed as he dropped yet another file.

“Nope. Xiumin actually probably knows her. She used to work in that diner Xiumin frequents when we were all still in school.” I was so giddy in my relief that I didn’t notice the sudden silence on the other end.

“You mean Eun Ji?” Chen asked tentatively.

“Yeah! You know my girlfriend too?” I was relieved to know that they both know her so she will not be too uncomfortable with the people she will work with.

“Not really, but she came up once or twice when Xiumin and I are drinking after work.” Like every time Xiumin-buddy is too drunk to control his thoughts and kept talking about “the one that got away”. It was obvious to Chen that Xiumin was in love with the girl long before Kris came into the picture.

“Great! Should I tell her to come in for an interview?” I was rushing I know, but I need to make sure before Chen and Xiumin hires somebody else.

“Sure. Xiumin is in court all day today so it’s probably best to have her come in tomorrow morning.” Jongdae replied and cut off the call quickly saying he’s got a client on the other line.

I called Eun Ji and gave her the good news. I thought I was doing something good. I didn’t realize that I started the ball rolling for Eun Ji and Xiumin to end up together. I want to hit them back with all the pain I felt at their betrayal. But to what end? She’s never going to love me the way she obviously loves him. As painful as this is for me. I have to let her go. I have to let my pain and anger go.

Because loving her means that I want her happiness. Even if her happiness lies in the arms of another man. Fuck! When did I start being the bigger man? With a deep sigh I dialed her phone.

“Eun Ji? I think we are overdue for a talk. Pick a time and place. I will be there.” I hope I sounded calm and neutral. My heart breaking once again shouldn’t be obvious this time. She picked a garden cafe halfway between my office and hers. I left to meet her an hour later.

“Kris.” Eun Ji nodded warily.

“Sit down. Shouldn’t pregnant women be sitting or something?” I was worried without meaning to. She looked pale and tense.

“I’m okay. What do you want from me?” She spoke softly. She always speaks like a soft breeze caressing you in the night. I miss that.

“Closure. Forgiveness. Love?” I smiled bittersweet. I threw the last one in just for the heck of it.

“Kris....” she hesitated and took a few minutes to continue. “I am sorry things turned out this way. I didn’t mean to betray you. I honestly thought I would be with you forever. I guess I could lie to everyone including myself but my heart just couldn’t keep the lie. I love Xiumin. Then. Now. Always. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Forgive us. I would like atonement for my mistakes, but I don’t know how.”

“Eun Ji,I’m sorry too for being such a jerk when I came back. It’s hard for me to accept that you and I are over. I loved you so much you know that right?” I held her hand and squeezed it lightly.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

I see her crying once again. Why is it that all I managed to do lately is make the woman I love cry all the time?

“I forgive you. Now stop crying or Xiumin will punch me again and frankly it is hard to explain a bruise on your face in court.” I gathered her in my arms one last time and kissed the top of her head like I used to do. She gave me a watery smile and a hiccup. I felt my eyes burning with unshed tears.

“Hey Xiumin. You can come out now. I think it’s your turn to say sorry.” My voice was thick with tears. I let Eun Ji go and felt the emptiness immediately. It’s taking all of my self control not to yank her back into my arms.

“Kris” my friend, Xiumin stood in front of me looking at me straight in the eye, sincere contrition bleeding from every pore in his body. I expected him to give me a formal bow. I didn’t expect him to kneel at my feet.

“I am very sorry for betraying your trust.” The tears I held at bay finally started rolling down my cheeks. It was warm, salty and cleansing.

“Get up.” I pulled him up to stand again. I looked at him eye to eye wondering what am I supposed to say to the man who stole the woman I love and betrayed my trust.

“Idiot!” I muttered before I hugged him. I felt his shoulders shaking as sobs racked his smaller frame.

“I forgive you too. But it’s not going to be easy to forget so pardon me if I prefer not to stay around the two of you for a while. But do me a favor. Don’t ever betray her. I don’t want her to go through the pain I felt.” I pushed him back to Eun Ji and I nodded at her. As quickly as I can, I left and went to my place to start packing.

There’s nothing left here for me. I have to find my own happiness now.

[magzoso-tech]

Cultivating adaptability is a pandemic coping skill

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/cultivating-adaptability-is-a-pandemic-coping-skill/

Cultivating adaptability is a pandemic coping skill

Jason Shen Contributor

Jason Shen is a three-time startup founder and the CEO of Midgame, a gaming technology company backed by Techstars and Betaworks.

It’s no secret that adaptability has become a critical trait for knowledge workers. To stay on top of a rapidly evolving world, we must assess new situations, make intelligent decisions and implement them effectively.

A 2014 research report by Barclays indicated that 60% of employers say adaptability has become more important during the last decade, and BBC called adaptability the “X factor” for career success in an era of technological change.

But even the most intrepid executive, entrepreneur or freelancer would be forgiven for struggling to adapt to a global pandemic. The impact of coronavirus has been unrelenting: hospitals at capacity, students sent home, conference cancellations, sold out inventory, markets in free fall and cities under lockdown.

Whatever you thought 2020 was going to look like, you were dead wrong. Box CEO Aaron Levie and Stanford professor Bob Sutton’s recent Twitter exchange said it all:

Not just start-ups. Every big company, every nonprofit, every government organization, and most people too

— Bob Sutton (@work_matters) March 16, 2020

This moment requires us to learn new skills, develop new habits and let go of old ways of working. In the book “Range,” there’s a chapter about “dropping familiar tools” that details how experienced professionals will overlearn specific behavior and then fail to adapt to a new circumstance. This mentality affected everyone from firefighters to aviation crews to NASA engineers, often with deadly results, and underscores how hard it can be to adapt to change.

To help us cultivate adaptability in this unprecedented moment, I sought answers in unexpected places. Here’s what I learned.

Let go of your attachments

Adaptability is required first and foremost when circumstances change. It’s easy to get attached to certain outcomes, especially when they’ve been planned long in advance or have significant emotional weight.

Due to coronavirus, a couple I know is postponing their wedding originally set for April. Having tied the knot only a year ago myself, I can’t imagine how frustrating that must be for them. But it was the right decision; demanding that the show go on would have been dangerous for their families, friends and the public at large.

I recently spoke with my friend Belinda Ju, an executive coach with a longstanding meditation practice. Non-attachment is a core concept of Buddhism, the spiritual path she’s followed for many years, and I wanted her thoughts on how that idea might help us adapt to unforeseen circumstances.

“Attachment doesn’t work because certainty doesn’t work. You can’t predict the future,” she explained. Being attached to something means “seeing the world through a false lens. Nothing is fixed.” For Ju and her clients, non-attachment doesn’t mean giving up on goals — it means focusing on what you can control.

“You might have a fixed goal of needing to raise X million dollars to keep your team afloat,” she said. “But in the age of coronavirus, investors might be slower to respond. So what are the levers in your control? What are the options you have and the pros and cons to each one?”

Her points hit home for me. As a NYC-based startup founder, I was preparing to make several trips to the West Coast to raise the next round for my company, Midgame, a digital party host for gamers.

I like pitching in person, but that’s obviously not going to happen, so I need to embrace video calls as my new reality. By doing that, I can get to stocking up on coffee, cleaning up my work space and setting up a microphone so when I do pitch over video, I’m bringing my A game.

Be present

Another way to think about adaptability is that it’s the ability to improvise. In theater, improv performers can’t rely on prewritten lines, and have to react in real time to suggestions from the audience or the words and actions of their scene partners.

“ ‘Playing the scene you’re in’ is a principle from improv which means to be present to the situation you’re in.”

That’s what Mary Lemmer told me. As an entrepreneur and VC who spent a stint at The Second City improv theater in Chicago, Lemmer knows a thing or two about having to adapt. Today, she brings her insights to corporations through training and workshops.

She explained that as an improv performer, you may start a scene with a certain idea in mind of how it will go, but that can quickly change. “If you’re not present,” she said, “then you’re not actively listening and because there’s no script, you’ll miss details. That’s when scenes fall apart.”

When I was a PM at Etsy and we had a major launch, we’d get engineering, dev ops, product, marketing and customer support together in a room to talk through the final event sequencing. These weren’t always the most exciting meetings and it was easy to get distracted by email or chat. One time engineering announced a significant last-minute issue that almost slipped through the cracks. Luckily, someone piped up with a clarifying question and we were all able to work together to minimize the issue.

Lemmer argues that in improv, like in business, you can’t make assumptions about people or situations. “We see this a lot in board meetings. People start to assume ‘Sally’ will always be the proactive one or ‘Jim’ will always be the naysayer and tune out.”

This is kind of attitude is problematic in a stable environment, but downright dangerous in an unstable situation where new data and events can quickly open up a new set of challenges and opportunities.

Early on, some experts thought the coronavirus crisis would stabilize globally by April. In early February, S&P Global stated that in the “worst-case scenario,” the virus would be contained by late May. A month later, that prediction already looked wildly optimistic.

Build mental toughness

Experts are saying now that cases may peak in May or June, which means everyone should be hunkering down for eight or more weeks of social distancing and isolation. A COVID-19 vaccine just started human trials, but testing in large enough sample sizes to identify side effects and then ramping up large-scale production still might not be fully available for more than a year.

In other words, dealing with this virus is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. A marathon no one signed up for.

Someone who knows a lot about this topic is Jason Fitzgerald. A 2:39 marathoner, Fitzgerald now helps people run faster and healthier as an author and coach.

When we spoke over the phone, he pointed out that running, unlike say basketball or gymnastics, is a sport where “you have to voluntarily want to experience more and more discomfort.”

Fitzgerald calls this ability to endure “mental toughness,” and it’s a skill we all can build. For runners, it requires doing workouts that scare them, putting in mileage that’s higher than they have in the past and racing regularly. It’s also about accepting and even embracing the pain of running hard.

The same is true for adaptation. We can train ourselves to respond better to change (we’re all getting lots of practice right now!), but developing new habits and working in new ways is always uncomfortable. As decorated cyclist Greg LeMond once said, “it doesn’t get easier, you just get faster.”

We also have to recognize that we won’t get it right every time. “The more that we get comfortable with poor performances, the more we can learn from them,” Fitzgerald said, noting that he’s had his share of bad races, including failing to finish an ultramarathon in 2015. “Sometimes you dwell on a bad race for a couple days, but then you have to just forget about it and move on with your training.”

Many of us are reeling from more cancellations, suspensions and complete one-eighties in the last month than in the last five years. But we can’t let ourselves stay bogged down by our feelings of frustration or disappointment. We accept our new reality, learn what we can from it, and keep going.

It’s clear that the people who can let go of their past plans and embrace the new environment ahead will thrive. Already we’re seeing companies pivot from live events to online webinars, and remote-first workplaces becoming the new normal. Shares of Zoom have risen even as the stock market has taken a beating and I’m sure other winners will emerge in the coming weeks and months.

