#i found him on sale for £10 and skeptically ordered him but hes real!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kitsukitty · 5 years

Text

Drowning (pt 1?)

“I’m taking you off the case, Xavier.”

No. No he couldn’t do that.

“What do you mean?” He couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d put into the case, after he’d gotten so close they were just going to pull him off?

“Look at you Xavier. You can barely even walk, let alone hunt down a serial killer.” Hands balled into a fist as Charles tried not to punch the desk. It was true that he’d seen better days, he’d nearly been killed by the very serial killer he’d been so close to taking down. But they were so close, how could they do that?

“No, Sir? You can’t do that. I-”

“I can and I just did Xavier. You need time to heal. Howlett has been given the case, end of story. You’ll be on desk duty until you’ve been cleared by medical AND psych.” Charles couldn’t believe it. He wanted to fight back but he was certain the chief’s decision was set in stone. There was a part of Charles that knew the Chief was right but he was too stubborn to admit it.

------

"This one's not gonna try to kill me, right?" Charles looked the android up and down skeptically. Of course the salesperson spoke highly of the android, said it would be the perfect one for his needs. That being said, the last android he'd dealt with put a bullet in his back. He didn't plan on giving another one that opportunity.

"No, of course not!" The salesperson laughed as if Charles's question was intended to be a joke and he simply quirked an eyebrow at the other. The sales person didn't know Charles's history, didn't know his purpose there. It wasn't his fault that he had no idea just how serious Charles was in the matter.

Charles looked the android over. It’s appearance leaned towards male, taller than 6 feet. “Are they all so tall?” Charles asked the salesman who shook his head.

“No but this is the only of this model we have in stock. We could special order one..er...shorter if you want?” Charles shook his head, raising a hand to dismiss the other.

“No, this one will be fine. You said my medical covers the cost?” Turning towards the salesperson, Charles let out a small sigh. The only way he was going to be cleared for active duty again was if he had the android for a partner...so to speak. It was going to be much like a service dog, only far more capable.

“Yes sir. Your insurance is great, this model is the best there is.” Charles nodded, eyes flicking towards the plaque that held the android’s information.

3R1K. Service Android.

------

Running. He was running for his life. It was behind him. He couldn’t escape. It was dark, he couldn't see where he was going. Suddenly something tangled in his legs and he was falling, only he never hit the ground. Falling, he knew it was right there, it was going to get him or he was going to just fall forever. He wasn’t sure which was more desirable.

Wake up.

It found him. Fear rattled his bones, shaking him to his very core. It found him, venom dripping from its fangs as it inched closer...closer. Suddenly a tendril shot out and he could feel pain, real pain. It dug deep into his abdomen, blood spouting from the wound. He couldn't breathe.

Wake up.

Tossing and turning, Charles was strapped to his bed, something he’d put together considering the last time he had one of these episodes he’d ended up scaring the shit out of his neighbor. It was for his own safety and those around him. He still wasn’t cleared from psych to return to active duty but that’s why the android was there.

“Wake up.” The android said, kneeling next to the bed. It’s voice was calm but firm at the same time. He couldn't hear it though, too deep in the nightmare that wracked his entire being. It wasn’t until he was suddenly stabbed that Charles stopped tossing and turning. Gasping for breath his eyes shot open and stared blankly at the ceiling. This was the worst part because now he couldn’t move. Sweat glistened on his face and neck as he stared at the ceiling. It was dark and the mind is a funny thing, playing tricks on the sleep deprived.

Shadows danced across the ceiling before the darkness took a form, the form of a beast. Long arms, glowing eyes, sharp teeth. Gasping, Charles stared in horror, unable to move. Suddenly the darkness was replaced by something a little more real. Dark hair, blue eyes, a blank expression. As if the spell was broken, Charles swung a fist at the face above him, making contact with an all too firm face that caused him to gasp in pain.

“You’re awake!” The android appeared excited, despite having just been punched in the face. Charles rolled over as he let out a hiss of pain before sitting up. “Help me get out of these…” He could have done it himself, however it was much easier telling the android what to do. 3R1K then took the restraint off of one of Charles’s wrists and Charles then reached for the other to undo it.

Climbing out of bed, on the opposite side of the bed from where the android was still kneeling, Charles headed towards the kitchen.

“I made you some tea” The android said, instantly on its feet with a cup of tea in its hands. Charles stopped where he was and looked towards the android. “I knew I shouldn’t wake you because you could be confused and hurt yourself...so...I made you tea.” It was like a lost puppy really.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in sleep mode or something?” Charles said, eyeing the tea and wondering just how good it could be if an android made it. Then again, most people had androids as house maids and nannies. Granted his android wasn’t intended to be used as a slave, honestly he’d only gotten it in hopes he’d be cleared right away. Apparently he needed to take his time with the android, he needed to learn how to properly use it. Honestly for all Charles cared it could just power off and never turn back on.

“One of the known symptoms of your PTSD is Night Terrors. I sensed your elevated heart rate and movement and came out of sleep mode.” Great. Just great. Continuing back towards the kitchen, Charles ignored the offered tea and went for something a little stronger. Tea was probably the best thing for him, calm down that elevated heart rate or whatever. However, a couple cigarettes and a glass of scotch would also do the same thing...well at least Charles hoped so.

--------------------------------

AN: Okay so this is...super AU. I don’t think Charles and Erik are anything like the characters I’ve written here but...idk...i just have a lot of feels? Sorry if this is trash! Feel free to share/like/comment and hopefully I’ll get muse to write more! Also just a disclaimer, these gifs were not made by me! I found them around the interwebs. Also the night terror bit was from Prodigal Son and if you like the whump 10/10 would recommend watching it!

Also this was all inspired by an awesome mood board found here!

#mcfassy #cherik #erik lehnsherr #Charles Xavier #michael fassbender #james mcavoy #fanfic #fanfiction #mature #tw: ptsd #ptsd #tw #detroit become human #dbh #dbh fic #au xmen #whump

102 notes · View notes

onceuponaprincessworld · 7 years

Text

CaptainSwan Soulmate AU Recs

Hello CS Fandom and Happy New Year! I ‘ve decided to start this year with a list of some wonderful Soulmate fics. Hope you enjoy!

If you are intrested you can find my other lists here.

Mutlichapter

Complete

Countdown, @paranoiaqueen

What if you could have a countdown until you met your soulmate? Emma Swan thinks it's all b.s. and that she doesn't need some guy in a lab coat to tell her who to love but then she meet a dashing Brit in a pub. He has a messed up timer, one with no match. Killian Jones was a man with no countdown until he'd leave her. But can she open herself up to love?

The Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder, @whimsicallyenchantedrose

Emma Swan is skeptical of the newest rage in the dating world--The Music of the Heart Soulmate finder. When Mary Margaret convinces her to get one for herself, will it point her to her own soulmate? Will she have the courage to open her heart to the possibility of True Love?

foxtrot uniform charlie kilo, @swanisms

In order to get into the soulmates exclusive apartments outside of uni and escape their shitty roommates, Killian and Emma pretend to be soulmates.

My Thoughts Are With You, Shut_up_im_reading

Emma never thought she would need or even want a soulmate. She was happy with what she had… until it was gone. Neal left her, taking all she had and leaving her with nothing so when she meets her soulmate she’s not interested. But when she can hear him in her mind it’s hard to ignore one plan and simple fact. Emma Swan and Killian Jones are meant to be together.

Amaranthine, @caprelloidea

In which soulmates are rare, and those that have them stop aging at adulthood. Rarer still – and dangerously conspicuous – are those that have special abilities. Immortality and powers alike fade when soulmates come in close proximity with their other half. In which Emma’s touch heals, and Killian’s kills.

More Than All the Stars, @cutieodonoghue

In a world full of soulmates, Emma Nolan doesn’t know who hers is. Enter Killian Jones, attempting to stop his brother from proposing to his soulmate, only to be thrown a curveball when he’s sent to spend Christmas on a farm with a bunch of strangers. (soulmate modern au)

Wip

I See The Light (Now That I See You), @bisexual-killian-jones

Emma was twenty-six when she could finally see colors, after she had lost faith in it ever happening to her. She just wasn't quite expecting it to be him. AU where you only see black and white until you meet your soulmate.

One-shots

Soulmarked, @phiralovesloki

Emma Swan just wants to be loved for who she is, and not because someone feels obligated to love her. It's just her luck that she has a soulmate somewhere out there, while she's already in love with someone else.

You’re the Tune that Stuck, @lifeinahole27

A soulmates au where you can have any number of things happen to reveal you have a soulmate. In this one, Emma suddenly hears the songs that her soulmate are either listening to or have stuck in their head.

first day of my life, @piratesails

Killian has never been one to give in. No matter how shitty the hand he’s been dealt. Because, really, Times Square on New Year’s Eve just as the ball’s about to drop? Bloody hell, you’ve got to be kidding him.

Soulmate AU where you get a tattoo telling you the time and place you’ll meet them.

Forget-me-nots on my Skin (Forevermore), @lirapheus

Soulmate!AU in which you see the world in black and white until your soulmate comes into your life, a burst of colour among the dull crowds. And once you touch your soulmate, the whole world comes alive.

Killian Jones is an English tattoo artist who moves to New York after his brother's death. Emma Swan is helping Mary Margaret with her flower shop in The Big City. (She has never been a flower person, but she needs to pay the rent.)

Missed Connections, @captainswanluver

Emma Swan doesn’t think she’ll ever see the handsome stranger she spilled coffee all over again. Killian Jones doesn’t believe he’ll ever see the beautiful blonde who ruined his shirt. So they couldn’t be more surprised when their paths keep crossing, only to find that something keeps standing in the way of them making a lasting connection. But when you keep meeting the same person over and over again in a city of 8 million people, is it mere coincidence or fate?

Zemblanity, @lenfaz

William Boyd coined the term zemblanity to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". A zemblanity is, effectively, an "unpleasant unsurprise". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip).

The Time Tattoo, @onceuponabadass

What would you do if you knew when the most important moment in your life was going to happen? For Emma Swan that moment was 23 years 22 days 8 minutes and 15 seconds away... and it was only getting closer.

Dumbledore Guy, @seeknot2alterme

When Emma was born she was marked with, in her opinion, the worst soulmate mark anyone could ever have. People are born marked with the first words their true love would ever say to them, and Emma's happened to spoil one of the greatest plot twists of all time.

Scar of the Heart, @curiousthingdarkness

Emma Swan hunts alone. Except on nights when Killian Jones, fellow demon hunter and pain in her ass, insists on joining her. When dealing with a particularly troublesome beast, they discover that perhaps there is more to each other than meets the eye.

Like Rum On The Fire, @nightships

Emma Swan grows up learning to never expect the spark of true love on her skin and lives in Boston as a bail bondsperson. Killian Jones never expects to feel love again after he loses Milah, but finds his revenge may lie in the hands of the Savior. Both of them are surprised when he breaks into her home on the night of her birthday.

how close is close enough, @swanisms

There’s something to be said for the way a soulmate fucks.

The movies, the novels, the articles, the “Soulmates Are Great, Get Yours Now!” sales pitch is that love-making isn’t truly love-making until it’s your One True Love. Too optimistic, “Once Upon a Time” to consider that making love to your soulmate could be the last thing you want.

Fucking them, however, has its perks.

Skin Deep, @captainodonewithyou

There is a soulmate tattoo headcanon popping around on tumblr about soulmates having tattoos of the last words their love will say to them. My friend told me to write it, and I did. Captain Swan angst ahead. (pirate)

Spoilers, @thejacketandthehook

Emma Swan has a soulmate tattoo on her ribcage that gives her pretty big spoilers for the Harry Potter universe.

and you’re mine, @belovedcreation

soulmate au where instead of your soulmates first words to you written on your skin it’s their last words you ever hear them say so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them.

Is There Anyone Out There ('Cause it's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe)?, LovingCSFanfiction

Not everyone finds a soul mate, but those lucky enough can see color. It’s not a terrible life if you never find a soul mate. You can still fall in love and live a happy and healthy life. You can still have a family and want nothing more than to have them be the last person you see at night and the first person in the morning. You can still have an unexplainable bond with them. Having a soul mate is just the little extra oomph to the relationship, and you don’t know the oomph if you’ve never had it. So, you’ll find someone you love and not know what’s missing, and everything will be okay. That is exactly what Emma Swan did when she married Neal Cassidy at 18, and exactly why it became a problem when she met her real soul mate, Killian Jones, 10 years later. CS Soul Mates AU.

like the sun, kathleenfergie

“What gave me away this time?” he asked.

“Well, you’re always English and your eyes never change. It gets easier every century,” she explained.

True Love Leaves a Mark, @sotheylived

Emma learns that the tattoo she’s had written directly above her heart for more than ten years may have come from something other than a long night of drinking.

danced in the dark (under september stars), @thejollypirate

For a person to have a soulmate, their compass needs to point toward them. That sounds simple enough, right? Yeah, well it's not so simple when it comes to Emma Swan's life. Between feeling she doesn't deserve a soulmate to perhaps finding a man who could fill in that gap of missing love, there's just one little thing that's a problem. Her compass only points north - broken.

(the one for you and me), @swanisms

And, most importantly, she’s praying to whatever gods there are that might hear her plea - even though they’ve never listened before, not when she needed them most - that this is not the time of the year that her soul mate decides to come out as a closeted Christmas nut and start blasting it in her head, where she won’t be able to find any escape. (Holiday Soulmates AU).

Stardust in Your Skin, midwestwind

Emma Swan may believe in magic and curses and fairy tales but she absolutely does not believe in soulmates.

marked, lantanapetals

captain swan; soulmate tattoo au.

give me a shot at the night, birdbox (Bella_Barbaric)

Emma stares at her wrist in her lap, her breathing getting shallow; she even tries, stupidly, to scrub the letters off but like David's and Mary Margaret's they're stuck fast. Forever. She has a soulmate. Somewhere in London, her soulmate is walking around—and probably just found her own initials tattooed onto their wrist. She might be within days of meeting them.

Only One Way This Could Go, @wingedlioness

I need a fic where Emma and Killian are soul mates and everyone knows (because their soul mate identifying symbols are like super visual), but they act like rivals and say they “don’t want to be forced together”, but are actually secretly dating after a drunk hook up.

