Blog Feed – Grit – Passion & Perseverance

Control What You Can Control

In her memoir, Becoming, Michelle Obama wrote about how not trying to control what she couldn’t control saved her marriage.

According to the former first lady, her husband, the former president Barack Obama, was not a punctual person.

Before the White House, they lived separately. Her husband worked as a senator in D.C., while she was pursuing her career as a vice president in a hospital. Their routine was that Mr. Obama came home on Thursday evenings and went back to D.C. on Monday mornings. On Thursday afternoons, Mr. Obama would call his wife telling her that he was on his way, that he was almost home, etc.. Each time, Mrs. Obama cooked dinner based on his expected arrival time, and made their daughter stay up and wait for their father. But Mr. Obama was always late. He was caught up with last minute 45-minute meetings, he failed to mention that he was stopping by at a gym, etc.

Mrs. Obama was so frustrated and their marriage was in trouble. She signed up for a couple counselling, and took her husband to a therapist, expecting that the therapist would agree with her and fix her broken husband. Instead, through several sessions, she came to realize that she was in charge of her own happiness, and she and her daughters didn’t need to wait for their man of the house at the door for them to be happy. Mrs. Obama started setting up routines and stick to them: workout at 5 am; dinner at 6:30pm, girls’ bath at 7pm, followed by books, and lights out at 8pm. If her husband made it, he made it. It was now his job to keep up with them.

Mrs. Obama became happy that she could workout every morning, and stick to her and her daughters’ routine. Their marriage was saved and Mr. & Mrs. Obama achieved much bigger goals together as we all know.

At home and at work, many of us tend to get frustrated trying to change things that we have no control over, such as others’ thoughts and attitudes.

The only thing that you can control is yourself. So instead of trying to control others, we should focus on controlling ourselves.

There is an old Japanese saying: “Talk less, execute more.” I grew up being told that if you worked hard, your effort would be automatically recognized, and good things would happen to you. So that was what I used to do: speak little of my contributions, and work as hard as I could.

However, I noticed that good sales people got recognized and promoted faster while doing less work. By “sales people,” I mean those that are better at talking than executing and making actual contributions.

I was very frustrated by this. Why do these people just talk, aren’t they ashamed that they are not really delivering much? Why can’t the management see through this and recognize real contributors?

But I cannot change the attitudes of the talkers, and I cannot change what our senior management see.

So, I started advocating for my team and myself. In different meetings, I grabbed every chance to mention my team’s recent achievements and name the main contributors. I did the same whenever I had a chance to talk to my senior management. It resulted in two promotions from my team last year.

There are many things that you cannot change. But you can change your own attitude. You cannot change what others see, but you can present information to others that they do not see otherwise.

We should focus on what we can control.

Lead Like Conducting an Orchestra

**Leading is like conducting an orchestra**

“So, what do you do?”

This is a very typical question that you get from people you meet for the first time.
“I manage an IT team in a Japanese bank,” is my typical answer. I’ve been managing IT teams in a traditional Japanese bank for the last 14 years.
Some people then ask me, “Ok, but what does that mean? What do you do?”

A good question.
What is my job really? What do I do?
I attend many meetings. From 9 am to 5 pm, including lunch time, my Outlook calendar is usually completely booked.
I read and write many emails. My email box gets full on a daily basis, and I am forced to delete and archive many emails everyday.
Besides that?
I develop business plans for my team.
I develop resource plans and manage resources for my team.
I manage the team’s finances.
I manage the relationships with our business partners and vendors.

But, no, these are not my real jobs. These are just the tasks that I perform.

My real job is to lead.

Leading is like conducting an orchestra.
Even if you gather the most talented musicians, they wouldn’t be able to produce the most beautiful music without a conductor. The conductor enables the musicians to have a vision: the vision of music that they are to create together. The conductor orchestrates to arrange different elements together, and produce a desired effect. The conductor brings musicians from different backgrounds together. The conductor inspires their orchestra. The conductor extracts the best out of each musician.

That is what I do. I conduct the music my team plays.
My team consists of talented developers and business analysts. Each of them is a fully qualified professional. However, if each worked as they pleased, the team would not be able to create a decent system, nor provide decent services to our business partners. To create an IT solution, everybody needs to have the same vision in terms of the solution the team is building. It also takes arranging different areas of expertise in the right places to produce a desired outcome. It takes creating and maintaining the environment that inspires the team members to contribute and produce the best possible outcomes.