But adaptability doesn’t just matter for individuals or even companies, it matters for governments. For China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, thanks to aggressive testing and quarantining efforts, life is returning, somewhat, to normal. New cases are on the decline and there’s hope of life returning to normalcy in the near future. Countries that bungled their response to the disease progression, including Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the United States, are now facing increasingly dire consequences.

Whether you want to survive a global pandemic, reach the next phase in your career or be selected on a mission to Mars, it’s hard to overstate the importance of adaptability in getting there.

[canaryatlaw]

okay, so it’s obviously later than I’d like it to be, but I still have a bit to talk about so we’ll see where this goes. Last night was WEIRD, I have no idea what was going on, but I eventually fell asleep sandwiched between two heating pads, one for my back and one for my stomach. when I woke up I felt fine though, so that was good. but since last night’s post was super short, I’m going to recap three things I would’ve mentioned had I made a full post. so, number one. I was on the train home from class and there was a woman on it with 3 small children, and one of them was upset for whatever reason, he was probably about 3 or so, so that can happen easily. but the mom was like, just getting in his face and yelling at him and like, I felt super uncomfortable with that, because it’s something abusive parents do frequently. I can’t tell from that alone that she is abusive of course but it wasn’t a good sign. so this poor little boy who had just been screamed at by his mom is forced to sit next to me while crying hysterically, and the entire train car is like, awkward silence, not knowing what to do. I paused my podcast and tried to talk to him a little, see if I could get him to calm down, but he was intent on crying and continued to do so. I felt bad for him. Like, on the one hand, everyone’s kid has meltdowns in public. it’s the reality of raising a small child. but I don’t think it’s ever justified to be screaming in the face of your 3 year old. As they were getting off she grabbed his face again and said something along the lines of “if you keep this up you’re going to get a spanking” and he had already stopped crying at this point, so that really didn't help, and while corporal punishment is still somewhat accepted in society I do think it’s child abuse (not that I would call the hotline about someone spanking their kid, but I think it’s morally wrong to hit your child in any way, ever). And of course it’s a situation where there’s nothing I can do. I have no idea who these people are, and even if I thought there was cause to call the child abuse hotline (which I wouldn’t think there was from this incident alone) I have no idea what their names are or where they live, so it would've been entirely pointless. so I just ended up feeling really frustrated, but also knowing these kind of incidents have had a very strong impact on me over the years, making me want to stand up for kids without a voice. so that happened. I got home and watched Legends, which I thought was a totally kickass episode. I loved loved loved Sara putting Rip in his place when he’s been treating the legends like shit all season and totally deserved it. I have literally zero sympathy for him because he brought this all on himself. The actual plot was kind of strange, but it worked mostly, and Zari’s stuff was great. I feel like Nate and Mick’s characterizations have been very thin so far this season, Nate is a lovable (sometimes) idiot and Mick just wants to kill things- clowns, vampires, you name it, he wants to kill it. so I was less than enthused about that. But yeah, overall good episode. Okay, last one from yesterday and then I’ll get to today (I say after I’ve already typed this whole thing). My dad had called me while I was watching legends and I let it go to voicemail because I didn’t want to stop watching the episode haha but after it was over I called him back. I had emailed him a draft of my cover letter for the district attorney’s office asking for feedback, but my brother got included in the loop because according to my dad he probably has a better idea being that he actually works for the office, but my brother is also an emotionally abusive jerk and just continued to rag on me while my younger brother egged him on saying things like “yeah, bitch” from the background. And like, I can’t really explain why, I guess I just got really triggered, because it set me off so badly. I hung up the phone and cried for a few minutes. But now I’m just really doubting if I should go back to NY after school. I don’t want to disappoint my parents, and they REALLY want me to come back, but I’ve made it clear that under no circumstances will I be moving back into their house because being there for long periods of time compromises my mental stability and I’m not fucking playing. So I don’t know what to do there. sigh. Okay, so actually today now. I woke up at 7:55 and went to PT, and felt accomplished for actually getting out of bed early two days in a row for doctors appointments that I could’ve technically put off but didn’t. That was good, I came back briefly and grabbed my things, then headed down to therapy. My therapist is definitely growing on me, we’re still kind of in that weird stage of getting to know each other but it’s been going pretty well so far. I told her about last night of course and everything that happened, and she was pretty horrified by all of it, and definitely said I should not move back there no matter what. So from there I went to the DV clinic, checked in and waited for a little bit (tried to do some reading for class tonight but mostly ended up talking to the 1L’s) and got a case. Again, won’t get into details, but it wasn’t a terribly strong case, it was mostly based on somewhat threatening text messages and him showing up at her house once, which isn’t exactly the best formula to get an OP (I usually say the golden cases are those with recent physical violence, and that the client doesn't have a criminal history otherwise the judge won't think they’re credible). But we filed, and ended up on the 4th floor with a judge I like a lot. He ended up denying the emergency, which I wasn’t surprised about, because it really could’ve gone either way. It was mostly because there weren’t any recent threats and of course no violence. the main concern was really him running off with their infant daughter, which he’s threatened to do in the past several times, but they’re currently in divorce court so they can handle custody and all that, so it shouldn’t be an issue for much longer. We got to see some of the case after us, and it was a physical violence case so of course the criminal judge asked if she filed criminal charges, and this poor woman was trying to explain to the judge the crazy things the cops told her she had to do in order to get charges filed, and I could just see the judge getting more and more irate and she went on, and he was eventually just like “I’ll be right back” and literally stormed off the bench. We had to go before he came back sadly, because I would’ve liked to have seen what had happened there; I get the feeling it would be very entertaining. I love no bullshit judges like that. Anyway, so I left the DV clinic and ended up meeting up with my friend at the same bar we were at last Wednesday, so I got a burger and we hung out until we had to go to class, so that was nice. Adoption law was fine, I ranted a little about a case where the parents were literally the *worst*, so that’s always fun. Headed home and decided to watch Riverdale because it was the only recorded show I had that I was caught up on. I’m not sure how I feel about the super dark Betty storyline they’re going with this season, like it honestly seems really creepy, which I’m sure is the point, but like, it’s not in a good way. so I don’t know where I think that’s going. Afterwards I watched an episode of Brooklyn 99, which never fails to be hilarious. And yeah, not long after that I got ready for bed, and that’s about it, so after that giant information dump I’m going to head to bed, because it’s 1:23 am right now. Goodnight babes. Stay gorgeous.

[creativesage]

(via Why Managers Should Reveal Their Failures - HBS Working Knowledge - Harvard Business School)

If you want to get your messages through to employees, be ready to confess your own management shortcomings, Alison Wood Brooks counsels.

By Dina Gerdeman                             

If you’re a business leader who oozes achievement, sprints up the corporate ladder, and earns big bucks, your co-workers probably resent you to some extent. New research says high-achievers can win over their colleagues with a simple approach: by sharing the failures they encountered on the path to success.

“If you’re highly successful, your achievements are obvious. It’s more novel and inspiring for others to learn about your mistakes,” says Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Alison Wood Brooks.

“What’s exciting about this research is that we’re trying to chip away at the resentment that comes with envy and move people toward admiration instead,” she says. “One way to do that is to acknowledge your struggles or shortcomings.”

Brooks co-wrote the February 2018 working paper, Mitigating Malicious Envy: Why Successful People Should Reveal Their Failures, with HBS doctoral students Karen Huang and Nicole Abi-Esber and professors Ryan W. Buell, Brian Hall, and Laura Huang.

Confessing our setbacks is counterintuitive; we tend to talk up achievements and hide failures. But successful leaders who only crow about achievements can come across as egotistical showoffs, stirring up “malicious envy” in their peers.

”… we’re trying to chip away at the resentment that comes with envy and move people toward admiration instead.”

Malicious envy is a destructive emotion that makes people feel inferior by comparison, even to the point of wishing they could tear down the successful person. As prior research has shown, this type of envy can be toxic in the workplace, stifling worker productivity, leading employees to behave less cooperatively, interfering with group cohesion, and making people feel more justified in behaving unethically.

“When people feel malicious envy, they engage in counterproductive work to harm other people,” Brooks says. “They tend to undermine others and try to slow them down.”

Revealing failures won’t tarnish your image

The HBS team set out to test for levels of malicious envy in different settings and to figure out strategies for tamping it down. In one online study, participants were asked to read a biography by a fictitious peer who had achieved professional success, for example by landing a prestigious, lucrative job. People who read only about the person’s achievements felt significantly more malicious envy than others who read a few extra lines describing the person’s professional failures.

The results of two similar online studies also yielded an important insight for successful people who share their failures: Colleagues have no less admiration for a leader’s accomplishments if they know about these failures, nor does it affect their perception of the person’s status.

“Even after revealing their struggles or failures, high achievers still look good,” Brooks says.

She cautioned that this effect works only for people who have reached at least moderate success. “If you’re a low-status intern, for example, you don’t need to talk as freely about your failures—not because it’s harmful—but because people don’t tend to feel envious of you in the first place.”

In another experiment, the researchers studied a different environment: a competition in which entrepreneurs vying for startup funding pitch their projects to potential investors. (The idea was to determine the effects of envy in a field setting, not whether those feelings affected the chances of winning funding.)

Some entrepreneurs listened to what they thought was an audio recording of a fellow competitor’s pitch where the person gushed only about her successes: “I have already landed some huge clients—companies like Google and GE. I’ve had amazing success, and in the past year I have single-handedly increased our market share by 200 percent.”

Meanwhile, others listened to a pitch where the entrepreneur also fessed up to facing roadblocks by adding, “I wasn’t always so successful. I had a lot of trouble getting to where I am now … When I started my company … I also failed to demonstrate why potential clients should believe in me and our mission. Many potential clients turned me down.”

The study results suggest that listeners jump to different conclusions about a leader depending on whether the person shares slipups or not. Listeners who heard the entrepreneur talk only about her achievements automatically attributed the person’s success to talent alone, and that seemed to make them feel badly about themselves by comparison. They also saw this speaker as arrogant, filled with “hubristic pride,” which turned them off.

“Even after revealing their struggles or failures, high achievers still look good.”  

On the other hand, participants who heard the entrepreneur disclose previous failures believed the person had more “authentic pride” and came across as confident rather than arrogant. They also got the impression that this entrepreneur put a lot of effort into overcoming obstacles, and that made them feel less malicious envy and more “benign envy.” Benign envy brought out warmer, fuzzier feelings, with listeners not only believing the entrepreneur was deserving of success, but also feeling motivated to improve their own performance.

How to share your faults

The research puts more credence behind interpersonal emotion regulation—when one person deliberately shapes another person’s emotional reactions during a social interaction.

We can have a lot of control over how other people feel and react to us, says Brooks. “Some people might be uncomfortable about exerting that control strategically because it might seem manipulative. But the counterargument to that is that we do it all the time.”

For example, when we choose to be polite or rude, or to give someone else compliments or not, it’s all interpersonal regulation. “If we’re doing these things anyway, why not do it in ways that are wise, productive, and kind?”

