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Competitors can damage your margins, poach your best people, outspend you, undercut your prices and introduce technology that makes your current offer irrelevant. Worrying about them, however, is not a strategy. The better response is to build a competitive moat before you desperately need one. That means creating distinctive value, stronger client relationships, better delivery systems and advantages that rivals cannot easily or cheaply reproduce. How Much Attention Should We Pay to Our Competitors? Leaders should understand their competitors clearly, but they should not allow competitors to dictate every business decision. The objective is informed awareness rather than corporate paranoia. The intensity of competition depends on the market. In a commodity sector, price and supply capacity may determine almost everything. In a narrow market with only a few suppliers, gaining market share may be extremely difficult. Currency movements, technological disruption, regulatory changes, capital availability and the loss of key employees can also alter the competitive balance overnight. A rival with hundreds of salespeople may reach far more potential buyers than your team of twenty. A heavily funded newcomer may willingly destroy industry pricing to purchase market share. These threats are real, but constantly reacting to them can pull your organisation away from its own strategy. Do now: Identify the three competitor actions that could most seriously affect your revenue, margins or client retention. Why Is Competing on Price So Dangerous? Price competition is dangerous because a rival with deeper pockets can sustain losses for longer than you can. Once buyers become accustomed to discounted pricing, restoring the previous market rate can be painfully difficult. Many companies spend years building their prices to a sustainable level. Then a new entrant arrives and offers a similar product for substantially less. The newcomer may not need to make an immediate profit. It may be funded by a parent company, private equity, venture capital or profits from another division. This creates a zero-sum battle of winners and losers. Smaller firms often cannot match the discount without destroying their own margins. The answer is not always to become cheaper. It is to make direct price comparison harder by changing the value equation. Instead of allowing an apple-to-apple comparison, create a musk-melon-to-apple comparison. In Japan, premium musk melons command extraordinary prices because buyers perceive them as a completely different category of value. Do now: List the services, expertise, guarantees or outcomes that could move your offer beyond a direct price comparison. What Is a Competitive Moat in Business? A competitive moat is an advantage that protects your clients, revenue and market position from attack by rivals.Strong moats are valuable to buyers and difficult, expensive or time-consuming for competitors to copy. A moat might consist of proprietary technology, trusted relationships, specialist expertise, exclusive distribution, superior service, faster delivery, a powerful brand or a deeply embedded client ecosystem. In business-to-business markets, the moat may be the accumulated trust created through years of reliable execution. The irony is that companies usually need to build these defences while business is going well. Unfortunately, good times create complacency. Leaders are busy serving current demand, employees are fully occupied and there appears to be no urgent reason to invest in protection. That is precisely when the work should begin. Once the crisis arrives, the organisation may lack the time, cash or management attention required to respond properly. Do now: Ask what clients would genuinely miss if your company disappeared tomorrow. Their answers reveal the foundations of your moat. Why Do Companies Wait Until a Crisis to Innovate? Companies delay innovation because the cost and inconvenience are immediate, while the danger of doing nothing appears distant. A crisis suddenly reverses that calculation. Our experience at Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training illustrates the problem. Business was surging during 2018 and 2019. Revenue was strong, demand was high and the organisation was occupied with delivering training. Everything looked pretty peachy. Then Japan confirmed its first COVID-19 case in January 2020. Clients began cancelling scheduled programmes, and the outlook changed dramatically. We had no sufficiently developed moat against the disappearance of face-to-face delivery. Dale Carnegie had conducted virtual training internationally since 2010, but introducing it properly in Japan required curriculum translation, instructor development, producer training and financial investment. Before the pandemic, those barriers encouraged us to dawdle. Once survival was at stake, we found the money, time and determination remarkably quickly. In retrospect, the capability should have been built before the crisis. Do now: Identify one strategic capability your organisation keeps postponing because there is no immediate urgency. How Can a Business Create Value Competitors Cannot Copy? Distinctive value comes from solving client problems more completely, conveniently or reliably than the alternatives. The strongest advantages often combine several modest benefits into one difficult-to-replicate system. Leaders frequently believe they already provide sufficient value. The more useful question is: what additional impact could we create for the buyer? A manufacturer might attach consulting, installation, training or maintenance services to a physical product. A professional services company might add diagnostics, benchmarking, follow-up coaching, digital resources or implementation support. A software provider might reduce risk through stronger onboarding, integration assistance and user education. Some additions will cost money without producing an immediate, separate fee. That does not automatically make them a bad investment. Real moats are expensive. If an advantage is cheap and simple to introduce, competitors will reproduce it quickly. The goal is to provide musk-melon value at an apple price—or at a price only slightly above the apple. Do now: Brainstorm ten ways to save clients time, reduce their costs, lower their risk or improve the quality of their results. Should We Build a Competitive Moat When Business Is Strong? The best time to build a competitive moat is when revenue is healthy, clients are buying and the company still has strategic choices. Waiting until sales collapse removes many of those choices. Good times always feel as though they will continue. They do not. Economic downturns, geopolitical shocks, technological change, new regulations, shifts in buyer behaviour and unexpected competitors can all expose weaknesses that were invisible during periods of growth. This does not mean leaders should become pessimistic or divert unlimited resources into defensive projects. It means allocating regular time and budget to resilience, differentiation and innovation. Executives should examine which revenue streams depend on one client, one delivery method, one salesperson, one supplier or one technology platform. They should also test whether their supposed advantages are truly valuable to clients or merely internal beliefs. Moat building should become part of normal strategy, not an emergency activity launched after the castle is already under attack. Do now: Review your strategic plan and assign an owner, budget and deadline to one moat-building initiative. What Should Leaders Do About Competitors Now? Competitors deserve attention, but obsessing over them will not protect your business. The strongest defence is to become more valuable, more distinctive and more difficult to replace. Study the market, understand emerging threats and watch for changes in price, technology, regulation, talent and client expectations. Then turn the attention back to your own organisation. Ask what you can provide that buyers value and competitors struggle to reproduce. Look for ways to combine products with services, expertise with technology and quality with greater speed or convenience. Most importantly, do not wait for the next crisis. Build the moat while the business is healthy, because the moment when you urgently need protection is usually the worst possible moment to begin constructing it. Author Bio Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language works include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）. Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

The final five minutes of a presentation often determine what the audience remembers about the entire talk. This is the principle of recency at work. People tend to remember most clearly what they heard last. Yet many speakers invest enormous effort in their opening, content and slides, only to allow their conclusion to collapse through poor time management, weak planning or a final sentence that quietly trails off into oblivion. A powerful presentation ending does not happen by accident. It must be designed, rehearsed and delivered with conviction. Why are the final five minutes of a presentation so important? The final five minutes are important because they shape the audience's lasting impression of the speaker and the message. Audience members may forget many of the statistics, examples and explanations they heard during the main body of the presentation. However, they are much more likely to remember the conclusion, especially when it clearly restates the central message and connects it to something relevant in their work or lives. This is particularly important for executives presenting in Japan, where audiences often expect preparation, professionalism and respect for the allotted time. A frantic ending suggests the speaker has not rehearsed properly. A controlled ending signals confidence and credibility. Whether you are addressing a board meeting, delivering a sales presentation or speaking at an industry conference, the conclusion is the final evidence the audience receives about your competence. Do now: Decide what you want the audience to remember after everything else has faded. Build the final five minutes around that one message. What causes so many presentation endings to fail? Most presentation endings fail because speakers include too much content and do not rehearse against the actual time limit. The familiar disaster begins when a presenter suddenly realises there are ten slides remaining and only three minutes left. They apologise, skip important material and race through the deck at a speed no audience can follow. The audience feels cheated. Some of the most useful slides may be abandoned completely, even though those ideas were part of the reason people attended. This problem appears in large multinational companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, startups and professional-services firms. It happens in Tokyo boardrooms, online webinars and international conferences. The technology may change, but poor preparation produces the same result. The solution is painful but simple: trim the presentation. Remove anything that does not directly support the key message. Present the richest residue rather than every fact you discovered during your preparation. Do now: Rehearse with a timer and cut enough material to finish comfortably, not merely technically, within the allocated time. How should a speaker plan the conclusion? A strong conclusion should restate the key message, explain its relevance and direct the audience towards a specific action. The key message must be decided near the beginning of the planning process. It becomes the frame around which the presentation is constructed. The stories, data, examples and visual aids should all strengthen that central idea. During the conclusion, return to the key message using clear and deliberate language. Do not introduce a completely new argument. Instead, help listeners understand why the message matters to them. A leadership audience may need to reconsider how it makes decisions. A sales team may need to change how it approaches buyers. A client may need to approve a proposal or agree to a next meeting. The final call to action should be realistic and specific. "Think about this" is weak. "Review your current presentation and rewrite the final five minutes before Friday" is actionable. Do now: Complete this sentence: "After my presentation, I want the audience to…" Use the answer to shape your conclusion. What should happen after the question-and-answer session? The speaker should reclaim the presentation after the Q&A and deliver a prepared final message. Question-and-answer sessions are unpredictable. An audience member may introduce an unrelated issue, challenge a minor detail or drag the discussion away from the presentation's main purpose. If the event ends immediately after that exchange, the final impression may be shaped by someone else's question rather than by the speaker's message. This is why professional presenters do not allow the Q&A to become the conclusion. They finish the formal content, invite questions and then return to the stage, centre of the room or camera for a brief closing statement. That statement should reconnect the audience to the original theme, summarise the principal benefit and repeat the desired action. In executive and client-facing presentations, this also demonstrates leadership. The speaker remains responsible for the direction of the communication rather than surrendering control to the room. Do now: Prepare a 30- to 60-second post-Q&A close that restores your key message and reinforces the next step. How should the pace and voice change during the conclusion? The conclusion should initially slow the audience down and then build towards a controlled crescendo. Many nervous presenters do the opposite. They rush because they are watching the clock, breathe poorly and allow their words to blur together. Their final sentence loses volume and energy until nobody is certain whether the presentation has actually finished. A professional speaker slows the pace, uses pauses and gives listeners time to process the message. Silence is not the enemy. A well-placed pause creates emphasis and signals confidence. As the presentation approaches its final lines, the speaker can gradually increase vocal energy, conviction and physical presence. Voice, posture, gestures, facial expression and eye contact should combine to strengthen the message. For online presentations, the same principle applies. Look into the camera, sit or stand upright, use purposeful gestures within the frame and finish with a firm vocal landing. Do now: Mark pauses, emphasis and changes of pace directly into your script, then rehearse them until they feel natural. How can a speaker make the ending memorable without sounding rehearsed? The ending becomes natural when the speaker rehearses the structure thoroughly but delivers the words with genuine belief. Some presenters avoid rehearsal because they fear sounding canned. In reality, under-rehearsed speakers are more likely to stare at their slides, search for words and become trapped by their notes. Preparation creates freedom. Once the speaker knows the sequence of ideas, the key phrases and the final line, they can concentrate on the audience rather than on remembering what comes next. Dale Carnegie presentation principles emphasise communicating ideas with enthusiasm, clarity and audience relevance. The aim is not theatrical performance for its own sake. The purpose is to transfer belief, confidence and commitment from the speaker to the audience. The final line deserves particular attention. It should be concise, powerful and easy to deliver. After saying it, stop. Maintain eye contact for a moment and allow the message to land. Do not weaken it with "So, yes, that's about it." Do now: Memorise the final sentence exactly, deliver it with conviction and resist the temptation to add anything afterwards. How to finish a presentation professionally The last five minutes should never become a desperate race against the clock. They are the point where the speaker gathers the argument together, reconnects it to the audience and creates the lasting impression. Plan the conclusion before completing the rest of the presentation. Rehearse the entire talk under realistic conditions. Remove material until you have enough time to slow down, pause and finish with control. After the Q&A, return to the key message. Tell the audience what matters, why it matters and what they should do next. Then increase your energy, bring your voice and body together and deliver a final sentence that sounds like the natural culmination of everything that came before it. Your audience does not merely buy information. They buy your belief, confidence and commitment. Finish strongly and they will remember both your message and you. Author Bio Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, he is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, together with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）. Greg publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