Written in the Stars, @herfairy

Emma Swan wasn't an expert on love – mainly because she didn't believe in it and no soulmate was going to change her mind.

Two-Shots

I Will Learn to Let You Go, @lifeinahole27

Killian Jones, having lost his own soulmate years before, spends his free time finding the soulmates of other people. It’s what he’s good at, and he gets paid well to do it. Finding the soulmate of his latest client may prove to be the worst job he’s ever taken on, though. It’s not because Emma Swan is hard to find, but because he finds himself falling in love with her.

#cs ff #cs rec fic #cs rec ff #CS fic rec #cs ff rec #CS fanfics #cs fanfiction #cs au #cs rec list #my rec list #Captain Swan #captain swan fic rec #captain swan fanfiction #cs soulmate

184 notes · View notes

tammywammyy · 4 years

Text

Short tale�UThe source of Bitcoin Pizza Day time? An engineer spends 10,000 BTC to get pizza (current worth 3 billion)

Yesterday (20) the move of Bitcoin from an ancient address made many people wonder whether it had been the motion of Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, but no real matter what the simple truth is, it is undeniable that Bitcoin has been attained since its delivery. It has been used and reliable by countless individuals, and for the encryption circle, it really is customary to possess some pizza to enjoy every Might 22! If you inquire a 19-year-old son who has just graduated from senior high school what Bitcoin is certainly today, he might be able to give a common but imaginative answer. After all, cryptocurrency is not any longer a new thing, but it will take enough time back again to 2010. Bitcoin The Genesis Prevent (Genesis Obstruct) has just turned one year old. Thousands of people are curious and skeptical about this virtual currency that can see amounts but cannot be touched. 2010.05.22 I believe that upon this day 10 years ago, nobody anticipated that Bitcoin and also the complete cryptocurrency ecosystem would reach today's height. ON, MAY 18 of that 12 months, Laszlo Hanyecz, a programmer, had a whim and released an article within the BitcoinTalk Forum, saying: I wish to pay out 10,000 bitcoins to get a big 2 huge pizza therefore i can conserve some for the next day. You may make your personal pizza and take it to my home or order a few to send out to my home, but my goal is to swap bitcoin for meals that I won't need to order myself. It is a bit like ordering a "breakfast platter" provider in a resort or other areas. Bring you food and happiness! He also made a choice of pizza tastes in this article and told anyone who's interested to contact him quickly. Oddly enough, the ��exchange of bitcoins for pizza�� isn't very popular until nowadays, but Jeremy Sturdivant (jercos), a young man who utilized to mine by himself, quickly responded to Hanyecz's proposal through IRC: On May 22, Hanyecz do indeed obtain two boxes of Papa John's pizza, and Sturdivant furthermore received 10,000 bitcoins a day later. -Source: Blockchain.com-10,000 bitcoins are usually about 41 U.S. bucks at the purchase price at that time, and now it really is equivalent to almost 3 billion Taiwan bucks! Immediately after, Sturdivant re-used these bitcoins for additional purposes and held them to this day. However, as Sturdivant expressed during an interview with the foreign mass media "BitcoinWhosWho", he believes that he is only a step of progress for the rely on of the overall Bitcoin community. Take a clear step: I feel that my function is not a key or irreplaceable function, but this is an important part of the introduction of Bitcoin. I am very happy to have the opportunity to take part and take action by myself! Indeed, this seemingly humble transaction is one of the far-reaching activities in the annals of cryptocurrency. This is the first physical deal involving cryptocurrency. The worthiness of Bitcoin depends on the believe in of nearly all users. Right from the start, the significance of both containers of pizza allowed the fledgling blockchain technologies to gradually establish a consensus in the future community ecosystem. The central bank celebrated together, but reminded that the chance of ��virtual currency�� is definitely higher. On Bitcoin Pizza Day time, the central bank also posted a note on Facebook to celebrate, and reminded the majority of cryptocurrency users to not forget to purchase cryptocurrency while enjoying delicious pizza The article takes the Bank of England's (BoE) economic education web page KnowledgeBank as an example to point that investing in cryptocurrency requires preparation for situations where the value of the expenditure will fluctuate sharply as well as drop to worthless. The Central Financial institution stated in the article that since 2013, it has been reminding with the FSC that Bitcoin is still a highly speculative virtual product. Therefore, it is necessary to think cautiously before buying crypto: Pizza could be eaten confidently, but you can think twice about buying virtual currencies such as Bitcoin!

Bitcoin 2020 Memorabilia The introduction of Bitcoin has inserted its eleventh calendar year. At the beginning of this calendar year, the Chicago Mercantile Trade (CME) officially released the Bitcoin choice, permitting cryptocurrency derivatives to steadily show up on the phase of traditional huge exchanges. Following the reward is certainly halved, data implies that the Bitcoin option market has fascinated institutional investors to get into, and the choice market will be bullish. Related subjects: Following the halving | CME Group's Bitcoin Option soars to at least one 1.2 billion in a single day trading volume, Fidelity: Institutional trader interest surges In March, all mankind offers experienced the highly contagious brand new crown virus (COVID-19) threat. With all the crash of the US stock market within the 12th, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies also plummeted by 42% inside a few hours, making the start of the entire year bullish. Fortunately, when the epidemic stabilized as well as the halving was nearing, the price tag on Bitcoin gradually increased and broke the 10,000-point mark. This once again tested the importance of Bitcoin and traditional financial assets and its avoidance The feasibility of risky assets. Related topic: Bloodbath Day time! Bitcoin plummeted by 42%, hitting $3,700, and the marketplace panic index is nearing its peak The highly expected 4-season Bitcoin block incentive halving was furthermore completed on May 12 this season. The last prevent (obstruct 629,999) from the well-known mining pool F2Pool prior to the halving was created in The New York Situations The report entitled "NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Shot, Fed's Plan Considerably Exceeds 2008 Rescue" on Apr 9th ??paid tribute to Satoshi Nakamoto's initial actions within the genesis block. Related topics: Nothing happened within the halving? Insiders: Absolutely nothing happened, it is "the best thing about Bitcoin"! The third Bitcoin Pizza Day time! Overall, it's the 10th wedding anniversary of Bitcoin Pizza Time. This time, Bitcoin News utilizes remote zoom connections across Taiwan and a little LiveShow live party with a limit. It will require you to improve the Pizza in your hands and present you a different Pizza party! Binance What's more exciting is the fact that to be able to commemorate this historical day, we've found typically the most popular cryptocurrency products in the home and abroad and cooperated with Taiwan's market to hold the first "Bitcoin Commemorative Investing Auction" in Taiwan. Let's attempt together to create Bitcoin transactions a regular advent. ??Live program reside Pizza Party (limited to 30 people for epidemic avoidance) ticket buy link ??Super auction! A lot more than 15 super crazy "bidding products" are looking forward to you, each worth a lot more than $300 Basic Information �lTime�U5/22 (Fri) 19:00 Live broadcast starts �lArea�U Facebook Enthusiast Band of Bitcoin News �lLiveShow party location�ULearn Bar No.253, Section 2, Xinyi Street, Taipei Town (Thanks to Prevent2 for particular sponsorship) �lSpecial preparations�UPlease analysis the bidding items you want and prepare BTC before the event! Activity process 1800-1830 | Live broadcast preview, LiveShow live party admission 1830-1850 | Host on-line opening 1850-1910 | Bitcoin "YOU NEED TO Know Little Knowledge" Short Talk 1910-1930 | "Remote Pizza" across Taiwan to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the initial transaction 1930-| Bitcoin 10th Wedding anniversary "Super Public sale" officially started

Live events are usually limited. Unless you want to eat pizza in the home alone, come live and have fun together! ??

#bitcoin price #bitcoin news #ethereum games #crypto mining game #top crypto games

0 notes

ekmekandwater-blog · 4 years

Text

Thirty Eight Years and Still Going

38 years ago today I made a decision that would forever impact my life. Here’s the story:

I thought I'd take this time to re-post my own story of how I decided to follow Jesus. In other words, How did a guy like me end up writing a blog like this?

I was raised in a non-religious Jewish home. I emphasize the term “non-religious” because I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. No side curls, no Hebrew classes, just an occasional Yiddish phrase and matzo ball soup. I had no idea about any of the reasons for some of the holidays we celebrated. I thought Passover was a food holiday – “Pass over the matzos please. Pass over the bitter herbs!” Seriously, I had no idea. I just knew we didn’t believe in Jesus because I asked my mom several times after watching Davy and Goliath or something like that.

The God issue wasn’t something that we discussed much, but I had thought about it some. I remember early on thinking it was kinda silly to believe in God. I understood later, that people believed in God, as I saw it, to help them cope with life and mortality or hardships or whatever. I didn’t really have a problem with people doing this if it helped them cope. When I got older though, I met people who didn’t just casually believe in a divine coping mechanism (the invisible friend for grownups) but who were making life choices as a result of this belief. These people were choosing to not do some of the things that I was doing – they were choosing not to have the kind of fun that (it seemed to me) high school kids ought to have because of this concept of God. That seemed ludicrous to me. It seemed to me that Christians were being stupid about this and so I saw it as my duty to let them know.

I was that guy in high school – the outspoken skeptic. I wouldn’t have called myself an atheist because I thought to speak authoritatively that there is no God seemed equally foolish. My argument was that it was impossible to know.

During my senior year in high school, my buddy Chet and I applied to work at The Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. We got accepted and shortly after my 18th birthday, we began to work in “Outdoor Vending.” My job title was a “culinary host” which meant that I sold ice-cream, popcorn and balloons.

On day 2 of my employment, I was assigned a trainer for the day to learn the art and science of ice-cream sales. It’s a complicated science that requires 8 hours together with a trainer. You take the order, take the money, open the lid, pull out the desired frozen treat and smile. It’s very complex. So the trainer assigned to me for the day was a young woman named Cynthia. Cynthia had a personality as big as life. She laughed loud, smiled big and just seemed to get a lot out of life. It turns out, and I found out quickly, that she was also one of those enthusiastic, life changed, born again Christians – but like I said, she had a pretty engaging personality and we became friends in spite of her deep convictions.

So during that summer if she was working at a nearby popcorn or ice cream wagon, and I was on a break, I would stop by to visit. And every single time, I kid you not, she would start to tell me something about the God she believed in. She would have Bible verses on 3X5 cards that she was using to actually memorize portions of the Bible! And she would show me what was on her card and say something like, “Mike, look at this. Look at how much God loves you. Isn’t that amazing?” And I would respond with something like, “That’s great for you, but it’s not my thing.” Undaunted, we would have a similar conversation the next time we met.

I think it was her consistency of her life and message (and for those of you wondering, no, I wasn’t really interested in dating her or anything) and she seemed so earnestly convinced of this God stuff that I started to re-visit the whole God question in my head. Is there a God? If there is a God, is he somebody I need to worry about? Does it ultimately make a difference? Who could I ask about this? Who’s been talking to me non-stop about God since the day I met her?

So I was working on Main St. at popcorn wagon #2 and I decided to send a note to Cynthia to come and chat with me when she got a chance. As a sidelight and a bit of Disney trivia, when popcorn venders want to communicate with each other in those days, we of course couldn’t leave our wagons. We were stuck in one place and so we would use the sweepers. They were mobile and they were the pony express of the Disney world. So Cynthia got my note and came out at the end of her shift and I told her what I had been thinking about.

Literally, just at that moment, a sweeper came by. “Hey Joe,” Cynthia called, and Joe came sweeping over, “You still have that Gospel of John on you?” Joe said, “Sure,” pulled a gospel of John out of his breast pocket and handed it to me. Cynthia said, “Mike, if you want to know about God, the best person to ask is God. Say, ‘Lord I want to know you and I want to know more about you.’ And then sit down and read this Gospel of John.”

I said, “okay” and I took that book home and I probably prayed that prayer 100 times (by the way, had I known I was praying, I probably wouldn’t have done it). And the more I prayed, the more I thought, “Yeah, God, if you are real, I want to know you.” So finally, I sat down on our couch in the living room and read the book from cover to cover.

Now I’d heard about Jesus before this time, mainly as something you yell when you’re really frustrated, but I’d never really known any of the story. This was my first encounter with him and I have to tell you, he impressed me. There was something to this guy - something, dare I say…spiritual? Something was happening to me as I read it – for the first time in my life, I began to believe in God. I still wasn’t sure what to do with Jesus and how he fit into it all. There was a verse in John 14:6 where Jesus claimed to be the only way to God and I remember thinking that was a pretty narrow statement and it excluded my people – even though I wasn’t an observant Jew, that seemed like a big hurdle.

But I went off to Whittier College as a freshman and I started to enter into the God discussion as a participant rather than an antagonist. This was a new experience. I remember being surprised at how many people believed in God as I met Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons and every Joe blow with their own homespun theology. And as I compared notes, I realized all of their theologies had complexity to them. All of their gods had personality and ideas and history and values and the God I believed in was empty and void – he needed help and so I enhanced him. I began to construct God out of the conversations I’d been having. A little of this, a dab of that and voila I had my god. By the end of the school year, he had become more complex and I was proud of him.

On June 15 of that year, I stepped into The Raven bookshop in La Canada and ran into one of my Christian friends from high school who I used to pick on. I said, “Hey Denise, how’re you doing?” “Praise the Lord,” she replied, “I’m just serving Jesus…” and blahbity blahbity blah about Jesus and I replied, “I have my beliefs.” “Really,” she exclaimed, “I’d love to hear them.” And so in the next 30 seconds, I unpacked all of my complex theology (I remember thinking, “Is that all?” I guess I hadn’t developed my theology as much as I had thought) and Denise shook her head and cleared her throat and said, “we need to talk.”

So there we were right in the middle of the bookstore, talking about God, “In our culture, Mike,” she continued, “Wouldn’t you agree that if we’re talking about God, then more often than not, we’re probably talking about the God of the Bible.” I thought about it – if there wasn’t a Bible we probably wouldn’t know much about God and so I replied, “sure.” She said then, “It seems to me that if we’re claiming to believe in the God of the Bible, we should believe what the Bible says about the God of the Bible.” I agreed.