Managers can be particularly easy targets of envy, especially when they move quickly through fast-track promotion programs and their colleagues don’t. So, in discussing a promotion or a work-related reward, a manager might consider tossing in a setback encountered earlier in the person’s career to appear more confident and credible, rather than self-centered.

Other workers can relate to facing obstacles, so hearing about the successful manager’s missteps can not only decrease internal competition among colleagues, but motivate other employees to strive for success themselves. Also, in group meetings, managers could consider “humanizing” members of the team by encouraging people to share their mistakes as a team-building exercise to improve communication and collaboration.

“You can motivate your team to work harder by doing this,” Brooks says. “I know I have felt that way seeing other women who have succeeded. I want to know their tricks, how they navigated the minefields, and what mistakes they made along the way—that will help me avoid those same mistakes.”

The humble job applicant

This strategy works for job-seekers, too. If you’re asked to describe your greatest weakness in an interview, don’t use the obvious “I work too hard” response. Instead, sincerely relate a mess up and what you learned. “It’s a great opportunity to show your honesty and vulnerability,” Brooks says.

The master of the public failure strategy might be Princeton University psychology professor Johannes Haushofer, who posted a “CV of failures (pdf)” on his professional website in 2016. His laundry list of defeats included degree programs he didn’t get into, research funding he didn’t earn, and papers that were rejected by academic journals.

“Most of what I try fails, but these failures are often invisible, while the successes are visible,” Haushofer wrote on his CV. “I have noticed that this sometimes gives others the impression that most things work out for me. As a result, they are more likely to attribute their own failures to themselves, rather than the fact that the world is stochastic, applications are crapshoots, and selection committees and referees have bad days.”

The CV earned plenty of press attention and applause from fellow professionals, which doesn’t surprise Brooks.

“People find you more humble and likable when you not only reveal your successes and accomplishments, but your struggles and shortcomings, too,” she says. “If we want to see positive workplace outcomes, we shouldn’t underestimate how important it is to be seen as humble, grounded, and well-liked.”

[Entire article — click on the title link to read it at HBS Working Knowledge.]

***

You’re working on your goals, and your team’s goals. We can help you spring into action and develop a real plan that you can implement in a smart way, so you’ll start seeing results immediately, before you feel discouraged. If you feel that you’ve already gone off-track, we can help you get your focus, courage, and motivation back.

At  Creative Sage™, we often coach and mentor individual clients, as well as work teams, in the areas of change management, building resilience, making personal, career or organizational transitions — including to retirement, or an “encore career” — and facilitating development of leadership, creativity and collaboration capabilities. We also work with clients on work/life balance, finding purpose and meaning, focus and productivity issues, and how to present themselves and their ideas more effectively in professional situations.

We guide and mentor executives, entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, artists, and creative professionals of all generations, to help them more effectively implement transition processes, and to become more resilient in adjusting to rapid changes in the workplace — including learning effective coping techniques for handling failure, as well as success. We work with on-site and virtual teams.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you would like to discuss your situation. You can also call us at 1-510-845-5510 in San Francisco / Silicon Valley. Let’s talk! An initial exploratory phone conversation is free. When you talk with me, I promise that I’ll always LISTEN to you with open ears, mind and heart, to help you clarify your own unique path to a higher vista of success.

              ~Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, Executive Coach, Consultant, and Mentor.

***

[drferox]

came for the fantasy biology, stayed for everything else. Happy International Women's Day! Do you think the feminisation of veterinarian field is contributing to lower wages? In Eastern Europe, where the entire medical profession is seen as "women's work", medical doctors are paid very low wages, similar to teachers. It seems that the more women enter a field, the more it becomes undervalued and lower wages results. In the west, where medicine is male dominated, there are good wages.

Yes I do think the increasing percentage of women in veterinary medicine has contributed to the profession’s relatively low wage/ I was going to write this as a part 2 for the original post, but since you asked I’ll put in here.

Consider this Feminization of the Veterinary Industry, part 2.

As a society, we unfortunately have a tendency to perceive ‘women’s work’ as being less important. This is bollocks, but it’s a perception that exists. It’s pervasive and insidious. As society views women’s work as less valuable, it inevitably ends up viewing work done mostly by women as, by definition, ‘women’s work’. As a result work done by female vets seems to be valued less, and eventually so does the work of our entire profession.

I still see this directly sometimes. A price or estimate for a procedure given by myself is more likely to be disputed, sometimes quite aggressively, but the same arguments is not raised against estimates given by male coworkers.

There’s been a pretty good study called ‘Effect of gender on ownership and income in veterinary practice’. If you have access to the Australian Veterinary Journal you cal look up the paper directly. The data could be summaries as follows:

All age groups of vets are averaging more than full time hours

Men achieve practice ownership sooner, independent of geographical location

While new graduates are starting on similar wages despite gender ( median 39k for men and 36k for women)

While 10-20 years after graduation men are working more hours than women on average, this is still above full time hours for both groups.

20 years after graduation, when men and women are averaging 50 and 49 hours per week respectively, the average incomes are 81k and 51k respectively.

That’s female vets with the same years of experience earning 62 cents in the dollar compared to their male counterparts, for those playing at home. You might wonder whether that’s because male vets are working more hours, or because more of them are practice owners. The study wondered this too. Here are their results.

According to these results, even when female vets are working more than full time, they are still earning less than their male counterparts. Female vets that own practices are earning similar incomes to male vets who are only employed. This is disappointing when the pay scales were so equal at the early stages of the career.

There was also a study I’ve read, but cannot for the life of me find (but will offer cookies for anyone that does locate it) that collected historical wage data for veterinarians, dentists and general practitioners from around 1970 onward to compare this data to the percent of women in that field.

 At great surprise to nobody, wages were pretty similar for the three professions when all three were male dominated. But the data showed that while dentist and GP wages increased roughly with inflation, veterinarian wages increased at a lower rate, resulting in the average vet wage in the modern day being approximately half that of the other two professions.

The wage gap for new graduate veterinarians is pretty little. This is probably explained by the phenomenon of ���poaching’ male new grad vets.

In short, male new grads are a rarity. They’re outnumbered by female graduates by 4 or 5 to one. Vet clinics that really want a male new grad, often because male practice owners see something of themselves in the new grad. Male new grads seem more likely to have job offers before graduation, often from clinics they’ve done work experience at. This is what we called ‘poaching’, because these male new grads didn’t even have to hit the job market for their first job.

The wage gap for practice owners is more concerning, and I don’t have a likely reason for why this would be so, or why it would be so marked. The most likely scenario I can think of is chronic undervaluing of services and their own work.

The chronic lower income of female veterinarians, which means the majority of the vet workforce has a lower income, may have contributed to the rise of the corporate vet practice chain.

Traditionally, a practice owner who wanted to retire would sell their practice, their life’s work, to their younger associate. If your younger associate has earned less than she perhaps would have for the previous 10-20 years, suddenly the younger associate isn’t in a position to buy the business. The practice owner needs to sell their business to retire, but their protege can’t afford it. Consequently, more and more of these practices are being bought up by different corporate chains when the owner wants to retire, but doesn’t have a buyer of their own.

I don’t know anyone who sold to a corporate as their first choice. Mostly this happens because there wasn’t another buyer who could match that price. The industry in general was very resistant and hesitant about these corporate practices, but they have now secured themselves in the industry and are here to stay. Once a corporate owns a practice, they rarely if ever sell. They are more likely to close the practice and transfer the client base than to sell it.

The old style of vet clinic, the small or family business where the owner is working alongside everyone else, is slowly vanishing. It makes me profoundly uncomfortable, because I don’t believe corporate medicine is the way it should be.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am female, and work more than full time hours across two jobs. One is in a locally owned small business, and the other is in a corporate emergency center. There is so much paperwork, customer service training and difficulty getting paid at the corporate clinic, it really is a huge amount of wank. But the corporate chains are the only enterprising willing to run them.

I can get away with not doing a lot of the stupid things the corporate wants me to do because of my years of experience and knowing just how fundamentally useful I am to them, I can call their bluff. A new graduate in my position wouldn’t be able to, and that worries me.

So what can the vet industry do?

I’d like to point out that at the tie of the study referenced above, the average wage in Australia would have been around $42k per year, according to taxation records. So the wages for many of us were proving to be very, very average.

If we’re going to stem the corporate takeover of the veterinary industry, then we need to be able to pay our employed vets better. They are working in their job to eventually buy their job, if you continually underpay them they wont ever be able to buy their way up, and for women this barely seems worth doing.

The veterinary industry needs the general public to be more willing to invest in animal health and care. This likely needs greater uptake of pet insurance policies, and that industry needs to get itself organized too.

Legacy planning should be considered earlier for vets who intend to sell their practice when they retire, i.e. most of them. This should be mentioned early as a potential future, or smaller percentage buy-ins over time rather then one lump sum.

This is just one of the issues the veterinary industry is currently facing, but the chronic undervaluing of women’s labor can’t be dismissed as a factor.

Effect of gender on ownership and income in veterinary practiceAustralian Veterinary Journal, Volume 79, Issue 8, August 2001, Pages: 546–548, TJ HEATH and GE NIETHE, Version of Record online : 10 MAR 2008

This topic had been requested by my supporters on Patreon. You can gain access to early content and vote on major topics for this blog by pledging as little as $1 a month

[ralphlayton]

How B2B Marketers Can Build Their Personal Brands on Social Media

For some marketers, it’s second nature. For others, it’s uncomfortable territory. But no matter your predisposition, there’s no denying that personal brand-building is an essential skill in today’s B2B marketing environment.  It’s also fun! Cultivating your social media brand offers an opportunity to tie your own interests, passions, and perspectives into your professional identity.  Let’s explore why this is such an important focus for modern marketing practitioners, how to get it right, and how business leaders can encourage it.

Why Your Personal Brand on Social Media Matters as a Marketer

The list could go on endlessly, but at a high level, the rationale for personal brand-building on social media boils down to three key factors.

#1 - Customers connect with other people more than companies.

As much as we B2B marketers might like to believe otherwise, buyers aren’t drawn to brands. If a rapport is developed, it’s because of the people who represent those companies and build genuine human relationships.  An engaging and relatable personal brand creates a conduit for inbound interest. You don’t need to be overtly promotional. Simply talking about your industry — sharing your views and opinions — can prompt people to reach out and learn more, or to click through to your company’s pages out of interest. These are subtle triggers that generate awareness in an authentic way.  [bctt tweet="An engaging and relatable personal brand creates a conduit for inbound interest for your business. @NickNelson #B2BMarketing #B2BSocialMedia #Branding" username="toprank"]

#2 - Personal profiles get more organic reach than brand pages.

This is true of virtually all social networks. The underlying motivation of any social media company is to keep users on their sites, engaging with others. Because of the dynamic we just mentioned — humans are more drawn to other humans than faceless brands — these networks are apt to elevate content from personal accounts over organizational ones. If you’ve ever done any social media marketing, you’ve likely noticed how difficult it is to grow the reach of company content on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn without paying to amplify it.  Personal profiles offer a workaround. Creating content that aligns with your company’s narrative — or even simply re-sharing posts from the brand page via your own profile — increases the visibility of this content. Not only that, but it puts a real face on the source of the information. Here's a simple example from our own Lane Ellis.