We collect leadership ideas from everywhere: books, training courses, articles, mentors, bosses, colleagues and the occasional painful lesson delivered by experience. The problem is that we rarely collect these ideas in one place. They arrive randomly over many years, and we forget more than we retain. We may recognise a useful principle when we hear it, nod wisely and then promptly return to doing exactly what we were doing before. Here are seven leadership principles we already know but probably need to remember. In Part Two, we will continue with principles eight through sixteen. Should Leaders Focus on Strengths or Weaknesses? The first step towards leadership success is identifying your strengths and deliberately building on them. That is not what most of us do, though, is it? We usually focus on what we are doing badly. We replay mistakes, analyse weaknesses and beat ourselves up because we are not perfect. All of that keeps us looking backwards. Naturally, leaders cannot ignore weaknesses that are hurting the team or damaging results. However, leadership development should not become an endless repair job. We also need to ask where we already perform well and how we can create even more value from those capabilities. Perhaps you are good at setting direction, developing people, winning trust, communicating through uncertainty or making tough decisions. These strengths are leadership assets. Use them consciously rather than treating them as accidental. Do now: Write down your three strongest leadership capabilities and decide where you will apply each one more deliberately. What Really Builds Trust in Leadership? Trust is built when leaders are fair, keep their promises and do the right thing even when nobody would blame them for taking the easier option. Communication is built on trusting relationships, but what actually creates that trust? Fairness is a major part of it. Employees, vendors and clients are always watching how we behave when pressure, money and competing interests enter the picture. During the COVID period, we had access to international pricing for one of our training programmes. That price was higher than what we normally charged locally. We could easily have taken the extra money, and in those very straitened times, the cash would have been welcome. But where is the trust if we do that? Trust also means doing what you say you will do, when you say you will do it and in the way you promised. That sounds easy. It is not. Busy schedules, shifting priorities and unexpected problems all get in the way. Regardless, leaders have to keep their eyes on integrity and follow their true-north values. Do now: Review the commitments you have made recently. Is there anything you promised but have not yet delivered? Can a Leader Force Employees to Be Motivated? Motivation cannot be forced. People have to want to do a good job, and the leader's role is to help create the conditions for that motivation. Imagine a cartoon boss screaming, "Be motivated! Be motivated! Be motivated!" so loudly that the employees' hair is blowing backwards. Ridiculous, obviously. Yet many managers are not doing anything much more sophisticated. They push harder, repeat the target, add pressure and wonder why people are not suddenly overflowing with enthusiasm. A better starting point is alignment. What does the individual value? What does the enterprise value? Where can those interests connect? One employee may want advancement. Another may want recognition, professional mastery, security, flexibility or the chance to work on something meaningful. Leaders need to understand those individual motivations and help employees see how strong performance can move them towards their own goals. Here is the million-dollar question: do you know the goals and values of each staff member? And do you keep checking? Goals change. Do now: Ask each person what they most want to achieve professionally over the next twelve months. Why Must a Leader's Interest in People Be Genuine? Genuine interest strengthens relationships because people can quickly detect the difference between real curiosity and fake friendliness. The key word is "genuine". This is not about pretending to care because you want something. It is not a technique to secure cooperation, win a sale or encourage someone to work harder. We have all seen the opposite. Someone is charming while they expect a generous tip and then looks visibly disappointed when the amount is not sufficient. In Japan, there is also the eigyo smile—the fake "sales smile" used to help win business. The mouth is smiling, but the rest of the person is not involved. Leaders make the same mistake when they ask polite questions while clearly waiting for their turn to talk. People are fascinating. When we show pure curiosity, we learn far more about their experiences, concerns, motivations and ambitions. They also sense that the interaction is genuine. As leaders, let's be curious. Do now: Ask someone a question today simply because you are interested in the answer, not because you need anything from them. Why Is Empathy Essential for Modern Leaders? Empathy helps leaders understand the world affecting another person instead of judging everything from inside their own world. Deadlines, targets, quotas, emails, bills and endless meetings—the rough and tumble of business is relentless. It is easy to become completely consumed by our own pressures. When that happens, we forget that everyone around us is dealing with a different set of circumstances. I once watched a company owner networking vigorously at an event. Another guest made a snide comment about what the owner was doing. Maybe that guest sailed through the pandemic completely unscathed. The company owner, however, had been clinging on by the fingernails. The networking was not vanity or attention-seeking. It was an attempt to keep the business alive. That is what happens when we focus entirely on ourselves. We judge visible behaviour without understanding the invisible circumstances behind it. For leaders, that is a disaster. This is especially true when talented employees can easily jump ship if they do not feel they are being understood or looked after. Empathy is not an occasional activity. As leaders, we had better become empathetic if we want to succeed in modern business. Do now: Before criticising someone's attitude or performance, ask what may be happening that you do not yet understand. Why Are Good Listeners So Persuasive? Nobody is more persuasive than a good listener because people are far more open to someone who makes them feel heard and valued. This sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? We often imagine persuasion as having the gift of the gab, controlling the conversation, steering the content and driving forward through sheer force of will. In practice, this often means finishing other people's sentences, cutting them off or jumping in with our genius contribution before they have completed their point. This behaviour is so common that when someone actually shuts up and lets us talk, we feel liberated. We feel energised. We feel valued. We like that person. We also become more positive about who they are, what they have to say and what they want us to consider. Introverts, in particular, often respond well when they are given enough space to think and speak without being steamrolled. So, if you want people to listen to you as a leader, first let them do the talking. Do now: In your next conversation, do not interrupt. Let the person finish, pause and then ask a follow-up question. Why Are Team Players the Leaders of Tomorrow? Tomorrow's leaders will succeed through creativity, critical thinking and collaboration rather than trying to dominate everything through personal force of will. The three Cs—creativity, critical thinking and collaboration—are becoming increasingly important. Collaboration is the relatively new arrival. When I was growing up in business, Jack Welch was the dominant leadership role model. The popular image was of a tough leader driving results through force of personality, pushing subordinates hard and casting overboard anyone who did not measure up. It was a Darwinian struggle producing zero-sum outcomes. Today's business environment is different. No leader can personally master every market, technology, customer expectation, regulatory risk and operational problem. The winning formula is the ability to tap into the collective intellect, energy and commitment of the whole team. I can see this weakness in myself. I now tell my son he should not think he has to do everything alone, as I did. He should seek support, mentors and collaborators. I wish I had been smarter about this rather than following the path of the hairy-chested individual trying to do everything independently. I have been a notoriously slow learner. Do now: Choose one important problem you are carrying alone and bring other capable people into the discussion. Which Leadership Principles Matter Most? Leadership improves when we consistently apply familiar principles rather than endlessly searching for fashionable new theories. Know your strengths and build on them. Be fair and protect trust. Understand what motivates each individual rather than attempting to force motivation upon them. Take a genuine interest in people. Step outside your own world and practise empathy. Listen before trying to persuade. Finally, stop believing that strong leadership means doing everything alone. Collaboration is not a sign of weakness. It is how leaders gain access to the full intelligence and commitment of the team. We know these principles. The real challenge is remembering to apply them when we are busy, under pressure and tempted to return to old habits. In Part Two, we will continue with principles eight through sixteen. Author Bio Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）. Greg publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

Once upon a time, salespeople could live several different lives. There was the polished professional who met clients during the day. Then there was the private version who could enjoy a heroic night out, behave like a complete goose and assume nobody important would ever hear about it. Those days are gone. Today, buyers can search your name before you meet. They can inspect your LinkedIn profile, read your comments, watch your videos, examine your photographs and decide whether you look credible—or dangerous—from the comfort of their office. You are already being judged. The only question is whether you are helping to shape the verdict. Why Does a Salesperson's Public Image Matter? Your public image matters because buyers are deciding whether they trust you before you have even shaken hands. In the old days, a potential client might know your company name, your job title and whatever gossip was circulating within a fairly small business circle. Your family life, weekend behaviour and questionable karaoke performances usually remained safely separated from your professional reputation. Social media blew that arrangement to pieces. Now buyers can discover professional articles, recommendations and client advice. They can also discover angry political rants, embarrassing photographs, customer complaints and evidence that you occasionally lose all adult supervision after 10:00 p.m. That online material becomes part of your sales presentation whether you intended it to or not. A strong public image creates familiarity and confidence. A careless one can kill the deal before the meeting invitation is even sent. Do now: Search your own name as though you were a suspicious buyer with a large budget and a low tolerance for nonsense. Do Buyers Really Research Salespeople Before Meeting Them? Of course they do. Buyers investigate us in exactly the same way we investigate them. Before meeting a prospect, salespeople check LinkedIn, company websites, press releases and industry news. We want to know who we are meeting, what they care about and whether there is any useful common ground. Buyers are not sitting around waiting helplessly for us to arrive. They are doing their own research. They look at our employment history, qualifications, recommendations, connections, articles and public comments. They want reassurance that we are credible. They are also hunting for red flags. I have seen candidates listen to executive interviews before attending job interviews. Potential employees research the leaders they may work for. Prospective clients consume podcasts, videos and articles before contacting a training provider or professional adviser. The first sales conversation may therefore begin long before you enter the room—and you may not even be present. Do now: Assume every prospect has already inspected your LinkedIn profile and prepare it accordingly. What Should Buyers Find When They Search for You? They should find useful proof that you know what you are talking about—not a digital graveyard or an endless stream of self-congratulation. A polished profile is helpful, but anybody can write that they are "passionate," "dynamic" and "results-driven." LinkedIn is bursting with passionate, dynamic, results-driven people. Evidence is much more persuasive. Publish original ideas. Explain a customer problem. Share a useful framework. Record a short video. Write an article. Join a podcast. Analyse a trend in your industry. You do not need six podcasts, three television shows and thousands of articles. That level of content production is clearly the behaviour of someone who needs a hobby. You do, however, need enough current, relevant material to show buyers that you understand their world. Your content should help them conclude, "This person knows something useful," rather than, "This person appears to enjoy posting motivational quotations over photographs of mountains." Do now: Select one client problem and publish one practical, original response to it this month. What Online Content Can Damage a Salesperson's Reputation? Anything that makes buyers question your judgement can damage your reputation faster than you can say, "That photograph was taken out of context." Photographs of you completely smashed at the local boozer may be hilarious to your mates. They are less amusing to a risk-conscious buyer considering a major contract. The same applies to abusive comments, offensive humour, public arguments and extreme opinions. You are entitled to have personal views, but you are not entitled to control how every client reacts to them. Politics and religion are especially effective ways to divide an audience. Unless either subject is central to your professional work, entering those battles publicly may deliver plenty of emotional excitement and absolutely no revenue. Other people make this more complicated. You can control what you upload, but you cannot completely control what your colleagues post. If everyone in the group photograph is clearly off their face, try to be the calm, demure one holding a glass of water and wondering how your life came to this. Do now: Review old posts, public comments, tagged photographs and privacy settings before a buyer does it for you. Is Having No Online Presence Also a Problem? Yes. Finding nothing can be almost as damaging as finding the wrong thing. A buyer who searches your name and discovers no professional evidence may wonder whether you are experienced, relevant or even still active in your field. This does not mean you need to become an online celebrity. Nobody is demanding that you dance on TikTok while explaining procurement strategy. Start with the basics. Use a professional photograph. Write a clear headline. Explain who you help and what problems you solve. Make sure your employment history is accurate and your recent activity supports your professional positioning. Then create a small library of original content. One useful article a month is better than daily drivel. A thoughtful two-minute video is more persuasive than repeatedly hijacking somebody else's content, adding a three-line introduction and pretending you have become a thought leader. Original work gives buyers something important: evidence. Do now: Build a credible minimum presence with a complete profile and at least three pieces of useful original content. How Can Salespeople Build a Strong Personal Brand? A strong personal brand comes from being useful, consistent and recognisable—not from endlessly announcing how magnificent you are. Choose a few subjects connected to the problems you solve for clients. If you sell cybersecurity, discuss business risk. If you work in leadership development, talk about engagement, accountability and difficult conversations. If you sell complex technology, explain it in language a normal human being can understand. Stay consistent. Buyers should gradually associate your name with a particular area of expertise. Professional production also matters. Clear writing, decent sound, sharp photographs and well-prepared videos tell the audience that you take your work seriously. The material does not need Hollywood production values, but it should not look as though it was recorded inside a cupboard during an earthquake. Avoid turning every post into propaganda. Constant selling becomes tiresome. Teach something useful and let buyers reach the conclusion that you may be worth speaking with. Do now: Decide which three business topics you want buyers to associate with your name and keep producing around them. Conclusion Your digital reputation is now part of your sales kit. Buyers will search for you. They will examine what you have published, what others have said about you and how you behave in public. They may reach a conclusion before you have the chance to deliver your perfectly rehearsed opening question. Conduct a forensic investigation of your online presence. Search your name. Examine old accounts. Review tagged photographs. Remove unsuitable material where possible and strengthen the professional evidence attached to your name. Publish original, useful and current content. Show buyers that you understand their challenges. Give them reasons to trust your judgement. You cannot stop buyers from judging you before they meet you. What you can do is make sure they find the person you deliberately chose to put in front of them—not the accidental digital version created by years of careless posting. Author Bio Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including the best-sellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）. Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.