There is a verse in the New Testament book of Romans – Romans 10:9,10 which says, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that He is risen from the dead, you will be saved.” Denise explained to me a lot about the God of the Bible. She answered a lot of my objections and I knew that I needed to quit avoiding the inevitable and I needed to start following the God that Denise followed whatever that meant. And I really had no idea what that meant. But I also knew that I didn’t want to be a freak and so I was going to keep that decision to myself. I wasn’t going to confess that with my mouth before anyone.

As it turns out, God knew what I was thinking. And so just a few hours later, that same evening, I was working at Disneyland. I wasn’t actually working in the park itself but rather was blowing up balloons for the evening in the balloon room. I was only able to interact with guests in the park for 15 minutes when I was giving a balloon vender a break. So there I was, standing with a bunch of Mickey Mouse balloons under the people mover when this guy walked up to me. I had never seen him before and I have never seen him since. But he walked up to me and said, “Excuse me. I’d like to know if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior.”

I thought for a moment and replied, “Yes, as a matter of fact I have.” He said, “okay,” and took off into the crowd (and who knows? Back to heaven?). That was that. I went back to the balloon room where a # of my Christian friends were working and I told them what happened, that this weird guy came up to me and…They got very excited and word got out among the believers in outdoor vending and we started a Bible study with the sweepers and the vendors. And I got a good strong start to my Christian life.

That God was in such obvious pursuit of me is something that still moves me. And the events of June 15 following my freshman year in college 30+ years ago still wow me. But that was just the beginning. More stories to come soon. I’d love to hear yours!

1 note · View note

wineanddinosaur · 4 years

Text

Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?

If it seems like everyone in your social media feed is drinking more right now, they probably are. According to IWSR data shared with VinePair, retail alcohol sales during Covid-19 have hit double-digit growth, mirroring “holiday-type” volume and value spending.

Of course, any current data should be examined with the caveat that on-premise sales have plummeted, and many are replacing those purchases with stay-at-home Quarantinis. There’s also stockpiling to consider, though IWSR figures signal that the bulk of this took place during a two-week period in March, and sales since then have remained strong.

But just as our interactions with the physical world are largely confined to the views from our windows, we should not overlook the subjectivity of social media feeds. Put simply: Not everyone is drinking more right now.

“If anything, I’ve seen this kind of outpouring of, ‘Here are all the ways that I’m taking care of myself,’ and lots of people doing yoga and meditation,” says Sam Thonis, co-owner of Getaway, an alcohol-free bar in Brooklyn. Opened in April 2019, the bar has become a brick-and-mortar signifier of the growing low- and no-alcohol movements.

Prior to Covid-19, these movements had started gaining significant traction, with coverage reaching national media. By the end of last year, publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times had devoted significant column inches to the popularity of lower-ABV spritz cocktails and hard seltzers, and the growing interest in the “sober-curious” lifestyle. While it was harder to back the “trend” with sales data, low- and no-ABV drinks had by then entered the cultural lexicon.

But like everything else right now, the future of the low and no movements feels delicately poised. Convincing drinkers that it might be a good idea to lower their alcohol consumption is difficult enough at the best of times, let alone in the midst of a global pandemic. And looking forward, there’s the dark cloud of recession looming on the horizon, which is likely to impact consumer spending. That could be a particular challenge for the zero-proof category, whose products have been priced at retail similarly to the boozy libations they were designed to replace. To boot: The non-alcoholic botanical “spirit” Seedlip sells for around $30 for 700 milliliters, while a slightly larger bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin sells for $25. These issues raise the question: What does Covid-19 mean for the future of the nascent low- and no-ABV movements?

Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic

For Thonis, there’s no question that the zero-proof scene was gaining traction prior to Covid-19. After Getaway opened, it received significant press. While skeptics could argue it seemed like a niche “New York” concept, multiple operators around the country reached out to Thonis and told him they wanted to emulate his model.

Sales, too, seemed to indicate that the city that never sleeps was willing to take the occasional night off from booze. “Before March, when everything changed, the two normal months of 2020 were our best months yet,” he says. “We were on a serious upswing.”

Sadly, those sales have now crashed to nothing. Unlike some New York cocktail bars, Getaway hasn’t pivoted to takeaway or to-go options. And when stay-at-home orders are finally relaxed, Thonis realizes his bar’s offerings might be deemed as a luxury by some. “[Non-alcoholic cocktails] are not human necessities, unlike food and arguably alcohol,” he says.

Lifestyle writer Ruby Warrington has noticed contrasting attitudes on her social media feeds. In 2018, the New-York-based British author wrote a book on alcohol abstinence titled “Sober Curious.” Some have even credited the work with popularizing the no-ABV movement. Warrington also hosts a podcast of the same name and interacts via social media with a community of people who choose not to drink.

Many of those interactions have included people speaking about how glad they are that they don’t drink right now and don’t need to navigate hangovers in the midst of a pandemic. But when she opens her Facebook feed, which has a lot of people from her “pre-sober-curious life” in the U.K., she notices some friends repeating the kind of statements that could double as a quarantine meme, such as “How early is too early to start drinking?” and “Drinking alone doesn’t count in a crisis.”

“It almost feels like there’s a lot of bravado, a ‘let’s drink our way through it’ sort of attitude,” she says. “With my sober-curious goggles on, it does seem like underneath there’s a lot of fear.”

Her evaluation is backed by psychological science. “It makes a lot of sense that people are drinking more during this time: They want instant relief from anxiety, boredom, depression, and just not wanting to feel their feelings — alcohol offers a solution to that,” says Lindsay Hayden, a New York-based licensed mental health counselor who specializes in addiction.

Hayden warns that without the structure and routine of normal life, those who are using only alcohol as a coping mechanism could soon be facing more serious issues. “Not everyone who is relying on alcohol will come out of the pandemic with an alcohol addiction, but it is definitely something people should be watching out for,” she says.

Drinking Habits During a Recession

While the “new normal” of quarantine life is unprecedented to all experiencing it, at least some of what comes after Covid-19 is not without parallel. By many accounts, the world economy is headed into a long and potentially deep recession. The IMF predicts the coronavirus crisis could knock as much as $9 trillion off global GDP over the next two years. If previous recessions are benchmarks, that doesn’t spell good news for the low- and no-ABV movements.

During the eight-month 2001 recession, whose economic impact lasted for several years, alcohol volume sales grew year-over-year, totaling a 4 percent increase between 2001 and 2004, according to IWSR’s chief operating officer, Brandy Rand.

While alcohol sales growth was somewhat flat during the Great Recession of December 2007 to June 2009, that was only because of declining beer sales. “[U]nemployment rate at the end of 2009 was 10 percent, yet there was still an upward consumption trend outside of beer,” Rand explains.

The purchasing habits from both of the most recent recessions indicate that when economic times are tough, consumers turn to the bottle. Amid the uncertainty, and with less cash in their pockets, they also favor higher-ABV beverages to leverage more bang for buck.

Lisa Laird Dunn, executive vice president of Laird & Company, predicts a similar trend this time around. Founded in 1780, her family runs the oldest licensed distillery in America. In its 200-plus-year history, Laird & Co. has survived more than 30 recessions, two world wars, and even Prohibition.

While known for its Applejack, the distillery’s portfolio contains a broad range of products, priced from high- end to value brands. Laird Dunn confirms that the company’s lower-priced value brands typically sell best during a recession and expects to see a repeat of this trend following Covid-19. “I think you’ll find that there will be more price shopping versus just brand shopping,” she says.

But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.

In January 2013, the University of Buffalo published a study on alcohol use during the Great Recession. Polling more than 2 million Americans between 2006 and 2010, the study uncovered notable increases in heavy drinking (3.9 percent) and frequent binge drinking (7.1 percent), but also found a slight increase in abstention from alcohol (0.8 percent). Put more simply: Not everyone decided to drink more. And there’s more than just anecdotal references to prove the same thing is happening right now.

On Thursday, global research firm Wine Intelligence published its first Covid-19-related consumer analysis report. Based on data collected at the end of March and beginning of April, the report found that, on average, wine consumption has remained stable during lockdown. But once again, this trend only tells part of the story.

“We’re seeing an increase in frequency of wine consumption amongst more engaged wine drinkers,” says CEO Lulie Halstead. “So those who were already drinking wine at higher frequencies are increasing that frequency.”

On the flip side, younger drinkers who were just discovering wine are now drinking it much less frequently than before, she adds. While this finding is based on data collected in Australia, Halstead says early examinations of international data appear to show a similar trend in other markets.

Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements

During previous recessions, those who opted not to drink were limited to sodas, seltzers, and water. But this time around, the market is already awash with interesting alcohol alternatives. From no-ABV beers to zero-proof spirits, there are a number of non-alcoholic options that taste just like the real thing (or pretty darn close) without the alcohol and with fewer calories. If consumers can get past price concerns, the compelling flavors and low-calorie appeal of these products could help keep the low and no movements humming along.

As one notable example, Scottish brewery BrewDog has reported strong demand for its range of alcohol-free beers this year. Compared to the last four months of 2019, volume sales on its e-commerce platform have surged more than 350 percent between January and April of this year.

“Just last week, we had our strongest day of online sales ever with the launch of our newest NA beer: Ghost Walker,” says CEO Jason Block. Demand from wholesalers has been stronger still, with volume growth reaching quadruple digits during the first four months of 2020.

The thirst for no-ABV spirits appears to be similarly strong. Ritual Zero Proof, a non-alcoholic beverage brand that offers gin, tequila, and whiskey alternatives, sold its entire six-month inventory in just five weeks when it launched in September last year. Despite the current global pandemic, March 2020 sales were up 16 percent over February, and April sales are on track to double that.

“Spirit alternatives like Ritual are today what veggie burgers and almond milk were a few years back: New, easy to knock, and so broadly desired there are now sections in the grocery store dedicated to them,” says founding partner Marcus Sakey. “Almond milk did $5.3 billion in 2018.”

Support from internationally acclaimed bartenders has given these alternatives further credentials. At Bar Kumiko in Chicago, partner and director Julia Momose curated an extensive “Spiritfrees” cocktail menu. The bar is currently offering five of these drinks as part of a temporary to-go menu.

One of the most vocal supporters of low- and no-ABV cocktails has been Derek Brown, owner of Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room. In February, Brown authored a high-profile article on embracing “mindful drinking” and detailing his own complicated relationship with alcohol.

Brown believes zero-proof cocktails can be just as delicious, interesting, and thought-provoking as those with booze. While he’s also noticed an anecdotal increase in alcohol consumption, he doesn’t think that will harm the low and no movements. In fact, Brown believes our current situation might serve as a wake-up call for many. “A lot of people who went into this wondering whether they had a drinking problem will come out of it knowing the answer to that,” he says.

For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.

The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/

0 notes

johnboothus · 4 years

Text

Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?

Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic

Drinking Habits During a Recession

But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.

Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements

One of the most vocal supporters of the low- and no-ABV drinks has been Derek Brown, owner of Washington D.C.’s Columbia Room. In February, Brown authored a high-profile article on embracing “mindful drinking” and detailing his own complicated relationship with alcohol.

For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.

The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/will-the-low-and-no-abv-movements-survive-covid-19

0 notes

everyessencebd-blog · 5 years

Text

What is Digital Marketing and what can you expect for the future of the entrepreneurial market

_______________________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. What is Digital Marketing and its importance?

2. Are Digital Marketing and Inbound Marketing the same thing?

3. What is B2B x B2C Digital Marketing?

4. Marketing Mix in the Digital Age: the evolution from 4Ps to 4Cs

5. Creative digital marketing ideas from big companies

6. The internet of things: more space for Digital Marketing

______________________________________________________

What is Digital Marketing?

You probably already know the answer to that question, after all, for over 10 years this has been one of the most used Marketing strategies to be successful.

But there is always something new to discover on a topic as dynamic as this!

Think about just about any subject you want to learn and you can find that information in a simple Google search.

You may even have reached this article by typing the question: "what is digital marketing" in the search box .

My point is: information is abundant and available to those who want it like never before, no matter the subject, ranging from topics such as politics, religion and sports to information about products and services.

If information is abundant in all areas, and that is something extremely positive, it also becomes more difficult to be found in the midst of such an offer. And that is where the importance of knowing what Digital Marketing is.

Marketing is nothing more than creating a connection with a specific target audience to identify needs and desires and offer the most appropriate solutions.

And what is Digital Marketing? It is the meeting of these marketing strategies but done online.

There is a discussion among those who believe that Digital Marketing is any marketing strategy that includes electronic devices, such as TV and radio, and not only those who are in some way connected to the web.

However, I believe that the internet is the technology that justifies the existence of Digital Marketing. So this article will focus on strategies and tactics aimed at the online environment (despite its effects on the offline world as well).

So, if you want to know what Digital Marketing is and want to learn more about it, keep reading this article because in it we will talk more about:

What is Digital Marketing and its importance:

We stay connected most of our time on the internet, whether talking with friends, consuming content or playing online.

It became much easier to conquer your target audience, because no matter what market niche your consumer belongs to, he will certainly be online too.

Not only him: but his friends, relatives, co-workers, practically his entire social circle.

And these people will also be sharing impressions about products they have purchased and whether they are satisfied customers of a brand or not.

One of the biggest benefits of those who use digital marketing channels is the ease of measuring the impact of each of these channels, such as how many visitors to a website become buyers, making it possible to identify which ones bring the most results and therefore deserve greater investment.

Through this data, you can discover:

· Which channels have the best cost-benefit ratio for acquiring customers, based on the conversion rate and the acquisition cost of each of these leads.

· Which channels are more efficient not only to attract consumers but to generate buybacks (such as email marketing), creating a loyal customer base.

· Which consumers are more likely to buy other products of their own from higher categories by engaging this share of customers.

But after all, are Digital Marketing and Inbound Marketing the same thing?

In the last article “What is Inbound Marketing? The most effective strategy to get customers to come to you (spending up to 62% less) ” I talked a little more about this strategy that is well known for winning people's interest instead of interrupting them, like the associated actions to Outbound Marketing.