#3 - Your career growth and success might depend on it.

Yes, growing your personal brand on social media can help your company. But more than anything, it’s a valuable focus for you. When someone wants to research you online, they are very likely to check out your social accounts first and foremost. The researcher could be a customer, who will be impressed by an active and knowledgeable presence, but also a potential employer, for whom the same will be true. Not only does an investment in growing your personal brand yield benefits for your marketability, but also for your professional network and even your capabilities. Through this undertaking, you’re bound to learn things you can apply in your job — even if the primary themes of your personal brand don’t exactly align with what your company does (more on that shortly).

How to Effectively Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media

It’s a paradox: many B2B marketers are incredibly gifted at portraying and promoting the brands they represent, but entirely uncomfortable or unfamiliar with doing the same for themselves. If that’s you, here are some tips to strengthen your results.

Find Your Rhythm

Being active on social media doesn’t mean you need to post something every hour, or even every day. It’s about finding a consistent routine that works for you and your followers. To more efficiently post content on multiple networks, or schedule batches of posts at once, take advantage of a tool like Hootsuite, Sprout, or Buffer. 

You Don’t Have to Talk About the Same Things Your Company Does

This is a misconception that seems to hold people back. Maybe you’re not all that personally interested in what your company does, or you drain yourself by talking about it all day at work. One idea is to find a particular angle of your business or industry that strikes a chord with you, and will resonate with others. For instance, if you work in the finance industry, you could make data privacy your main area of exploration. Or, you could choose to build your personal brand around something that doesn’t overlap with your company and its services. There’s benefit in growing your own audience and engagement even if it’s not the exact same audience your company serves. As one example, take my story. I started blogging about baseball long before I was an agency marketer. In 2012 I teamed up with three others to create a website called Twins Daily. My Twitter presence is mostly oriented around baseball and that community. But through this experience I’ve learned many things that make me a better marketer. I’ve broadened my platform and reach. And I’ve grown my personal network, connecting with plenty of other marketers, creatives, and brand folks who also happen to be baseball fans. Find your distinct passion and connect it to your professional identity. Just make sure the passion comes first.

Create a Balanced Approach

Maintaining a steady pipeline of interesting stories and commentary to share on your personal account is easier said than done. When it comes to refining your social media mix, SAP’s* Head of Global Influencer Marketing Ursula Ringham shared some sage wisdom with our Caitlin Burgess in her Digital Marketing Spotlight interview. Ursula situates her social output around her “five truths”: 

My work

My family

My passion

Sports

Third-party voices

This is a good framework. Define a similar mix that aligns with your passion/professional sweet spot, and use these truths as pillars for your content strategy. [bctt tweet="The bottom line here is: Be authentic. Be yourself (or your brand). But be strategic. — @ursularingham" username="toprank"]

Stand Out and Be Fascinating

“Don’t underrate your ability to fascinate,” urged NYT best-selling author Sally Hogshead in her interview with Lee Odden on personal branding for marketers back in 2015. “In a sense, most of us were schooled to avoid being too fascinating. As kindergartners we’re taught to stand in line for class. Color within the lines. Raise a hand. Wait your turn. Standing out is labeled as misbehaving.” [bctt tweet="You will not win by being invisible. Today, you win by being seen and remembered. Stand out, or don’t bother. — @SallyHogshead" username="toprank"] Sally's insights are just as relevant today. Just as companies need to differentiate themselves and rise above the saturated market, you’ll want to do the same with your personal brand in a social media world populated by billions of other people. Use your marketing brain to understand what will get noticed and drive engagement — catchy headlines, provocative angles, trendy topics, bold imagery, etc. 

How B2B Companies Can Support Personal Brand-Building from Employees

If you’re a CMO or another business leader who sees the value in personal brand-building for employees, but you’re struggling to promote the practice within your ranks, here are a few ideas to get things moving. 

Implement an Employee Advocacy Program: Whether using a dedicated platform (LinkedIn Elevate* is among the most popular) or a more informal system run by people within your company, an employee advocacy program generates a pipeline of brand-approved content or articles that people in your company can easily access and share through their own networks. This is helpful because it removes the common reluctance among employees about getting in trouble for sharing or saying the wrong things. It can also make it easier for non-marketers to get on board.

Lead by Example: When executives use their personal networks to dispense thought leadership and speak on behalf of the brand, it’s powerful. And when employees see this behavior, it can provide them with encouragement and a model to follow. 

Make It Inviting and Natural: The problem with many corporate-driven advocacy initiatives? “It’s so nakedly promotional, it’s like a commercial,” Jay Baer opines in a B2B Spotlight interview on the convergence of customer experience and employee advocacy. “Nobody’s gonna put that on their personal social media. They’re trying to turn employees into shills and nobody’s down with that.” For guidance on steering clear of this pitfall, I highly recommend watching the portion of Jay and Lee’s conversation that starts around the 9-minute mark in this video:

To learn more about personal brand-building and how it can align with a company’s marketing goals, check out Caitlin’s post on How Employee Engagement Helps Drive the Success of Your Marketing Efforts. *Disclosure: LinkedIn and SAP are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post How B2B Marketers Can Build Their Personal Brands on Social Media appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How B2B Marketers Can Build Their Personal Brands on Social Media published first on yhttps://improfitninja.blogspot.com/

[samuelpboswell]

How B2B Marketers Can Build Their Personal Brands on Social Media

For some marketers, it’s second nature. For others, it’s uncomfortable territory. But no matter your predisposition, there’s no denying that personal brand-building is an essential skill in today’s B2B marketing environment.  It’s also fun! Cultivating your social media brand offers an opportunity to tie your own interests, passions, and perspectives into your professional identity.  Let’s explore why this is such an important focus for modern marketing practitioners, how to get it right, and how business leaders can encourage it.

Why Your Personal Brand on Social Media Matters as a Marketer

The list could go on endlessly, but at a high level, the rationale for personal brand-building on social media boils down to three key factors.

#1 - Customers connect with other people more than companies.

As much as we B2B marketers might like to believe otherwise, buyers aren’t drawn to brands. If a rapport is developed, it’s because of the people who represent those companies and build genuine human relationships.  An engaging and relatable personal brand creates a conduit for inbound interest. You don’t need to be overtly promotional. Simply talking about your industry — sharing your views and opinions — can prompt people to reach out and learn more, or to click through to your company’s pages out of interest. These are subtle triggers that generate awareness in an authentic way.  [bctt tweet="An engaging and relatable personal brand creates a conduit for inbound interest for your business. @NickNelson #B2BMarketing #B2BSocialMedia #Branding" username="toprank"]

#2 - Personal profiles get more organic reach than brand pages.

This is true of virtually all social networks. The underlying motivation of any social media company is to keep users on their sites, engaging with others. Because of the dynamic we just mentioned — humans are more drawn to other humans than faceless brands — these networks are apt to elevate content from personal accounts over organizational ones. If you’ve ever done any social media marketing, you’ve likely noticed how difficult it is to grow the reach of company content on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn without paying to amplify it.  Personal profiles offer a workaround. Creating content that aligns with your company’s narrative — or even simply re-sharing posts from the brand page via your own profile — increases the visibility of this content. Not only that, but it puts a real face on the source of the information. Here's a simple example from our own Lane Ellis.

#3 - Your career growth and success might depend on it.

Yes, growing your personal brand on social media can help your company. But more than anything, it’s a valuable focus for you. When someone wants to research you online, they are very likely to check out your social accounts first and foremost. The researcher could be a customer, who will be impressed by an active and knowledgeable presence, but also a potential employer, for whom the same will be true. Not only does an investment in growing your personal brand yield benefits for your marketability, but also for your professional network and even your capabilities. Through this undertaking, you’re bound to learn things you can apply in your job — even if the primary themes of your personal brand don’t exactly align with what your company does (more on that shortly).

How to Effectively Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media

It’s a paradox: many B2B marketers are incredibly gifted at portraying and promoting the brands they represent, but entirely uncomfortable or unfamiliar with doing the same for themselves. If that’s you, here are some tips to strengthen your results.

Find Your Rhythm

Being active on social media doesn’t mean you need to post something every hour, or even every day. It’s about finding a consistent routine that works for you and your followers. To more efficiently post content on multiple networks, or schedule batches of posts at once, take advantage of a tool like Hootsuite, Sprout, or Buffer. 

You Don’t Have to Talk About the Same Things Your Company Does

This is a misconception that seems to hold people back. Maybe you’re not all that personally interested in what your company does, or you drain yourself by talking about it all day at work. One idea is to find a particular angle of your business or industry that strikes a chord with you, and will resonate with others. For instance, if you work in the finance industry, you could make data privacy your main area of exploration. Or, you could choose to build your personal brand around something that doesn’t overlap with your company and its services. There’s benefit in growing your own audience and engagement even if it’s not the exact same audience your company serves. As one example, take my story. I started blogging about baseball long before I was an agency marketer. In 2012 I teamed up with three others to create a website called Twins Daily. My Twitter presence is mostly oriented around baseball and that community. But through this experience I’ve learned many things that make me a better marketer. I’ve broadened my platform and reach. And I’ve grown my personal network, connecting with plenty of other marketers, creatives, and brand folks who also happen to be baseball fans. Find your distinct passion and connect it to your professional identity. Just make sure the passion comes first.

Create a Balanced Approach

Maintaining a steady pipeline of interesting stories and commentary to share on your personal account is easier said than done. When it comes to refining your social media mix, SAP’s* Head of Global Influencer Marketing Ursula Ringham shared some sage wisdom with our Caitlin Burgess in her Digital Marketing Spotlight interview. Ursula situates her social output around her “five truths”: 

My work

My family

My passion

Sports

Third-party voices

This is a good framework. Define a similar mix that aligns with your passion/professional sweet spot, and use these truths as pillars for your content strategy. [bctt tweet="The bottom line here is: Be authentic. Be yourself (or your brand). But be strategic. — @ursularingham" username="toprank"]

Stand Out and Be Fascinating

“Don’t underrate your ability to fascinate,” urged NYT best-selling author Sally Hogshead in her interview with Lee Odden on personal branding for marketers back in 2015. “In a sense, most of us were schooled to avoid being too fascinating. As kindergartners we’re taught to stand in line for class. Color within the lines. Raise a hand. Wait your turn. Standing out is labeled as misbehaving.” [bctt tweet="You will not win by being invisible. Today, you win by being seen and remembered. Stand out, or don’t bother. — @SallyHogshead" username="toprank"] Sally's insights are just as relevant today. Just as companies need to differentiate themselves and rise above the saturated market, you’ll want to do the same with your personal brand in a social media world populated by billions of other people. Use your marketing brain to understand what will get noticed and drive engagement — catchy headlines, provocative angles, trendy topics, bold imagery, etc. 