People form an initial impression of you remarkably quickly. Whether the precise time is three seconds, seven seconds or slightly longer, the practical lesson for salespeople, executives and client-facing professionals is the same: your first impression begins before you start explaining your credentials, company or solution. In Japan, where professionalism, preparation and attention to detail carry considerable weight, leaving that impression to chance is risky. Your appearance, facial expression, eye contact, voice and opening question all influence whether a buyer initially sees you as credible, trustworthy and worth listening to. Here is how to intentionally engineer a strong first impression when meeting a client. How quickly do clients form a first impression? Clients begin evaluating you almost immediately, often before either person has spoken. Your appearance, posture, facial expression and general composure provide the first available evidence about your professionalism. The exact number of seconds will vary according to the person, situation and research method. However, buyers do make rapid judgements when meeting a salesperson, consultant or executive for the first time. They are subconsciously asking: Does this person look prepared? Are they confident? Can I trust them? Will meeting them be a good use of my time? This matters in both Japanese and international business. A buyer in Tokyo may pay particular attention to formality, punctuality and courtesy, while a buyer in Sydney or New York may respond more strongly to energy and directness. In every market, inconsistency creates doubt. If you claim to offer precision but appear disorganised, the buyer notices the contradiction. Do now: Decide what three qualities you want the client to recognise immediately, and make sure your appearance and behaviour communicate them before the meeting begins. How should a salesperson dress for a first client meeting? Dress so that nothing about your appearance distracts the buyer from your message. Cleanliness, fit, coordination and attention to detail are more important than wearing expensive clothing. Scuffed shoes, food stains, poorly fitting clothes, untidy hair or a worn belt may seem like minor matters. Unfortunately, buyers can interpret these signals as evidence of carelessness. It is difficult to promote a high-quality solution while looking as though quality control does not apply to you. For men wearing business attire, the belt should normally coordinate with the shoes, the tie knot should sit neatly against the collar and the jacket and trousers should fit properly. Women and men should both consider whether their clothing is suitable for the client, industry and level of formality. A technology startup may accept a more relaxed style than a Japanese bank, insurance company or government organisation. The goal is not flamboyance. The goal is visual credibility. Do now: Before leaving for the meeting, check your shoes, clothing, hair, accessories, bag and business materials from the buyer's point of view. Should you smile and bow when meeting a Japanese client? Yes. A natural smile followed by an appropriate bow communicates confidence, warmth and respect before the business conversation begins. Some salespeople become so focused on being formal that their expression becomes severe. Others rush through the greeting because they are nervous or worried about what to say next. A calm smile helps remove tension and tells the client that you are pleased to meet them. In Japan, the bow remains an important part of professional etiquette. The depth and duration will depend on the situation, but a controlled, respectful bow is generally more effective than an exaggerated performance. When exchanging business cards, handle the card carefully, look at it and avoid immediately stuffing it into a pocket. International professionals should adapt without becoming artificial. Japanese buyers do not expect every visitor to behave exactly like a Japanese executive, but they do notice sincere preparation and respect for local business customs. Do now: Practise a simple sequence: make eye contact, smile naturally, greet the person clearly and bow without rushing. How much eye contact is appropriate in Japanese business? Make clear initial eye contact to establish confidence, but avoid staring continuously. In Japan, balanced eye contact is usually more comfortable and culturally appropriate than an unbroken gaze. Eye contact tells the buyer that you are present, composed and interested. At the beginning of the meeting, several seconds of direct eye contact can help establish a connection. After that, allow your gaze to move naturally rather than trying to maintain constant visual contact. Cultural expectations differ. Western sales training often emphasises strong eye contact, while Japanese communication may involve more intermittent eye contact, particularly when showing respect to someone senior. Personality also matters. An assertive buyer may be comfortable with more direct engagement, whereas a quieter or more reflective client may find prolonged eye contact intrusive. The objective is not to follow a mechanical formula. It is to observe the buyer's reaction and adjust. Confident communication should make the other person comfortable, not force them to conform to your preferred style. Do now: Establish eye contact at the greeting, then use relaxed and periodic eye contact throughout the conversation. What should your voice sound like during the first meeting? Your opening voice should sound friendly, clear and confident rather than stiff, rushed or overly rehearsed. The buyer is listening to how you speak as well as what you say. Many salespeople accidentally adopt a cold "business voice". They become formal, lower their energy and sound as though they are reading a corporate announcement. Others mumble, speak too softly, talk too loudly or use a lifeless tone because they are nervous. A professional voice has warmth, clarity and variation. Speak slowly enough to be understood, especially when working across languages or communicating with non-native speakers. Use the buyer's name naturally near the beginning of the conversation. People generally respond positively to hearing their name, but repeating it in every sentence quickly sounds manipulative. Your visual, vocal and verbal messages should support one another. Confidence does not mean volume, and professionalism does not require emotional flatness. Do now: Record your opening greeting and listen for pace, volume, clarity, warmth and whether you sound genuinely pleased to meet the client. What is the best opening question for a sales meeting? The best opening question gets the buyer talking about their business, priorities or recent changes. Your first objective is to understand the client, not to deliver a long explanation about yourself. Instead of beginning with an extended company history, offer a brief, relevant observation and ask an intelligent question. For example: "I noticed your company has been expanding its regional operations. How has that affected the priorities of your team in Japan?" When something has changed in the client's office, organisation or market, do not merely point out the obvious. Ask about the impact. Has the change affected employees, customers, productivity, costs or growth plans? An effective initial sales conversation should normally give the buyer more speaking time than the salesperson. An 80–20 balance will not suit every meeting, but it is a useful reminder to stop talking and start listening. The buyer has the information you need to diagnose the problem and determine whether your solution is relevant. Do now: Prepare three open questions about the client's business, market and current priorities before entering the meeting. How can salespeople read the buyer's communication style? Listen to both the buyer's answers and the way they deliver them. Their pace, level of detail and degree of assertiveness reveal how you should communicate with them. Some buyers want the big picture first. They are interested in outcomes, strategic impact and the future. Others want facts, evidence, implementation details and risk controls before considering a recommendation. Some speak quickly and make decisions decisively, while others pause, reflect and avoid being pressured. A salesperson who ignores these differences may create unnecessary resistance. Giving twenty slides of operational detail to a big-picture executive can lose their attention. Presenting only broad promises to a highly analytical procurement or finance leader can damage credibility. Use the first part of the meeting to observe. Ask questions, listen without interrupting and notice which topics generate interest. Then adapt your language, evidence and pace while remaining authentic. Do now: Identify whether the buyer is primarily big-picture or detail-oriented, and whether they communicate assertively or quietly. Adjust your approach accordingly. Conclusion A strong first impression is not created by one clever phrase. It is the combined effect of your preparation, clothing, expression, eye contact, voice, questions and listening ability. Do not simply walk into a client meeting and hope that everything works out. Decide in advance how you want to be perceived and align every visible and audible signal with that objective. The first few seconds may not determine the entire business relationship, but they can determine how hard you will have to work to earn the buyer's confidence afterward. Author Bio Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" in 2018 and 2021 and received the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2012. As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes globally, including Leadership Training for Results. He has written several books, including the bestsellers Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery and Japan Presentations Mastery, as well as Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His Japanese-language books include Za Eigyō（ザ営業）, Purezen no Tatsujin（プレゼンの達人）, Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō（トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう）and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā（現代版「人を動かす」リーダー）. Greg publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and X and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery and Japan's Top Business Interviews for executives and professionals seeking practical strategies for succeeding in Japan.  

Hikari Nova is the artistic alias of Brandon Hikaru Sugano, a multi-genre electronic music producer and DJ whose identity is rooted in culture, technology, and sound. His Japanese and Chinese names share the kanji 光 (light), a symbol that defines his approach to music, bridging emotion, precision, and forward motion. Raised alongside the early digital underground, Hikari Nova discovered electronic music during the Napster era, immersing himself in Essential Mixes, Global Underground, and Tranceport compilations. What began as an obsession became an education, shaping a deep understanding of arrangement, energy, and long-form storytelling across Trance, Techno, and Progressive music. Influenced by pioneers such as Tiësto, Paul Oakenfold, Sasha & Digweed, and Dubfire, Hikari Nova developed a sound that moves fluidly across the 4/4 spectrum, balancing melodic depth with driving, hypnotic power. His background in coding and digital design informs a technically refined, future-facing production style. As a DJ, Hikari Nova has performed internationally, with appearances in Los Angeles, Tokyo, and Black Rock City (Burning Man). Focused on evolution rather than trends, he continues to refine his sonic language, creating immersive, emotional experiences designed for both the dancefloor and the mind. 1. Alex Di Stefano - I've Got the Power (Extended Mix) 2. Markus Schulz x BLR - Ten Seconds to Sunrise (Extended Mix) 3. Daxson - Perpetuity (Extended Mix) 4. AA Meeting - Summit (Sean Tyas Extended Remix) 5. Vlind - Tomorrow Will Come (Extended Mix) 6. Hikari Nova - ID (Extended Mix) 7. John Askew - Panoramic (Extended Mix) 8. Hikari Nova - Chilling Effects (Extended Mix) 9. Xijaro & Pitch - Cahaya (Extended Mix) 10. Steffen Pedersen - Beyond The Rave (Extended Mix) 11. Bryan Kearney - Angel Child (Extended Mix) 12. Greg Downey - Vivid Intent (Jordan Suckley Acid Mix) 13. Will Rees - Fixation (Extended Mix)

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  Ulysses 31 (: 宇宙伝説ユリシーズ31サーティーワン, : Uchū Densetsu Yurishīzu Sātīwan; lit. "Space Legend Ulysses 31", : Ulysse 31) is an  (1981) that updates the  of  (known as "Ulixes" or "Ulysses" in ) to the 31st century. The show comprises 26 half-hour episodes as a co-production between  and . Production [] In 1980, , , and DiC Audiovisuel produced a pilot for the series, simply titled "Ulysses 31". Although there was a Japanese VHS release of the series by  in 1986, the pilot never saw an official home release and was used for internal use only. The pilot has long been considered as only been recorded in Japanese, until a French searcher discovered a copy of the French version in July 2015, then a copy of the English-dubbed version in June 2022. The story is virtually identical to episode one of the finished series, but the story was the only thing that was kept. Some characters underwent major redesigns from a typical anime design to the finished series, which is a mix of Japanese anime style and European art based on the appearance of classical Greek sculpture. Renowned Japanese illustrators and animators Shingo Araki and Michi Himeno, who have worked in anime adaptations of famous manga (such as 's , , , 's , and  ) were responsible for the finished series' character designs, animation routines, and visual style. Plot [] The series follows the struggles of Ulysses and his crew against the divine entities that rule the universe, the ancient gods from . The  are angered when Ulysses, commander of the giant  Odyssey, kills the giant  to save a group of enslaved children, including his son.  sentences Ulysses to travel the universe with his crew frozen until he finds the , at which point his crew will be revived and he will be able to return to Earth. Along the way they encounter numerous other famous figures from Greek mythology, given a futuristic twist. See also:  Cast and characters Character Japan (original cast) Japan (1992 NHK BS-2 cast) France (original cast) English (original cast) Biography Ulysses (ユリシーズ, Yurishīzu) Matt Birman The main character and captain of the Odyssey. A well regarded and very esteemed space explorer and adventurer, Ulysses achieved the solar peace (a monumental accomplishment as implied in the series) becoming even more celebrated. Some time later he accidentally became the target of the Olympian gods' revenge by slaying the giant Cyclops, Poseidon's creature, in order to save his son Telemachus', Yumi's and her brother Numinor's lives. His weapon is a laser pistol that conceals an energy blade, complemented by an energy shield and a belt that allows him to fly. Ulysses is brave, noble, determined, and will stop at nothing to defeat the gods.  (テレマーク, Teremāku)  / Jackie Berger The son of Ulysses and second in command for most of the voyage. He is Yumi's friend and protector. He is a skilled pilot, and his weapon is a high-tech magnetic slingshot. Yumi (ユミ, Yumi) (Thémis in the original French dub, after  the ancient Titan) Séverine Morisot Anick Faris A light blue-skinned  alien girl from the white planet, Zotra, she is the younger sister of Numinor and possesses  powers. She is saved from being sacrificed to the Cyclops, along with Telemachus and her older brother, by Ulysses. She exhibits  and is immune to fire. Although physically very frail, she is very intelligent and courageous. Zotrians, aside from blue skin, have snow-white hair, pointed ears, and slanted eyes with cat-like vertical pupils. Nono (ノノ, Nono) Jacques Ebner The small robotic companion of Telemachus. Fond of eating  and , he is a trusty friend who was given to Telemachus as a birthday present. He is skilled at machinery repair and possesses tremendous physical strength. Zeus (ゼウス, Zeusu) Shōzō Hirabayashi The god of gods, persecutor of Ulysses. Shirka (シルカ, Shiruka)     Évelyne Séléna / Sylvie Moreau Kelly Ricard The Odyssey's main computer, with a deep female voice. Numinor (ユマイオス, Yumaiosu) (Noumaïos in the original French dub)         A Zotrian teenager and older brother of Yumi, he is saved by Ulysses from being sacrificed to the Cyclops. He is in suspended animation along with the rest of the crew for most of the series. His Japanese name Yumaiosu is the  orthography of English pronunciation of , the pig-guardian of Odysseus in Homer's poem.  (ポセイドン, Poseidon)         The god of the Seas, enraged by Ulysses's killing of his creature, the Cyclops. He wields a , the symbol of his power, and his servants pilot ships that are shaped like a trident.  (アデス, Adesu)         The ruling god of the Underworld. Ulysses must find his realm to find the way back to Earth. Release [] In the United States, the show was broadcast as a half-hour segment in the 1986 anthology series . In the United Kingdom, it first aired on BBC One at 16:30 on Thursday, November 7, 1985. The entire series was released in English in a complete DVD box set in the UK released by Contender Entertainment, and in Australia by . In the United States, one DVD titled Ulysses 31: The Mysteries of Time was released, containing only four selected episodes. The rights, like most of DIC's other programs, were originally owned by , through its in-name-only unit, . Soundtrack [] Most of the original soundtrack was composed by Denny Crockett and Ike Egan. Six additional themes were composed by  and : "Potpourri", "Final Glory", "Space Traffic", "Ulysse Meets Ulysse", "Mermaids", and "Change of Time (Theme of Chronos)". The Japanese version has a different soundtrack, opening with "Ginga Densetsu Odyssey" (銀河伝説オデッセイ, Ginga Densetsu Odissei; Galactic Legend Odyssey) and closing with "Ai. Toki no Kanata ni" (愛･時の彼方に; Love, Over the Other Side of Time), both by Tomoaki Taka. The music was composed by Wakakusa Kei, who made the soundtrack in both the series and pilot that was produced in 1980. An official soundtrack was released in 1986 on vinyl and on CD in 1988 by King Records. References []  . TMS Entertainment, Ltd. Archived from  on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2016. ^   . Stage 6. Archived from  on 4 September 2007. Retrieved 20 October 2016.  Hervé de La Haye,  [Ulysses 31 unaired pilot english version discovered!].  Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 471–472.  .  . BBC Programme Index. BBC. Further reading [] Dixième Planète (French magazine), issue No. 15 (Feb/Mar 2002), 8 pages about the series and toys produced Escolano. . Shahinian and Salas. The Animated Dad. McFarland. 2024.