My job is to lead like conducting an orchestra.

Are You Willing To Fail?

Are you WTF – Willing To Fail?

A while ago, I read WTF?! (Willing to Fail): How Failure Can Be Your Key to Success by Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? and the pioneer of the professional junk removal industry.

This is a very powerful and inspiring book, as well as being fun to read. It may be obvious, but the message you will get is this: in order for you to eventually succeed, or in order for you to get what you want, you must be willing to fail. You cannot let the fear for failures prevent you from trying. The author says:

Failure is a temporary condition.
Afterward, it is a lesson learned.
It is wisdom gained.

Why is it so scary to fail anyway?

Afraid of looking like a loser? Afraid of looking imperfect? Whom are you trying to impress? Most people do not even pay attention to you. People are busy with themselves. People that care about you know you. People that care about you know that you are not a loser, and they will be even more proud of you if you recover from failures.

Afraid of losing what you’ve built? Reputation? Financial stability? Taking chances will enable you to build something even bigger and better.

Afraid of losing the income stream? Losing your income stream is actually extremely scary. Not only do I fear it, I actually lived the reality of not having income at all. When I moved to the U.S. at 26, I only had a little money in my bank account that I saved from working for three years as a programmer in Tokyo. My parents had passed away by then, and I had nobody to support me financially. I had no future job prospects, either. There was no guarantee that I would eventually get a job, after finishing my masters degree in Philadelphia and going back to Japan. I ended up staying here in the U.S., but my intention at the time was to go back to Japan after I receive my MBA. Back then, in Japan, it was customary for a job posting to say “If a man, up to 40 years old; if a woman, up to 30.” My future was so unforeseeable and I had little money with no future income prospect. Because I couldn’t even afford regularly priced bagels, I bought one-day old bagels. Often, in the middle of the night, the fear for my unforeseeable future hit me in sleep, and I would wake up, unable to return to sleep.

However, I made it. I made it though hard work, consistency, and perseverance.
I finished business school and received my MBA. Soon after, I got a job in an IT consulting firm in New York and moved there. The job only provided a meager salary, but it was a huge relief that I received a regular paycheck. I could finally sleep through a night and I could even afford fresh bagels.

Then, several years later, I left the stable job as an IT consultant and tried a gig as a real estate agent with the intent to eventually start a real estate business, while founding a one woman IT consulting firm. Knowing the fear of losing a stable income, I still did it. After a sequence of unexpected events, I ended up taking an IT management position in a Japanese bank, for which I still work for 14 years later. This opportunity only came because of my decision to leave my former employee and go independent.

Now, it feels that it’s about time for me to start fresh again. Whatever I will do next, I’ll work hard. Maybe even harder than before, if it is at all possible. That is the only way to overcome your fear and continue even after you fail in your first, second, and third attempts.

You should be willing to fail. You should not let the fear stop you from doing what you are meant to do. As long as you are determined, as long as you continue to get back up and try again, you will eventually succeed. Remember: Failure is a temporary condition.

Toastmasters

What is Toastmasters?
That’s what I thought, when I saw a Facebook post where somebody said that she had given a speech at a Toastmasters meeting.
I got curious, Googled, and found that Toastmasters was a US headquartered nonprofit educational organization promoting public speaking and leadership skills, with clubs worldwide.

Ok, this is interesting!
I looked for clubs in the New York City area that have meetings on weekends. I found several, and decided to pay a visit to one of them.

On a Saturday in March 2019, I visited a Toastmasters club in Manhattan.
I was very impressed by what unfolded in front of my eyes.
The meeting was basically structured so that several members gave several minute-long prepared speeches and received evaluations.
For each speaker, there was a designated evaluator.
There were Watchtowers, including (a) a Timer to time speeches and signal speakers where they are in their allotted time frame, (b) an Ah-counter to count filler words such as ah’s, um’s, so’s, and you-know’s (scary!), and (c) a Grammarian to police grammatical errors (ahhh) and also identify great word usages. Watchtowers gave their report for each speech in the evaluation session.
In addition to that, each person in the audience was asked to write feedback for each speech on small pieces of paper distributed prior to the meeting.