How B2B Companies Can Support Personal Brand-Building from Employees

If you’re a CMO or another business leader who sees the value in personal brand-building for employees, but you’re struggling to promote the practice within your ranks, here are a few ideas to get things moving. 

Implement an Employee Advocacy Program: Whether using a dedicated platform (LinkedIn Elevate* is among the most popular) or a more informal system run by people within your company, an employee advocacy program generates a pipeline of brand-approved content or articles that people in your company can easily access and share through their own networks. This is helpful because it removes the common reluctance among employees about getting in trouble for sharing or saying the wrong things. It can also make it easier for non-marketers to get on board.

Lead by Example: When executives use their personal networks to dispense thought leadership and speak on behalf of the brand, it’s powerful. And when employees see this behavior, it can provide them with encouragement and a model to follow. 

Make It Inviting and Natural: The problem with many corporate-driven advocacy initiatives? “It’s so nakedly promotional, it’s like a commercial,” Jay Baer opines in a B2B Spotlight interview on the convergence of customer experience and employee advocacy. “Nobody’s gonna put that on their personal social media. They’re trying to turn employees into shills and nobody’s down with that.” For guidance on steering clear of this pitfall, I highly recommend watching the portion of Jay and Lee’s conversation that starts around the 9-minute mark in this video:

To learn more about personal brand-building and how it can align with a company’s marketing goals, check out Caitlin’s post on How Employee Engagement Helps Drive the Success of Your Marketing Efforts. *Disclosure: LinkedIn and SAP are TopRank Marketing clients.

The post How B2B Marketers Can Build Their Personal Brands on Social Media appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

from The SEO Advantages https://www.toprankblog.com/2019/11/how-b2b-marketers-build-personal-social-brand/

[cynthiadshaw]

What’s the Most Important Lesson You’ve Learned Along Your Journey?

Every twist in our story, challenge we face, and obstacle we overcome is an important part of our story.  These difficulties make us stronger and wiser and prepare us for what’s ahead.  As we grow and succeed we may imagine that soon the challenges will fade away, but in our conversations with business owners, artists, creatives, academics, and others we have learned that the most common experience is that challenges never go away – instead they get more complex as we grow and succeed.  Our ability to to thrive therefore depends heavily on our ability to learn from our experiences and so we are asking some of the city’s best and brightest: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?

Renae Owens | Founder of The Millennial Market & I Am Still Human

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey so far is you can’t run a business without consistency & connections. Those are the main keys of success! Without consistency nobody will believe you & how serious your are in business. You won’t be able to grow and connect with your target audience without consistency. Personal connections & engagement with your audience and even your competitors will allow your brand to go farther than you can imagine!

Millennialmkt.com  @The.millennial.market  @Iam.still.human 

Nadia Massey | Dallas Makeup Artist

topshopculture

The most important lesson I’ve learned through out my journey so far… quality is definitely more important than quantity, and consistency is key to all accomplishments. Successful people do consistently what everyone else does occasionally.

Ariel Hayes | Biology Major | HBCU Cheerleader

I’ve learned that God is the only person you have at the end of the day. That’s one person you can vent to that will actually listen and forever be by your side. No matter what you go through God is the only person that will be able to turn things around. Without him I’m nothing. God is a daily medicine and if you don’t seek him it’s hard to keep going.

@WeKnowShe_Ariel youtube.com/channel/UCyF_Iace26MOEgz2iA0MPNA?view_as=subscriber

Ramon Medina | Personal Trainer & Donut Enthusiast

I’ve learned that every experience, good or bad, is a chance to learn and grow. The best trainers in the industry are the trainers that are always willing to learn more, whether that be different movement styles, training techniques, or from life mistakes. Fitness is always progressing and when you box yourself in, you miss out on the opportunity to give your clients a well rounded transformation. Stay open to change, stay open to suggestions, be willing to be part of a team, and always be willing to trust and learn from those around you.

@bodyxramon

Arianna Klaus | sustainable fashion enthusiast & creative

Most important lesson so far: don’t let fear/perfectionism get in the way of creating and doing what you love! We can go our whole lives with the self-imposed limitations and never start anything because we think it’s not good enough or that it won’t work. Freeing your perspective from those thoughts frees YOU to live fully and more abundantly.

youtube.com/therecreative

Janie Lovvorn | Mom | Blogger & Photographer

The most important lesson I’ve learned is to never underestimate the peace that comes when we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ. No matter what we face in life, there is hope knowing that the creator of it all loves us unconditionally and has a plan for you and me. This relationship continues to encourage me daily in so many ways – not to worry, to live a life of gratitude and to love as Jesus loved.

Joshua Graphk Argee | Recording artist

I’ve learned over time to put nothing over God and Family.

youtube.com/user/Goondox916

Kandrea Kincaid | beauty influencer

The most important lesson I’ve learned is that no one path is the same. Everyone’s journey is different. It won’t happen for you, the same way it happened for someone else. What’s for you, IS FOR YOU!

@_kaye.slay

Jarren Avery | Artist & Entrepreneur

The most important lesson I’ve learned so far is patience! You must have patience with yourself, the process; and most importantly, others. Fall in love with the journey and the destination doesn’t seem as far.

linktr.ee/jarrenavery @jarrenavery

Avis Clewis | Personal Stylist

The most important lesson I’ve learned on my journey is that you have to be your own support system. You have to genuinely believe in yourself first, before expecting anyone else to.

@therealavis youtu.be/CZ3mGtYUCdm

Kendrick and Dairon Houston of The Sole Proprietorz | YouTube content creators and sneaker connoisseurs

Our most important lesson would be to trust the process. It isn’t easy to trust the happenings and events of life when nothing is in our favor, and it isn’t easy to be optimistic about it. But that’s where our toughness and resilience is being tested. People who don’t trust the process of their lives cannot expect to excel. With persistence and hard work dreams can become a reality. Our most important lesson would be to trust the process. It isn’t easy to trust the happenings and events of life when nothing is in our favor, and it isn’t easy to be optimistic about it. But that’s where our toughness and resilience is being tested. People who don’t trust the process of their lives cannot expect to excel. With persistence and hard work dreams can become a reality. Our most important lesson would be to trust the process. It isn’t easy to trust the happenings and events of life when nothing is in our favor, and it isn’t easy to be optimistic about it. But that’s where our toughness and resilience is being tested. People who don’t trust the process of their lives cannot expect to excel. With persistence and hard work dreams can become a reality.

youtube.com/TheSoleProprietorz @TheSoleProprietorz youtu.be/CZ3mGtYUCdm

Allyson Nick | Creator of Mommy’s Making Moves and Release Coach

@bitmevents

The biggest thing I have learned while on this journey of starting my business, is that everything is in God’s control. Sometimes we don’t feel capable or worthy of the gifts God gave us but He gave us those gifts because He knows we are capable of using them to a larger capacity. Keep your faith and God as the head of your life and business. Also, mom friends, we have to have time to relax! If you are running on fumes then what are you serving your family? There are different levels of release but the biggest is time to yourself for 20 minutes at least 4 times a week.

  @mommysmakingmoves @mommysmakingmoves

Tru White | Plant Dyed Vintage Designer & Herbalist

Across all my hardships and all my learning, I’ve found that we as the human species bring a special medicine to the earth, just as the plants and the animals. The ability to consciously love and laugh is unique to us. Sharing the two as often as possible is the surest path to healing our lands and it’s living inhabitants.

@trufolk @seasonedfolk

Rawleigh Williams | Sports Management Professional | Graduate Student

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey so far is that if I’m going to fail, I’m going to fail doing what I think is best for me and my career. If you fail doing what others think you should do, you resent them. If you fail doing what you think you should do, you learn from it.

@the3rdRawleigh @the3rdRawleigh linkedin.com/in/rawleigh-williams-9a863710a

Ashton Thompson | UTA Arch. Student & Photographer

You shouldn’t get caught up in trying to force things to happen in a specific way or at a specific time. All that matters is you give it your best effort, and if it happens, it happens.

@ashtroe

Kayla McCain | Entrepreneur and Freelance Writer

The most important lesson I’ve learned in my journey this far? Well, I left the corporate world because I became sick with a vestibular disorder known as vestibular migraine i.e. chronic dizziness. I was unable to work in a normal office setting, so it left me with one option if I wanted to keep growing in my career – I had to start my own business. For years, I freelanced on the side and had always talked about running my own marketing and communications shop, but it took getting sick for me to pursue it. I’ve always been capable, driven and a self-starter, but I had to be pushed to uncomfortable boundaries for me to realize and accomplish a dream I had for so long. I’ve lived by the quote, “Don’t Quit Your Day Dream.”

The real lesson here? To never doubt yourself and know that you can do anything you set your mind to.

@True_Kaylaisms KaylaMcCain.com TrueKaylaisms.com

Gregory Brown | Songwriter | Producer and Stylist

I believe what inspires me consistently is to remember that patience is a virtue. I take a deep breath and I say that. It applies to all aspects of my life since I am impatient. A super important lesson I hold dearly to myself.

open.spotify.com/artist/77hSHpEnXapDFSkJfNbzsO?si=VFpDg-1QQryMJx5_h_w_BA  @heygreghello

  Maggy Doherty, MS RD LD | Doherty Nutrition LLC

Learning how to pick yourself up after a hard day or bad news. Whether it’s going on a long walk, making a bubble bath, ordering in from your favorite restaurant, or pouring a nice glass of wine…. When you’re not having a good day, figure your personal secret to make your day a little better.

dohertynutrition@gmail.com dohertynutrition.com

The post What’s the Most Important Lesson You’ve Learned Along Your Journey? appeared first on Voyage Dallas Magazine | Dallas City Guide.

source http://voyagedallas.com/2019/07/10/whats-important-lesson-youve-learned-along-journey/

[ronaldmrashid]

Financial Samurai Mid-Year 2018 Investment Review And Outlook

After the 10% 1Q correction, I did a lot of reflecting and decided that I had too much risk exposure. As a result, I decided to move from roughly a 70/30 stock/bond weighting down to a 55/45 stock/bond weighting by selling stocks when the market clawed back to even and buying a slug of bonds after the 10-year yield breached 3%.

Overall, my public investment portfolio is up 4.7% vs. +1.5% for the S&P 500. My portfolio was largely helped by positions in Netflix (+80%), Amazon (+78%), Google (+20%), Omega Healthcare (+15%), and Facebook (+9%), and hurt by a couple individual California municipal bonds bought in 2017 (-4%, -6.1%). The muni bonds will eventually pay par value (0%), but in the meantime, they are underperforming.

Bonds (45% of portfolio)

I wrote in my 2018 outlook post that I thought 3% would be the cap on the 10-year yield in 2018, despite an estimated four additional Fed Funds rate hikes for the year. Therefore, when the 10-year yield broke 3% on 5/15/2018, I backed up the truck and bought a couple bond ETFs between 5/15/2018 – 5/17/2018.