Quaranteam – Book 1: Part 19 Jade makes her request of Andy. Based on a post by CorruptingPower, in 25 parts. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels. Chapter 33 Andy sort of cocked his head to one side, as Emily started to break down the camera and the microphones. "I'm almost afraid to ask what you mean by that, Jade," he said with a soft chuckle. "What does 'something else in mind' mean here?" Jade blushed a little, looking away for just a moment before turning back to look at him. "I've, I've been giving it a lot of thought, Andy," she said, pausing a bit in between the words, as if she was making sure she didn't chicken out of saying any of this. "And I've been talking with Lauren some, and she's been an utter sweetheart about all of this, and she's made me realize something,” "Stop," Andy said. "Before you go any further, I want you to make sure whatever it is you're about to ask for, it's what you want. Not what Lauren wants, or what someone else suggested. This is a once in a lifetime experience, and I don't want you to regret any aspect of it." "Oh. Oh! Oh, no! I wasn't,” she said, giggling a bit. "I wasn't going to suggest I wanted this to be my first time! No no no, not at all, Andy! Gosh! But, you remember I told you I wanted to record a video to send to my father, to show him that he couldn't control me any more, right?" "Oh," he said, understanding where this was going. "Sure, and you've changed your mind and don't want to do that any more, no I get that." "No!" Jade said, shaking her head quite determined. "I still super want to do that, but I realized, uh, I'm going to go a bit, no, a lot further than I think you're expecting me to. And I don't want it to come as any great shock to you when I do." Andy got a strange smile on his face, arching an eyebrow at her. "I mean, I'm glad you're telling me in advance, because it might've come as a surprise to me, but let's be real here, do you think you're going to go further than anyone in this house has?" Jade's eyes widened a little bit, then nodded with a little impish smile. "Kinda? I mean, I'm not going to do anything you haven't seen before, but I'm certainly gonna say some stuff that might shock you a bit." "Like...?" The blonde woman sighed a little bit, folding her arms over her ample chest. "So, in talking with Lauren a lot today, I realize that I've been so darn shy with boys because of my dad, because of all the stupid bull honk he told me over the years, because of all the expectations he put on me, and I need,” She looked away again, trying to find the words she wanted to say before looking back at him with those gorgeous green eyes of hers. "I need to make as much of a break from him as I can. I need to make him want to disown me, to get me out of his life, so he can't try and control me any more, can't try and control you because I'm with you." "This is starting to sound serious," he said, as Emily tucked the camera into the bag, pushing it to one side. "You don't need to do any editing with the footage from Tala?" The tiny Brit shook her head. "Framed it clean and only recorded what we needed, so no need to do any post work," she said. "Besides, I need to be here to help support Jade. What she's going to ask of you is, very brave." "Very brave?" Andy said, looking at Emily before looking back at Jade. "What are you going to ask of me?" "I'm going to,” she said, stopping then starting again. "I'm going to ask you to be okay with whatever I say during the whole imprinting process, to not interrupt me, to let me get all of this out onto film, that I'm going to send to my dad, so that he knows I don't want him in my life, I don't need him in my life, and that he's not welcome in my life." "He's still your father. Are you sure you want to kick him out for good?" Jade sighed a little bit, sitting down on the bed next to him. "That's just it, Andy. You don't know him like I do. You don't know what I've been through growing up. How much he stressed that I had to be a prim and proper lady. Proper forks, curtsying to the right depth, never speak at a party unless spoken to first. That I couldn't have any fun because fun reflected poorly on the family's legacy. He scared off every boy I tried dating in high school and even well into college. He tried to keep me in some protective bubble, where I would be reliant on him for everything, so that I would do whatever he wanted me to. Did I tell you yet that he wanted me to have an arranged marriage?" "What? No! Really? In this day and age?" "It gets worse," Emily said, taking the camera bag to the door of the bedroom, handing it off to Nicolette, who was standing there. "Take that downstairs and when Katie Couric's crew comes to pick it up, hand it off to them with our thanks." "Yes ma'am," Nicolette said, taking the bag from her before heading down the hallway. Emily closed the door after she went, leaving Andy in the room with four conscious women,  Jade, Emily, Sheridan and Lauren,  and three unconscious women,  Tala, Fiona and Moira. "Tell him who the person he wanted you to marry was, Jade," Emily said, annoyance plain on her face. "He won't believe it." "It won't mean anything to him," Jade said, "but okay. My father wanted me to get married to Benjamin Watkins. He's  " "I know who the fuck he is, Jade." Suddenly, Andy was furious on Jade's behalf. "You've got to be fucking shitting me," he said angrily. "He's almost a decade younger than you, he's an asshole and he's a selfish little prick. How could your father possibly think that would be a good idea?" "Wait, how do you even know who Benjamin is?" Jade said, looking at her hands nervously. Andy gave Jade the short version of the poker story, explaining how he had originally gone to protect some of Niko's friends, but had ended up winning even more people, and the last one, Deborah, had been claimed by Benny before she could be brought over to Andy, which was why Hannah had joined the family instead. Benny's awful behavior on his doorstep had left Andy with a very bitter impression of the boy too stupid to be called a young man. "I mean," Andy said, "I can't imagine Nathaniel, Benny's father, even going along with that. Had your dad talked about it with him?" "I think he wanted to convince me to go along with it first before talking with the Watkins family," she grumbled. "But I never agreed to it, because I wasn't going to let my father tell me who I could or couldn't love, the jerk. And a couple of years ago, he stopped talking about that entirely, and I think I finally figured out why." "So what do you need from me with all of this, Jade?" he said to her. She smiled warmly at him. "See, that right there is how I know I made the right dang choice, Andy," she said. "You're always just asking how you can help, what you can do to make other people happy first. It's never about what you want or need." "I'm surrounded by a large number of beautiful women all competing for my time and affection," he said with a laugh. "If I ever start complaining about that, people should start punching me in the kidneys." "But yer still doin' a bangup job of makin' sure such a diverse buncha Sheilas get along with one another, Andy," Lauren said to him. "It's the least I can do." "Anyway," Jade said, "what I need is for you to be okay with whatever I'm going to say in this video we're going to make. It's, it's not going to be what you expect from me, and honestly, it might be pushing your boundaries a little bit, but I need you to know that I'm okay with it, and just because it's stuff I'm saying in the video doesn't mean it's anything we have to actually do if you don't want to." He reached over and brushed a hand across Jade's face tenderly. "I mean, I only have a couple of complete hard passes in my repertoire, but nobody's come up against any of those yet." "Anything I should know about?" "You don't want to peg, pee or poop on me, do you?" Jade giggled intensely, shaking her head. "God no." "Then it's probably fine." "We'll see if you say that after you're done imprinting me," she grinned. "You won't hear anything I say right after I'm done imprinting you," he chuckled "How long does that last, anyway?" Jade asked. "Well, I expect Whitney woke up a couple of hours ago, and Tala will wake up tomorrow midday. Fi and Moira got it this morning, so technically they should wake up in the middle of the night, but because it'll be dark outside, they may just keep on sleeping until morning. You'll be out a little longer than Tala will. It'll screw up your sleep schedule for a few days, but before you know it, it'll be back to normal." "I think we're pretty far from normal, Andy," Jade said with a nervous laugh. "You know what I mean." "Sure sure, I know what you mean." Behind her, Sheridan and Lauren helped moved Tala up, laying her down next to Moira and Fiona's sleeping bodies. "Do you want us to leave her here tonight, Andy, or put her in her own bed?" Sheridan asked him, as they made sure that the three women were close to each other without overlapping too much. Women in the imprinting process made almost no movements when they were out, so it was important to position them so they didn't have muscle cramps when they awoke. "She said wanted to wake up in the main bed for her first morning after imprinting, so she can just stay here," he said. "Jade? What about you?" "I'd like to do the same, if that's okay." "Of course it's okay," he said, leaning in to give her a sweet kiss, his fingertips brushing against her face once more. "I'm trying to get you to relax." "I know. I know I know, and I appreciate it," she said with a shy smile. "You're so gosh darn sweet. But you don't know how far I'm about to go down a path of depravity." "You don't have “ " "Andy," she said, resolve strong in her voice. "I do have to do this, so just let me do it, okay?" "Sure, okay." "Should we, are you ready to get started?" she said, looking up at him. "Are you sure you don't want me to go hop through a shower first? I'm still kinda sticky from my time spent with Tala." "No no, that'll make this all the better," she said, moving to stand up. For her interview outfit, she'd chosen a long skirt that hung down past her knees, but wasn't quite long enough to be considered a dress, and a red silk blouse that hung loosely over her ample bosom. "Emily, are you ready to start filming?" "You're sure you want me to capture everything, Jade?" Emily said. "I know we talked about this, but, everything? Nudity and everything? To your father?" Jade nodded, her gaze resolved. "I need to do this, Em, so just film it all." Emily shrugged a little, grabbing Jade's phone from the nightstand next to the bed. "If you say so, love." "Andy, could you stand up?" Jade said, as Emily moved over towards Jade, getting ready to capture what was about to happen on the iPhone. He nodded, sliding up and off the bed, moving to stand, glad that someone had turned on the heat in the house earlier in the day so he wasn't cold, standing nude in the middle of his insanely large bedroom. "Don't say much during this, okay, Andy?" Jade asked him, imploringly. "I mean, if I ask you a direct question, and it doesn't feel rhetorical, maybe answer, but err on the side of not saying anything. I need this to be all about me rather than you, no matter how much I'm going to talk about you during all of this." "Okay, I'll try and be quiet as much as I can then." "Great. Super. Thank you. Oh, if you hear me calling myself Button, it was his nickname for me growing up. So that's where that comes from. Anyway, let's get to it. Em?" she said, looking over to Emily, who was framing all of Jade in the shot on the phone. "Aaaaand, action!" Emily said, just before she hit the record button. Jade offered a brief, almost reticent smile, and it was gone as quickly as it appeared. "Hi Daddy. Button here and this is going to be the last time I reach out to you." She started slowly unbuttoning her blouse, letting it fall open, to reveal an ornate black lacy bra on beneath. "I know you wanted me to move back home until the whole plague passed, but that's not going to happen. I'm done living by your rules, not just regarding this, but everything." Andy actually felt a little bit nervous, not about being seen naked on camera, but for what Jade was going to say. She'd been purposefully vague with him, but he trusted her that she was only doing whatever she thought was necessary. "You always wanted to keep your little Button under your thumb, didn't you Daddy?" she said, sliding the blouse entirely off, tossing it aside. "But a couple of years ago, around the five year anniversary of Mom's passing, the things you said to me changed and started getting creepy. You kept talking about how much I reminded you of Mom when she was my age, how much you missed her and how your needs weren't being met." Oh, Andy thought to himself. OH. Oh shit. "I tried to tell myself that you didn't mean it, that you didn't realize what you were saying, or how inappropriate it was to be talking about your own daughter that way, but the more I told myself that, the more you seemed to be doing it." She unhooked the waist of her skirt and then let it drop to her ankles, stepping out of it before kicking off her boots, leaving her in the black bra and a matching set of black panties. "But the more I thought about it, the more I realized you weren't looking at me thinking about Mom. You were looking at me thinking I could replace Mom, and that's fucking creepy, Dad." She was fit, more fit than Andy had realized when she'd shown up in the cheerleader outfit yesterday, and her body was as toned and lithe as Sheridan's was, although maybe a little more muscular. She was an athlete, more like Piper, and she took great pride in showing her body to Andy, it seemed, or maybe showing off to her father, lashing out at him for his actions. "You wanted me to move back into the mansion so you could get me imprinted to you, didn't you, you sick fuck? You wanted your own daughter bound to you by science, reliant on your cum to keep her alive? Do you know how disgusting that is? How much it horrifies me?" She unclasped her bra behind her back and pulled it forward and off, tossing it aside, exposing her tits to both Andy and the camera, large proud swells that were just the perfect size for her body, as tanned as the rest of her, although her nipples were a bright rosy pink. "But you've lusted after your own daughter, haven't you, you sicko? You thought your wealth would let you get away with the ultimate betrayal, to have a perversion that you should have never even thought about," she growled. Andy understood now why she'd been so angry when she'd talked to him earlier in the day. Jade had clearly been thinking about her father's actions in light of what she knew about the process now, and had put two and two together to get a pretty unpleasant four. And now she was making sure her father understood that he was dead to her. "It bothers you, doesn't it, Daddy, hearing your precious little Button talking like some dirty whore? Swearing so fucking casually when you tried to drill it into her head that she should always be ladylike? Never act like some kind of cheap slut, never let a boy see or touch her special places." Jade's face was one of rage now, as she grabbed her panties and shoved them down, stepping out of them, leaving her fully exposed. She had a large triangle shaped blonde bush, neatly trimmed but still of a decent size. She also had no tanlines of any kind, making it clear she tanned in the buff, her whole skin that golden shade, the perfect California girl. "I hope seeing this video gives you a fucking heart attack, you asshole, because you're going to witness me guaranteeing that you can never fucking have me," she said, her hands on her hips, not making any effort to hide or conceal any of her gorgeous body. Andy hoped that the video did the trick, but if his time in New Eden had taught him anything, it was that the super rich were capable of nearly anything, and there were no other words to describe Jade's father, Cormack Dillon, quite so succinctly as "super rich," and that meant the man stood every chance of continuing to be a problem. "I took the DuoHalo immunity treatment yesterday, which means I'm going to get imprinted onto a man, to get the other half of it, and I know you know what that means," she said, sliding one hand over one of her tits, cupping it, for both the camera's eye as well as Andy's. "That means I'm going to be imprinted onto a man, a man who isn't you." Jade's nipple stiffened to her touch, and Andy could hear Lauren and Sheridan moving a little behind him, making sure they were completely out of the path, but he also wondered if the two weren't starting to play with themselves at least a little, because Jade had gone from schoolmarm to raw sexual carnage faster than a Lambo went from 0 to 60. "You know what that means?" Jade said, a coy smile on her face as her tongue licked her lips. "He's going to be my new Daddy, a better Daddy, a good Daddy, and he's gonna reap all the benefits that a good Daddy deserves." Her other hand moved to rub between her thighs, stroking across her cunt quite nervously, but her smile was practically eager. "I laid awake so many nights, playing with my cunt, wondering what my life was going to be like when I finally gave my cherry to someone, your words ringing in my ears how I needed to choose carefully, to pick someone who would make the family proud over someone who made me feel all warm and wobbly." Andy could feel her slowly closing the distance between them, Emily doing her best to keep her framed in the shot the entire time. "But that was what you wanted, and you're dead to me now. So I'm gonna give my cherry to my new Daddy, to a man that I chose to be with. And I'm not gonna be prim and proper about it, oh no," she purred. "I'm gonna be every bit the slut you were afraid I would turn into and more." She was only a few feet away from him when she slowly moved down onto her knees, keeping her head tipped up proudly. "He wanted to wash his cock off before I sucked him off, but I told him no," Jade giggled, scooting on her knees closer to Andy now. "I liked the idea of his cock being slick from the cunt of some other girl he'd just fucked when I blew him for the first time, so I'd get my first taste of cunt with Daddy's cock." She reached forward and grabbed Andy's shaft, giving it a gentle stroke. "See how much bigger my Daddy's cock is than yours, you senile old fucker? See how slick it is with the juices of some bitch he just met yesterday, another slut who's going to tend to his needs just like I'm going to? God, it smells so fucking good. Can I have a lick, Daddy? Just a little one?" Her intense green eyes were looking up at him, so Andy just nodded in response, as Jade let out a thankful, eager moan. "Oh thank you Daddy," she purred. "I just can't wait to be a good little Daddy's girl." Andy was glad she'd had the talk with him before this, because she'd been right,  he might have been a little uncomfortable with this had she not given him some advance warning. But she seemed to be enjoying stroking his cock for the camera, and when she leaned in, he knew what was going to happen, even if she didn't, not entirely. She'd intended to drag her tongue from the base of his cock to the tip, but only got about half way up before the mix of his semen and Tala's juices sunk into her bloodstream enough to begin the priming process, and she suddenly leaned her head back, looking straight up at the ceiling with completely defocused eyes, an intensely shredded moan erupting from her throat, that priming orgasm exploding through her body. Jade was back on her haunches, practically sitting on her heels, as her entire body shivered and quaked, the intensity of the orgasm a surprise even to Andy, who'd seen this thing happen more than anyone. The imprinting process had affected Jade stronger than anyone he'd previously paired with. "Jesus Fucking Christ," Jade hissed, finally having recovered enough strength to pull her head forward again. "That was the most intense fucking thing I've ever felt, Daddy. And I'm just getting started, because I have to thank Daddy for the gift he's giving me by taking me into his family." She kissed along the length of his cock slowly, never once taking her eyes off of Andy's, Emily having moved in, standing on the bed behind him, so she could look down with the camera. He even felt one of Emily's hand on his shoulder, making sure she was balanced properly. "I'm gonna be such a good little slut for you, Daddy," she whimpered. "I can't wait to feel you inside my cherry cheerleader cunt, to be the first and only cock I ever have inside of my sweet snatch. God, you're gonna feel so good, aren't you, Daddy?" Andy couldn't help but smirk for a moment, because he could feel Emily's nipples were rock hard through her top, pressed against his back while she continued to film. Clearly, the Brit was getting turned on by what she was watching. "That's not all I'm gonna give you, Daddy," Jade said, licking the taste of him and Tala from her lips. "I'm gonna give you everything. I'm gonna do everything. After an entire life of saying no no no, all I'm gonna tell my new Daddy is yes yes yes." She was starting to cradle his balls now, and he felt like that was a warning that she was about to crank up the tempo on him. "If Daddy wants to fuck me, I'll ask what position while I'm spreading my legs to show him I'm already wet for him. If Daddy wants me to blow him, I'll start sucking on his cock right away, no matter where we are or who's around. If he wants to knock me up, I'll beg him to breed me like his good little bitch in heat, even if we aren't married." She shivered a little bit, looking down for a second before gazing back up. "If Daddy wants to fuck me in the ass, I'll hold my cheeks apart and beg him to do it to me hard and fast, just like a good little slut, just like his good little slut should." He couldn't help himself, and his cock throbbed at that, not just from her description of it, but from the look in her eyes as she said it, like she was revealing some hidden desire that she hadn't known she wanted until she spoke the words aloud, and now that she had, it was burrowing hold in her psyche, not for now, but something definitely to be revisited lately. The look on her face was one of eagerness, like she was reveling in who she was after hiding it for so long. "To keep boys from fucking me, I had to learn how to become not just a good cocksucker, but the best cocksucker, able to get a boy off within just a minute or two of wrapping my lips around his cock, but I don't want my new Daddy to feel like he's being rushed, so enjoy this Daddy." Jade wrapped her lips around the head of his cock and slowly pushed her face down onto it, her lustrous green eyes holding his gaze the entire time, until she had her lips down around the base of his cock, no sign of coughing or choking, like she'd managed to suppress her gag reflex entirely. She slowly drew her head back, sliding her mouth off his cock with a wet pop as she grinned up at the camera. "You see that, Cormack? That's the view you always wanted of your daughter, isn't it, you twisted asshole? Down on her fucking knees with her tits out, looking up at you, her lips wrapped around your cock? But it's not your cock, is it shithead?" As she pushed her head back down onto his cock again, Andy did everything he could to keep his moan quiet, but a little bit of it slipped out, and that made Jade smile as she pulled back from his cock once more. "Hear that, Cormack? That's my new Daddy, enjoying what a good little cocksucker he's got. I asked him to stay quiet, but I'm just too skilled at sucking cock that he can't keep still. So I hope you fuck off and die, because I'm gonna get what I want now, I'm gonna be happy without you, I'm gonna get bonded to this beautiful fucking stud of a man, and he's gonna be my Daddy forever, and you're just going to be dead to me, so the sooner you fuck off and die, the better. Goodbye forever Cormack." After she said that, she started thrusting her head down his cock over and over, going from tip to base time and time again, making as much noise as she could, as much performance as it was blowjob, but damn if she wasn't right, and it was the best blowjob he'd ever gotten. Jade had total control over when his orgasm was going to hit, and just when he thought he was about to pop, she backed him away from it, just to prove that she could, then when he thought she was slowing down to prolong the video, she attacked once more, and started bobbing her head across his shaft faster and faster, and there was no stopping the collision course they were headed on. He wanted to put his hands on her head, but Emily seemed to have the shot framed exactly as she wanted, and Jade was doing her best to keep her eyes on his face and the camera the entire time, and when the moment of his