There was also a Table Topics session, sandwiched between the Prepared Speech session and the Evaluation session, where the Table Topics master picked several persons from the audience, who would then give 1-2 minutes of an impromptu speech responding to questions from the Table Topics master.
I later learned that this was the Toastmasters meeting structure followed by all the clubs.

This would surely help improve one’s public speaking skills.
However, everybody looked like a great speaker already, and I was not sure if I wanted to go up on the stage and give my speech in front of this kind of audience. What would they think of me??

I left the matter at that.

Then for some reason, a few months later, I decided to give another try and visited the club. It was early July and I brought my older daughter, who was home for summer break, with me. I thought that I would feel less intimidated with her presence.

There was construction going on, and there was no air conditioner in the meeting room packed with 50+ people! Many people were talking about how warm the room was.
Maybe because of that, maybe because this was my 2nd visit, maybe because of my daughter’s presence, or maybe because of all of above, I felt more comfortable this time.

I made my 3rd visit the following week, this time by myself, which allowed me to become a member. I signed up, paid the due, and officially became a club’s member.

Since then, I’ve given 11 speeches in the club. Some were disastrous, some were better than others.
I’ve taken the MC role (“Toastmaster”) , served as a Table Tops Master, gave several evaluations as an Evaluator, and have counted Ah’s and timed speeches.

I’ve definitely learned a lot about public speaking. But more than anything, I’ve learned a lot about myself. Preparing speeches gave me a trigger to deeply reflect on my thoughts and experiences, that I would not have had otherwise.

No matter what industry you’re in or no matter what career path you’re aiming at, what you can learn from Toastmasters will help you in your advancement.
I recommend you to check it out.

Learn to Listen, Listen to Learn

There are many organizations and training courses to help improve public speaking skills – to help lean to speak effectively to deliver our messages to our audience.
But what about receiving messages? It is when we listen that we learn.

When your mouth is open, you’re not learning.
— Buddha

Everyone that you will ever meet knows something you don’t.
— Bill Nye

It is also said that listening is one of the most important leadership skills.
By listening, instead of leading the conversation and setting the tone, you will encourage your staff to bring their thoughts and ideas to the table, which will lead to a more informed decision making, and more committed team, since your staff feel that they are part of the decision making.
Listening will also give your staff the sense of recognition and appreciation.

Then, why do we not listen?

Because it is easier for us to talk and put out great thoughts and opinions out there. We feel that we are in control when we speak.
Maybe we also assume that we know more than the other person.

When I go to meetings with my staff, I try to talk as little as possible. This takes a lot of patience and I do not always succeed. Most of the time, I go to meetings thinking that I have the answer, and they do not get to it immediately. However, when I succeed to be patient enough, they eventually start throwing different ideas, and some of them are better than mine. Also, they present completely new ways to look at the same matter.

Another reason is that we can think faster than we can speak. On average, we speak about 125 words in a minute, while we can understand 400 words per minute. This makes our minds wander to fill the gap.
Therefore, it requires training for us to listen. But we can be trained.

Lastly, we also have a tendency to listen to respond, instead to learn. While the other party is still talking, we start thinking about how to respond, when he/she is done. We cannot help wanting to respond a smart response. And we stop being fully present. Because of this, we miss out half the information being delivered.

We should learn to listen to learn!
Remember: Whomever you are having a conversation with, he/she knows something that you do not.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2020!

We started 2020 with a traditional Japanese New Year’s foods collectively called Osechi. Most Japanese households used to make Osechi. I remember my mother would start preparing the dishes a week prior to the New Year’s Day. Nowadays, many households purchase Osechi from restaurants, department stores, or supermarkets. In the past several years, we have ordered Osechi from a Japanese restaurant in Brooklyn.