However, Inbound Marketing is often associated with Digital Marketing as if they were different names for the same thing.

And what is Digital Marketing?

The term Digital Marketing is not just about tactics to gain people's attention. On the contrary, Digital Marketing uses the tools of Inbound and Outbound Marketing . If these actions are performed within the online context, they are included under the umbrella of Digital Marketing.

The Digital Marketing involves some activities such as:

· Generate value through Content Marketing ;

· Create relationship with audience through Email Marketing ;

· Increase reach using SEO (Search Engine Optimization);

· Improve the social side through Social Media Management;

Digital Marketing activities may also include remarketing , advertisements on social networks and search engines, use of banners, push notifications, direct mail via email and any other Outbound Marketing tactic used in the digital medium.

The goal of Outbound is to put the message in front of the audience , as many people as possible, whether they like it or not, whether they like it or not.

And although they are much less efficient and cost much more than Inbound practices, they can still be part of your digital marketing plan , as long as you use common sense and don't irritate your audience.

But, without a doubt, the greatest benefit of Digital Marketing is obtained when you decide to make the audience come to you and not the other way around.

And to do that you need to generate real value by producing quality content, whether your customer is the end consumer or other companies.

What is B2B x B2C Digital Marketing:

Effective marketing is always made for people, regardless of whether you operate in the B2C (Bussiness to Consumer) or B2B (Bussiness to Bussiness) market. However, we cannot say that there is no difference in digital marketing strategies for these two markets.

Unlike B2C marketing, which focuses on reaching the end consumer, B2B marketing focuses on the relationship between companies and how to reach business customers more effectively.

In the B2B market you need to reach professional buyers, much more skeptical and well-informed.

Business buyers already know their needs very well and already have pre-conceived ideas about what they want.

If your company operates in the B2B market, your digital marketing efforts will be much more focused on lead generation so that at the end of the process, that is, when that lead reaches the bottom of the sales funnel , it is directed to the sales team. sales.

For this reason, the role of B2B Digital Marketing is to attract and convert qualified leads to their salespeople through their main marketing channels , especially on their website / blog, the most important channel for companies that sell to companies.

In addition to your website, one of the most important social networks for B2B businesses is LinkedIn, since most professional buyers are in this online environment.

Videos and podcasts are excellent content formats for the B2B market.

Make a channel on YouTube in order for your audience to make videos about trends in your niche market, launching products and services.

On the other hand, if your business is aimed at the final consumer, you can make the lead go through the sales funnel until the moment of purchase without having to have any contact with a sales team.

The B2C process can be solved in minutes with just a Google search for a product and a quick look at reviews.

The purchase journey, in this case, is much faster , which allows you to talk about your products and services to the audience more quickly and need to bet on good copies , mental triggers and calls to action on your content to make more sales.

Social networks like Instagram and Facebook are much better to complement your Digital Marketing strategy aimed at the final audience.

Different strategies, for different audiences. However, that is not all that changes with respect to Digital Marketing. Even the traditional marketing mix and its 4Ps have changed in the digital age.

Marketing Mix in the Digital Age: the evolution from 4Ps to 4Cs:

The strong massification of the internet since 1990 has had an impact on the marketing mix.

Better informed consumers, once again caused changes in the market and one of them certainly happened with the 4Ps of the marketing mix.

The model created in the 60s was still necessary, but the new needs made room for the 4Cs, which, created by Robert Lauterborn, are a kind of evolution of the 4Ps.

Client

The original orientation of the Product P was, as the name already indicates, in the company and not in the public. I have a solution that I think is good and I look for a market for it.

Today, the ideal way is to check which unmet needs exist in the market and only then create and offer a solution , which can even be an MVP ( Minimium Viable Product ).

The focus changes 100% from the product to the customer. A company needs to sell a product or service that meets exactly what the consumer needs.

So, know your persona , your desires, fears and objections to offer an almost personalized solution.

This is the big difference between the Product P and the Customer C.

Cost

The price is no longer the only value inherent to the purchase of a product or service, it is necessary to take into account the opportunity cost.

Put on the scale everything your potential customer will have to invest to, in the end, enjoy the benefit you offer.

This includes spending on transportation to your store, parking, internet package, time involved in the purchase process, using the product or service and much more.

Communication

Communication in place of the promotion P is cooperative and not manipulative , not even persuasive .

Keeping the dialogue open with consumers and potential customers allows the creation of products and services much more in line with their real demands.

Within the concept of communication, content is an important part of the Digital Marketing mix and the best way to sell, as there is a generation of value not only for the company but also for the customer.

Instead of interrupting your audience to sell, you offer informative and entertaining content, free of charge, create connection, generate trust and produce much superior sales results with significantly lower investments.

Convenience

Convenience implies that the product must be readily available to consumers, requiring them to be offered at various distribution points.

An example of convenience is the option to purchase digital books. As soon as the payment is approved, you have immediate access to the product, without having to wait days for the order to arrive at your home or having to go to a physical bookstore to purchase the product.

Creative digital marketing ideas from big companies:

The Digital Marketing is a strategy available to all business sizes, smaller with tighter budgets to larger with a lot of money available to invest in what is necessary to increase the range.

And if you want to learn more about the subject, a Digital Marketing course may be right for you.

But in the end, everyone is vying for the audience's attention in the most creative ways possible, balancing the value proposition with the brand personality to attract and engage more and more consumers.

Next we will learn about digital marketing actions of some of the biggest companies in the world and that you can also be inspired to use in your own business.

Creativity in a complex market

The GE (General Electric) is an excellent example to show that the B2B marketing can go far beyond traditional strategies and even some creative that most of the companies that market uses

The company invests heavily in the power of content and produces web series, online magazines and podcasts .

Using the tagline “imagination at work”, GE tells stories behind the scenes, especially about new research in areas related to aviation, cancer drugs and even the climate. And the content of these reports is so good that it often goes viral on forums like Reddit .

When dealing with complex and scientific subjects with a more humane approach, GE achieves the engagement of people in an uncommon way in the B2B market.

His fictional podcast series called “Life After” , where an FBI agent has conversations with his deceased wife through advanced technology, is a great example of branded content that is hugely successful and has proven to be a excellent Digital Marketing tactic.

Interactive and personalized content

The BBC put into practice one of the best ways to engage the audience: counting on their collaboration in the production of content .

About 78% of consumers are more open to building relationships with brands that publish audience content, as does Go Pro.

With the infographic called “Your life on earth” , where you can customize your own infographic by entering your data such as date of birth, sex and height.

With this information, curious facts about how and how much the world has changed in its lifetime, showing various statistics and insights.

Influencers and Digital Marketing

The Get Response platform invests heavily in Content Marketing, whether through posts published daily on its blog, strategic banners placed in the right places and various premium materials such as ebooks to capture more subscribers to the email list .

But they went further and managed to use influencers from their niche market to evaluate and record testimonials about their product, putting it all on their website.

Case studies and testimonials from satisfied customers work much better than excellent copywriting techniques . If these people are influential, true authorities then, even better.

To achieve the same result, you do not necessarily need to hire the largest YouTubers in Brazil, not least because your audience may not even identify with these people.

Instead, show your product or service and offer it for free to key people in your market and who have some authority, even if your audience is not huge.

The internet of things and the impact on Digital Marketing

The internet of things is the term used to define the connection of electronic devices of daily use (not just computers and cell phones) to the internet.

In this case we are talking about TVs, cars, coffee makers, bathtubs, refrigerators, lamps and any other device that does not need internet to fulfill its function, but that in the very near future will also be connected, opening up new possibilities for Digital Marketing strategies.

This video from IBM explains in a simple and visual way the concept of internet of things:

These devices can transmit and collect information via Bluetooth, beacons and store them in the cloud. Consumption habits and consumer behavior registered and available for use by those who work with Digital Marketing.

Digital Marketing 100% based on data is the future of marketing.

Imagine a chocolate and snack machine, similar to the ones found on the subway, that can communicate over the internet with suppliers, warning when the product stock is low or showing which of these products are most consumed and at what times?

Experts in the area say that by 2020 we will have around 13 billion devices connected to the internet , not only facilitating the user experience but also the companies.

The Digital Marketing of the future will not only promote solutions focused on demographic and psychographic data of the target audience, but will offer personalized products for each consumer.

This may seem like a distant future, but some companies are already starting to put the internet of things into practice and thus leveraging their digital marketing strategies.

Products as media

Imagine products that can be used to sell themselves . Confused?

Products connected to the internet can not only be marketing tools, but also sales tools.

If you go to wash your clothes and notice that your washing powder is over, I guarantee that the idea of going to the supermarket to buy the product will not be something that will make you happy there.

However, imagine if you realized this, you could just press a button on your machine and, automatically, she would order the replacement soap for a website specialized in selling this type of product.

Too much technology? Because Amazon in partnership with detergent brand Tide is already doing just that.

The so-called Dash Button from Amazon, buttons that connect via the wi-fi network with the Amazon application and can be pressed whenever your stock of a certain product is running out, already exists.

For the soap manufacturer, this is quite an advantage, as the brand does not compete for consumer attention in the supermarket, functioning almost as a loyalty program.

And for the consumer there is nothing more convenient and practical than buying soap at the push of a button.

Products as a service

The internet of things also brings new possibilities of features in products that until then would have been impossible to imagine, and that today can be used as a differential at the time of sale.

The Tesla Motors produces electric cars of high technology, consumer dream of many people.

In addition, they are going further and bringing services to their cars. Tesla updates the car software remotely to improve product performance without any inconvenience to the consumer.

Just like your cell phone and computer already do with your operating system, but on devices where this technology is not yet commonplace.

Connected products

The Uber and Spotify made a partnership to connect their service s.

With that, the user can link his Spotify account to his Uber account and thereby play his music selection in the car's speaker, while using the Uber service.

In this case, the internet of things allows not only the connection between one application and another, but also the connection to the car, improving the user experience and making it (a) remain within an application ecosystem, increasing its loyalty.

As much as it sounds like science fiction or something close to the Jetson's design, all of this is already happening. And there are many more innovations to come.

Even if you think you already know what Digital Marketing is , you will find that you need to keep up to date frequently if you want to stay relevant in your market.

#digital marketing #ecommerce #Business #social media

0 notes

mnranger5 · 7 years

Text

My one sports blog of the year, and Jeremy’s Ticket Guy, Minneapolis & Chicago, IL, 4/3/17 - 4/9/17

This blog officially has multiple personality disorder. Some days it’s a fishing blog. Some days it wants to be a Green Egg barbecue blog. And other days, it looks more like a travel blog. This week, I’ve been fortunate enough to make it to a few really special sporting events. That said, bring on the sports blog!

Monday was Game 1 of the 2017 MLB baseball season. Since the Royals were in town for Opening Day, Dyan bought me insanely awesome tickets that were about 20 rows behind the Royals dugout.

It was a chilly 50 degree day with a raw wind out of the north. The pregame ceremonies included a tribute to the late Yordano Ventura, which was a pretty classy gesture by the Twins organization. There was supposed to by a F-16 flyover by the Duluth Air National Guard, however, the low cloud deck prevented it from taking place. Bummer.

Unfortunately for Royals fans, there wasn’t much to cheer about during the game except for a Mike Moustakas homerun. The Twins shut down the Royals bats, and took advantage of a really poor outing by the Royals bullpen. Twins took the game, 7-1. In game 2 of the series, the Royals bullpen imploded once again in a 9-1 stomping.

I had a light day at the office on Thursday, so I decided to take a “long lunch” and head down to Target Field for Game 3 of the series. When I pulled into downtown, temps were still in the 40’s, but at least the sun was shining. I bought a ticket in the outfield bleachers, a spot Dyan and I had sat at on several warmer occasions. Once I entered, I noticed the lower level bleachers were shaded by the upper deck. I took a seat, and froze in the chilly breeze. Around game time, I headed to the concession stand to buy a hotdog and in doing so, I walked past the upper deck above my seat. The section was empty. I chatted briefly with the usher about the chilly weather and he suggested I park myself in the middle of his section, which was in direct sunlight, and out of the wind. I did.

It was cool, but the sun sure felt good for a couple of hours. The Royals showed a little more life with a couple of dingers by Perez and Moose, but the result was the same. Royals bullpen gave up a few runs in a 5-3 losing effort. I bailed out of the game in the 7th inning and was back in the office by 2:00.

Later Thursday evening, UMD played Harvard in the Frozen Four. The winner of the game would play for the Championship on Saturday night in Chicago. As a family, we watched the game and all witnessed the Bulldogs take the lead with 26 seconds left in the third period. The Dogs survived a last minute push (included 2 hit pipes) and won the game 2-1. After the game, the texts between Jeremy, Scott and I began flying. Within the hour, we had plans to drive to Chicago the following day and attend the National Championship game on Saturday night. We also briefly discussed tickets, and I suggested we buy them in advance off StubHub, but Scott and Jeremy assured me there would be plenty of tickets to buy from scalpers on game day.

After a full day of work on Friday, Jeremy picked me up at 3:30 and we headed toward Rochester where we met up with Scott. During the drive, we discussed our plan for getting tickets again, and the guys once again assured me that tickets from scalpers was the way to go. We rolled into downtown Chicago around 9:30 and checked into the DoubleTree, a couple of blocks off Michigan Ave. Next stop, the bar.

We hit up Mother Hubbard’s Sports Bar for a couple of pitchers of beer before heading over to Hub 51 – a swanky happy hour bar with an oonce-oonce meat market club in the basement. We had a few beers and then decided to see what the club was all about. Between the marijuana stench and clientele (looked like an audition for a Snoop Dog rap video), we were out of our element. We stayed just long enough to get photobombed by this drunk lady.

At 2AM, we then headed back toward the hotel in search of some late night food. The front desk attendant gave us a couple of nearby recommendations, but even more cool, is that he sent us on our way with warm cookies (DoubleTree gives warm cookies to all guests at check-in) that were so delicious!

The Bellwether restaurant was located a block away at the Embassy Suites. We had wings and cheesy spin dip, which was decent for late night food. The place seemed more like a club than a restaurant. That’s no filter, everything was lit up in purple!