Here’s a snapshot of about $360,000 worth of bond ETF purchases in one after-tax investment account. The right column is the cash balance. I bought more California muni bonds in my other after-tax account. The right column is the cash balance in one account after selling stock when the S&P 500 rebounded.

I believe we’ve seen the top for the 10-year bond yield this year. By the time the Fed raises rates two more times, the yield curve will be flat-to-inverted, portending to a recession. As the fear of a recession grows, there should be a steady demand for treasury bonds, which will keep a lid on yields.

With the overall portfolio up 4.7% for the year, I’m tempted to go 100% treasury bonds if the 10-year yield gets back up to 3.1% to lock in a conceivable 6% – 7% total return for the year. Alas, my greed for higher returns keeps me invested in stocks.

Stocks (55% of portfolio)

The only portfolio I’m trying to get right is my “house sale proceeds” portfolio. Making money with the house had been so easy since 2012, that I didn’t want to mess up the proceeds. I’ve more or less left my other portfolios alone because I’m comfortable with their respective asset allocations.

According to my weekly performance e-mail I get from Personal Capital, my You Index for July 1, 2018 says I’m up 5.89% YTD. The You Index is the performance of all of your current stock, cash, ETF, and mutual fund holdings. It does not include your individual bonds, options, or other alternatives, hence why it’s higher than my +4.7% overall performance.

Originally, I thought I’d be OK investing most of my house sale proceeds in risk assets because I had already de-risked by $815,000 by paying off the mortgage, but I was wrong about the stock portion. Losing $50,000 at one point in February in stocks made me uncomfortable.

After selling some core S&P 500 holdings in the first half of March when the S&P 500 recovered 65% of its loss, I began repurchasing stock in early April and the end of June to get my stock portfolio weighting up to ~55%. The second half of June was weak in the stock market, so I decided to rebuild my position.

Here’s a snapshot of buying roughly $100,000 worth of core index ETFs during the June sell-off, including $15,404.95 of Netflix after its 6% sell-off. My general policy for over a decade has been to purchase between 10% – 20% of my investable assets in single stock names. I’ll write more about this strategy in the future because it has made all the difference.

Currently, I’ve got roughly $55,000 cash left to deploy in my “house proceeds portfolio” before having to transfer new cash from my savings account if so desired. There are a lot of moving parts to my investments to keep track of, which is why I’ve been toying with hiring a financial advisor to manage everything. But by continuing to outperform so far, I’m probably just going to suck it up and continue managing everything myself.

My #1 goal is to not sell anything in my house proceeds portfolio for the remainder of the year, and only contribute when there is further weakness in either the stock or bond market. I think I’ve finally constructed a portfolio that matches my risk tolerance, but we shall see how the portfolio holds up when volatility strikes again.

Real Estate Crowdfunding

I had dinner with RealtyShares on June 27, 2018 to get an update about their latest operations. At the dinner were the Senior Director of Capital Markets, Director of Asset Management, and VP of Investor Sales and Client Success.

I was pleased to learn that RealtyShares has set up more Investment Committees to vet each deal before hitting their platform. In the past, there was just one large Investment Committee that looked at all deals to let 5% of them onto the platform. Now each deal must be approved by multiple Investment Committees. Further, management has aligned Investment Committee compensation with the performance of each deal they approve. Hence, if a deal performs poorly, Investment Committee members who voted for the deal will get dinged.

With more eyeballs looking at each deal, the end result should be better deals for investors. Of course there are no return guarantees, but as an investor, it is reassuring to know that even before I do any due diligence on a project I like, RealtyShares has already done more due diligence than ever before.

The equity fund I’m in closed two more deals in 1H for a total of 17 deals. One of the deals was an office building in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a 5-year target hold and a target 15.3% IRR.

The other deal was a student housing complex in Toledo, Ohio with a 24-month target hold and an 18.4% target IRR. Both deals look fine to me because I’m looking for any real estate exposure outside of the San Francisco Bay Area where I still own two properties and one property in Lake Tahoe.

In the beginning of June, I received a surprise $5,855 dividend payment. It’s nice to have, but I’ve reached my limit for the amount of capital gains and ordinary income I want to receive in 2018. As an S-Corp owner, you have some flexibility in how much you can pay yourself between salary and distributions to manage your tax liability.

Based on my dinner conversation with the folks at RealtyShares, the fund is on pace to reach its target IRR of 15% over five years, but I’m not holding my breath. If I can get an 8% IRR, I’ll be ecstatic. For those of you looking to invest in a fund as well, you might get a chance in 2H2018. I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Surprise $5,855 dividend payment in June given all deals are equity

Other Investments

Venture Debt – I had a capital call for $30,000 from my second venture debt fund investment. The fund has investments in an online beauty company, three hardware device companies, a semiconductor company, and a couple software companies. I have zero insight into these companies, and they all seem pretty random to me, but I trust the fund managers know what they are doing. One of the co-founders is a Berkeley business school classmate I’ve known since 2003.

Financial Samurai – I had two inquiries about selling Financial Samurai. One inquiry was from an individual who had no idea what he was talking about. But the second inquiry was from a boutique investment bank representing a publicly listed company out of Europe. It’s nice to feel wanted, but I don’t plan to entertain offers until after July 2019 because I promised myself I’d own and operate Financial Samurai for 10 years. In a low-interest rate environment, you want to be buying strong cash flow assets, not selling. Further, this site is fun and easy to operate. I’d love to use it as a business and communications teaching platform for my son.

Physical Real Estate – I’ve been eyeing some beach homes on Oahu and they are all coming down in price. The weakness sets up nicely for when we plan to move to Honolulu before my son starts kindergarten in 2022-2023. I’m also noticing some random opportunities in SF as well. For example, the house I put a low ball offer for in May is still on the market. Summer is one of the best seasons to hunt for relative bargains.

Tennis in the morning, beach with the family in the afternoon, blogging in the evening sounds good.

Net Worth +6.7% But Stalling

Despite strong corporate earnings growth, it feels like we’re going to be stuck in a +/- 5% range for the S&P 500 and a 2.75% – 3.11% range for the 10-year bond yield. If the Fed really does raise the Fed Funds rate two more times by the end of the year, I’d be looking to buy more defensive assets to prepare for weakness ahead.

I like my relatively defensive 55/45 portfolio + real estate crowdfunding exposure away from expensive coastal cities. The inland empire has more room to run, but even it will eventually face headwinds, hence my 8% return expectation versus 15% target. I’ve also still got about 10% of my liquid net worth in cash.

If someone gave me a chance to lock in a 8% overall public investment return for the year, I’d take it. For a blue sky scenario, we could see bonds stay flat with the S&P 500 rallying by 10% by year-end, but I doubt it. There are just so many headwinds.

1H2018 net worth growth, the kinks are due to trade delay recognitions

Overall, my net worth has grown by 6.7% YTD according to my Personal Capital dashboard. This is because savings tacked on about 2%. I’ve left my private investments and real estate values the same, which could provide some upside surprise.

Remember to always establish some goals for your investments. If you do, you’ll be much more focused on getting your investments right.

My main goal for my house proceeds portfolio is to have enough money to buy a beach home in Hawaii. If I can grow the portfolio by 5% a year for the next 3-4 years while the Hawaiian housing market continues to soften, dreams will come true.

How are you positioning your investments for 2H2018? How have you done so far? What are you investing for?

https://www.financialsamurai.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Financial-Samurai-first-Half-2018-investment-review.m4a

The post Financial Samurai Mid-Year 2018 Investment Review And Outlook appeared first on Financial Samurai.

from https://www.financialsamurai.com/financial-samurai-mid-year-2018-investment-review-and-outlook/

[cryptobully-blog]

Dow fights to hold gains as Nasdaq stumbles lower

https://cryptobully.com/dow-fights-to-hold-gains-as-nasdaq-stumbles-lower/

Dow fights to hold gains as Nasdaq stumbles lower

U.S. equity benchmarks switched between gains and losses on Wednesday as the market struggled to find purchase higher following Tuesday’s technology-driven rout.

Trading on the session was unusually choppy as investors digested upbeat data on U.S. economic growth and home sales, against the backdrop of concerns about the battered tech sector, with one day remaining in an abbreviated week, as the market will be closed a day early in observance of Good Friday.

See: Which markets are closed on Good Friday?

What are the main benchmarks doing?

Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.13% lost 21 points, or 0.1%, to 23,835, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.02% fell 11 points, or 0.4%, to 2,601, with tech and consumer-discretionary names, led by a drop in Amazon.com Inc. shares AMZN, -5.06% weighing.

The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.51% was recently down 90 points, or 1.3%, at 6,921.

On Tuesday, a tumble for tech equities helped drag the overall market lower. The Nasdaq shed 211.74 points, or 2.9%, to reach 7,008.81, while the Dow dropped 1.4% and the S&P 500 index fell 1.7%.

Investors are facing hefty losses for March. The Dow is looking at a 4.7% decline, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are on course to fall by 3.7% and 3.6%, respectively.

Read: The Dow and S&P 500 have already doubled the number of 1% moves seen in all of 2017

What’s driving markets?

The wreck in tech stocks was weighing on the broader market because the technology sector, notably shares of Facebook, Amazon, Apple Inc., Netflix and Google parent Alphabet Inc., commonly known by the acronym FAANG, have powered the lion’s share of the markets advance.

On Tuesday, concerns were piling up for big tech names. Tesla Inc. TSLA, -6.87%  is facing an investigation of a fatal crash of one of the company’s electric cars in California last week, with its shares off 8.1%. Nvidia Corp. NVDA, -1.81%  is halting tests of self-driving cars over the recent death of a pedestrian hit by an Uber Technologies Inc. vehicle. Shares Nvidia were down 2.6%.

Meanwhile, Facebook Inc. FB, +0.42%  said it would streamline privacy settings, which helped to provide a modest lift to a the company’s persistent slump. Facebook is contending with backlash over how it managed user data, which was obtained by Cambridge Analytica.

Three people plan to sue the social-networking company over alleged privacy violations. Its shares took a hit Tuesday over reports CEO Mark Zuckerberg would face a Congress grilling over handling of user data, while news of a probe by the Federal Trade Commission also took a toll.

Read: Tech stocks face a ‘dumpster fire’—but here’s how that could be bullish

Investors were also looking at the geopolitical front, where China confirmed a visit from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and reportedly told Chinese President Xi Jinping that the country was committed to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

That prompted a tweet from President Donald Trump who said he got a message from Xi that the meeting went “very well.”

Received message last night from XI JINPING of China that his meeting with KIM JONG UN went very well and that KIM looks forward to his meeting with me. In the meantime, and unfortunately, maximum sanctions and pressure must be maintained at all cost!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

Investors have spent part of March fretting about trade sanctions the U.S. was planning to impose on other countries, but worries on that front have calmed in recent sessions.

Treasury yields will likely stay in focus, after the yield on the 10-year Treasury note TMUBMUSD10Y, -0.98% on Tuesday hit 2.75%, its lowest in about seven weeks, on worries about President Donald Trump’s protectionist trade policies.