The dishes that make up osechi each have a special meaning celebrating the New Year. Some examples are (quoted from Wikipedia):

Daidai (橙), Japanese bitter orange. Daidai means “from generation to generation” when written in different kanji as 代々. Like kazunoko below, it symbolizes a wish for children in the New Year.
Datemaki (伊達巻 or 伊達巻き), sweet rolled omelette mixed with fish paste or mashed shrimp. They symbolize a wish for many auspicious days. On auspicious days (晴れの日, hare-no-hi), Japanese people traditionally wear fine clothing as a part of enjoying themselves. One of the meanings associated with the second kanji includes “fashionability,” derived from the illustrious dress of the samurai from Date Han.
Kamaboko (蒲鉾), broiled fish cake. Traditionally, slices of red and white kamaboko are alternated in rows or arranged in a pattern. The color and shape are reminiscent of Japan rising sun, and have a celebratory, festive meaning.
Kazunoko (数の子), herring roe. Kazu means “number” and ko means “child.” It symbolizes a wish to be gifted with numerous children in the New Year.
Konbu (昆布), a kind of seaweed. It is associated with the word yorokobu, meaning “joy.”
Kuro-mame (黒豆), black soybeans. Mame also means “health,” symbolizing a wish for health in the New Year.
Kohaku-namasu (紅白なます), literally “red-white vegetable kuai,” is made of daikon and carrot cut into thin strips and pickled in sweetened vinegar with yuzu flavor.
Tai (鯛), red sea-bream. Tai is associated with the Japanese word medetai, symbolizing an auspicious event.
Tazukuri (田作り), dried sardines cooked in soy sauce. The literal meaning of the kanji in tazukuri is “rice paddy maker,” as the fish were used historically to fertilize rice fields. The symbolism is of an abundant harvest.
Zōni (雑煮), a soup of mochi rice cakes in clear broth (in eastern Japan) or miso broth (in western Japan).
Ebi (海老), skewered prawns cooked with sake and soy sauce. It symbolizes a wish for a long-life, suggesting long beard and bent waist.
Nishiki tamago (錦卵/二色玉子), egg roulade; the egg is separated before cooking, yellow symbolizing gold, and white symbolizing silver, both of these together symbolising wealth and good fortune.

Happiness and Prosperity to All!

Effects of Piano Practice

Last week, I performed in a piano concert and that was a disaster.
I started taking piano lessons several years ago, without any past experience. It was very difficult for me to control my left hand fingers, while my daughters, who had started piano when they reached 5 years of age, moved their both hands so freely. What was the difference between my daughters and myself? I wanted a scientific explanation. Therefore, I did some research about how learning piano affects the brain. And I learned that learning piano has a lot of benefits.

Playing piano taxes the whole brain. This image on pianu’s website shows you which area of the brain is activated by each activity associated with playing piano. You use both eyes to read notes on 2 different clefs. You listen carefully to know what you’re playing. You use all ten fingers to play 88 keys. You control your tempo. You memorize notes. All these activities happening at the same time activate all the areas of your brain at the same time.

Let’s go back to my first question: Why I couldn’t control my left hand, while my daughters could?
Playing piano improves your hand coordination.
The brain’s central sulcus determines which hand is dominant. In most people the central sulcus is deeper on one side, which corresponds with the dominant hand. Playing piano requires both hands to navigate 88 keys, with both hand sharing an equal workload. Scientists have scanned the brains of pianists and found a unique trait. Many pianists have a more symmetrical central sulcus. This is the difference between my daughters and myself. Their brains’ central sulcus is more symmetrical than mine, allowing them to use all their ten fingers much more freely.

Playing piano has many more benefits.

#1 Playing Piano Improves Your Language Skills.
Learning piano improves your ability to recognize tone and store audio information, which makes it easier to learn foreign languages.

#2 Playing Piano Improves Your Mathematical Skills.
Many case studies show a correlation between music learning and math improvement. Part of this is due to the amount of overlap between music skills and math skills. For example, the part-whole concept that is necessary for understanding fractions, decimals and percents is highly relevant in understanding rhythm.

#3 Playing Piano Boosts Self-Esteem.
In a 2014 study of fourth-grade students in a public school in Canada, children who received individual piano lessons for three years tested higher on self-esteem measures. Learning to play piano and experiencing the excitement of mastery after learning a piece of music is an incredibly powerful way to boost one’s confidence.

#4 Playing Piano also Benefits Adults.
According to Pianu, while learning piano at a young age is a great way to develop discipline, self-esteem, and academic skills, it’s never too late to benefit from the power of playing. Adults who learn to play piano experience a decrease in depression, fatigue, and anxiety and an increase in memory, verbal communication, and a feeling of independence. Playing piano can also help alleviate symptoms of dementia, PTSD, and stroke, by improving cognition and dexterity, and reducing stress.

