A new Donnie Yen movie is always a must-see event for action fans. After wowing audiences in 2023 with his role as Caine in John Wick: Chapter 4 and his wuxia epic Sakra (which he directed and starred in), as well as his memorable semi-recent turns in Rogue One and the Ip Man series, the Hong Kong legend is back with The Prosecutor, once again as both star and director.Yen will be the first to tell you that this movie is a departure from his usual subject matter The Prosecutor is primarily a courtroom drama, although the star and director of course added his signature eye for action and skill at screen fighting to the mix. Loosely based on a true story, the movie follows a former police officer who trades in his badge to start a new career as a prosecutor. But the justice-driven lawyer quickly winds up at odds with his new boss and co-workers when he believes the person they are prosecuting is innocent.While it may not fully deliver on the thorny conflicts set up by its intriguing premise, The Prosecutor is nevertheless a highly competent and engaging genre exercise, mixing grounded, high-octane action sequences with the standard court-drama genre. Polygon spoke with Yen on Zoom about how the project came together, how he was convinced to take it on, and how new technology affords new opportunities for old-school ways of filming action.This interview has been edited for concision and clarity.Polygon: What interested you about The Prosecutor?Donnie Yen: I was not interested at all. In the beginning, when the company presented it to me, I said, I have no idea how to do this movie. I do action movies. Thats my world. Why do you want me to do this? And they just thought two things. One, they really felt how I live as a person they know me, its my friends would make me perfect for that role.Secondly, these are companies Ive worked with several times in the past, like on the Ip Man series. And they said, Oh, we were prepping for the other movies, Ip Man 5 as well as Flash Point 2. Were going to produce these films, and the audience wants to see these films. But youve never done a film like [The Prosecutor]. Lets give it a try.So it took two months for me to be convinced. I said, I really have to think of an angle to do this movie. We watch tons of them, these kinds of sophisticated courtroom scenes. Im going to do a film combining the two elements. First, of course, is my core audience. They want to see Donnie Yen action. How do you combine them?Two, I dont want to create a world where people get caught in the realism of the case itself, then all of a sudden you have people flying around and kicking. I wanted to use the case as more of a driving force of the motion. So when a persons in the action, the audience can feel the emotion behind it. Ultimately, what I want to say is, the film is about driving the audience to synchronize their emotion with how I want them to react, so they get excited and emotionally attached to the story, rather than the subject itself. We had to put the action scenes in diligently we couldnt just throw in a bunch of action scenes. The audience needs to believe the characters need to go to those action moments, so they were very carefully planted.Something that stuck out to me about this film and Sakra is how you combine old-school martial arts film techniques with new technology drones, POV action sequences, and more. What is your philosophy on combining the two, and what excites you about it?I just call it the technique of telling a story through stylized camera work. In the old-school martial arts movies, we didnt have those kinds of choices. We had one camera, a still camera, and you just go about doing your fighting. Back in those days, there were no computers. I used to cut my film with the old-school film slicers. And now, of course, we are dealing with modern technologies AI, phones, and everything.I do not like to depend on technology unless its really necessary. There was a scene in the middle, in a nightclub with drone shots, and it was all real, not even one bit of CGI to enhance. I prepped the directions, choreographed the movements. We spent a whole day shooting that and half of the night going over it with the stuntman. And then the second half of the night is having the drone cameraperson test the shot. And I got the shot. Thats what I wanted, to go back to basics. So what Im trying to say is, when it comes to filmmaking, I still believe in old-school real emotion, whether its an [intellectual] expression of emotion or a physical expression of emotion. They have to be real to be convincing, so the audience can be engaged with your storytelling.Youre using the new technology thats available to you, but youre still focused on wanting it in-camera, because you want it to feel real.Absolutely. You have to. Shots come to me during the script process. Ill be going over a script with my writers or actors, and shots are already being formed in my head. Its kind of like a musician. Maybe because I play piano or something. Some sort of musical rhythm that I have in my head brings these images out.The Prosecutor is now playing in theaters.

