What You Need to Know Today: September 8
Good afternoon, Early Risers!
Here’s what you need to know
TECH
Open Houses are dead and they’re not coming back. I have a friend whose house is up for sale. When my friend asked his real estate agent if she was going to hold an open house, her answer was “No.” Here’s why: Selling a house, now, is like selling a car. Most buyers have their mind made up – whether they like the house/car or not – before stepping foot in the house/showroom. The internet has afforded us this luxury. Car salesmen and real estate agents should know this. Knowing this one thing, you can then optimize the point where 90% of the sale is actually happening – online.
Today, Toyota unveils its new Prius in Las Vegas, Nevada. You can bet anyone interested in buying the new Prius is going to look it up online first. Surprisingly, last year millennials accounted for 27% of new cars sold, with Gen X at 25%. Here’s some good advice for any young person looking to buy a new or used car this year.
One habit that will put you in the top 1% of experts and money-makers. Verizon Communications has plans this week to announce a new free mobile TV service. Go90 is in reference to flipping your mobile device 90 degrees to watch videos. Without a doubt this is a smart play by Verizon. TV is killing it right now. The average American spends 90 minutes per day watching Netflix. That’s more time spent watching Netflix than eating or having sex. But watching more TV is not what’s going to put you in the top 1%, as Philip Pape explains.
CAREER
Why you should join a Wolf Pack. “When Walt [Disney] ran out of money while making Snow White, Roy secured more. When Walt dreamed up Disneyworld, Roy labored to get it built, and did so without incurring any debt. The reason Disney survived, and thrived, was because it leveraged the strengths of each brother,” says Justin Jackson. “Us creatives are often solitary. Isolation removes distractions, allowing us to focus on bringing ideas to life. But when we lone wolves hit a speed bump, many of us stop creating. It’s hard to show up every day, by yourself. When there’s no one to cheer you on, and no one to be accountable to, it’s easier to just give up.” A lot of solopreneurs can relate. Here’s Jackson’s 3 tips for how to join a Wolf Pack.
You’re FIRED! How you can tell if you’re going to be fired and what you can do about it.
Uber CEO was given carte blanche by Google. “Kalanick looked like an irrepressible jerk to many outside the company, but he was dynamite with the financial press, who portrayed him as the ultimate insurgent (‘Silicon Valley’s rebel hero,’ as Fortune put it). Venture capitalists fell hard for Kalanick, too. ‘Any time you’re disrupting an industry, people are going to try to take you down,’ says Bill Maris, the president of Google Ventures. Maris says he started trying to invest in Uber as early as 2011. When he finally got his shot, in the summer of 2013, he gave Kalanick what amounted to a blank term sheet and told him to name his price. ‘What’s it going to take to get this deal off the table?’ he asked.” Fast Company secured a rare interview with Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, for their October cover story. Here’s a preview.
LIFESTYLE
What’s really holding you back in life. “It’s this obsession with performance—this performing for an imaginary audience—that makes the ordinary so difficult for most people,” says Ryan Holiday. The ‘ordinary’ for most twenty-somethings is sticking to a healthy schedule, rather than falling into the trap of ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ that so many post-college grads do. If you’re reading this, then you’re probably not like most of your peers. And you can relate to what Holiday talks about here. It’s tempting to want to live our lives like an “unfolding story,” but it’s not healthy if we do.
What the world No. 1 tennis player can teach you about success. 28 year old, Novak Djokovic is currently ranked no. 1 in men’s tennis. His rise to superstardom was no cake walk. In this New York Times story, Djokovic shares his keys to success and what helped him keep it together at such a young age.
#NOWYOUKNOW
What is a ‘Short’?
“He became a household name when he sold over $10 Billion worth of British pounds in September 1992. After the pound fell 10% in value, he made profits exceeding $1 Billion for himself and was referred to as ‘the man who broke the Bank of England’. The trade idea was simple: sell pounds when they are at a higher price, buy them back when the price drops. In finance this is known as a ‘short’ – in which one stands to make money when the price falls.”
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