Isn’t it great if there is a way for you to be better at everything by doing just one thing? There is a way. Learning to play piano gives you all the benefits I mentioned, plus, it has been proven to increase people’s IQ by seven points! And this has been found in both children and adults who learned to play piano. It’s never too late to benefit from the power of playing. I regret that I started at forty instead of at five, but I’m glad that I started at forty instead of eighty. If you play piano, please continue. If you don’t, please join the club.

A Disastrous Piano Concert

I started taking piano lessons at 43, with zero prior experience. I’d wanted to learn how to play piano since I was a kid. Bill, an accomplished Bulgarian pianist, came to our house on Saturdays to teach my daughters. One day, I asked if he could spare an extra hour to also teach me. He said yes.

Man, it was hard to start piano at this age! But I should be thankful that I started at 43 instead of 80, right? What’s special about piano is that you have to use all the fingers in both hands, navigating 88 keys with different movements. I couldn’t control my left hand’s fingers at all, and both my hands could not do different things simultaneously, while my daughters, who started with piano when they reached 5 years of age, could do so naturally and freely move all their fingers on both hands. After the first lesson, Bill told me to practice making circles with my right hand on my stomach and with my left hand on my head, in different directions, at the same time. And vice versa. I rigorously practiced these hand movements on the subsequent days.

It’s been 7 years since.

Bill and his sister, Daria, also a talented pianist, have been alternately teaching my daughters and myself. My older daughter quit when she became a high school sophomore. My younger daughter quit when she became a high school freshman. I continued.

In February 2018, Bill gave me a Waltz by Chopin. Chopin! Then his sister took over. I continued to practice the 5-page waltz and finally got to the last page in September this year, 1 year and 7 months after I had started with the piece.

Then, in October, Daria suggested that I participate in a winter concert in December. Every year, Bill and Daria gather their students (all kids, except for me!) and host a holiday concert. Every year, they asked if I wanted to perform. Every year, I said no. When Daria asked me this time, however, I agreed to participate. I would be among kids, some of whom were much more skilled than I. I would most likely make mistakes.

So what?

I am an advocate of not being afraid of being imperfect and taking risks to live an authentic self. What reason is there for me to not exercise my belief? There is none.

On the day of the concert on a December day, I arrived in a small concert hall in Manhattan. The bench was lower than the one I was used to. The piano keys were yellowish while my piano’s keys were sparkling white. This completely disoriented me and I was not sure which keys were what! I sat on the bench, and started…only I couldn’t! My right fingers couldn’t find their placement. I’d been practicing this piece for almost 2 years and I’d never forgotten the first keys. Until this moment. I saw my husband and daughters watching me anxiously. Some parents were watching me expectantly and supportively. One of the mothers gave me thumbs up to tell me that I would be ok. After trying several combination, I finally got the right one and continued. I got lost a few times during the 7-minute long waltz.

My performance was not just imperfect. It was a DISASTER!!

But, I did perform. I challenged myself and completed it. Did I lose anything? No. Did I gain anything? Definitely – a sense of accomplishment and one more story to tell about my courage. One more funny story even.

It will only get better from here.

There is No Such Thing As an “R” in Japanese

I had been perfectly ok with my Japanese accent. I’ve been in a management position for over 14 years, and communication has been the biggest part of my job. I communicate with people at different levels, from my staff to C-Suite officers. I negotiate with vendors. I host meetings. I attend conferences. I’d never felt like my accent was a disadvantage—that is, until I joined a Toastmasters club this summer.

When I started attending Toastmasters, I gave speeches on many occasions. However, out of all the critiques and words of advice I received for my speeches, something constantly appeared on the slips of feedback: mentions of my accent. A few from the audience said on their anonymous feedback slips that they couldn’t understand me. I was trying to brush them off, as negative people who always tried to hurt others’ feelings. Aren’t there always a few of those?

Then, one day, while exchanging emails with our Madam Club President, we started talking about non-constructive, negative feedback. I then mentioned the harsh comments I received about my accent. Madam President got upset for me, and immediately connected me to another club member, who I will refer as “The Lawyer Lady”; a lawyer and former TV reporter. The Lawyer Lady told me that she had hired a speech coach years ago to prepare herself for going on air. She said that it had helped her a lot.