On Saturday morning, we made a quick stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for breakfast and photo op in front of Trump Tower before grabbing a public transportation pass and boarding the train.

Coincidentally, the Twins were in town taking on the White Sox. None of us had ever been to Guaranteed Rate Stadium (formerly known as Comisky Park) so with no plans, we decided to catch a bit of the ball game. The train ride was only 20 minutes and we arrived at the ballpark about an hour early. We bought $7 tickets and strolled into the stadium. It was winter hat giveaway day!

We hung out near the Twins dugout for 30 minutes watching Sano crush ball after ball into the stands. That guy is a beast.

We meandered through the stadium taking in the sightlines before settling on these seats in dead center field. There wasn’t much of a crowd, and the ushers weren’t policing tickets.

While basking under the sun, we began talking about hockey tickets again. Prices were not coming down on StubHub, but rather increasing a bit. Jeremy began searching Craigslist to see what was available [Red Flag #1 - Craigslist]. Braun looks up from his phone and says, “I found a set of 4 tickets in section 102, row 4 going for $125 each [Red Flag #2 – Nearly center ice seats, 4th row, for cheaper than anything else we have seen. Too good to be true?].

Jeremy calls the seller and the guy indicates he wants to keep all four together, so we’d need to buy all 4. Jeremy tells him we are only willing to spend $300 total. We figured we could sell the 4th ticket at the gate and have a little beer money! The guy tells Jeremy he will sell them for that price. He says he is at work, and will text us his address. Three innings went by, and the seller had not texted us, so we assumed the deal was off.

We then decided to leave the stadium so that we could meet up with our college roommate, Ian, at a bar near United Center before the hockey game. On our way out of the stadium, the ticket seller texts Jeremy to meet him at a Starbucks only 5 blocks from the baseball stadium! Such a giant city, yet Jeremy finds the one seller that happens to be within walking distance from us. What are the chances? We were stoked. Jeremy had a Ticket Guy!

On our way to Starbucks, we talked about how we were going to validate whether the tickets were legit. Jeremy was adamant that we all needed to be present to validate the tickets. We had a picture of what the actual tickets looked like, and we agreed if anything seemed off, we’d walk away from the deal. As soon as we got to Starbucks, Scott decided to call Myrriah (awesome timing Rutz!) leaving just two of use to validate the tickets. We waited for about 10 minutes before the most stereotypical gangster-thug walked in the door. He had a bandana covering portions of his dreadlocked head, pants sagging to his knees and more gold teeth than white [Red Flag #3 – Why does a this guy have hockey tickets?]. He pulls out an envelope that held 4 tickets, and a purchase order.

Jeremy started looking at the quality of the tickets while I tried comparing them to the picture we had. Some of the coloring and fonts looked off, but I rationalized these variances by figuring there were likely multiple ticket printers used for all the seats. I noticed the seats were even better than the seats he advertised on Craigslist [Red Flag #4 – why did he have different tickets than were advertised?] The tickets he was presenting were actually center ice, 7th row – virtually the best seats in the stadium (seats are highlighted in yellow on the picture below).

They were high enough that the glass was not an obstruction, but low enough to be right on top of the action. As bad as it sounds, I began thinking to myself, “This guy has no idea how great of seats he is sitting on – he’s probably never even been to a hockey game. If we get these seats, we will be scamming him at this price!” So naive....

I looked at the receipt, and noticed the name on the receipt as Jessie Walker. I asked the seller if he was Jessie, and he said ”Yep, yes I am!” matter of factually. Jeremy asked him point black if the tickets were real, and “Jessie” responded, “Come on guys, you can trust me, you got my word on this!” He was actually much more personable than what he looked like, which probably was the reason we hadn’t walked away from the sale.

We continued looking for imperfections, but in hindsight, I was really just glancing over the seats hoping Jeremy would make the decision to pay so that we could get on our way. I overlooked every red flag and sold myself on the seats being real. I wanted them to be real so bad. I wanted to sit in those seats for the National Championship Game!

Jeremy finally pulled out the $300 and handed it to Jessie. Jessie was out the door so fast – he never even counted the cash. As Jessie walked out, Scott walked in. We had tickets to the game! Scott looked at the tickets, and gave a shrug of approval. As we all stood around skeptically admiring our purchase, a voice from across the Starbucks yelled out, “You guys! You guys! Make sure those tickets are real!” It was the Starbucks manager. She had seen the whole deal going down and apparently was trying to get our attention during the transaction. She said she has seen many ticket scams in her store and we needed to be careful. Unfortunately, that bit of advice came about 20 seconds too late. Jessie was gone. The money was too.

We left Starbucks worried. That skepticism was much more real. We had no idea if they were real, or fake, but that Starbucks manager, and all the red flags were causing me to have a pit in my stomach. As we walked toward the train station, Jessie called Jeremy. Jeremy picked up the phone and immediately Jessie began getting confrontational saying we had shorted him money. Jeremy indicated our deal was $300 for 4 seats but Jessie was recalling a different sale price apparently. He said nothing else and hung up. At this point, I was a little freaked out. This Jessie dude was not a good guy. He is the exact kind of guy you could easily see carrying a gun around for protection, or worse, for getting what he wants. As we made our way to the train station, I kept looking behind us to see if we were being followed. At the train station, there was a police presence, so I sensed we were safe. This is where we all started looking more closely at the tickets. Were they real, or were they fake? Then Jeremy found it.

“Commision” - A misspelled word on the front of the ticket. And when it rains, it pours...

“Incorperated” – A misspelled word on the back of the ticket. There is NO WAY the NCAA is going to have tickets with misspelled words on them. We had been fooled by a guy claiming to be Jessie, the original purchaser of the tickets. Damn. We weren’t happy campers.

We hopped on the train and unfortunately chose a spot next to an older mentally unstable dude who kept telling Jeremy he was high, and going to bite him. Luckily nobody got bit on the 20 minute train ride downtown.

We may have been out $300, but Jeremy’s Ticket Guy became an instant legend. The rest of the trip, we used every opportunity imaginable to razz Jeremy about his Ticket Guy. Fortunately for us, we were able to get some authentic tickets too. After a quick pre-game happy hour with Ian and his wife Shannon at the Ogden Bar, we headed over to the Frozen Four Fanfest at United Center.

We found a real scalper named Biggie, with real tickets. He had three 5th row Club Level seats in section 232 he was selling for $200/ticket. We negotiated down to $125/seat but walked away thinking we still might be able to do better. After 10 minutes of chatting with other scalpers, we realized we weren’t going to do better. We found Biggie and offered him $340 for the 3 tickets, which he reluctantly accepted. The difference between the fake vs real ticket became obvious to us.

And the seats turned out to be awesome! Being that they were Club level, the seats were wider and cushioned (albeit poorly).

The pregame festivities were really well done with a laser and video show displayed on the ice surface.

The Bulldogs came out playing really poor in the first period. Denver is a great team, but our inept performance made them look superior. We couldn’t fore-check, we couldn’t hold the zone, we couldn’t make simple passes, our positioning on the ice was awful and we never seemed to get any kind of rhythm. Despite all that, miraculously, Denver didn’t score in the first period. Their shots seemed to all hit the pipe, side of the net or our goalie, Hunter Miska. It was 0-0 after one period. The second period started just like the first, except Denver found the back of the net twice, just 16 seconds apart. The Bulldogs finally got on the board with a goal shortly after the two Denver scores. That goal seemed to light a fire under the Bulldogs. Unfortunately, while the Dogs were looking great late in the second period, they gave up a third goal to Denver. The score was by Jarid Lukosevicious, his third goal of the game. This hat trick drove Denver fans to toss their hats onto the ice. Although down two goals, UMD continued playing well as they closed out the second period. The Dogs came out firing in the third period. Down two goals, they had a lot of work to do to get back in the game. But they owned Denver. The Dogs put 17 shots on goal compared to 3 shots for Denver. The puck was constantly in the Bulldog zone. It was a complete reversal from the first period of play. The strong play finally paid off when freshman Riley Tufte knocked in a lose puck in front of the net with less than 6 minutes left in the game. That goal set up what was likely one of the most competitive finishes in Frozen Four history. The Dogs peppered the Denver goaltender, Tanner Jaillet, with a slew of shots, but he fended off everyone proving why he had just been named college hockey’s goaltender of the year just a day earlier. The Dogs pulled the goalie with about 2 minutes left on the clock, giving them an extra attacker. But it was not in the cards for the Dogs on this night. Their final couple of pushes were strong, and nearly resulted in a tying goal, however, Jaillet was stronger as he fended off the Bulldogs attacks. When the period came to an end, the Denver players littered the ice with their gloves, sticks and helmets as they piled around one another in their national championship celebration.

We hung around and watched the trophy presentation, which was bittersweet. It was really cool seeing a National Championship and the celebration that ensued – just wish it would have been the Dogs.

After the game, we cabbed it over to Buck Town and had a couple of beers at Northside Bar and Grill and Wicker Park Tavern before closing out the night with some 1AM tacos at Flash Taco. From there, we took the blue line back downtown to the hotel.

It was an amazing week of sports! Three baseball games and a National Championship hockey game rounded out a week I will never forget. But most importantly, I learned a lesson. Never listen to Jeremy when he says, “I have a guy...”

1 note · View note

ownerfinancing · 8 years

Text

Creative Financing - How It Can Help You

Why You Need a Creative Financing

Building your real estate investing portfolio is like crafting a custom home. You need a set of reliable and flexible tools in order to build a solid structure.

Like a hammer, traditional bank financing is a common tool that everyone knows how to use. And there’s nothing wrong with a hammer. If you have a nail, it sure is handy.

But I’m here to tell you that depending only upon bank financing for real estate investing is a handicap. It’s like building a house with one tool. It will limit your business over the long run.

Other investors with a larger toolbox that also includes creative financing will have a natural advantage against you. They will build their real estate portfolio faster, more consistently, and with a better long-term result. There are multiple reasons why this is true. I’ll explain just a few here.

Real Estate Cycles

Real estate markets go up and down, often in 7-10 year cycles. The best real estate deals are found during the down cycles. Think about 2008-2009 when blood was in the streets and good real estate deals were plentiful.

But guess what? Down cycles are when banks lend the least money. Even if you recognize good deals, your ability to buy them will be limited if you can’t borrow money. On the other hand, creative financing smooths out the curves of these cycles and works during up and down times.

For example, in the downturn of 2009, we were able to obtain plentiful private financing from individuals who were scared of the stock market and sick of tiny bank CD rates. At this time when banks would not loan money against investment real estate, our private lenders felt very secure with tangible real estate that produced rent far in excess of their interest payment.

At the same time, many sellers couldn’t get rid of their properties. They were much more open to seller financing during the down cycle than they would have been before. So, rather than working against us, the down real estate cycle actually improved our ability to finance deals creatively.

Increased Risk

Do you know how you can tell that a bank is in control of your lending relationship? Because their army of attorneys wrote the enormous book of papers you sign at a loan closing. You get the privilege of signing the papers as-is, or you can take a hike!

That big stack of papers is all about transferring risk. The attorneys working for the bank essentially transfer as much risk as possible from the bank to you. The risk equation may be out of balance in the bank’s favor, but the terms are not negotiable.

On the other hand, everything is negotiable with creative financing. It’s possible to find win-win agreements with sellers, private individuals, or small businesses who are willing to finance to you. These agreements can reduce your personal risk and still satisfy the needs of the other party.

Lack of Control

Success in real estate investing depends upon consistently being able to acquire funding for new deals. But the application and approval process for bank financing is largely outside of your control. Today you may be able to get seven loans, but tomorrow the policy may change to five. And the changes do not always make sense.

On the other hand, creative financing is limited only by your ability to find good deals and to prove yourself to the individuals providing the financing. With your hustle and intelligence unleashed by creative financing, the potential upside of your investing business is virtually unlimited.

Lack of Speed

Ignoring all of the other problems above, bank loans are just too slow. For the best investment acquisitions, you must move very quickly. But bank loans require drawn out application processes, appraisals, and multiple layers of approval.

By the time you finish the first step of your traditional bank application, I will have already used creative financing to close the deal. For example, we recently closed a deal in three days. We would have been lucky to get a return call from the bank by the time we already bought the property!

The Basics of Creative Financing

Luckily, adding creative financing tools to your toolbox is not rocket science. You probably already know the basics. If you have used a promissory note, a mortgage, a deed of trust, or a lease, you understand the fundamentals of how creative financing works.

But there is still a learning curve to understand the nuances and the unique applications of these tools. Almost daily in the Biggerpockets Forums, a newbie investor complains that a local closing attorney or title company refuses to close their creative financing deal or says that what they’re doing is illegal.

While I can empathize with the situation, my hunch is that most new investors really don’t understand the tool themselves. It’s like this closing attorney sees a small child climbing up to turn on a power saw. The attorney may not know how to use the power saw either, but he knows enough to scream “stop!” before the child cuts off his finger!

So, the goal of my explanations below is to make you more familiar with five of the most common and useful creative financing tools. I will share diagrams and examples that will explain how the tools are used. Once you get the basics, you can then study them more in depth from sources like Brandon Turner’s No Money Down book, the creative financing forum here on BiggerPockets, or my favorite teachers like John Schaub.

I’ll begin to unpack these creative financing tools by explaining the tool you’re probably all familiar with, traditional bank financing.

A Picture of a Traditionally Financed Closing

If you’re going to be able to understand creative financing and explain it to a skeptical attorney, real estate agent, or seller, you need to first understand each piece of a typical transaction.

The diagram above shows the relationship between all of the parties of a typical closing. There are four primary entities involved:

The Seller

The Buyer (you, if purchasing an investment)

The Bank (lender)

The Closing Agent (an attorney or title company)

In this example, a purchase and sale agreement was signed at some point before closing between the buyer and seller. The price was $50,000. Also before closing, a loan commitment agreement was made between the buyer and the bank. The loan was $40,000, and the buyer provided $10,000 or 20% as a down payment.