Do you like your Instagram algorithm, but hate that it's missing political posts from accounts you don't follow? You're in luck: Starting this week in the U.S. (and next week for the rest of the world) Meta is going to start adding political content to your recommendations on Instagram and Threads by default. If you're thinking, "Hey, didn't Instagram have the exact opposite approach to this situation last year?" you'd be right. In February of 2024, the company announced it would explicitly not suggest political content from accounts you didn't follow. Unless you actively sought out this content, you could browse the app in peace, left to check out whatever interests you have outside politics.However, it is no longer February 2024. January 2025 is a much different place for Instagram, Meta, and the U.S. As Mark Zuckerberg drastically changes policies surrounding what you can say on Meta's platforms, Instagram (and, by extension, Threads) are making changes as well. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, took to Threads to announce the changes, stating that while he still doesn't believe Meta should be showing political content to people from accounts they don't follow, "a lot of people have been very clear that they want this content." View on ThreadsIndeed, it seems my Instagram settings have already flipped over, while my Threads settings have yet to. (But I have no doubt they will.) Without intervention, you'll likely start seeing more political content that may anger, upset, worry, or frustrate you. Luckily, there is something you can do about it.Removing political content from your Instagram and Threads feedsLet's start with Instagram: Open your profile, then tap the hamburger menu in the top right. Scroll down to the "What you see" section, then choose "Suggested content." Here, tap "Political content," and you'll find three options: Standard, the default, which shows "some" suggested political content; See more, which shows you more political content, if that's your jam; and See less, which is the option you want. Despite the option having "less" in the name, Instagram says it will not share political content with you when it recognizes it, so it should be enough to remove most of the content you'd come into contact with. If it's not, however, back out of this page, then tap the toggle next to Snooze suggested posts in feed. This will remove this type of content from your feed for the next 30 days. It's not perfect, but at least you have a month of peace. Credit: Jake Peterson These options should be present in much the same way on Threads, but reaching them is a bit different. Again, head to your profile, then tap the hamburger menu. Only this time, choose "Account," then "Political content." Right now, I still see the old Suggest political content setting, which is off by default.

As we muddle through another flu season, keeping things clean remains an effective way to stay healthy. But cleaning alone isnt always enough when it comes to the microscopic germs that can make us sicksometimes you have to sanitize and disinfect, as well.Theres a defined difference between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting, and a right and wrong way to go about them. Here are the highlights, with guidance from the CDC.Cleaning vs. sanitizing vs. disinfectingFirst, let's discuss the difference between cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting, as defined by the CDC:Cleaning involves physically removing dirt, debris, and (some) germs from surfaces. This is typically done with soap or other cleaners, water, and a little scrubbing (hence the "physical" part). Cleaning only scrapes away some of the germs that can make you sick, but this is often sufficient to stay healthy in generalthe germs left on a dinner plate after you wash it in the sink are usually safe as long as youre in good health.Sanitizing greatly reduces the germs on a surface, leaving behind a level thats considered safe. Most sanitizers kill bacteria, but they arent necessarily intended to kill viruses (though they often can kill some).Disinfecting kills everythingboth bacteria and viruses.An important distinction to remember is that sanitizers and disinfectants dont clean very wellthat is, they will kill most or all of the germs, but might not do a very good job of removing dirt and debris. If you only use hand sanitizer, for example, your hands might be sanitized, but they might also still be dirty.When to clean, sanitize, and disinfectSince cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting are different things, it makes sense that you should treat them as such. Here's when to do each:Clean everything regularlyevery day. In fact, the order of germ-killing operations always starts with cleaning (removing debris and dirt), as you cant as effectively sanitize or disinfect a dirty surface. Cleaning should always comes first when you want to sanitize or disinfect something.Sanitize surfaces and objects that touch food or might end up in your mouth after every use when you're concerned about illnesses.Disinfect surfaces if youre sick (or someone else in the house is sick), or if you or someone in the home has a compromised immune system.In other words, you normally dont need to disinfect every day, but you do need to clean and sanitize specific things every day.Check your product labelsIf you want to sanitize or disinfect a surface, youll need to use a cleaning product thats appropriate to the taskbut dont put too much faith in labels. Many sanitizing products will claim they kill 99% or even 99.9% of germs, but this is usually deceptive. What they mean is that they kill 99.9% of certain bacteria and viruses. Even then, they usually dont give you any information as to the conditions under which those tests were performed underthat is, how thoroughly the surfaces were cleaned or how the product was applied.That doesnt mean sanitizers are useless, but it does mean that you shouldnt assume your home is antiseptic and completely germ-free after you use them. If you want to really kill the most bacteria and viruses as possible, you shouldnt rely solely on a sanitizing product, even if it has that shiny 99.9% claim.If youre disinfecting, make sure you read the label and follow the instructions. Most products require you to leave the disinfectant on the surface for a prolonged period of time (sometimes as long as 20 minutes) to ensure full efficacy. If you just spray and wipe, youre probably not really disinfecting. If youre looking at a sanitizer or disinfectant that uses isopropyl alcohol, also make sure its a 70% strength mixture (as opposed to a 99% alcohol mixture)the lower strength, counterintuitively, is the sweet spot for disinfecting.