release happened, he wasn't even sure where she was looking, because the intensity of the orgasm was brutal, easily the hardest he'd ever come from a blowjob. His cock blasted a hot load of cum against the back of her throat, as her lips sealed in a vacuum lock around the head of his cock, sealing him in there, not letting a drop of it spill out, all of it pouring directly into her belly, as her green eyes finally rolled back in her skull. Her mouth finally popped off his cock as she started to fall backwards, and Lauren darted in suddenly to slide her arms beneath Jade's shoulders, catching her and cradling her to lower her down onto her back, pulling her away slightly to let her legs unfold from beneath her, as Emily moved off the bed, jumping to the floor, slowly crouching down to finish on Jade's face, as the bubbly blonde proudly said 'imprinting' over and over again, an accomplished smile wide on her face. Emily tapped the Stop Recording button on the phone, and then exhaled a deep breath. "Holy fuck!" she shouted, taking one of her hands to fan her face. "I know she said to expect it to be out of character for her, but can I once again reiterate, holy fuck!" She giggled wildly, licking her lips. "I can't tell if I should send her father this video first or do my best to convince you that you can handle another round right here and now, Andrew, because, in closing, holy fuck was that hot!" Andy laughed a little bit, shaking his head. "No more. No more rounds for today. The House of Rook is officially doing no more deliveries tonight!" He crouched down and scooped Jade up into his arms,  she was light, although Emily and Lauren helped him anyway,  as he lifted her up and onto the bed, laying her down next to Tala. Once there, he moved the four of them,  Jade, Tala, Fiona and Moira,  over to one side of the bed, not pushing them off, but making sure there would still be room for his usual group of people to crawl into the bed as well in a few hours time. "Well, at the very least, I can take care of you in the shower before you make your run to Target tonight," Emily said to him. "God, can't it wait until tomorrow?" he groaned, before raising his hand. "No no, I know, we need to do it, and I agreed to do it tonight. Okay, let's go shower, and then a handful of us can make the run out and pick up supplies." After a very nice shower with Emily and Sheridan, where both girls steadfastly avoided getting their hair wet, Andy felt cleaned up and ready to round out his day. He hadn't even had dinner yet, but he decided that could wait until after the Target run. One of the things he'd learned early on, before they'd even gotten to New Eden even, was that women who lived together didn't really sync their periods up, but with a typical period lasting about five days, the more women in a household, the more likely it was someone needed additional feminine supplies. With the size of household now, he'd learned they were the most vital supply the household needed, and never, ever ever to be without. Whenever he went on a supply run, the girls drew names from a hat to decide who would go with him, because inevitably whoever went found a handful of things they just had to have and brought them home, and going to a Target with his entire family was beyond unwieldy. So as Andy checked his shopping list, the girls did their little drawing. Hannah, Aisling and Sarah won, and so the four loaded up into the Tesla Model Y and headed down to the Target. There were many things he was appreciative of about the home in New Eden that the government had gifted him with, but the one he noticed the most was its completely self reliance. The entire roof of the mansion was covered in solar panels, and Andy had been told there was a small field of them further out on his property, in the middle of a natural glade, that ran back to his house, which had power walls, storing all of that excess power. The cars were all electric. Phil had joked around that if New Eden were hit by the worst possible of storms, the town would be self sustaining for a few months before food would be the eventual first issue. Target was one of the few well established brand stores within the walls of New Eden, but it was handy enough that everyone seemed to overlook it not being a local business. There were a handful of cars in the parking lot, but it looked far from crowded. Andy parked the car and then headed in, as Hannah grabbed them a shopping cart. Andy hoped they'd only need the one, but at least half of the time, these trips involved getting a second cart. Most of his list was relatively short,  cat food, cat litter, cleaning fluid for his electric shaver, vanilla Coke if he could find it,  but the girls had their own list, and it was compiled from all the girls in the house. They mostly didn't have to do groceries,  Jenny and Katie made their own weekly run to the grocery store to keep the house stocked,  but everyone had little things they wanted for themselves. Nicolette had toilet paper delivered in bulk and was trying to convince the household to bulk order feminine supplies as well, but it seemed like each of the women in the house had their own deeply held preferences. Andy suspected Nicolette would win out in the end, and that bulk deliveries in the near future would start including things like pads and tampons (as well as diapers and other such baby supplies) eventually. For now, though, everyone was still eager to get out of the house every chance they could, the fatigue of being quarantined to a single space, even one as wonderful as the Rook Manor, getting to each of them a little bit. "Okay girls, let's split up and cover ground a bit," Ash said to the other two, "and we can meet up with Andy back in the pet supplies." Sarah, Hannah and Aisling each put a hand on top of one of the others and then said in unison "Go Rookies!" And like that, they each went their own separate direction into the large Super Target, as Andy headed over to pick up his electric razor cleaning fluid. Since their arrival, both Sarah and Emily had been trying to convince Andy to move to disposable razor blades, or even a straight razor, for shaving, but Andy had been using an electric since college and found the convenience of it too great to give up. Jenny had assured the two actresses that once Alexis showed up, Andy would learn the joy of having his face shaven by a woman with a straight razor, and once he did, he'd never want to go back. But even when she showed up tomorrow, she'd need to convince him it was the right call, so until then, he would stick to his old ways. Before he could make his way out of the razor section, Sarah came bounding around the corner, a package full of pads in one hand, a handful of make up supplies in the other, tossing all of them into the cart. "Hey, like, did you know Nate Watkins was gonna be here tonight? I saw him and one of his partners coming in as I was heading here," she said, leaning in to kiss his cheek. "I didn't," Andy said, "but it's not that big a community, so people are bound to run into one another here." "Did Phil tell you how many households are here in New Eden?" she said, sliding her arm around his waist, her body taller than his, something he still hadn't fully gotten used to. "I asked him, and I think he said about 400, although it's pretty scattered out, and some of the households are way bigger than others. We're definitely one of the bigger ones, although there's pressure on everyone to grow a bit, considering the news that'll be hitting in a couple of days." The two of them headed over to the soft drinks, and Andy was delighted to find that not only did they have vanilla Coke, they also had vanilla cherry Coke and orange vanilla Coke, so he grabbed a twelve pack of each, sliding them on the flat tray beneath the main cart itself, knowing to leave as much of the basket open for the girls as he could. "I imagine that poor Lily's going to go mental when she hears she's going to have to share poor Eric with even more girls," Ash said, tossing her collection of things into the basket. She'd come from behind Sarah and Andy, so neither had seen her coming. "But she'll just have to cope like the rest of us have." "She'll be extra picky on Eric's behalf," Andy said with a quiet smirk. "He won't want to kick up a fuss about who they send, so she'll take over the whole process and make sure nobody rocks the boat over there." "I meant to ask," Sarah said. "How come Eric's got a Chinese last name when he's Japanese?" "Well, he's actually half and half," Andy said, "but he prefers to think of himself as Japanese first and foremost, I guess, so that's how I've always thought of him. His Dad's Chinese but his mom is Japanese. They met after they'd both immigrated here in the 70s to work for tech companies. It's kind of a cute love story. They met in a class to learn English as a second language, so his dad never learned any Japanese and his mom never learned any Mandarin or Cantonese, and they only ever spoke English to each other in the house. They're both very nice people. Eric sort of speaks all three languages, but none of them that well. His Japanese is better than his Cantonese, though, or so he tells me." "That's funny," Ash said. "Lily's story is pretty much the same, half Chinese half Japanese. I guess their kids will keep the same ratio then." "Once they get around to them," Andy said. "You heard Lily, love," Ash giggled. "She's gonna get a child out of Eric even if it kills him. Her clock isn't just ticking, it's pounding out a drum beat." "No no, that's just Lily taking him Amazon style," Andy said, and both Sarah and Ash descended into fits of laughter at that, as he smirked and pushed the cart onward. They kept walking as Sarah and Ash each picked up a few things here and there,  scented candles, Fabreeze, some picture frames,  as they headed towards the pet section. "Don't freak out, Andy," Sarah said, "but I'm going to be grabbing some dog food for Maya's two pups." Andy arched an eyebrow. "Not once did you or Emily ever mention that Maya had dogs," he said, trying to put on his most disappointed look. "Don't you think that's something you should've mentioned, what with me having a couple of cats?" "That's fair, completely fair, but hear me out, just for a moment, on a counter argument," Sarah said, talking slowly, as if she was struggling to think of what she wanted to say. "Ok,” Sarah glanced over at Ash, who offered a sympathetic shrug, then back at Andy, and suddenly she grabbed him and kissed him hard, wrapping her arms around him in a constrictive hug before she pulled from the kiss and clenched him more tightly. "Okay, so we totally didn't mention it, and that's totally on Emily and me, but they're just two little Pomeranians, and they're super cute, and they're named Stan and Ollie, and I know we should've told you, but we asked Ash, and she said you're not allergic, and she didn't think you'd be upset, and I don't know why we didn't mention it during the presentations, but we didn't, and then you said yes, and we were both just so excited, and at that point, you were into the idea, and it didn't even occur to us that you might not like dogs, because I mean who doesn't love dogs, am I right, and I wasn't even thinking about it because Emily said she was gonna tell you but then she put dog food on the list for me to grab and now here I am, trying to convince you that it would be criminal to turn those two sweet little adorable faces away or hide them out back or anything when they're super well trained and lovable and  " She suddenly pulled back, glanced over at Ash, who was desperately trying to keep from breaking out into laughter, then back at Andy, sighing. "And you totally knew the dogs were coming and were fucking with me, weren't you?" At that point, Andy could finally let out the laughter that had been building and building and building inside of him as Sarah had just kept talking and talking and talking and some part of him had wanted to let her off the hook right away, but it had just so much funnier with every word. Ash was leaning against the cart, she was laughing so hard, once she finally broke. Andy squeezed Sarah tightly then pulled back and kissed her softly. "Of course the dogs are okay, Sarah," he said. "But you two definitely should have told me during the pitch, just in case I was allergic to dogs, which I'm not. But Emily brought it up to me yesterday, and I gave her a bit of stick for it, and she suggested this was how I gave you stick for your part in the matter." "Emily knew you were gonna put me up to this?" Sarah said, tilting her head to look upward. "Oh, the shit I'm gonna give that bitch when I see her,” Andy swatted his hand on Sarah's ass with a loud slap, which made her jolt a little bit into him. "Now now, I said the matter's closed, and the matter's closed, got it?" "You're fucking lucky you're so damn lovable yourself, mister man," she joked, rolling her eyes. "But okay, I guess we earned that." "Oh, Ker rist I wish I'd recorded that," Ash said, finally easing off of her laughing. "I don't know how she let that sentence run that far, but I think it could have sprinted past Piper!" As they arrived in the pet section, Hannah came to meet up with them, Nathaniel and his female partner in tow. She saw that Ash was wiping tears from her eyes still and pouted. "Aw, I missed the whole dog food fake fight, didn't I?" she said. "Oh well, look who I ran into!" It didn't surprise Andy that Hannah had stopped to talk to Nathaniel Watkins and his partner, as Watkins had been the man to bring Hannah over to him originally, which meant he'd know the Asian cheerleader longer than he had. Watkins was dressed, as ever, in cargo shorts, a bright Hawaiian shirt, socks and sandals, his black hair drawn back into a man bun, a pair of thin spectacles over his eyes. The woman next to him looked five to ten years younger than him, in probably her early to mid thirties, with eastern European features, jet black hair in bangs that hung down to her collarbone, dressed in a large loose t shirt that said "Cal Poly" on the front of it, and baggy sweatpants. It was clear, both had just decided to run errands in whatever they'd been lounging around the house in, although Watkins himself hadn't looked all that different at the poker night, or either of the times he'd come over to Andy's house, so Andy couldn't help but wonder if that was the man's standard look. Chapter 34 Uncharacteristically, Andy woke up at around 6 a.m., noticing that Fiona wasn't in the bed with all of them. He'd suspected that both she and Moira would wake up sometime in the middle of the night, but he'd hoped that they'd still sleep in some and get accustomed to local time a bit more. Fi, it seemed, couldn't do that. As carefully as he could, Andy extricated himself from the pile of naked female bodies around him and slipped out of bed. When it had been just him, Ash, Lauren and Niko, in the early days, anyone trying to leave the bed would wake everyone up, but now, after the last month or so of constant additions, people had grown much more acclimated to people moving, sliding in and out of the bed during the night without waking up. Currently the bed held Moira, Niko, Sarah, Emily, Tala, Sheridan, Lauren and Jade. He'd been a little surprised the night before when both Sheridan and Lauren had crawled into the bed as everyone was shutting down for the night, but both women insisted they each wanted their friend to have a familiar face nearby when they woke up in the house for the first time. He said he completely understood and respected that. He grabbed one his big t shirts, this one for the Chapterhouse album "Whirlpool," pulled on some boxers and some sweatpants and went to go find where Fiona had gotten herself to. Andy didn't have far to look. When he pulled the shirt on, he could see motion on the covered balcony just outside of the master bedroom, and figured it had to be her. He opened the sliding door as quietly as he possible, hearing the sound of heavy raindrops falling just feet away from the balcony, the wind not heavy enough to force them beneath the overhang. Fiona was wearing a cable knit sweater and Lululemon yoga pants, leaning against the railing, it still cool enough outside for her breath to leave a telltale cloud in the air in front of her. "This is California," she said, her voice laying plain her amusement with the weather. "I was promised sunshine and warm weather all the damn time." "It's raining," he said, moving to stand beside her. "And we need it, so don't jinx it and make it stop. Besides, it was raining the day you asked me and Xander to move in with you." She laughed a little bit, shaking her head slightly. "I can't believe you remember that," she said. "And, for the record, I asked you to move in with me, and I knew that Xander came as part of the deal at the time, because you weren't going to leave him hanging. How's he doing, anyway? I haven't talked to him since college." "You can ask him yourself when he gets here in a while." Fi turned to look at him, arching one of her impeccably well kept eyebrows in his direction. "He is not moving into this house, Andrew. This isn't the old days." Andy laughed, shaking his head. "I didn't mean here here, as in Rook Manor, but he's moving into New Eden, so he won't be too far away." He went to slide an arm around her waist, just a little hesitation in his motion, but she immediately slid in firmly against him, pressing her body against his. "I knew that, Andy. I was fucking with you. Jesus, you're an idiot sometimes," she sighed with a wide smile on her face. "So it's lucky you're so damn cute." He rolled his eyes a little bit. "Nobody thinks I'm cute but you." "Bullshit. Moira thinks you're cute." "Fine. Nobody but you and Moira." "And Niko and Emily and,” "Okay, okay, I get the point," he laughed, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "God, I missed you, Fi." "Me too. So next time, maybe call, huh?" He smirked. "You're gonna hold this over my head for a while, aren't you?" She giggled a little, nodding. "Oh yeah, bigtime. But you know me. I'll get bored with it at some point, and tease you about something new, once I have something new." Her right hand rested on his left arm, which was folded and pressed against the railing. "How the hell did we get to here, Andy?" "I mean, there's all of my life before May of this year, and then there's this year, and one of them is a lot more boring than the other, but I'll tell you all about both, given enough time. I am sorry I didn't try and find you after you cut me out, but to be fair, I didn't think you wanted me to." She nodded, giving a little shrug. "I was angry and I was dumb, Andy. It wasn't a good combination. And when I was old enough to know better, I was too scared, thinking you'd just moved on and didn't ever think about me any more." He had a short bark of laughter, shaking his head. "Yeah, get that fucking idea right out of your head now. After we split, I only had one serious girlfriend, and that was because I was comparing them to you all the time and nobody ever lived up to you." "Not even the one serious girlfriend?" "Especially not the one serious girlfriend, but at that point, I thought maybe it was me, and I was the one doing things wrong, so I stuck with it longer than I should've. You'll end up meeting her at some point around New Eden and then you'll ask yourself how she and I ever dated as long as we did." "That bad, huh?" she said, giving his arm a squeeze. She always knew exactly the level of physical touch he needed to feel reassured or put at ease. "That bad and a whole hell of a lot worse." That hung in the air for a minute or two with nobody saying anything. "You seem to have done alright for yourself this year, though," she teased. "Two actresses, two cheerleaders, an Irish lass, an Aussie, a Native knockout, a couple of athletes, an Indian knockout and your own personal staff including an honest to god French maid. I'm shocked you could find time to pencil me and Moira in." "I certainly never intended  " She reached a fingertip up to his lips to stop him from talking. "I spent a great deal of time between my arrival at the base and my injection with the serum talking about you with Niko, and she assures me that you've done everything you can to be the best man anyone here can ask for, so whatever you intended, it doesn't really matter anymore, does it? What matters now is that you've got a wonderful, if a bit immense, family, and that you wanted me and Moira to be a part of it." "Speaking of Moira, how long have you two been together?" Fi grinned, leaning her head against his chest. "About four years now. It's the reason I didn't put anything about my relationship status on my Facebook page. Didn't want Mom and Dad throwing a shitfit about it. Well, mostly Mom, I think." "So it's been serious for a while now." "Very," she said. "And she's the one who's been bitching at me to reach out to you for the last couple of years, so don't worry about her being jealous of you or anything. On our way here, she was telling me that it's felt like the entire time we've been together, there's been a part of me missing, and how she was sure that you had the missing part of me. I'm surprised you never reached out to her." "I never got her contact information all those years ago," he chuckled. "Hell, I didn't even get her last name. I still didn't know it until Niko told me yesterday." "Oh my god, really?" Fi giggled. "I guess that makes sense, because I know you would've remembered it if you'd ever learned it. You loved that damn silly movie." "Madam, I will not permit you to impugn 'Highlander' on these grounds." "Oh hush," she said. "But yes, you're going to be taking a bride from the Clan MacLeod, but there cannot only be one. You owe me a ring as well, mister." "You think that'll satiate the bloodlust of Mr. & Mrs. Smith?" he said, referring to her parents. "They already know you're back in this picture and are ecstatic," she said, kissing his cheek. "I mean, Mom's a little less thrilled with how many wives you're going to have, but I told her with all the deaths, that's the way it's going to work in this country for our generation. She's still wrapping her head around it." "Everyone in your family okay? All your brothers?" "All three were smart and locked down immediately, so everyone's okay. I'm glad you asked." "And Moira's family?" "Her mom's all that's left, and Scotland's not had a lot of problems with DuoHalo, since they seemed to take lockdown extremely seriously in the smaller villages. You can talk to her about her mom when she's up. It'll mean a lot to her that you're asking." "So how did you two hook up again?" Fiona sighed again, slumping into his body a little more. "How much of my writing career did you follow after we split?" "Most of it?" he chuckled. "I set up a Google Alert to notify me whenever your byline appeared." "You stalker," she giggled, waiting just the perfect beat before speaking again. "It's okay; I had one set up on you as well. Uh, two, actually, one for your real name and one for your pen name, once I read an article about that. Thanks for making that hard on me." "I didn't expect anyone to be following my fiction writing, Fi. But carry on with your story." "Do you remember that story I wrote about about five years back on the Syrian civil war?" "I remember you wrote a whole series of them. What, seven or eight different pieces?" She smiled up at him. "Gold star for robot boy," she said with a smirk. "You really were paying attention. That's nice to know. Anyway, the one about the Doctors Without Borders that were crossing into the firefights to provide medical aid to civilians caught in the crossfire." "Oh yeah," he said. "Those people sounded amazingly brave." "Moira was one of those people," Fi said. "Running out into firefights, scooping up kids and pulling shrapnel out of them. One of the bravest people I'd ever met, but she's been doing it for a few years, and it was starting to take a real toll on her, so I invited her to come and visit DC. A few weeks later she'd gotten a job at a hospital in Georgetown. A couple of months later we started dating. Half a year later, she moved in with me. About two years ago, we decided we both wanted to get the fuck out of DC forever, but weren't sure where to go." "Around the time you added me and Xander on Facebook." "Actually, I have a confession to make,  Moira sent you the friend request from my account," she sighed. "I was convinced you didn't even think about me any more, so one day when we were fighting, she just sat down at my computer, found you on Facebook and sent you the friend request before I could stop her." "And then you and I played the biggest, dumbest game of virtual chicken ever, waiting for the other one to reach out first," he sighed. "God, we're fucking stupid some days." To be continued in part 20, by CorruptingPower for Literotica.