The closing attorney or title company uses these pre-closing agreements to oversee the closing transaction (a.k.a. escrow) to ensure the other three parties are treated fairly per the terms of their contracts. The items actually exchanged between the parties include:

Money — from the bank to the buyer (a loan)

Two contracts, a promissory note, and a mortgage (or deed of trust in some states) — from the buyer to the bank

A deed — from the seller to the buyer

Money — from the buyer to the seller

For those of you already investing, this may seem basic. But it’s important to start here before doing transactions that are a little more creative because these creative tools use the same basic format.

Now I’ll unpack my 5 favorite creative financing power tools from my toolbox.

Power Tool #1: Seller Financing

In the picture above, did you notice the main difference between a seller financing transaction and a transaction with a bank loan? Obvious, right? There is no bank! Related: How to Use Owner Financing to Create Wealth And Grow Your Portfolio

In fact, technically, there is not even a loan. As you can see, the seller never gives the buyer any money like a bank would. Instead, the seller just agrees to let the buyer pay the purchase price over time with monthly installments (i.e. an installment sale).

In exchange for this financing arrangement, the seller (not a bank) receives the promissory note and mortgage as security.

The beauty of this arrangement is that there are only two parties — the buyer and the seller. The seller does not have loan committees, underwriters, or Fannie Mae-conforming rules.

You make an offer to the seller, the two of you negotiate, and if it makes sense for both parties, you move forward.

But how common is seller financing, really? Well, Ben Leybovich, a well-known creative financing writer here on BP who I respect, once wrote that seller financing is rare and usually only used on ugly pig properties. While I normally nod my head at Ben’s articles, I shook my head and chuckled at this one. Maybe Ben has been looking under the wrong rocks.

It’s true that seller financing is not as common or as easy to obtain as more traditional tools. It’s also true that seller financing does not make a bad deal magically turn into gold. But don’t let its difficulty dissuade you from its ultimate value.

Seller financing is an incredible tool that is well worth the effort. And it is one of the clearest win-win transactions in the entire real estate business.

For example, my business recently bought an income property using seller financing with a 10% down payment (yes, in a hot market and yes, in a desirable location). Once stabilized and rented, this property will likely make us over $1,000 per month in net income for decades to come. And that does not include the benefits of future capital gains.

What’s more? The seller and I are pals. He is happy as a clam in water because he loves monthly checks without the hassles of being a landlord. I have saved him the trouble of putting a big chunk of his money into investments like stocks or bank CDs that he doesn’t like or understand. And he receives a much larger income than he would with most traditional investments.

Who is the only party not happy with the transaction? I guess it’s the bank, who didn’t get my seller’s money in a CD so that they could loan it to me at a higher interest rate!

Power Tool #2: Private Loan From a Self-Directed IRA

As you see above, this creative financing tool is structurally very similar to a closing with a bank loan. The only difference is that the lender is a self-directed IRA (individual retirement account) and not a bank.

Most retirement accounts invest in traditional assets like mutual funds or bonds. But a self-directed IRA is a way to use retirement savings to invest in alternative assets like real estate, notes, tax liens, and more. Specialized custodians who allow self-direction hold the assets and process transactions, and keep records for the IRS.

The point of this tool is to borrow the IRA funds from other individuals, not from your own IRA. You must be very careful not to engage in IRS-prohibited transactions. Loaning money to yourself or to your business is clearly off limits.

But as long as you follow the rules, you have enormous opportunities to find sources of funds for your real estate deals. Even a few years ago in 2012, total IRA accounts in the United States totaled over 5.68 TRILLION dollars!

Chances are that someone you know in your local network has funds available and would be willing to loan them to you. Some of the best candidates are other real estate investors who can’t loan that money to themselves. Your deals give them the perfect opportunity to invest in local assets that they know and understand.

This has been the tool that I use the most often from my creative financing toolbox. Like seller financing, it is a win-win arrangement. It gets you the funds you need, and your IRA lender receives a solid return and good collateral.

Power Tool #3: Private Loans (Outside of an IRA)

I didn’t include a diagram here because it is the exact same process as the previous tool. The only difference is that the private lender uses funds outside of an IRA.

Who would have that kind of money? More people than you think.

The most likely candidate is an individual with a large net worth. And if you understand the principle of books like The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, this person WON’T be the one driving the expensive car or wearing fancy clothes. So, don’t underestimate anyone you meet!

My favorite way to find these individuals is at real estate networking events like Bigger Pockets meetups or your local real estate club. Attend these events and get to know people. Find the experienced old guys and gals in the back of the room. Ask questions. Make friends. Once you get to know people, they may be willing to loan money to you.

I love that borrowing from high net worth individuals also brings more benefits than just getting the money. In addition to borrowing money, you also borrow their expertise and experience!

A couple of my own private lenders became mentors and close advisors. While they may have been interested anyway, the fact that I had their money made them VERY interested in my success. Their tips, feedback, encouragement, and friendship over the years have been an essential part of my own success on their deals and on others.

While I personally have never used hard money loans, I would also lump hard money lending into this same creative financing tool. Hard money, or asset-backed loans, are an alternative to traditional bank financing. And while the cost is generally higher than normal, the availability and speed of funds make them very helpful to many investors.

Power Tool #4: Master Lease With Option to Buy

The tool of master leasing is where we begin to think outside the box even more. So, stay with me.

In the illustration above, a burned out landlord named Jane owns a quadruplex building. Jane has let the building run down, and she has not even filled two vacancies from bad tenants who recently moved out. She’s just too tired.

Jane then gets a letter from an energetic entrepreneur named Chris who offers a creative solution to her problem. Chris offers to lease her building for five years for the same amount she currently receives in rent from two tenants ($1,000 per month). He also offers to perform immediate cosmetic repairs like painting and carpeting that will cost him $5,000.

Jane will continue to pay for taxes and insurance and handle any major capital expenses (roof, heat-and-air systems, structural issues). Chris will be responsible for all vacancy costs, turnover costs, maintenance costs, etc.

Because Chris’s lease gives him the right to sublease all four units to sub-tenants, his gross rent collected in this case is $2,000. As you can see in the picture below, if his vacancy and maintenance expenses are $400 per month, he receives positive cash flow of $600 per month — or $36,000 over the next 5 years!

Stacking up a few deals like this could make for a very lucrative side income for Chris, or he could really ramp it up with more deals to completely replace his income from a job.

But why stop there? Let’s see if Chris can make it even better using another tool — the option to buy.

If Jane, the burned out quadruplex landlord, was willing to give Chris, the entrepreneur, a master lease, might she also be willing to give him an option to buy the property? There’s a good chance.

An option would essentially give Chris the right (but not the obligation) to purchase the property for a set price for a certain period of time. In exchange, Jane receives consideration for selling him the option.

In this case, Chris’s consideration is the $5,000 he spends to spruce up the cosmetics of the property. Jane will give him a credit in the amount of $5,000 when he finally executes his option.

Chris’s option strike price is $120,000. Once he gets the building rented and looking good, he then will have the chance to make money from the option any time during his 5-year option window.

Multiple Exit Strategies With Options

A well-crafted option gives Chris at least three profitable exit strategies.

First, Chris could patiently save a down payment and look for permanent financing and/or partners. This will allow him to buy the building and keep it as a long-term hold investment. Because he has five years to accomplish this, he can shop around until he finds the best terms.

Second, Chris could use this as the replacement property in a 1031 exchange. This would allow him to sell another rental property he owns, exchange into this property, and defer his taxes on the gain of the sale. Given that many investors don’t have the perfect property picked out when they execute a 1031 exchange, this can be a BIG benefit.

Third, Chris could sell his option to another investor. Let’s say he finds a landlord investor who is willing to buy this property for $160,000. He could simply assign his option contract to him (yes, contracts can be sold), and his fee for the assignment would be the difference between $160,000 and his strike price of $120,000, or $40,000.

So, in addition to the $36,000 Chris earns from operating the rental over 5 years, he also receives a profit of $35,000 ($40,000 – $5,000 initial investment) from assigning his contract.

That’s a total of $71,000! Not a bad payday considering he invested only $5,000, some hard work, and a little creativity.

And perhaps even more exciting than the $71,000 profit, the lease option allowed Chris to use enormous leverage without the typically enormous risk of traditional bank financing.

Remember the bank’s army of attorneys I wrote about earlier?

If things go badly with Chris’s lease option, he has only risked his $5,000 initial investment, his time and energy, and any potential negative cash flow during the five years of his lease. After that, he could legally just walk away.

Related: The Lease Option: How I Creatively Structured a Deal With Very Little Down

Try that with a bank loan!

Power Tool #5: Master Lease + Option (With a Credit Partner)

If you liked master leases and options with sellers, this next tool will give you a different way to use the same technique. Instead of lease optioning the property from a seller, you lease option it from a credit partner.

Let me explain.

Let’s say an entrepreneur named Karla finds a great rental property deal worth $150,000 that can be bought for $100,000. The only problem is that she doesn’t have the money to close. She knows a private lender named Jim with $20,000 cash, but obviously that’s not enough.

After further questioning, Karla learns that Jim does have excellent credit and can get a mortgage loan. So, the two of them agree to the following:

Karla, the entrepreneur, assigns the purchase contract to Jim, the credit partner.

Jim applies for a traditional bank loan and purchases the property for $100,000.

Karla immediately master leases the property for 5 years at $525 per month net-net-net rent (i.e. she pays all expenses).

She also retains an option to repurchase at a higher price ($110,000).

She manages the rental until future exit strategies are available.

Karla then proceeds to rent to a sub-tenant for $1,200 per month. Her net income looks something like this:

$1,200 – $500 (operating expenses) – $525 (rent) = $175 per month net income

While $175 seems like a nice cash flow, Karla will be wise to set aside a good portion of her cash in reserve for capital expenses and vacancies.

Meanwhile, Jim uses the $525 rent from Karla to pay his $425 mortgage payment, and he still has $100 leftover to put in his pocket.

Another Option, Another Profitable Exit Strategy

Just like the lease option example with the seller, Karla has multiple options for exit strategies, including refinancing, 1031 exchanging, or assigning. The choice she makes will depend on the circumstances and resources available to her at the time.

But what if this property has great long-term prospects? What if Karla can’t obtain long-term financing? What if both parties want to stay in the deal together as partners?

To accomplish this, they could make a slightly different credit partner arrangement.

Jim could give Karla an option for 20 years instead of 5. But instead of an option for 100% of the property, Karla retains an option to purchase a 50% interest in the property at 50% of the original purchase price.

In this case, Karla would pay $50,000 to Jim whenever the option is executed. Jim would then deed a 50% free-and-clear interest in the property to Karla, or he could sell her a 50% in an LLC if that makes more sense.

Why would either party do this? Because perhaps this location is prime, and 20 years from now, the property could appreciate from $150,000 to $400,000. And during that time, perhaps the rents could increase significantly for Karla, and the loan will certainly keep getting paid down for Jim.

At year 20, Jim has used the rents from Karla to pay down his loan from $80,000 to $40,000. So, his 50% portion of the equity in the property is now worth $200,000 – $40,000 or $160,000.

Karla, on the other hand, controls $150,000 of equity ($200,000 – $50,000 option price), but she has yet to put up any capital. As before, she again has multiple excellent options.

If Jim wants to, Karla could refinance and buy out Jim’s equity of $200,000. Or Karla could sell her equity to Jim for $150,000 cash. Or if both partners want to cash out, they can just sell the property and divide their winnings.

In the end, Jim turned $20,000 into $160,000 completely passively, and he also received $1,200 in rental income for 20 years. It’s very likely his income was completely sheltered by the depreciation of the property, meaning he paid very little in taxes until the sale.

For a bonus exercise, do the math on Jim’s internal rate of return (IRR). I’ll give you a clue that it’s better than he’d get historically in the stock market.

Karla invested zero money up front, and she used her creativity and property management skills to accumulate $150,000 of wealth. And along the way, she built a steadily growing stream of positive monthly income.

And because I know how smart and ambitious Karla is, she probably did another 9 deals just like this so that after 20 years, she created over $1.5 million in wealth and thousands of dollars in cash flow per month.

Aren’t these power tools fun?!

What Tools Are in YOUR Toolbox?

As I said way back in the very beginning, these are tools my business partner and I have used over the years in our own business. They have served us well. Our toolbox and our tools are well worn now.

But the point of the article is about you. The question is, can you use any of these tools to build wealth and income for yourself?

My advice is not to fill up your toolbox with too many tools at once. It’ll just weigh you down unnecessarily.

And you don’t need to give up your old tools, even the hammer of traditional financing. If it’s already working for you, keep using it.

Instead, decide on one or two of these tools that you’d like to add to your toolbox. Then commit to master that tool.

Learn about it. Practice it. Ask questions. Then, as quickly as possible, start using the tool in your real estate investing.

1 note · View note

dunnystuff · 3 years

Text

Hi to all -

Kamala visits Guatemala

Well, this did not go well. Instead of a reception by crowds of fawning locals, she was met with signs demanding she 'go home' and 'Trump won', and suggesting she fix her own house, and stay out of the house of Guatemala. No one was buying her talking points about addressing the 'root causes' of immigration, legal or illegal. Well, she did not handle this graciously. The president of that nation noted that while he had cracked down on crime and other problems, Kamala is ignoring those issues in her own back yard. It is safer to walk in Guatemala than in many US cities. That is saying something since just a few years ago, Guatemala had the highest murder rate in South America.

Virginia

Judge James E. Plowman, jr. ordered the school that fired a teacher named Tanner, for expressing his views that allowing transgender men to compete in women's sports was discrimination against actual women, against his faith, and an offense to God, to reinstate the man. The judge said that Tanner had First Amendment rights to speak his views, and that the school acted in a way that was 'unnecessary and vindictive'. The school countered that they did not fire Tanner for his views, but because his expression of those views caused 'disruption'. The judge did not buy that poor excuse.

Kentucky

In Boone County, Judge Richard A. Brueggemann struck down the edicts of Governor Andy Beshears regarding Covid mandates. especially masks. This was a permanent injunction, not subject to appeal or review or reinstatement after making minor changes. All of these actions were declared 'unconstitutional' and void.

Now, these mandates were set to expire Friday, anyway, and the Governor did not plan to extend them. But this ruling is important as precedent for actions all over the nation.

TikTok

Trump revoked the right of TikTok to operate here, since it was an agent of the CCP. Biden just revoked this ban.