CES 2025 presented us with big innovations, outrageous concepts, and impressive solutions to everyday problems. This year, the CNET Groupmade up of sibling sites CNET, ZDNET, PCMag, Mashable and Lifehackerteamed up with the CTA as the official media partner of the Best of CES Awards. Staff experts and editors weighed in, and from those discussions, we've chosen the top products and services at CES and awarded them with the official distinction of Best of CES.To be eligible for this award, the product or service needs to be an exhibitor at CES 2025, and meet one of the following criteria:Includes a compelling new concept or ideaSolves a major consumer problemIs new or is an update to an existing product that sets a new bar in performance or quality CNET Group's sibling sites have worked together to name the best products of CES 2025. Credit: CNET Group Staff Best AI: Nvidia Cosmos AI model Credit: Nvidia CES 2025 was packed with AI tech, but Nvidia Cosmos wins in our book, since it might be what the next big things in AI, robotics, and autonomous vehicles are powered by. Cosmos takes 3D models of spaces in the real world, and, through generative AI, turns them into photo-realistic videos to train robots and self-driving cars. It solves a big problem with AI training data: Traditionally, robots require a huge amount of training data to continuously improve. Cosmos, however, can generate that training data with AI, continuously feeding the training sets for new products. Cosmos will likely run best on Nvidia chips, but the company wants to open-source the code and put it on Github. Runner-up:Gemini for Google TVBest transportation/mobility: Honda 0 Series Credit: Honda Honda's futuristic 0 Series SUV and Sedan are nearly here. The company plans to release these vehicles in North America by 2026, and will be made on Honda's new battery platform in Ohio. If you pick one up, you should expect to be able to charge up your car in 10 to 15 minutes. 0 Series runs Honda's ASIMO OS on a new AI chip, with the end goal of powering Level 3 self-driving.The 0 Series we saw at CES should be pretty close to what Honda releases, unlike some of the other prototype designs shown off. We don't know how much it will cost, but we're excited about where Honda is going with its EV program. Runner-up: BMW Panoramic iDrive with Operating System XBest laptop: Asus Zenbook A14 Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt The Asus Zenbook A14's 2.2-pound design makes it obviously portable, but Asus manages to add a 30 hour-long battery life and some extra features to the package. The Ceraluminum chassis is durable (from the aluminum) and scratch-resistant (from the ceramic), not to mention 100% recyclable. The laptop ships with the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip, which makes it a Copilot+ PC. You can expect AI features like summarization, text generation, photo editing, and using natural language to search for media. This Zenbook comes with both USB-C and HDMI 2.1, as well as fun tap-and-slide controls for volume, brightness, and track selection. The OLED display impressed our team, and the whole package seems fairly priced at $1,099 (X Elite), or $899 for the X Plus (coming in March).Runner-up: Lenovo ThinkBook Plus Gen 6 RollableBest TV/home theater: LG G5 OLED TV Credit: James Martin/CNET The LG G5 was the TV that impressed us most at this year's CES, and is the front-runner for the highest quality TV of 2025. Its OLED display is 40% brighter for 2025, with better contrast in bright lighting when compared to the G4one of our favorites of 2024. The remote is improved, while the TV keeps the gallery design that makes it look nearly bezel-less. You might be temped by the M5 wireless TV, as it has the same quality display, but that wireless tech makes it much more expensive.Runner-up:Hisense 116UXBest smart home/home tech: Roborock Saros Z70 Credit: Roborock The Roborock Saros Z70 is a vacuum-mop hybrid, but it can do a lot more than that. Thanks to a new mechanical arm, the bot can pick up and put away socks off the floor. Plus, it's no prototype: The Saros Z70 will be available to consumers in April. Its vacuum has 22,000 Pa of suction power, which makes it among the most powerful robovacs out there. That won't come cheap: This model costs about $2,000. But our hope is it starts a trend where we see less expensive models hit the market. Runner-up:BioLite CompleteBest sustainability: Flint Paper Battery Credit: Katie Collins/CNET Have you ever seen a battery made out of paper before? Flint brought one