Bio:Dr. Alan James Yu is an inspirational speaker, author, facilitator, retreat leader & coach on love, creativity, and leadership. He aims to help leaders from all walks of life build healthy and lasting organizational, community, and global change. For the last decade, Alan has worked in corporate, higher education, and non-profit sectors as a facilitator.He has lived in places as diverse as Singapore, the United States (Iowa City, Seattle, and San Diego)and currently resides in Bali, Indonesia. In 2022, Alan spent a month in Cambodia and began reflecting on his experiences living and working with Balinese communities in rural Bali. He put his thoughts into his first book, On Love, Leadership and the Collective Soul: A Guide to Making Creative Change.Links:Website: https://alanjamesyu.wixsite.com/alan-j-yuLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanjyu/Telegram: love_courage_passionTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/LoveExpandsQuotes:"We express a lot of our spirituality through art.""It's through the power of love that people can they form relationships with each other and support each other's spiritual growth, and we act as mirrors for each other."Episode Highlights:Alan Yu was born in Iowa, and is a second-generation Chinese American. Growing up, Alan and his family traveled a lot, and that exposed Alan to new places, people, and cultures.When Alan took his doctorate program, he had no idea that Bali would become his home. His interest was to teach leadership. Childhood Incidences:When you grow up in a family that has some Asian history, learning Western classical music is a big deal. Growing up, Alan had to learn how to play the piano. It didn't come naturally for him, and he had to put in a lot of work. Even so, he credits his piano discipline with working towards a goal and achieving it.Although he was born in the US, he was walking into an American fast food in his hometown one day, and an older man pointed him towards a Chinese restaurant that was across the street. It dawned on him that no matter how well he adapted, there would always be something to remind him that he was a foreigner.Influential Groups:Alan has had opportunities to perfect leadership in universities and the social sector, which has shaped the leader he is today. During Alan's doctoral program, his mentor, Rose Martinez, taught leadership creatively using the arts. Alan found her teaching method resonated with him.Cultural Epiphanies:While in Harbin, China, Alan caught himself making casual remarks to a teacher, not recognizing that there was a hierarchy to respect. His Japanese friend explained why his familiarity with superiors was considered rude.From his ethnographic research in Bali, and help from a cultural guide, Alan made the decision to live and work in Bali. The Balinese culture informs Alan's personal values, meditation, and teaching practice. Soapbox Moment:Alan has a calendar of leadership training offered in Bali. He invites anyone interested in going developing creative thinking within their organization to get in touch with him for more information.Receive Alan's FREE guide on How to Spark Creativity and Innovation...Without Banging Your Head Against the Wall for Days...Even if No Fresh Thoughts Are Coming to Mind! Send an email with "Gervais" in the subject line with your name and email address in the body of your email.Tagline: How love, leadership and collective soul foster sustainable organizational change.Support the show

