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Mornings are a busy time for the TODAY Show anchors. They’re usually clocking in while the rest of us are still hitting snooze. Though, Al Roker, wouldn’t have it any other way — he loves his morning routine.
Al starts his early mornings at 4 a.m., with a workout in his home in New York City or at the gym. At 5 a.m., after he’s showered and dressed for work, he whips up a batch of his signature ketogenic diet breakfast: an egg muffin. He packs it in tinfoil with a slice of cheese on top — and brings an extra muffin to the office for his co-worker and “ketokutie” Savannah Guthrie.
“Since Savannah’s the one who got me into keto, I usually bring her a muffin,” Al said.
Here is how he makes his go-to keto muffins:
Al’s recipe should make about three to four muffins.
Follow Al on Instagram to see how he’s constantly switching up his muffin recipe with different veggies and cheeses. His latest combination included cheddar and asparagus. In the image below, he used pancetta and Gruyère.
Interested in trying the keto diet? Here is a quick explainer on getting started, and here is an account from a woman who tried it for 30 days. Savannah credits the diet with making her brain “a little sharper.” Talk to your doctor or a dietitian to figure out if the keto diet could work for you.
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Drinking too much water can be harmful. Eat too many carrots and you’ll turn orange. Help others all time and you’ll deplete yourself. A daily massage would be…nice, actually, but probably expensive. It’s possible to have too much of a good thing. So if therapy is a source of healing and health, can you overdose? How long is too long in therapy?
A kind reader sent me an email recently about this very topic, and I thought it was great mailbag material. Again, this is a disguised and distorted letter from an unidentifiable and possibly fictional reader:
“I’ve been seeing the same therapist for nearly ten years, and I think it’s one of the best parts of my life. He knows me, he cares about me, and he encourages me to grow in areas I know I need to. My problem is, whenever I talk about therapy with my friends they say that ten years is way too long and I’m dependent and wasting my time. I don’t feel like I am, but they sound so certain. Is there such a thing as too much therapy?”
Good question! Will therapy spoil or become harmful after too much time? I’ve seen this question stem from fears that:
Fictional Reader is happy with the therapy, but feels concerned because her friends may think one of the four points above have become a problem. She wants to know if her good feelings may actually conceal blind spots. Let’s take a closer look.
Dependency: Many people are scared of becoming dependent on their therapist, and this is often equated with the amount of time they’re in treatment. But dependency is about quality, not quantity. One client could have a totally enmeshed dependency after three sessions while another could spend 20 years in therapy and maintain a healthy sense of individuality. Dependency is about how the relationship functions – is the client handing over their power for decision making? Is the therapist demanding control? Are other relationships suffering because all the client’s emotional energy is going toward therapy? Is the client paralyzed for a week or two when the therapist is away? That’s dependency. Sure, someone stuck in their dependency may stay in therapy for a longer period of time, but if the therapist is worth their salt they’ll make the health of the relationship a primary focus of treatment. Furthermore, I believe there is such a thing as healthy dependency in therapy. I hope the client can rely on the therapist as a stable, healthy relationship to lean on in times of need as a source of empowerment, not a power drain. The ability to look to the therapist for guidance and support can be good for the client and the overall relationship. Dependency is clearly a potential problem in this work, but with clear boundaries and good communication therapy can be more of a healthy, stable resource than an emotional dependency.
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Boredom: I recommend the therapist and client have a State of the Uniontalk every few sessions. How are we doing? How am I feeling about coming? What’s frustrating me about this work? How is progress coming on my original goals? I think having this all out in the open is crucial for clients wondering how their therapist feels about them and their work together. But there’s another part of this I hear quite often: clients think I must get tired of listening to them. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Therapists join this profession to listen to people and help them. Those with good training, experience and self-care should know this process takes time and requires patience. If they lack that knowledge and patience, perhaps they’re in the wrong line of work. That’s like a plumber getting frustrated or resentful toward leaky pipes, or a chef getting sick of food. It’s what we’re trained (and some would say called) to do. I usually find this question is more about the client feeling frustrated with their issues and tired of talking about the same problems. They assume I must be tired of it, too.