it made to CESa more sustainable, scalable, and affordable alternative to lithium-ion batteries. It all comes down to cellulose, which lets ions transfer between the node and cathode of the battery. Better yet, the battery can be sized down to just about whatever size you need, such as a coin battery or the strap of a smartwatch. When you're finished with them, they don't end up in a landfill: They decompose in six weeks.Best gaming: Lenovo Legion Go S Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt Like many PC handheld consoles, the Lenovo Legion Go S runs Windows 11. But what makes this model stand out is the other operating system it is compatible with: Valve's SteamOS. That makes it the only non-Valve portable to run this OS, making it a true Steam Deck competitor. It sadly doesn't have the detachable controllers of the Legion Go, and has a smaller lower-res display, but it has a lot else going for it: two USB-4 port on top of the console, Hall Effect joysticks to prevent drifting, and an interior that better supports upgrading the storage. This will be the least expensive Legion Go device when it launches in May, at $600.Best wellness/fitness tech: Ozlo Sleepbuds Credit: Jake Peterson Ozlo's Sleepbuds impressed us by not only offering comfortable earbuds for sleeping, but ones that can potentially enhance the quality of your sleep as well. The Sleepbuds are designed to be flush with your ear, which means you can sleep on your side without feeling them pressing into you. The design also prevents them from falling out of your ear. In addition, the Sleepbuds have a number of slumber-specific perks, including biometric sensors in the earbuds that can track your sleep, sensors in the case that can identify potential sleep interruptions in your room, an in-ear alarm that won't wake up a sleeping partner, and 10-hour battery life, so you won't wake up to a dead battery notification. You can even play sound directly from the Sleepbuds without connecting to another Bluetooth device, which means you don't have to look at your phone before going to bed. They earn an official Best of CES award this year for wellness tech.Runner-up: YoctoMatBest mobile: HMD OffGrid Credit: HMD If you have a brand new smartphonesay, an iPhone 16 or Google Pixel 9you may have access to satellite communications, which lets you contact emergency services and other contacts when there's no cellular signal available. For most of us, however, these features don't exist on our phones, and if reception goes down, we're out of luck. HMD's new OffGrid accessory aims to fix this: With a $200 dongle, you can send texts and contact emergency services on any iPhone or Android device. However, you'll also need to subscribe to the monthly service, which runs $80 per year.Runner-up: TCL 60 XE NxtpaperBest privacy and security: Ultraloq Bolt Mission UWB Plus NFC Credit: Maria Diaz/ZDNET The Ultraloq Bolt Mission is the first smart lock on the market that supports ultra-wideband technology. With that, the lock can sense within inches when you're approaching the door, whether you're approaching from inside or outside your home, and can unlock without you having to touch the lock at all. If that fails for whatever reason, it has NFC for tap-to-unlock, a keypad, and a traditional key. It's protected by 128-bit AES data encryption, IP65 weather resistance, BHMA Level 1-certified durability, and it supports wifi, Matter, Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung SmartThings. Plus, you only need to worry about changing the battery once a year.Runner-up: Lockly Prestige Duet SeriesBest weirdest/most unexpected: Kirin Electric Salt Spoon Credit: Jake Peterson The Kirin Electric Salt Spoon generated quite a bit of attention at CES this year. The idea is this: The spoon sends an electric current to your tongue to create the illusion that your food tastes saltier. In theory, it's a great concept, and could enable people who need to cut down on their sodium levels to enjoy food as they wish to. However, our team experienced mixed results with the spoon. Hopefully by the time it's available in the United States, things will be more consistent. Best overall: Nvidia Cosmos Credit: Nvidia While plenty of tech this year impressed us, the overall winner had to be Nvidia Cosmos. Cosmos is actively solving a problem with how robots can continue improving, and we expect it to power the next big things in tech. Nvidia is already partnering with Toyota to build next-generation self-driving cars, showing that the industry sees the potential here as well.