Richard Tomić is a Brit that is all but not limited to music producer, content creator, comedian, and Japanese speaker. His Japanese is so good, it's inspiring me to learn Korean. I heard of Richard where Kim sent me a Instagram DM of Richard's reel of “Tinder Date in Japan” with Richard's smiling face of him in a wig playing the beautiful girl that he is and I watched it. Hilarious. I was hooked. The caption for it was “Tip: If she's written “hip-hop” in her bio, this is what you might get.” Alright anyways I was then in a K-Hole of videos. Tons to watch. If you're into subtitles and cos-play this is the page for you. Richard teaches Japanese through his school the Ricchaado Academy and also got bars with his music under bi-lingual alter ego Seitei. Is Richard Tomić an Adult Entertainment Club or performer? Let's find out. Or not. We don't need to find out. A place of uncomfortable laughter. This is Ricchaado TV. Please welcome Richard Tomić to Wear Many Hats. instagram.com/ricchaadotv instagram.com/wearmanyhatswmh instagram.com/rashadrastam rashadrastam.com wearmanyhats.com dahsar.com

Today we celebrate the man who cleverly saved the Royal Botanic Garden during the French Revolution. We'll also learn about the woman who lavishly decorated her bathroom with a garden theme almost a hundred years ago. We look back at a successful bid to save a 700-year-old Christmas Tree in Oregon. We’ll remember one of the great nurserymen and rosarians of our time… after two years, we still feel his loss. We hear words about the peace that comes in winter by the writer Rachel Peden. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a book subtitled, "How to Have Your Yard and Eat It Too." And then we’ll wrap things up with the story of an arboretum that came to life thanks to the vision and obsession of one Atlanta man. It’s quite the story.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated Garden News The Best Plants For Stunning Winter Bark | Gardening Etc | Sarah Wilson   Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events December 18, 1829  Today is the anniversary of the death of a French naturalist, biologist, and academic, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Lamarck died lonely, blind, and impoverished in Paris on this day in 1829. He was buried in a common grave. Regarded as the Father of Evolutionary Theory, Lamarck paved the way for Darwin’s Origin of the Species. By 1809, Lamarck had worked out a complete theory of evolution. Lamarck speculated on the inheritability of acquired traits. He believed that all life evolved upward - beginning with dead matter, progressing from simple to complex forms, and ending in “human perfection." A progressive thinker, Lamarck also proposed an early version of continental drift. By 1790 Lamark was working as a botanist at the Royal Herbarium in Paris. As the French Revolution intensified, Lamarck saved the Royal Garden by quietly and ingeniously renaming it. Instead of The Royal Garden, the sign simply read The Garden of Plants. Lamark’s little sign trick worked, and the garden was saved.   December 18, 1930 On this day, The Boston Globe shared a little snippet called “Bathrooms like Gardens.” Here’s an excerpt: “Lady Cromer has her favorite flower, the iris, as the motif of her bathroom. The walls are painted with growing irises in flower on the bank of a river, the river being the bath itself, and the whole effect is that of a charming garden.”   December 18, 1958 On this day, the Statesman Journal out of Salem, Oregon, reported on a 700-Year-Old Tree Saved From Axemen. “[In Seaside, Oregon], a giant 700-year-old Christmas tree has been added to a five-acre tree farm park dedicated to the public. The Sitka Spruce, 195 feet tall and 15 feet, 9 inches in diameter… contains enough wood to build six two-bedroom houses. The ink was barely dry on England's Magna Carta when the spruce sprouted. The tree passed its 500th birthday before the American Revolution. The American Forestry Association, which keeps records on big trees. lists a 180-foot Sitka Spruce in Washington's Olympic National Park as the largest tree. While it boasts an eight-inch edge in diameter, it is 15 feet shorter than Oregon's champion.”    December 18, 2018 Today is the second anniversary of the death of the rose breeder and writer David Austin. When David passed away, I found some old advertisements that he posted in The Observer in 1973. That post was already twelve years after creating his first commercially available Rose - the Constance Spry. A 1973 ad showed how early-on David found his calling. It read: “Old-fashioned roses, shrub roses, rare and unusual roses, many of our own breeding. Roses of charm, and fragrance. The country's finest collection.”A handbook of roses” free.”   Unearthed Words Under the big Swamp Maple in the east lot, the gray geese and the white Pilgrim ganders gather silently. During winter nights, they sleep in the open face tool shed, and often in the night, they think of new expressions of scorn and at once utter them. (“We are the watchdogs, we geese. We saved Rome.”) That peaceful morning they walked on the clinging, moist snow and were still. They looked thoughtful as if contemplating the sense of peace that provided the whole farmscape. I realized to my astonishment that if total peace ever actually befell the whole world all at one time, it would be the most spectacular sight mankind has ever seen.   Nobody would be able to believe it,  or, perhaps,  even to survive it. — Rachel Peden, ecologist and writer, The Land, The People   Grow That Garden Library Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist by Michael Judd This book came out in 2013, and the subtitle is How to Have Your Yard and Eat It Too. In this book, Michael shares his life at his Long Creek Homestead in Frederick, Maryland. Michael’s gorgeous property includes 25 acres of mixed woodland, food forests, gardens, and a nursery designed for experimentation and education. Michael’s book is his how-to manual for following in his footsteps: transforming a sea of grass into a flourishing edible landscape that pleases the eye as well as the taste buds. With his delightful personality and quick humor, Michael explains the complexities of permaculture design into his simple do-it-yourself projects like: Herb Spirals Food Forests Raised-Bed Gardens Earthen Ovens Uncommon Fruits Outdoor Mushroom Cultivation, and more . . . The book features beautiful photography and practical designs that can be easily grafted to the urban landscape's micro-habits, scaled up to the acreage of homesteads, or adapted to already flourishing landscapes. This book is 144 pages of an edible landscaping primer with a permaculture twist to help anyone with a desire to turn their landscape into a luscious and productive edible Eden. You can get a copy of Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist by Michael Judd and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $14.   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart   December 18, 1999   On this day, The Marshfield News-Herald out of Marshfield, Wisconsin, published a story called “Dream Fulfilled: Georgia Man Lovingly Cultivates Arboretum at His Home.” The story features Tom Cox, a man who has a passion for trees. Here’s an excerpt: “Tom, 54, is a boy on a great adventure. It's as if he has played in every tree's branches, smelled and felt every leaf. He uses careful, precise words when he talks about the textures of leaves: crisp, refined, leathery, or lacy. It is the same with bark. One is striated, another like patchwork. Still, another is smooth like silk. Tom describes in meticulous detail how certain trees will look in 10 or 15 years. He envisions the blossoms, leaf color, or berries the trees will display at different ages and seasons. Tom purchased 14 acres, built a house, planted trees on half the property, and started his private Arboretum, which he shares with garden clubs and groups like Trees Atlanta. Now he has 600 trees, with varieties representing 38 countries, and he tends them all himself. Small signs identify each by genus and species. His wife Evelyn does some weeding and mulching, but he doesn't ask her to water. Or mow. He cuts the grass, careful to avoid nicking a tree.  Evelyn travels with her husband to many weekend plant shows. She calls their 10-year-old station wagon the "dirt mobile." Tom calls it the "plant mobile." She laughs about her trips home, crowded by some 60 to 70 plants.  Evelyn said, "I've had to fend off an occasional spider or two. Most of all, I just enjoy seeing him enjoy it. When he first started, he'd buy bare-root plants and call me outside every Saturday to look at a new bundle of sticks and at tree bark. He's really into bark, you know." To Tom, unusual trees aren't hard to grow, just hard to find because nobody asks for them. His Japanese apricot, which blooms bright orange in February, is one example. "Everybody would have one if they only knew about it." And, he often spots unusual trees in local hardware stores. One of his favorite evergreen trees is a Japanese black cedar he bought at an Ace Hardware in south Atlanta.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