What is a speech coach?? I was shocked. Even an intelligent native English speaker like The Lawyer Lady needed such help? I had no idea such a thing even existed! I googled, and got several hits. None of them clicked with me. Then I went on Yelp and typed “speech coach.” It gave me several hits as well, but among them one particularly stood out to me— “Speech Fox – Accent Reduction & Dialect Coaching.” Ohhhh…so there’s a coach for accent reduction!! I checked the company’s website, and found out that the owner of the company was a woman named Melanie Fox, and she’d been in the business for about 20 years. The location was also very convenient, just a few blocks from the Grand Central station. I signed up for a 15-minute phone consultation session.

A few days later, Melanie called me at the appointed time, and explained her background and service. She did most of the talking, and I didn’t say much. Towards the end of the 15-minute phone conversation, however, Melanie accurately pointed out several issues with my English pronunciation already. Wow, she really knew what she was doing!! At the end of the conversation, Melanie said that she did what she did out of passion. Now I was totally hooked! I made an appointment for a 90-minute assessment, where Melanie would observe my accent and develop a proposed training plan. The assessment would cost $500, and somehow the high price tag made Melanie look even more credible.

In the following week, I attended the 90-minute assessment session. Melanie had me talk about my job, why I wanted to reduce my accent, etc., and then she gave me sentences and paragraphs to read to her. I enjoyed talking to her, and the 90 minutes passed quite fast. Melanie sent me a proposed training plan that consisted of 30 sessions based on her observation about my accent and unwanted speaking habits, such as dropping middle syllables, that was also outlined in the plan. I was impressed by how accurate her observation was. After living in this English-speaking country for 24 years, I finally saw a sign of hope for addressing my accent! I signed up for Melanie’s service and made the payment. It was the end of September.

Since then, I’ve taken 10 sessions with Melanie. It’s been very fun! Melanie is such a cheerful person, and you can tell that she enjoys what she does. She’s also very organized. Most importantly, she’s been helping me address my accent. My husband and daughters have tried to correct my pronunciations for several words over years, with no success. Melanie fixed them in no time. She can clearly point out what the issue is—the location of your tongue, shape of your mouth, and/or air flow, and tell you how to change these aspects to pronounce the word in an American-English way, using matrices and graphics. She also touches upon differences between the American accent and the British accent, and it’s interesting. It’s worth mentioning that Melanie has an excellent skill in writing upside down:)

My younger daughter says reproachingly, “why do you take accent reduction lessons, after giving that ‘accent speech?’” (a reference to my Toastmasters speech a few months ago, where I said that my accent was a sign of my courage). Well, I always want to try to improve myself. If there’s a way to improve my English, why not? Besides, who is the girl that makes fun of her mother when she pronounces an English word in a not so perfect way at a dinner table??

If you’re interested, check out Melanie’s website (just in case you’re wondering- I don’t receive any commission):
https://www.speechfox.com/

To Have Another Language is to Possess a Second Soul

“To Have Another Language is to Possess a Second Soul.“

Charlemagne, a former Roman emperor (2 April 748– 28 January 814), said.

I believe that having a second soul or a wide range of thoughts helps to understand people with different backgrounds. That is the key to diversification and inclusion. Although I don’t think that being multilingual is the only way to understand differences, it surely is one of the most powerful ways to do so.

Den Fujita, the founder of McDonald’s Japan, who closely worked with many Jewish entrepreneurs in his business life, wrote in his book Jewish Businessmen:

Jewish people do business globally, and are usually fluent in at least 2 languages. Being able to think in your own language and another language at the same time means that you’ll be able to look at the same thing from different angles, which will be a great strength as a global business person. If you can only speak Japanese, your thoughts will be only rooted in Buddhism or Confucianism and will never go beyond.

I can actually related to this. As a Japanese immigrant living in the U.S. for over 20 years, I speak both Japanese and English. When I speak in Japanese, I think like a Japanese person. That is, my emphasis is on harmony (remember: Japanese cannot say “No”). On the other hand, when I speak in English, I think a western thought. I can express my views and opinions more freely. This switch happens automatically and naturally.

They say that there are about 7,000 languages in this world.

Lera Boroditsky, an Associate Professor of Cognitive Science at UCSD, gave a very interesting speech about how languages shape the way we think in her 2018 TED Talk. Please check it out! You’ll enjoy.