If you want to get Solo Loop bands for your Apple Watch in several colors, this may be your chance to grab a few at a discount. Woot is selling them for up to 70 percent lower than their actual price, so you can get the Braided Solo Loop bands that sell for $99 on the official Apple website for just $30. The regular Solo Loops are also on sale, and you'll only have to pay $20 instead of $49 for one. That's just a few dollars more than some third-party bands considered as affordable alternatives to official Apple products. Apple's Solo Loop bands for its watches are stretchable, don't have any overlapping parts and come with no clasps or buckles. The company says they're "designed to provide a precise, comfortable fit," which means you'll have to make sure to get the correct size for your wrist if you want to be able to put one on comfortably and make sure it doesn't slide off. The braided variants on sale come in several black and white hues, blues, greens, purples, reds, oranges and yellows. You can also get the rainbow-colored 2021 Pride Edition band. Apple's braided Solo Loops are made with strands of recycled polyester yarn filaments around ultrathin silicone threads. If you don't like their textured feel, you can opt for the regular Solo Loop bands made of liquid silicone rubber instead. The same colors are on sale, and you can get any of them for $20. They're sweatproof and waterproof, so they're probably the better choice for physical activities, though the braided bands are sweat- and water-resistant, as well. You'll be able to choose your watchface measurement and your wrist size on Woot. If you don't know what size you're supposed to wear, you can check out Apple's pages for its Solo Loop bands for instructions on how to measure your wrist. Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter and subscribe to the Engadget Deals newsletter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/apple-watch-solo-loop-bands-are-on-sale-for-up-to-70-percent-off-153001030.html?src=rss

The Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset could see the base-model S25 offer similar performance to leading Pro flagships, giving S24 users a tangible reason to upgrade.

CES 2025 is packed with futuristic tech, but these are the 11 trends that'll have the biggest impact on our gadget lives in 2025.

Someone is impersonating CrowdStrike to deploy XMRig, a popular and dangerous cryptojacker.

In the acknowledgments of her 2024 novel All Fours, Miranda July explains that she was inspired by a series of conversations about physical and emotional midlife changes with several women close to her.And while there is almost no trace of these actual conversations in the book, she adds, they made writing it more necessary.The novel finds a middle-aged mother choosing to leave home and drive across the country in search of herself. Sound a little hackneyed? Maybe thats why she gives up after about 30 minutes, pulling into a dingy motel and instead trying to turn back time from her new home base, the appropriately chosen Room 321.In this bland environment she undergoes a physical and spiritual awakening, a dance to the Muzak of time. Whether remodeling her motel room or defying libidinal decline with a nearby Hertz rental car employee, Julys protagonist, who talks a lot about respirationI breathed in; I breathed outfinally breathes life back into herself.Along the way, All Fours frames middle age as something that must be felt and communicated afresh, one powerful, awkward, minutely recorded sensation at a time.Easier said than done. Some clichs are like planets, their gravitational pull too strong for all but the most propulsive acts of creativity. Middle age is one of these. The changes often associated with being in your forties and fiftiesgray hairs, career doldrums, times squeaky-wheeled chariot drawing nearcan seem as inevitable as aging itself.And yet, as my research on the construction and representation of aging has shown, the middle years arent what they used to be, nor what they will one day become.Inventing midlifeThe history of middle age begins as far back as the eye can read.In classical Western literature, the middle of life is represented as a time to live and die magnificently.The heroes of Greek epicsOdysseus, Achilles, Ajaxare always middle-aged, and none of them loses sleep wondering about his life choices or whether his skills are falling off. Nor does Homer worry much about conveying how these men became who they are. Wily Odysseus, we can only assume, was wily pretty much from the cradle.Beowulf, the hero of an early Anglo-Saxon poem, likewise does not show signs of slowing down until old age, when a dragon proves too much for him to kill without help from a much younger man. Embarrassing.The middle phase of life, these works imply, is the time when people are most themselves, with the greatest abundance of skill and purpose that life will ever confer.Even Shakespeare saw midlife as little cause for anxiety. Among the seven ages of man described in As You Like It, middle age corresponds roughly to the part of the justice, a man with fair round belly and wise saws who sounds a little quaint, perhaps, but also content; it is only during the sixth age, with the approach of what Shakespeare calls second childishness, that a major shift occurs and quality of life starts to drop.The birth of crisisThen everything changed. The Industrial Revolution gave rise to a new bourgeois class that, when not reeling from the latest market crash, had time and money to burn.Middle-class