Iran hits back… Tehran launches more than a dozen missiles, targeting U.S. military bases in Iraq, in retaliation for the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani. Asian stocks sell off, while the Dow points lower amid the escalation in the U.S.-Iran crisis. Oil and gold initially surge, but cap gains as President Trump plays down the impact of the latest attacks. In an apparently separate incident in Iran, a Ukrainian Airlines Boeing suffers technical problems and crashes after take-off. According to state media, all 170 passengers on board are believed to be dead. And in Lebanon, the world’s media awaits former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s first press conference following his surprise escape from house arrest in Japan. His Japanese legal team has accused the auto maker of ‘perversion of truth’ leading to the financial misconduct charges brought against him.

Radrey and CrayJ talk about Tinder, creating video games, video game similes, Japanese words you can't translate into English, AJ's 3 favorite video games, chiemi blouson, chicks with the boobs, how Hitomi Tanaka's face gives Radrey views, and more. Check out CrayJ here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeP1... His Japanese video game channel is here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLHN... Radrey's plugs. Support: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=2452564 Like: https://www.facebook.com/The-Radrey-C... Follow: https://twitter.com/radorii Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radrey/ Movies: https://letterboxd.com/radrey/ TV:https://www.tvtime.com/en/user/297462... Books: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1...

Pete Leong's Youtube Check out his reviews!! Fotoshisa Photography Facebook OkiLife Facebook Page Quinton Sanicola Instagram Pete Leong is an amazing Australian Photographer that has lived in Japan for quite some time! His Japanese is much better than he would like to admit! Early in the episode we talk about what his advice is for getting into photography and paying your dues! Pete is trying to settle down a bit for a little while but he has ben flown all around the world for private shoots. The photography that lines his house hold is nothing short of breathe taking! Cheers mate!  

How To Liven Up A Speech You Have To Read   Watching a friend of mine deliver his speech to my Rotary Club reminded me of the perils of reading speeches.  In his case, he was giving the speech in Japanese and so he chose the route of linguistic perfection over audience engagement.  We do this in our own language too when the speech content is complex or of high sensitivity.  Politicians have learnt they usually get themselves into trouble when they are adlibbing, compared to when they are reading from a carefully prepared and fully vetted speech.    Do I recommend reading the speech?  No, but sometimes the stakes are too high or the situation demands you read the whole thing. My Japanese is not perfect, but I prefer to engage my audience than lose them by having to look down to read the content.  Depending on the formality of the situation though, I might choose to read it.  How can we liven this process up though?   What could my friend do when he was reading his speech to make it more engaging for his audience. He could have departed from the text and just spoken directly to the audience, while maintaining full eye contact for some of the sentences.  Looking down at our speech means we have to break eye contact and this creates a barrier between us and the audience.  By having a few sections where we replace sentences in the text with bullet points, to which we can speak will give us that chance to make continuous eye contact with members of the audience.  His Japanese ability was sufficient for him to do that.  For most people, they will be operating in their native language anyway.   We can do a similar thing with slides.  We might show a picture, a graph or some key words and just talk to them, rather than read from the notes.  The visual aspect supports what we are saying, so we lessen the burden on our words to sell the message.  If we are doing it in a foreign language like my friend, we can have the perfect grammatical clarity needed up on screen to describe what we want to say and then just deliver the same key message in our own more natural if imperfect language.   He could also have used stories more in his speech.  Stories engage our audience and we can transport them to specific locations, seasons of the year or times of the day through telling our stories.  They key thing with stories is to tell something about locations or people with which the audience will be familiar.  I heard a great one the other day from the head of Japan Post Mr. Masatsugu Nagato.  He was speaking to the Economist Conference Network in the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and doing so in English.  He told an amusing story about when previous Japanese Prime Minister Mori met US President Bill Clinton when japan was hosting a G7 meeting in Okinawa.  The point I want to make here is his audience were familiar with Mori, Bill and Okinawa.  We should do the same.  Try to get your audience seeing the scene in their mind's eye.   Rhetorical questions are also great for getting engagement.  When we ask a question of our audience, we are forcing them to concentrate on what we are saying and think of the answer.  Depending on the occasion, sometimes it is hard to know if the speaker really expects an answer or not.  That is the ideal situation.  We want to create some tension in the room because that creates connectivity between the speaker and the listeners.  By throwing out questions we get everyone on the same wave length, at the same time and that builds our connection with our audience. We don't need twenty of these, just a few will do the trick.  For example, in a twenty minute speech, probably one every five minutes or so would work well.  Remember, we need to step it up in our speech about every five minutes to keep everyone attentive.  This might be using questions, employing the slide deck or telling a story.   So we don't have to become captives to the text and lose our engagement with our listeners.  These have been some simple ideas we can use to keep the talk interesting and engaging.  It doesn't matter if you are speaking in a foreign language or your native tongue.  These ideas will work a treat.        

So welcome to.. the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way Serendipidy is defined thus in the dictionary but we do not often connect it to wheeling and dealing in multiple businesses in multiple countries and in multiple languages do we? Meet a true blue entrepreneur who goes by his nickname Harry but whose Japanese name is Hakuei Kosato. Just during this in person interview he fended calls from Mumbai and Hong Hong in connection with the Great British Week in Tokyo's chic Roppongi-an event he invented like so many others to bring something unique into form and very importantly to 'pay the bills' doing it... something his mentor Richard Branson taught him. On his way to London from Kobe via his Tokyo office I caught this effervescent man for long enough to receive a byte of his substantial knowledge about what it really takes to be an entrepreneur. Packed with enlightening hints about how to stop doing what you do NOT want to do and get on with what you do want to do, Harry is truly one of a kind. And he is kind too. A man who logs yearly distances on flights almost equivalent to the distance to our moon he transcends nation, ideology and quick fix business jargon and delivers some meaty advice on selling sushi in Mumbai! His Japanese profile is here and an English article on him here.

The guys review the news touching on solar roadways in China, Tesal's Solar Slump and how residential solar may b e changing. In local news Big Island of Hawaii sees Solar permits soar 78%! Product focus for the day brings Yoshioka Tatsuya-san from Tokyo's Ecoship project to the Coaster. The fellas welcome this amazing technology to the which is launching to the forefront of the marine industry using renewables. It turns out the marine industry is booming and currently responsible for 17% of global CO2 emissions. Josh shares his experience with Peaceboat traveling the world in his twenties. Jason shows off some if his Osaka-ben! His Japanese is pretty solid! Yoshioka reviews the history of Peaceboat starting in 1983 and now nearing 100 global voyages. Ecoship is the future! Future focus digs into a bio-luminescent trees! LINKS http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a14479240/china-is-building-a-solar-power-highway/ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/teslas-solar-slump-is-there-a-better-model-for-sales_us_5a3b67d3e4b06cd2bd03d814 https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/news/2017/12/19/solar-pv-permits-soar-74-on-hawaiis-big-island.html http://ecoship-pb.com/ http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/11/technology/green-cruise-ship-ecoship/index.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5178531/MIT-creates-bioluminescent-trees-glow-like-fireflies.html

Fisher opens the show with David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org. David talks about the historic "First Leftovers!" (It's true!) Plus, a flock of Russian birds that have gathered pieces of antique documents in their nests. What type of bird and what have they found? Catch the story on the podcast. Plus, hear David's latest family history pickup from eBay... for all of ten dollars. And if you're interested in having an electronic accounting of all the books you have in your home quickly and easily, you won't want to miss David's Tech Tip of the Week. And David has another free database of the week from NEHGS! Fisher then visits with Dr. Robin Smith from 23andMe talking about some of the new report features that are available. Health? Physical tendencies? Ancestry? Dr. Smith touches on them all. Whether or not you've spit in a cup yet, you're going to want to know where this exciting field is going. Fisher was recently surprised to run into Olympic Gold Medalist Apolo Anton Ohno who agreed to come on the show and talk about his research into his background... half Japanese and half who-knows-what. His Japanese research brought about some terrific surprises, and he's putting DNA to work to solve the problem on his mother's side. By the way... she was adopted. It's a great visit you won't want to miss! Plus, Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com, the preservation authority, talks about a listener question regarding audio for interviews. Tom is going to save you a lot of heartache and errors! Don't miss his segments. That's all this week on Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show!

K1971 PODCAST - TAKAAKI ITOH Techno hit Japan hard in the early 1990s. Surprised, Takaaki Itoh was quickly impressed and intrigued with this new sound. The unique style of beats revealed the gateway to a new world of underground music in Japan - something he had never heard before. Surprise slowly gave way to addiction when Takaaki Itoh was exposed to the sounds of such artists and labels as Underground Resistance, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Hardfloor, Sven Väth, Harthouse, Warp and Rising High. This was his sound, and deciding he just couldn't get enough of it, in 1994 Takaaki began to organize his own techno parties in his home of northern Japan. By providing a fantastic lineup, his parties quickly became a success.In 1996, having decided that it was time to start making his own tracks, Takaaki Itoh emerged to purchase the vital instruments to begin production. After sending out three finished projects to various labels, Electracom UK was fortunate enough to put Takaaki's first material out. This moment was something he will never forget, as he was finally able to hear his own music on vinyl. Several releases followed with Electracom as his tracks began to appear in magazine DJ charts in well known DJs from around the world. In 2000, Takaaki Itoh made his European debut in Slovakia. People recognized that he had his own style. His Japanese style of techno was pure, unique and underground - nothing that had been heard before in Europe. His reputation and popularity quickly spread all over the continent. He was becoming recognized as Japan's most underground and respected techno DJ.As of 2001 he was getting offers to perform at large clubs and festivals all over Europe, including Cosmic Trip and Svojsice in the Czech Republic, The Darkside in England, MTW in Germany, Awakenings and Reactor in Holland, Mayday and Sziget in Hungary, La Real and Code in Spain, Boomerang in Slovakia, Projekt in Belgium, as well as events in Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, Portugal, Serbia. Slovenia.. Promoters wanting him, party people loving him, Takaaki Itoh took the next step and started his own label Wols. Passion led to success and Takaaki became recognized as the top of the next generation of techno music.By 2005 Takaaki Itoh has released over 50 original productions on many different european labels like Sheep, Tsunami, Warm Up, Theory, MB Selektions, Integrale Muzique, etc. He’s also developed a reputation for remixing globally established techno artists such as Gennaro Le Fosse, Oscar Mulero, Christian Wünsch and more to come. His demand is rapidly growing beyond his Asian and European roots, to places like South America, Australia, the US and Canada.