Progress: People grow, heal and change at a different pace. Everyone’s story is different, and so the healing process will be different. A woman reporting depression following a divorce may feel great after six sessions, while a man reporting depression regarding childhood abuse may move into a deeper depression three years in. We just don’t know. It helps to educate yourself about your issue (there are books out there for everything) and talk with your therapist about your treatment plan and your prognosis (whether or not, or how much relief you can expect). The body and psyche want to heal, and through providing the right environment and removing blockages we tend to move in that direction. If I didn’t believe it, I’d be in the wrong line of work.
Competence: There are a few basics: does your therapist have a degree and a license (or a supervisor with a license), do they have experience with your issues, do you feel comfortable with him/her, and are your boundaries respected? With these fundamentals in place, most therapies move along fairly well. But if it doesn’t, I would hope you’re discussing this in your regular State of the Union talks. And if it seems you’re still at an impasse, it may be time to start the termination process and begin test-driving other therapists.
So how long is too long? The answer depends on whether you’re seeking therapy based on the illness model of therapy or the wellness model. In the illness model, going to therapy is like going to your physician. People come to therapy to alleviate a disorder or symptoms and treatment lasts as long as those unpleasant symptoms exist, from a few weeks to a few years. If you are symptom free and that’s all you wanted out of therapy, you’re all done.
In the wellness model, going to therapy is like going to the gym. You go to make a good life better, to reach your potential, and to prevent problems in the future. There’s no mandatory end date for that. Imagine someone saying they’ve gone to the gym regularly for ten years. What’s your response: “You’re done! Enough already!”? Or is it: “Good for you, I admire your perseverance and focus on wellness and prevention” (or something like that)?
So, Fictional Reader, I say if therapy works for you, and you’re not experiencing the dependency noted above, enjoy your sessions. For everyone else, let’s try something – if we stop backseat driving on other people’s therapy, offering unsolicited advice about how long therapy should last and not trusting their judgment, maybe this will help decrease the stigma associated with going to therapy in the first place. And maybe if there’s less stigma, more people who need the help therapy offers will give it a try. Deal?
This article first appeared in BoF and McKinsey & Company‘s The State of Fashion 2019 report.
LONDON, United Kingdom — India is increasingly a focal point for the fashion industry, reflecting a rapidly growing middle-class and increasingly powerful manufacturing sector. These, together with strong economic fundamentals and growing tech-savvy, make India too important for international brands to ignore.
Economic expansion is happening across Asia, but we expect that 2019 will be the year in which India will take centre stage. The country is being propelled by strong macroeconomic tailwinds and is predicted to grow 8 percent a year between 2018 and 2022. The Indian middle class is forecast to expand at 19.4 percent a year over the same period, outpacing China, Mexico and Brazil. As a result, India is set to move from being an increasingly important sourcing hub to being one of the most attractive consumer markets outside the Western world.
India’s apparel market will be worth $59.3 billion in 2022, making it the sixth-largest in the world, and comparable to the UK ($65 billion) and Germany ($63.1 billion), according to data from McKinsey’s FashionScope. The aggregate income of the addressable population (individuals with over $9,500 in annual income) is expected to triple between now and 2025. According to Sanjay Kapoor, founder of Genesis Luxury, an Indian luxury retail conglomerate, higher incomes are likely to create a whole new class of consumer: “We are moving on towards the ‘gold collar’ worker. It’s a term that defines the well paid, highly paid professionals, who are happy to look good, happy to feel good and are expanding the consumption of today.”
India powers ahead of other major emerging markets | Source: Economist Intelligence Unit
Given these dynamics, it is little surprise that more than 300 international fashion brands are expected to open stores in India in the next two years. But India remains a complex market, which presents challenges as well as opportunities. The apparel business is still largely “unorganised,” with formal retail accounting for just 35 percent of sales in 2016. Its share is likely to reach around 45 percent by 2025, still a relatively low proportion.
To build momentum around conventional stores, Indian players are innovating the retail experience. Retailers are leveraging technology to enhance the in-store experience with digital marketing displays and improved check-out. For instance, Madura Fashion & Lifestyle launched the “Van Heusen Style Studio,” which uses augmented reality to display outfits on customers. Malls have increased their share of food service and entertainment.