New Orleans

A man was filmed wandering down a residential street, trying door handles to see if he could enter. He appeared very drunk, and overweight. He went down one side, and up the other, as pedestrians watched, and moved away. Finally, someone opened their door, and this man lunged at the resident. The resident, however, was prepared, and armed. He shot this intruder, killing him. No charges will be filed, thanks in part to the clear video evidence.

Crypto Currency

This was the stuff used in the Colonial Pipeline hack. Crypto currency is not issued by governments, and governments hate this stuff - since they cannot control it, or steal it from citizens. Things like Bitcoin or Dogecoin are examples. Smaller scale things like coupons, bonus points, and rewards points are also examples of non-traditional currency. We should expect to see a lot more activity in alternative currencies.

Bill Gates

He will not give up on his plan to vaccinate everyone, whether they want it or not. He just gave a 'starter' payment of $100,000 to Hiroyaki Matsuoka of the Jichi Medical University to develop mosquitoes infected with vaccines to be released into populated areas, and 'vaccinate' just about everyone. If successful, a million-dollar grant will follow. Of course, if this can be done with medicines, it can also be done with poisons. Both the Japanese and Germans did exactly that back in WWII. Japanese biowarfare experiments killed at least 250,000 Chinese, and continued to kill people for generations. Germans flooded areas that would breed mosquitoes, and unleashed diseases on the locals. They also poisoned crops, affecting others.

Bill , who is not a doctor, is intent on reducing the world population by 15%, to 'save the planet'. Perhaps he might do well to remember that even though there are a lot more people on the planet today than a few years ago, food supplies and distribution has kept up, and in fact, more people are better fed today than at any time in known history. Most people do not live at subsistence levels today, when for most of recorded history, they did.

Bill is treading on dangerous ground. The unintended consequences could be beyond horrific. Back when I was a child, I lived overseas in a mosquito infested area. Every evening, the jeeps would come by spraying clouds of DDT, to control the mosquitoes. Of course, that effective chemical was banned a few years ago. Never mind that mosquito borne diseases kill ten times as many people than the DDT did. I, for one, do not want to breed 'genetically modified mosquitoes', even for good causes.

Burger King

Did I already say this one? Seems that Burger King wants to celebrate Gay pride month. So, they took some cheap shots at Chick-fil-A over their stance, and Sunday closings. Then, to top it all off, they said that Burger King will donate a sum of money to gay pride groups for every Chick-fil-A sandwich sold. Anyone hungry for a chicken sandwich?

Fargo, North Dakota

This hotbed of racial strife saw one 23-year-old Arther Prince Kollie attack 14-year-old Daisy 'Jupiter' Paulsen. She was stabbed 25 times, beaten and strangled by this man. Then, he stole her backpack and phone. He was later captured, and she later died of her injuries. Wonder how the judge will rule in this case?

In another incident, a young black man was yelling racial slurs at an Asian police officer. When confronted over his behavior, the man said that 'blacks cannot be racist'. Didn't we hear Obama make that same argument?

France

President Macron was doing a meet and greet with the public, when a man slapped him across the face, yelling bad things about Macron's policies. That is a serious insult in French culture, and, police took down this guy, and I think a couple of others with him, very fast. Guess the president is learning that at least some of the public does not agree with him.

New Handbook

Parents are getting concerned about Critical Race Theory in the schools. Many do not want their children indoctrinated with racism. Some have spoken up at school board meetings, and the board members have tried to shut them down. But, now, there is a new handbook for these parents, with instructions on how to fight this battle. It is called "Combatting CRT in your Community". It comes from Parents and Citizens for Renewing America. Bet the leftists are getting worried, and plotting in dark back rooms how to fight back.

Atlanta

During the riots that followed a police shooting of a man found dead drunk at Wendy's, where the Wendy's was burned down, there were also many other injuries. Eight-year-old Secoriea Turner was shot and killed, as she sat in her parents car. Her family is suing the city, the mayor, and others for negligence, for allowing the riots to proceed without intervention. They did not agree that 'armed vigilantes' should be allowed to run rampant in this city. This could be a real landmark case. If the parents win, mayors all over the place will not sleep well - like Portland and Seattle.

FBI Sting

Three years in the making, an FBI sting has sprung. This operation was known variously as 'Ironside', 'Greenlight', or 'Trojan Shield'. It involved undercovers selling encrypted satellite phones to criminals, which the FBI had the keys and codes for. This allowed them to track and monitor the activities of more than 300 criminal gangs, in 18 countries. More than 800 people were arrested, and literally tons of drugs, weapons and cash were seized.

Meanwhile, back at home, the ATF is trying to re-define some guns. For many pistols, you can purchase a 'stock', so that it can be fired like a rifle. This improves accuracy. The ATF, with their devotion to disarming Americans, but not others, wants to classify such weapons as 'short barreled rifles', and apply restrictions to their sale and use. These guys never give up trying to bypass the Second Amendment.

Fauci

He was planning to release his new self-praising book this November. It was to be called "Expect the Unexpected - Ten Lessons on Truth, Service and the Way Forward". The irony of this, in light of all the email revelations and his endless flip-flopping, was just too much for the major retailers. Amazon and Barnes and Noble have dropped this book like a hot potato.

Did you know that the 'excuse' to do all these mandates was based on a PCR test to show the presence of Covid. Sadly, the test was badly flawed, with up to 97% false positives. Add in the 'creative reporting' of deaths, (how anyone could sell a gunshot wound to the head as a Covid death really stretches the imagination), and the distortion of cheap, alternative cures to expensive experimental vaccines should have made more people skeptical. HCQ had been a proven anti-malarial drug for 60 years or so, and effective on Covid, used in a timely fashion, at a dose of 200mg daily for 10 days. But, to discredit this treatment, tests were conducted using 8800 mg, and that was a toxic dose. Add to that, all the new regulations banning this as an over-the-counter drug, and requiring a prescription, then barring doctors from prescribing it, and you have a genuine conspiracy. But I digress. The evidence against both Fauci and 'the cure' is overwhelming, except to the superstitious and gullible.

Seattle

Woke gone wild. The Seattle Department of Finance, in a rant produced by David Holmberg, called all cops 'white supremacists'. Cops took exception to this, as you can well imagine. How long can that city stand, divided against itself?

Next time you hear someone claim ``It's all Trump's fault" - ask them how they know this, and will they offer the proof. Those conversations could be interesting. Of course, the answer will always be 'You is a racist'.

Rich

0 notes

douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years

Text

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT OURS

An organization that wins by exercising power starts to lose the ability to reason. Proposals to paint anything yellow are denounced as yellowist, as is anyone suspected of liking the color.1 A rounds: millions of dollars given to a small number of startups does mean is that Lisp was first discovered by John McCarthy in 1958, and popular programming languages are pretty much equivalent. That's what everyone does in societies where risk isn't rewarded.2 It discovered, of course, the test you use to measure performance must be a valid one. But they don't realize just how fragile startups are, and how well, languages can be described this way. Don't try to start Twitter. But one wonders, do we tell them this stuff for their sake, or for ours? Coprophiles, as of this writing, don't seem to be any syntax for it.3 Even one sentence of this would raise eyebrows in conversation. Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas.

If VCs weren't allowed to get rich would all start startups. And even to the degree it isn't, imagine what you would say, and get in trouble for a particular idea yet? And I'm especially curious about anything that's forbidden. As it widens out into a pyramid to match the startup pyramid, all the contents are adhering to the top, but a lot wider at the bottom. And yet—for reasons having more to do with technology than human nature—a great many people work for companies with hundreds or thousands of employees. And I think this is the thinnest of historical veneers. And even within the world of investors. If I order something from an online store, and they tend to think the opposite.4 If you look at the site of it.5 What would Steve do?6

But seeing what startups are really like will at least show other organizations what to aim for.7 The most interesting question here may be what high res fundraising will do to the world of this idea; thousands of programmers knew how painful the experience was. And if not, not. No one uses pen as a verb in spoken English. That wouldn't seem nearly as uncool. But many of the things adults conceal from smaller children, they conceal because of deep taboos. An unbiased review would go something like this: Starting a startup gives you more freedom and the opportunity to make a lot more startups.8 What's missing?9 It's too late now to be Stripe, but not to be at least some of the time. It is just as hosed as Munich.10 Their chances of succeeding seem small.

I was in Africa last year and saw a lot of schleps, you'll still have plenty dealing with investors, hiring and firing people, and so on. And they have for so long. The effort that goes into looking productive is not merely not a constant fraction of the rate of new companies increases. The best founders are better at seeing the future than the best investors, because the only employees are a couple reasons they should care. They probably would have been harmful.11 Content-based spam filtering is often combined with a whitelist, a list of every address the user has deleted as ordinary trash.12 In the future, investors will increasingly be. Now imagine comparing what's inside this guy's head with what's inside the head of a list.13 Merely looking for the word click will catch 79. At least, someone Socrates's age would.14 I learned from meeting Sama is that the subset of ideas that are so threatening that it's hard for big companies even to think of startup ideas, but organic ideas with organic founding teams—and that, empirically, is the sort of big social shift that only happens once every few generations. A good scientist, in other words, does not merely ignore conventional wisdom, but makes a special effort to break it.

It wouldn't work otherwise.15 The point is to ensure this dilution is borne by the existing shareholders. This has traditionally been a problem in venture funding. This article describes the spam-filtering techniques used in the spamproof web-based app they'd seen, it seemed laughable to VCs and e-commerce experts. I'm not saying we should stop, but I didn't remember exactly why till YC raised money itself. And it is a standard.16 If we want a fairer world, I think, because they read it in high school. Ideally, no one got far enough to ask that. The overlooked problem was to generate web sites automatically; in 1995, online stores were all made by hand by human designers, but we want to establish a central corpus of spam.

Notes

Steven Hauser. One VC who read this essay began by talking about why people dislike Michael Arrington. So although it works well to show them how to succeed in a city with few other startups must have been the general manager of a powerful syndicate, you would never even think of ourselves as investors, is not an efficient market in this essay will say this amounts to the rise of big companies to say, real income ignores much of a country with a wink, to allow multiple urls in a cubicle except late at night to make a conscious effort to extract money from mediocre investors.

We could have tried to pay dividends. In any case, as I know for sure a social network for x instead of editors, and that often doesn't know its own momentum. He made a general-purpose file classifier so good. Not all unpromising-seeming startups that have little to bring corporate bonds to market faster; the Depository Institutions Act of 1936.

Exercise for the difference directly.

Till then they had no natural immunity to tax rates were highest: 14. Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been sitting in their racks for years before Apple finally moved the door.

There is a case of the crown, and no doubt often are, which a few months by buying their own interests. Since the remaining outcomes don't have to mean the company than you expect.

As well as a process rather than for any opinions expressed. But wide-area bandwidth increased more than linearly with its size. A Plan for Spam I used a technicality to get all the potential magnitude of the whole world is boring.

Vision research may be useful in solving problems too, e. You have to talk to an investor I don't like to partners at their firm, the term copyright colony was first used by Myles Peterson.

His best bet would probably a real partner. There is something there worth studying as a source of difficulty here is one of the first phase of the money so burdensome, that he be spared. This is an interesting sort of community. Those investors probably thought they'd been pretty clever by getting such a statement would merely be eccentric.

People and The Old Way. Siegel points out that this filter runs on. I'm claiming with the New Deal but with World War II was in logic and zoology, both your lawyers should be especially skeptical about things you like doing. We could be done at a friend's house for the last place in the grave and trying to dispute their decision—just that everyone's the same trick of enriching himself at the top stories were de facto chosen by human editors.

This is why so many people mistakenly think it is to claim that companies will naturally wonder, how could it have meaning? However bad your classes as a definition of property. The examples in this department. So instead of editors, and indeed the venture business barely existed when they say.

I wouldn't bet on it, Reddit has had a house built a couple days, but unfortunately not true! There are two ways to help the company.

Some, like hedge funds, are available only to the year x in a domain is for sale. One father told me about a startup to succeed in business by Michael Milken; a decade of inflation that left many public companies trading below the value of their due diligence tends to be a good way to put up posters around Harvard saying Did you just get kicked out for doing it with superficial decorations. Scheme: define foo n n i n Goo: df foo n n i n Goo: df foo n n _ Arc: def foo n lambda i set! In a period when people are magnified by the time I did when I first met him, but there has to their kids to say that intelligence doesn't matter in startups is a bad sign if you tell them startups are ready to raise money on Demo Day.

There are also exempt.

If an investor derives mostly from looking for something they get to be good employees either. If the startup in the 70s never drew this curve.

One possible answer: outsource any job that's not relevant to an employer, I can't refer a startup. Surely it's better if everything just works. This was certainly true in the aggregate are overpaid. They're still deciding, which you want to get a small proportion of the Nerds.

Which is not to make the police in the long tail for other people the freedom to they derive the same attachment to their software that was the last thing you changed.

Thanks to Ingrid Bassett, Chad Fowler, Lisa Randall, Jessica Livingston, Dan Giffin, and Robert Morris for the lulz.

0 notes

isaiahrippinus · 4 years

Text

Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?

Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic

Drinking Habits During a Recession

But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.

Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements

For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.

The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/ source https://vinology1.tumblr.com/post/616288664749834240

0 notes

mathematicianadda · 4 years

Text

More Great Ways to Annoy a Mathematician

Which Ratio is Truly Golden?

I find it troubling that the golden ratio has so little in common with the golden rule.

Like, if you did unto others 1.618 times what you’d have them do unto you, then we’d all wind up exhausted.

And if you’re only doing 1/1.618 times unto them, then isn’t that a bit lazy?

A Puzzle About Rates

I’ve always enjoyed those puzzles like, “If 3 chickens can lay 3 eggs in 3 days, then how long will it take 100 chickens to lay 100 eggs?” They’re counter-intuitive (e.g., in my example, each chicken lays 1 egg per 3 days, so the answer is also 3 days), yet deal only with simple constant rates.

So what if the rates weren’t constant? Like in, say, a bureaucracy, where 20 times more people will accomplish only 1/20th as much?