Bond yields move inversely to prices, and a rally implies investors have been seeking a haven in bonds, away from stocks.

Read: Why stock-market investors should embrace a flattening yield curve—for now

What are strategists saying?

Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco, said the handoff between Federal Reserve bosses Jerome Powell and former central-bank leader Janet Yellen last month, has helped to insert more volatility into the market.

“That introduced greater uncertainty about monetary policy after years of extreme accommodation and that is changing the market dynamic,” Hooper explained. She said volatility represents a return to normal but said “Many investors don’t remember those norms.”

“It does feel to me that people are getting a little uncomfortable with stocks and that’s partly pushing bond buys,” said Randy Frederick, managing director of Trading & Derivatives at Schwab Center for Financial Research.

“Essentially, it is a breakdown across to the board of the FAANG stocks and if that breakdown happens does it spill into all tech? I think so to some extent that it will, just because that group has been not only the biggest of the tech names but the leading names in that sector,” Frederick said.

“This week is a peculiar one, with very little tier-1 data pending for release, and with a holiday weekend coming up, liquidity should be lower than usual,” said Konstantinos Anthis, researcher at ADS Securities.

“However, we need to keep in mind that it’s also the end of the month and fiscal quarter, which means that large institutions and corporate names are closing off positions to book profits or limit losses,” he said in a note to clients.

Which stocks are in focus?

U.S.-listed shares of Shire PLC SHPG, +15.72% SHP, +13.93%  surged about 14% after Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. 4502, -0.32%  said it was considering making an offer for the Irish biopharma company.

Shares of Amazon.com AMZN, -5.06% tumbled 6.7%, to put it in correction territory, after a report that President Donald Trump wants to go after the e-commerce giant.

BlackBerry Ltd. BB, -0.08%  shares were trading flat, paring earlier gains on Wednesday after profit and sales beat expectations.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. WBA, +0.15%  was that the break-even level after the drugstore chain posted results that beat expectations and raised its guidance.

Tesla’s shares were down 9.3%. After Tuesday’s close, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Tesla’s corporate debt rating to B3 from B2, citing liquidity pressures.

Twitter TWTR, +1.23% traded little changed. Shares tumbled 12% Tuesday after Citron Research said it would short the stock, citing the social-media company’s vulnerability to privacy regulation.

What data are in focus?

The pace of growth in the economy in the fourth quarter of 2017 was boosted to 2.9% from 2.5%, reflecting the biggest increase in consumer spending in three years and higher investment in business inventories.

Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast an annualized 2.8% reading in the government’s latest revision of gross domestic product.

Meanwhile, advance retail inventories rose 0.4% in February, while wholesale inventories climbed by 1.1% during that month.

Separately, pending-home sales rose 3.1% to 107.5 in February, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. Economists had forecast a 3.0% increase.

Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic will take part in an armchair chat at The Buckhead Club in Atlanta at 11:30 a.m.

Check out: MarketWatch’s Economic Calendar

See: Is the pressure off? Inflation likely to die down in February, but don’t get used to it

What are other markets doing?

European stocks SXXP, +0.27% pared losses, while Asian markets fell on losses driven by tech shares.

Oil prices were under pressure ahead of weekly U.S. stockpile data. Gold futures GCJ8, -1.04% were lower, and the ICE U.S. Dollar Index DXY, +0.51% DXY, +0.51% was up.

Markets

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What Exactly Is Orangetheory Fitness—and Should I Try It?

If an Orangetheory Fitness hasn’t yet popped up in your neighborhood, chances are, it’s likely not long before it moves in. The boutique fitness franchise has over 860 open studios, with 771 in the United States alone. Compare that number to the (significantly fewer) 82 studios SoulCycle has within the States and Canada, and it seems like a new fitness method has officially overshadowed the cult-like, dance cardio cycling conglomerate.

Head to the Orangetheory Fitness site, and you’ll be transported to a home page featuring high-res videos of individuals who are the definition of #fitnessgoals accompanied by bold claims, like the workout itself is scientifically proven to give you a longer, more vibrant life, and will armour you with increased energy, greater strength, and better fitness results.

EDITOR'S PICK

With promises of a stronger body and a better life, Orangetheory seems like the ideal workout. But what actually happens during a 60-minute class? And do these claims actually hold up IRL?

We dug into the science behind the interval-based workout franchise to find out.

What to Expect

The makeup of an Orangetheory Fitness workout studio isn’t incredibly different from what you might see at a Barry’s Bootcamp or another interval-based workout class. Treadmills line the front of the room, and a few feet behind them are columns of indoor WaterRowers. Directly in the center of the classroom is open floor space featuring fitness equipment—like dumbbell tracks, TRX bands, and BOSU trainers. Several miscellaneous stationary bikes and strider machines are positioned on the outskirts of the treadmill wall.

What is noticeably different is that upon walking through the front door, a heart rate monitor gets fastened on my right arm, right below my elbow. (Usually, gyms just offer complimentary ponytail holders.) That’s because Orangetheory’s entire concept— er, theory —is based on the science of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (or EPOC).

The Workout

Harnessing the technology of real-time heart rate monitors, the signature Orange 60 class brings you through five zones of interval training. (For reference: Zone one, or the grey zone, signifies ‘very light activity’ and requires 50 to 60 percent of your max heart rate. Zone Five, or the red zone, signifies ‘all-out effort’ and requires 92 to 100 percent of your maximum heart rate.)

Using the equipment listed above, coaches lead a workout that challenges you to push yourself to intensities of 84 percent of your maximum heart rate (or zone 4: the sweet spot of the orange zone, or ‘uncomfortable’ effort) or higher for at least 12 and up to 20 minutes of the class. By achieving this threshold, Orangetheory’s program design claims to leave visitors with an ‘afterburn effect,’ or an increased metabolic rate (think: you’ll have extra energy and burn more calories), for up to 36 hours after exiting the classroom.

How each person reaches the orange or red zone is entirely up to how hard and how far they are willing to push themselves. Every workout is different, but each class follows more or less of the same protocol that leaves little opportunity for failing to raise to your heart rate: Thirty minutes are spent on a treadmill completing intervals alternating between varying levels of speed, recovery, and hill training; the second half of class is spent splitting your time between strength training exercises on the floor—think: weighted squats, overhead presses, burpees, and more—and time doing work atop a WaterRower.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, that’s OK—the complexities of the workout are what make it so effective. Luckily, an instructor will guide you through every interval, equipment change, and recovery minute, and a large-screen positioned in the front of class displays your heart rate and “splat points”—or the points you receive for every minute spent in the orange or red zone—so you can focus on what you’re there to do: work.

The Benefits

OK, so the variation of treadmills, intervals, WaterRower sprints, and strength training combined with the additional challenge of maxing out your heart rate definitely makes Orangetheory sound like a workout worthy of your time. But is it worth $35 for a single class (New York City Chelsea’s studio drop-in rate)? Note: Prices for classes vary based on region.

Here’s the argument for, “Yes.”

1. The workout is scalable.

One of the perks Orangetheory uses to incentivize newcomers is that the workout is suitable for all levels of fitness. Class-goers have the option of power walking at an incline during treadmill intervals if they aren’t comfortable going faster, and classrooms also have stationary bikes and striders if running just isn’t an option.

Instructors also help with modifications during strength training exercises for those who have injuries or restrictions.

2. The technology keeps you accountable.

When we’re alone at the gym, it’s easy to let our mood, attitude, or outliers (too little sleep the night before or a looming deadline at work) affect our perception of how hard we’re actually working. I’ve also been guilty of withholding effort (read: half-assing) group training sessions just because nobody will call me out on it as long as I’m still going through the motions like everyone else.

With the integration of OTbeat, Orangetheory’s exclusive heart rate monitoring technology, individuals are able to see real-time feedback on how hard they’re working. For the right client, the knowledge of what they’re currently exerting paired with knowing what they have left in the tank can be incredibly motivating.

“OTbeat holds you accountable,” says Alexa Javens, a coach and regional fitness and operations manager of three Orangetheory studios in Brooklyn. “Staying within a certain heart rate zone and maximum heart rate percentage prevents the chance of undertraining—or overtraining—within the hour.”

3. The workout is personal.

“It’s usually more difficult for more active people to reach the orange zone,” Javens warned me as she gave me a quick-and-dirty rundown of the workout pre-class (this is a prerequisite for all new studio-goers).

She was right. I had to fight to push myself on the treadmill in order to break into the orange zone, working harder than I typically do, say, at Mile High Run Club or Barry’s Bootcamp. Yet around me, other class-goers were moving at varying paces—from power walking on an incline to all out-sprints—to achieve the same outcome.

Since your maximum heart rate is unique to you (it’s individual and depends on your age, weight, and activity levels), that means everyone in class must work at a different rate to break into the orange zone, making the workout personal and unique to your specific needs.

4. You’ll target multiple muscle groups.

By incorporating a variety of machines, fitness equipment, and exercises into 60 minutes, you’ll get a high dose of cardio while targeting multiple muscle groups.

“Every Orangetheory class is a full body workout,” Javens explains. “We never focus on muscle overload for one specific muscle group.”

5. You could burn up to 1,000 calories per class.

Orangetheory estimates that, based on earning 12 to 20 splat points per class, gym goers will burn anywhere from 500 to 1,000 calories during class. Compared to SoulCycle’s estimated 500 to 700 calories burned per class, there’s a nice window of opportunity for additional burn.

Of course, these are estimations coming directly from each brand, so take those numbers with a grain of salt (or side eye, if you will). While there's no real guarantee you'll burn a certain number of calories, the workout summary report Orangetheory emailed me directly after class estimated I personally burned 565 calories and earned 11 splat points—which, for the hard work I put in during those 60 minutes, felt accurate.

6. It’s backed by science.

Though mentioned earlier, it’s worth repeating. Orangetheory’s heart rate-based interval training workout centers around the science of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Designed by renowned physiologist Ellen Latham and backed by Orangetheory’s own medical advisory board, 12 to 20 minutes spent in the ‘orange zone’ throughout class can help you burn more calories for up to 36 hours after class.

Compare that to the 14 hours of increased metabolic rates studies show cyclists benefitted from after a 45-minute workout, and you can see how Orangetheory’s method pushes the number to nearly double.

The Real Deal

Orangetheory may, in theory, sound perfect. But there are a few things you should know before signing on for an Orange Premier membership (unlimited monthly classes).

1. Orangetheory is a franchise.

Individual Orangetheory Fitness studios and gyms are part of a franchise, which means while all locations are all technically run underneath the same umbrella, each studio is managed differently and may have a slightly different vibe, crew of coaches, and customer service style.

Trying to reach out to the corporate customer service proved troubling for me, but after contacting the Williamsburg studio directly, I had a much easier experience.

2. It’s not personal training.

Certified personal trainer and host of Hurdle podcast Emily Abbate believes Orangetheory is a great workout that breaks down many of the barriers to fitness newcomers face—yet she cautions those who are brand-new to fitness from jumping right in without doing any homework.