leisure, unlike the aristocratic kind that greeted one at birth, required shifting gears, from a full-steam-ahead search for ones place in the world to the relative stagnancy that came with having found it.This kind of whiplash was enough to make a crisis of midlife: a deep-seated feeling of anxiety about the value of ones achievements, the meaning of existence and the proximity of death.While the actual term midlife crisis was not born until 1965, thanks to 48-year-old Canadian psychoanalyst Elliot Jacques, its gestation stretched across the 18th and 19th centuries. Romantic poets such as John Keats and Percy Shelley, who died at 25 and 29, respectively, taught readers to covet the summer of life with almost desperate intensity, and even a slight chill in the air became cause for dread.The Victorians, perhaps sensing that Britains empire could not stay young and virile forever, took this Romantic dread and ran with it. In the 1853 novel Little Dorrit, 41-year-old Charles Dickens portrays 41-year-old Arthur Clennam, who gloomily meditates on what hes done with himself and how little its gotten him:From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, my return, my mothers welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to the afternoon of this day with poor Flora, said Arthur Clennam, what have I found!For Clennam, a jaded merchant who recently vacated his position with the family firm in search of some greater purpose, taking stock of ones life seems a painful but necessary exercise. He also takes another kind of stock, investing in a Ponzi scheme that plunges him, with most of London, into a state of financial crisis that mirrors his personal one.A generation later, in the U.S., Theodore Dreisers 1900 novel Sister Carrie tells the story of George Hurstwood, a successful businessman whose life begins to unravel the moment he stops working long enough to question its real worth.Both Clennam and Hurstwood eventually take up with a twentysomething womanone finding regeneration in that relationship, the other dishevelment and death.In another time, both men might also splurge on a red Corvette.Future midlifeWhat about middle-aged women in the 19th century?In a way, there were none. The critic Sari Edelstein, in her 2019 book, Adulthood and Other Fictions, encourages readers to think about adulthood not as a biological fact but as a cluster of political rights and privileges conferred on some people in the U.S.usually white menand largely withheld from others, such as women and people of color.While race, class, and marital status profoundly impacted womens experience of midlife, one fact remains constant for much of the century: the absence of full adult status under the law. Even as they matured, women were kept little.They were also portrayed as such. Popular novels such as The Lamplighter and The Wide, Wide World retraced time and again the approved boundaries of a married womans life, which extend no further than the home. Unmarried women and widows could hold property and manage their own financial affairs, but the period literature far too seldom represents their point of view. Not until the advent of second-wave feminism, and works such as Doris Lessings 1973 novel, The Summer Before the Dark, did middle-aged womanhood become a topic more openly and creatively explored on paper.For all that creative labor across the past century, the English-speaking world has been largely resigned to the idea of middle age as a dreadful, isolating crisis.This is likely due in part to the midlife crisiss amazing elasticitythe way it stretches to accommodate shifting cultural contexts and the rise of whole new artistic forms. Few other topics seem to lend themselves so generously to esoteric offerings and crowd-pleasing genre fare, to the page and the screen. (For my money, one of the best films about midlife crises is Martin Scorseses Casino.)If not a crisis, what else could midlife be?Perhaps the gateway to something universal.While the narrator of All Fours suffers plenty of distress and ennui, she never uses the word crisis without scare quotes. Shes clearly holding out for another kind of midlife.That faith is rewarded in the last chapter, when she watches a dance recital and feels the warm, hallowed feeling from her hotel retreat gilding the whole neighborhood, the whole city . . . The whole universe? Yes . . .She reflects: If 321 was everywhere then every day was Wednesday, and I could always be how I was in the room. Imperfect, ungendered, game, unashamed. I had everything I needed in my pockets, a full soul.Her consciousness expanding and contracting between the scale of the universe and that of her own pockets, Julys narrator does more than regenerate. Rising and falling, part St. Teresa and part Lady Macbeth, she embraces both the ecstasy and the tragedy of life and is twice empowered.It is a midlife metamorphosis.Matthew Redmond is a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Universit de Lille.