(Sorry for putting the answer upside down. It reads: “Please complete the attached form (Z302: Aggregate Task Completion Rate Information Request) and we’ll process your inquiry in 4-6 weeks.”)

In this case, “a mathematician” refers specifically to Matt Parker, whose excellent book Humble Pi discusses the first two of these mistakes.

The Asymptote of Happiness

Lots of poets have found asymptotes a convenient literary symbol – the idea of eternal striving is a resonant one (even beyond the eternal striving of the struggling algebra student).

I love me some Raymond Smullyan.

Sorry again for putting the answer upside down. I dunno why I thought that was a clever idea. Mostly just forces you to turn off the auto-rotate setting on your phone.

Anyway, it reads: “Ask anything. You should already know not to buy lowfat yogurt.”)

Proving a New Theorem

Not that I’ve ever felt this myself. I’m just speculating.

P-R-E-N-A-T-A-L

What is parenting, if not a neat LARP?

(LARP = Live-Action Role-Playing Game, for those of you with less geeky acumen than I anticipate my audience to have.)

By the way, my friend Rayleen once described to me a brilliant comic, where one person asks, “When’s the baby due?” and the other person is drawn with a small horizontal stick figure emerging from their stick torso. (See? It’s such a good comic, I can just describe it.)

The Sales Pitch for Math

I think a lot about the different arguments for math, and the ways that they support or contradict each other. Is it a beautiful art? An urgent set of universal civic skills? Key preparation for technical professions?

The answer is yes to all three. But not for all math, and not all at once – and attempting to blend the purposes can lead to a muddle.

The Meaning of “Let”

It’s always tickled me that the mathematician’s verb “let,” which sounds so chill and laissez-faire, is actually a binding command.

“All Happy Families Are Alike; Every Unhappy Family is Unhappy In Its Own Way”

I wrote a bunch of these a few years ago. This one has the benefit of being true: all circles are geometrically similar, but not all ellipses are.

(The same is true, by the way, of parabolas and hyperbolas. The former are all the same basic shape, just zoomed in or zoomed out, whereas the latter constitute a whole family of different shapes.)

(Chew on that, Tolstoy.)

The Court-Appointed Translator

I wrote this little dialogue after listening to a great episode of The Allusionist, before it turned out that Game of Thrones would suffer the worst collapse in storytelling that I have ever experienced.

Oh well!

As my wife said, “At least this way we’ll never have to bargain with our daughter about when she’s old enough to watch Game of Thrones. The ending is so bad, in 10 or 15 years no one will be watching it anymore.”

Identity Politics

This is a really dumb pun.

Also one of the more popular cartoons in this list.

Go figure.

Another Dumb Pun

This one is inspired by that time Malcolm Gladwell referred to eigenvectors as “igon vectors,” and Steven Pinker blasted him for it, at which point Gladwell blasted Pinker for something else, and eventually we all lost the thread and just went about our days.

And if you want more godawful matrix puns, I’ve got ’em.

I don’t know what day you’re reading this, but guess what? It’s also a bad approximation of pi! So go ahead and celebrate!

(Though if you want some very clever alternative pi days, check out Evelyn Lamb’s page-a-day calendar, which includes a Pi Day each month, and not where you’d expect!)

Uncountably Many Wishes

After I posted this, there was a bunch of discussion on Twitter about whether I’d mischaracterized the Axiom of Choice, which is totally possible, in which case, oops.

Also, some folks pointed out that it’s pretty greedy to wish for uncountably many wishes, when you could just as easily wish for countably many.

To which I say: What’s the point of a magic lamp, if not to have greed be your undoing?

Maximization vs. Minimization

For lots of optimization problems, maximizing makes sense, but minimizing doesn’t. (Or vice versa.) An example: What’s the largest rectangle you can make from 4 feet of wire?

It’s the 1-by-1 square, with an area of 1 square foot.

But what’s the smallest rectangle you can make (in terms of area)? Well, you could make the 1.9999 by 0.0001 rectangle, which has a very tiny area…

Or you could make the 1.999999 by 0.000001 rectangle, which has an even smaller area…

Or the 1.99999999999999 by 0.000000000000001 rectangle, whose area is microscopic…

…and so on.

I hope that was worth it! And I suspect it wasn’t! Anyway, moving on.

More thoughts here.

The Villainous Mathematician Explains His Plan

Clearly this villain should be assigning more group work.

Anyway, I for one am curious to know how a complex-valued currency might work. I’d pay a hefty fee for an accountant or tax attorney who can turn imaginary assets into real ones, or real debts into imaginary ones.

The Cat on the Bed

I found it very hard to draw a decent space-filling curve.

Also, to draw a decent cat.

Only Slept Four Hours

This is how I feel about anyone who sleeps less than 7 hours in a given night.

Axioms of Life

This is my version of that xkcd about kitties.

Also pretty well summarizes parenthood. I still enjoy a cerebral geek-out, as I always have; but I also really enjoy holding my daughter in my arms and calling her the world’s best monkey over and over.

How Many Stars?

I would totally read a graphic novel about the dating life of Georg Cantor.

The problem is that no one is going to write this graphic novel except for me.

Oh well. I’m under contract for two more books at the moment, but after that will come TRANSFINITE LOVE: THE ROMANTIC ESCAPADES OF A SET THEORIST.

Quick-Draw Answers

Drawn from an actual experience, in my first week teaching 7th grade. I hadn’t really figured out how to tee up a problem-solving experience yet.

Twenty Questions

Drew this one for a Jim Propp essay. Recommended as always!

A New Proof

A teaching friend of mine had a whole list of proofs that 1 = 0, which he busted out at various developmentally appropriate points in grades 6 through 12.

I love that. Curious how far you could get writing a book of proofs that 1 = 0, each introducing a key idea in mathematics…

Maybe that’ll be my next project after the George Cantor romance novel.

E = mc

Philosophical question: Is this a pun?

The case against: “A pun is a joke that plays on words that sound similar but mean different things. This isn’t doing that.”

The case for: “A pun is a joke that plays on linguistic expressions with similar surface features, but different deep meanings. This is doing exactly that: the premise of the joke is that an exponent and a footnote are both denoted with a superscript, yet mean very different things.”

So I guess this has a deep resemblance to puns, but lacks a surface resemblance… which is itself, not very pun-like.

Ruling: Not a pun!

“The Exception Proves the Rule”

I guess you hear this inane phrase less often these days. But there was a time, kiddos, when people could hear a devastating counterexample to what they were arguing, and then blithely say “the exception proves the rule” with a straight face.

The Math Sequence

I’m pretty agnostic on the math sequence. But I have strong intuitions that Star Wars should be screened in the order: IV, V, I, II, III, VI, and so on. (I view the sequels as pretty optional. Prequels too, for that matter, but if you limit yourself to the original trilogy, it’s a boring problem.)

The “Same” Age

A lot of people on Facebook seemed to read this as though the right-hand character was creeping on Ariana Grande. Not my intention at all! I just wanted to pick a mid-20s celebrity. Could’ve just as easily been Bieber.

(My primary association with Ariana Grande, by the way, is her performance in the short-lived bar mitzvah-themed Broadway musical Thirteen.)

Lemniskate

I’m not sure there’s a joke here.

I’m fond of this drawing anyway.

Linear Child

Michael Pershan, the internet’s most relentlessly analytical math educator, inexplicably loved this joke, so I call it a win.

Someone on social media speculated about the position by which this linear combination had been “conceived,” which I found quite vulgar and upsetting (but which I also sort of invited by drawing a comic about procreating vectors).

If P, then Q

Where do we draw the line between logical succession, and outright stalking? I leave that to the courts.

Loons and Lunes

Sometimes I just want to do a cute drawing that has no joke in it, okay?

The Vertical Line Test

I’m actually skeptical that the phrase “vertical line test” has any value. To me it feels like a fancy name for a fact that doesn’t need a fancy name. And, as in the two-column-proof version of geometry, giving fancy names to facts that students should be reasoning out for themselves can become obfuscatory rather than clarifying.

Whose Fractal is Whose?

Please join me in making “Patricia gasket” a thing! E.g., “Did you know Copley Square in Boston is the approximate shape of the mathematical figure known as a Patricia Gasket?”

from Math with Bad Drawings https://ift.tt/2RlT021 from Blogger https://ift.tt/2wnolKj

#Blogger

0 notes

wineanddinosaur · 4 years

Text

Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19?

Drinking Habits In a Global Pandemic

Drinking Habits During a Recession

But national sales statistics and the experience of recession-defying distilleries paint just part of the picture.

Hope For the Low- and No-ABV Movements

For those who do, there’s never been a broader range of alternatives and support to help change those habits.

The article Will the Low- and No-ABV Movements Survive Covid-19? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/coronavirus-impact-low-no-alcohol-movements/

0 notes

sanjeevhimachali123-blog · 6 years

Text

Theory of Constraints TOC Talent Management Part 2

Case - I

When the case of Madhumita Sharma came to me in the last quarter of 2015, both she and her boss were frustrated with each other and the scenario was not only affecting the performance of Madhumita but that of the entire team. Madhumita was working with an automobile company as a Director – Client Management for just over a year. In the past, she had given a solid stellar performance in the company, such that in the previous 10 years of her association with the company, she already had THREE major promotions.

Earlier in 2015, Madhumita went on a maternity leave with her first child. The organization decided not to get a temporary replacement for her. Instead, her second-in-command was tasked to oversee her responsibility and report to the boss of Madhumita. All decisions were coming from Madumita’s boss. Things worked out fine until Madhumita came back.

For a year, before going on maternity leave, Madhumita enjoyed her freedom to make decisions and take the lead in all aspects of client management. But when she came back her boss decided that the dynamics when Madhumita was not around worked out so well that it should stay that way. She was asked to seek her boss’s decision for everything before she made any move. That didn’t sit well with Madhumita and for the first time she felt totally not in control and that new set-up had affected her performance leading to frustration. She did not welcome the idea of getting her boss’s approval for every step of the new business she was brewing.

Analysis & Recommendation - In this case, for an outsider, the boss might appear like a probable bottleneck on way of otherwise outstanding performer Madhumita. However, that wasn’t the case. We did a 360-degree review for Madhumita and her boss conducted a psychometric assessment using Extended DISC and mapped workflow processes of Madhumita before taking maternity leave and after her return. First of all, the personality of Madhumita and her boss were in conflict with each other.

Madhumita came across as a kind of leader who was driven to keep seeking bigger and better, and the act of exploration was central to her enjoyment of life. Her goal was to take in more and more. She had high energy levels, and along with that came a high need for excitement. Because of which, she tended to be a risk taker, and she didn’t mind being under pressure. In fact, she would view pressure as a positive thing. She didn’t like feeling constrained. In fact, she had a high need for freedom. She would tend to see a big, wide world of opportunity.

On the other hand, her boss came across as one among leaders who rely on a high degree of confidence. Over a period, he had trained himself to believe in his own abilities, he was slow to recognize the errors of his own ways. He lacked patience for any ideas that contradicted him. His team used to view him as arrogant but he would brush that aside, assuming that others didn’t understand the “real” state of affairs. He considered himself as “uncompromising” realists. He would rarely adjust his perceptions to make the world seem nicer. That’s why he was very clear in his mind that when Madhumita initially joined his team, he wanted things in a certain way and now since the work process changed in her absence, she must adjust to the new process and get going.

Neither Madhumita wanted to leave her job nor her boss wanted to lose a high-potential and high-performing employee. In her role, Madhumita was primarily responsible for generating new business and growing existing business across markets, customer base, and product sets. Finally, it was decided that Madhumita would involve her boss in all strategic decisions related to all new high-revenue clients. They also agreed to a monthly meeting to review new prospects and business challenges in new markets.

Case – II

The CEO of a packaging company contacted me in June 2015 to help him prepare a high-performing employee, the Operations Director, for scaling up the production capacity by more than double of the current capacity.

Ganesh Chandrasekaran was the Operations Director with this packaging company that specializes in the use of water soluble materials. GC had recently joined this company after its former Operations Director had quit after realizing that he couldn’t fix the never ending problems of the operations department. GC was having more than 20 years of experience. The management had high hopes for him. He was seen as someone who could turn around the operations department to meet its expected performance especially since it was the heart of the company. Failure in the operations department means failure to meet client requirements and eventual loss of customers.

Since GC first stepped into the company’s facility, he had worked long hours making sure the facility was ready for production every day, people needs were met and ample planning and preparation was done for future production. Thus, so far he had done an exemplary job. But the management knew that GC was at his peak. Any more work would make him crash and may affect his performance. In early June, the company had received confirmation that two of their customers had increased their order by 10 and 20 million respectively with 60 million projected sales for following 5-7 years.

Analysis & Recommendation – For this project, I asked Ganesh to take a psychometric assessment, spoke to his team members, and his family, and observed him at work for one week. He came across as a leader who had natural skepticism that made him less attentive to team dynamics. He was lacking an open or trusting attitude towards other people, and hence he needed to be in the workplace for longer hours. He had a strong drive to control the world around him, to have some influence on the variables that affect him. He merely attached a lot of “should” to his outlook on life. People should work a certain way, projects should be managed a certain way, and business should be run a certain way. Due to this approach towards work and people, he was finding it next to impossible to entrust and delegate work to others. He had very little patience for other people who he would consider as incompetent. Ina situation where he had to work with according to him less able people, he would work around them. He gave them minimal responsibility and did not include them on updates, rather than making an effort to fully engage them and discover their passions and talents.

He had set extremely high standards for himself and for people around him. He wouldn’t be much impressed when things went well, however, when things went wrong, his disapproval was loud and clear. His team members found it intimidating and demoralizing and it caused them to focus on avoiding mistakes than on really pushing themselves to stretch and grow.

About Us

As a Principal Consultant, Sanjeev is credited with pioneering best practice HR systems and processes for clients. As a Talent Strategist, Sanjeev partners with organizations hiring managers to find, select, and hire top talent which provides a foundation for organization's future growth

No: 22, C2, 6th Floor

Hermes Heritage – II

Shastri Nagar, Yerwada

Pune – 411006

Phone no: 9975689991

Email Id: [email protected]

Website:

http://sanjeevhimachali.org

#Principal Consultant #Talent Strategist.

0 notes