“At Orangetheory you have the opportunity to be coached, but that coach won’t be holding your hand every step of the way,” Abbate says.

Since technical strength training moves are a big bulk of what Orangetheory offers, there’s definitely room for poor form and wrongful executions to slip through the cracks (during my own session, confusion during my floor portion delayed the workout until the coach was able to address our concerns).

“People who are looking for that personal training experience should know that if they really want personal training experience, they’ve got to get one-on-one coaching—there’s no inexpensive way to get those same results.”

3. It might not help your marathon training or weightlifting PR.

Orangetheory is a great workout to improve or maintain your current fitness levels, says Ash Kempton, a certified personal trainer based in Golden, Colorado, In fact, she believes it may be the best workout you can do if you have an hour of time, several days a week! But it’s not for everyone.

“Where it gets tricky is if you are an athlete with a specific, non-weight-loss goal in mind, such as marathon running or bodybuilding competitions,” Kempton says. “While these types of athletes would benefit from high-intensity interval training, like OTF, they must remember to balance it with their sport-specific work, such as distance running or heavy lifting. For example, you probably shouldn’t show up to the start line for 26.2 miles by only going to OTF, but you will go faster by incorporating OTF a few times a week into a typical marathon training cycle.”

The Conclusion?

No workout is perfect, but my experience at Orangetheory definitely challenged me and motivated me to work harder than I usually do in a group training session.

My take? Trust the science and try out a class for yourself.

from Greatist RSS http://ift.tt/2GkDXyL What Exactly Is Orangetheory Fitness—and Should I Try It? Greatist RSS from HEALTH BUZZ http://ift.tt/2IottPK

[foursprout-blog]

What Exactly Is Orangetheory Fitness—and Should I Try It?

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/health/what-exactly-is-orangetheory-fitness-and-should-i-try-it/

What Exactly Is Orangetheory Fitness—and Should I Try It?

If an Orangetheory Fitness hasn’t yet popped up in your neighborhood, chances are, it’s likely not long before it moves in. The boutique fitness franchise has over 860 open studios, with 771 in the United States alone. Compare that number to the (significantly fewer) 82 studios SoulCycle has within the States and Canada, and it seems like a new fitness method has officially overshadowed the cult-like, dance cardio cycling conglomerate.

Head to the Orangetheory Fitness site, and you’ll be transported to a home page featuring high-res videos of individuals who are the definition of #fitnessgoals accompanied by bold claims, like the workout itself is scientifically proven to give you a longer, more vibrant life, and will armour you with increased energy, greater strength, and better fitness results.

EDITOR’S PICK

displayTitle

With promises of a stronger body and a better life, Orangetheory seems like the ideal workout. But what actually happens during a 60-minute class? And do these claims actually hold up IRL?

We dug into the science behind the interval-based workout franchise to find out.

What to Expect

The makeup of an Orangetheory Fitness workout studio isn’t incredibly different from what you might see at a Barry’s Bootcamp or another interval-based workout class. Treadmills line the front of the room, and a few feet behind them are columns of indoor WaterRowers. Directly in the center of the classroom is open floor space featuring fitness equipment—like dumbbell tracks, TRX bands, and BOSU trainers. Several miscellaneous stationary bikes and strider machines are positioned on the outskirts of the treadmill wall.

What is noticeably different is that upon walking through the front door, a heart rate monitor gets fastened on my right arm, right below my elbow. (Usually, gyms just offer complimentary ponytail holders.) That’s because Orangetheory’s entire concept— er, theory —is based on the science of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (or EPOC).

The Workout

Harnessing the technology of real-time heart rate monitors, the signature Orange 60 class brings you through five zones of interval training. (For reference: Zone one, or the grey zone, signifies ‘very light activity’ and requires 50 to 60 percent of your max heart rate. Zone Five, or the red zone, signifies ‘all-out effort’ and requires 92 to 100 percent of your maximum heart rate.)

Using the equipment listed above, coaches lead a workout that challenges you to push yourself to intensities of 84 percent of your maximum heart rate (or zone 4: the sweet spot of the orange zone, or ‘uncomfortable’ effort) or higher for at least 12 and up to 20 minutes of the class. By achieving this threshold, Orangetheory’s program design claims to leave visitors with an ‘afterburn effect,’ or an increased metabolic rate (think: you’ll have extra energy and burn more calories), for up to 36 hours after exiting the classroom.

How each person reaches the orange or red zone is entirely up to how hard and how far they are willing to push themselves. Every workout is different, but each class follows more or less of the same protocol that leaves little opportunity for failing to raise to your heart rate: Thirty minutes are spent on a treadmill completing intervals alternating between varying levels of speed, recovery, and hill training; the second half of class is spent splitting your time between strength training exercises on the floor—think: weighted squats, overhead presses, burpees, and more—and time doing work atop a WaterRower.

If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, that’s OK—the complexities of the workout are what make it so effective. Luckily, an instructor will guide you through every interval, equipment change, and recovery minute, and a large-screen positioned in the front of class displays your heart rate and “splat points”—or the points you receive for every minute spent in the orange or red zone—so you can focus on what you’re there to do: work.

The Benefits

OK, so the variation of treadmills, intervals, WaterRower sprints, and strength training combined with the additional challenge of maxing out your heart rate definitely makes Orangetheory sound like a workout worthy of your time. But is it worth $35 for a single class (New York City Chelsea’s studio drop-in rate)? Note: Prices for classes vary based on region.

Here’s the argument for, “Yes.”

1. The workout is scalable.

One of the perks Orangetheory uses to incentivize newcomers is that the workout is suitable for all levels of fitness. Class-goers have the option of power walking at an incline during treadmill intervals if they aren’t comfortable going faster, and classrooms also have stationary bikes and striders if running just isn’t an option.

Instructors also help with modifications during strength training exercises for those who have injuries or restrictions.

2. The technology keeps you accountable.

When we’re alone at the gym, it’s easy to let our mood, attitude, or outliers (too little sleep the night before or a looming deadline at work) affect our perception of how hard we’re actually working. I’ve also been guilty of withholding effort (read: half-assing) group training sessions just because nobody will call me out on it as long as I’m still going through the motions like everyone else.

With the integration of OTbeat, Orangetheory’s exclusive heart rate monitoring technology, individuals are able to see real-time feedback on how hard they’re working. For the right client, the knowledge of what they’re currently exerting paired with knowing what they have left in the tank can be incredibly motivating.

“OTbeat holds you accountable,” says Alexa Javens, a coach and regional fitness and operations manager of three Orangetheory studios in Brooklyn. “Staying within a certain heart rate zone and maximum heart rate percentage prevents the chance of undertraining—or overtraining—within the hour.”

3. The workout is personal.

“It’s usually more difficult for more active people to reach the orange zone,” Javens warned me as she gave me a quick-and-dirty rundown of the workout pre-class (this is a prerequisite for all new studio-goers).

She was right. I had to fight to push myself on the treadmill in order to break into the orange zone, working harder than I typically do, say, at Mile High Run Club or Barry’s Bootcamp. Yet around me, other class-goers were moving at varying paces—from power walking on an incline to all out-sprints—to achieve the same outcome.

Since your maximum heart rate is unique to you (it’s individual and depends on your age, weight, and activity levels), that means everyone in class must work at a different rate to break into the orange zone, making the workout personal and unique to your specific needs.

4. You’ll target multiple muscle groups.

By incorporating a variety of machines, fitness equipment, and exercises into 60 minutes, you’ll get a high dose of cardio while targeting multiple muscle groups.

“Every Orangetheory class is a full body workout,” Javens explains. “We never focus on muscle overload for one specific muscle group.”

5. You could burn up to 1,000 calories per class.

Orangetheory estimates that, based on earning 12 to 20 splat points per class, gym goers will burn anywhere from 500 to 1,000 calories during class. Compared to SoulCycle’s estimated 500 to 700 calories burned per class, there’s a nice window of opportunity for additional burn.

Of course, these are estimations coming directly from each brand, so take those numbers with a grain of salt (or side eye, if you will). While there’s no real guarantee you’ll burn a certain number of calories, the workout summary report Orangetheory emailed me directly after class estimated I personally burned 565 calories and earned 11 splat points—which, for the hard work I put in during those 60 minutes, felt accurate.

6. It’s backed by science.

Though mentioned earlier, it’s worth repeating. Orangetheory’s heart rate-based interval training workout centers around the science of excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Designed by renowned physiologist Ellen Latham and backed by Orangetheory’s own medical advisory board, 12 to 20 minutes spent in the ‘orange zone’ throughout class can help you burn more calories for up to 36 hours after class.

Compare that to the 14 hours of increased metabolic rates studies show cyclists benefitted from after a 45-minute workout, and you can see how Orangetheory’s method pushes the number to nearly double.

The Real Deal

Orangetheory may, in theory, sound perfect. But there are a few things you should know before signing on for an Orange Premier membership (unlimited monthly classes).

1. Orangetheory is a franchise.

Individual Orangetheory Fitness studios and gyms are part of a franchise, which means while all locations are all technically run underneath the same umbrella, each studio is managed differently and may have a slightly different vibe, crew of coaches, and customer service style.

Trying to reach out to the corporate customer service proved troubling for me, but after contacting the Williamsburg studio directly, I had a much easier experience.

2. It’s not personal training.

Certified personal trainer and host of Hurdle podcast Emily Abbate believes Orangetheory is a great workout that breaks down many of the barriers to fitness newcomers face—yet she cautions those who are brand-new to fitness from jumping right in without doing any homework.

“At Orangetheory you have the opportunity to be coached, but that coach won’t be holding your hand every step of the way,” Abbate says.

Since technical strength training moves are a big bulk of what Orangetheory offers, there’s definitely room for poor form and wrongful executions to slip through the cracks (during my own session, confusion during my floor portion delayed the workout until the coach was able to address our concerns).

“People who are looking for that personal training experience should know that if they really want personal training experience, they’ve got to get one-on-one coaching—there’s no inexpensive way to get those same results.”

3. It might not help your marathon training or weightlifting PR.

Orangetheory is a great workout to improve or maintain your current fitness levels, says Ash Kempton, a certified personal trainer based in Golden, Colorado, In fact, she believes it may be the best workout you can do if you have an hour of time, several days a week! But it’s not for everyone.

“Where it gets tricky is if you are an athlete with a specific, non-weight-loss goal in mind, such as marathon running or bodybuilding competitions,” Kempton says. “While these types of athletes would benefit from high-intensity interval training, like OTF, they must remember to balance it with their sport-specific work, such as distance running or heavy lifting. For example, you probably shouldn’t show up to the start line for 26.2 miles by only going to OTF, but you will go faster by incorporating OTF a few times a week into a typical marathon training cycle.”

The Conclusion?

No workout is perfect, but my experience at Orangetheory definitely challenged me and motivated me to work harder than I usually do in a group training session.

My take? Trust the science and try out a class for yourself.