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Theres an important trend unfolding across the corporate sector, from mid-career professionals to the most experienced executives: were leaving. As return-to-office policies continue to increase and threaten an end to flexible work arrangements, many workers are opting out of the traditional career ladder altogether and crafting an exit strategy.Rather than steadily climb toward reaching the C-suite and staying until retirement, corporate employees are choosing to rewrite the rules for career success. Gone are the days of one company or one job at a time, and in their place is a steady rise in portfolio careers, independent consulting, freelancer networks, and fractional executives.It can be both enticing and intimidating to step outside the lines and reimagine your own trajectory in this way, but it is an extremely rewarding path to consider. So, if youve been contemplating a path outside of the traditional corporate journey, here is a road map for staging your own exit strategy.Step 1: Explore the ideaAs with most new and scary concepts, you can get started by simply acknowledging the potential idea. Try writing and then speaking about your desires to your safest and most valued confidants:Why do you want to exit?Whats driving you?What are you afraid of?What does success look like?If you have a coach or an advisor, work with them to itemize the biggest obstacles keeping you in place and discuss potential ways you can work through them. When I was planning my own corporate exit strategy in 2019, I spoke with my therapist about all the worst-case scenarios I had in my mind for each of my fears, and in the end, none of them was insurmountable.Slowly, systematically, my why stay? list got much less compelling, and my why not? list became a very strong case for leaving.Step 2: Run the numbersThe biggest obstacle for many of us, of course, is the income question. So, try facing this head-on to help you get real, rather quickly, about the tangible requirements to make this move.In the independent consulting world, we call this the rent equation. How much income do you need each month to cover your baseline needs? How much to feel safe and comfortable? This wont be your revenue forever, its just a starting point that can feel doable and accessible.Companies keep employees in place through a complex web of compensation spread across salaries, benefits, bonuses, stock options, and other intangibles. Try to simplify the equation by building a list of your core expenses, and then think about how much you really need to earn to become free. Dont forget your deductions will change when youre self-employedoften for the better.This is just a starting point. Youre trying to make a theoretical concept feel more real so you can build the case for yourself and turn a nebulous idea into something realistic.Step 3: Define your value propositionThis is a big one that will require some deep thought. Carve out some time where you can reflect and think through your personal value proposition, defining what you have to offer, and to whom.When you work for someone else, its easy to conflate your value with your title, your role, or even the function of your team. The objective in this case is to begin to separate out those elements from what you, as an individual, have to offer and who you are best suitedor most energizedto serve.Whether you intend to seek out private board or fractional roles, build an advisory or consulting practice, or want to transition into coaching, you need to have a strong feel for what you can do and for whom. Write this down in the simplest, clearest way possible and use it in your outreach.Step 4: Tap that networkNow its time to lean on your network. You cant expect anyone to help you make the leap if you dont ask, and they wont know how to help if you are not clear and direct in what you ask for.Start with your strongest mentors and closest allies and let them know youre considering striking out on your own. Weave in language from your value proposition and let them know what you are hoping to do, who you would like to work with, and your ask of them. Typically, you are asking that they be aware of your goals, keep you in mind, and let you know of anyone you ought to meet.People tend to avoid this kind of outreach because they feel uncomfortable with the ask. But keep in mind that when you do the work to clarify your goals and needs, your champions will always be happy to hear from you and will appreciate knowing how best to help. Avoid group emails and write authentic, personalized notes that sound as if youre chatting over coffee.In this phase, dont forget to grow and expand your network as well. The contacts that got you here probably arent the contacts that will help grow your new business endeavors. Make sure to identify others who have already left the corporate grind and ask for their wisdom, look up people in your desired space and follow and engage and interact with them. Infuse new ideas into your thinking.Step 5: Speak upPeople will not think of you unless you give them a reason, so visibility matters. Use platforms like LinkedIn and local events to show up, and write and share your thoughts wherever you can. Getting out of your echo chamber will help you feel less stuck and more connected to others who might end up becoming partners, advocates, or clients going forward.This is hard. Many leaders feel wildly uncomfortable creating original content and sharing their expertise, but it is a powerful way to signal to those you know, and those you dont yet know, that youre available, experienced, and ready for business.Most of all, dont overthink it.Get started. Send some signals, do some thinking and writing, and see what comes back. You may find that your first consulting or board opportunity is easier to pin down than expectedand suddenly you are on your way.Its easy to stay still, and far more rewarding to take the risk and carve your own path. The exit sign is this way, and you deserve to at see whats just beyond that door.Youll never know if you dont at least take a peek.