The growth in the apparel sector is also being driven by increasing tech-savviness among consumers. Ten years ago, technology was for the few, with just five million smartphones in a country of 1.2 billion people and only 45 million using the Internet. These figures have since increased to 355 million and 460 million respectively (2018) and are expected to double by 2021, when more than 900 million Indian consumers will be online.
E-commerce leaders are moving to AI-based solutions. “Personalisation and curation, based on personal taste will become a lot more important,” says Ananth Narayanan, chief executive of Myntra, a fashion e-commerce player acquired by Flipkart in 2014. “It’s not about having the largest selection, it’s about presenting the most appropriate selection to the customer involved.”
The supply side of the industry is equally robust, and the growth of textile and apparel exports is expected to accelerate. According to a 2017 McKinsey survey, 41 percent of chief procurement officers expect to increase their sourcing share from India. India’s average labour cost is significantly lower than China’s and comparable with Vietnam’s. There is also a high availability of raw materials (e.g., cotton, wool, silk, and jute), which enable participation in the entire fashion value chain.
Still, players looking to enter the Indian market should recognise several inherent challenges. First, India is a mosaic of climates and tastes. “If you break [India] up into four parts, i.e., north, east, south and west, North India is the only region which is going to have winter, where you have mild to severe winter for eight weeks,” says Kapoor.
We are moving on towards the ‘gold collar’ worker.
“Brands that are successful in India have understood that, how [Indians] consume, what colour they consume, what kind of designs work, what touch points and personalisation work may be very different from a consumer living in New York or Hong Kong,” Kapoor adds. “Indian women have kept a lot of their traditional sensibilities alive and you see a beautiful mix of both Indian and
Western sensibilities across the spectrum.”
International companies considering an entry into India should heed this important message. Traditional clothing is still very much the default choice for women, making up an estimated 70 percent of women’s apparel sales in 2017. Appetite for Western styles is likely to increase, but it is expected that traditional wear will still account for a 65 percent market share by 2023.
Another challenge is the low quality of India’s infrastructure, which continues to lag behind that of many other Asian countries. Nearly 40 percent of the Indian road network was unpaved as of 2016. Poor infrastructure can make last-mile delivery difficult. In addition, retail stock is also often below expectations.
However, there are signs of improvement. “We have two fantastic luxury malls coming up in Bombay at the Bandra Kurla Complex along with the convention centre,” says Darshan Mehta, founder and chief executive of Reliance Brands, which operates over 500 stores for international brands. “So there is a whole new fantastic retail ecosystem.”
One sign of India’s challenges, and also an indication of latent demand, is the growing level of inequality in the country, which follows a broader global trend of rising income inequality. The gap between the top one percent of earners and the middle class is at its highest level in 92 years. Another consideration is the possibility of corruption. According to Transparency International, India ranks 81stout of 180 countries on its Corruption Perception Index (versus China at 77). A significant number of licences is required for new entrants, so executives should beware of the potential for complicated negotiations.
Indian women enter a store at the DLF Emporio luxury shopping centre in New Delhi | Photo: Brian Sokol via Getty Images
Still, many brands are determined to take advantage of India’s blossoming growth. The majority are likely to choose one of three routes. First, players can partner with existing e-commerce platforms. This is most suitable for players with little brand awareness and with relatively low capital to invest, and offers a good way to test demand and customer preferences. Second, brands that have little local knowledge and are looking for fast entry can enter with a franchise model, developing brick and mortar retail spaces. Finally, players that have significant local knowledge and capital resources can create fully owned and operated stores.
Indian authorities are certainly keen to promote investment. Relaxed FDI regulations (e.g., allowing 100 percent foreign-owned single brand retail operations), will likely lead to more overseas-originated activity through the value chain. We expect more outsourcing and more brand-owned stores without Indian partners in the years ahead. Most activity is likely to be focused on major urban centres, reflecting demographic trends, rising urban consumer spending power and improving infrastructure in those areas.
In short, the Indian market offers great promise. Despite structural challenges that include inequality, infrastructure and market fragmentation, we expect strong economic growth, scale and rising tech-savviness will combine to make it the next big global opportunity in fashion and apparel.
