Monday, October 30, 2017

An Interesting Read

If You Can’t Find a Spouse Who Supports Your Career, Stay Single

I was at a dinner with eight highly successful professional women recently, ranging in age from 35 to 74. Their stories were typical of research I have been conducting on dual-career couples.  

This experience underlines the conclusion I’ve drawn from years of research and experience: Professionally ambitious women really only have two options when it comes to their personal partners — a super-supportive partner or no partner at all. Anything in between ends up being a morale- and career-sapping morass.

If your partner is not willing to engage, uninterested in “leaning in,” and resistant to seeking help, you should ask yourself why. Just like at work, it is interesting first to work on yourself. Understand your own issues, the impact you have on others, the degree to which you are creating the reaction you are struggling with. Consider working with a therapist or coach. In the end, after you’ve figured yourself out, if the relationship hasn’t improved, the question remains: What is keeping you in this team? Are you staying out of love or fear?

(HBR.org)

Did You Know - Chick Fil A Edition

15 Facts About Chick-Fil-A That'll Make You Say, "Whoa, That's Crazy"

5. Only three states don't have a Chick-fil-A: Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont.

Complete list (BuzzFeed.com)

Friday, October 27, 2017

This Is A Beast

This 828bhp Mercedes-AMG GT Makes The R Look Weak 

The IMSA RXR One is a tuned AMG GT that looks like it wants to punch a 911 GT3 RS in the face 



(CarThrottle.com)

It's Really This Simple

Romancing the Supercar Buyer: How Ultra-Luxe Car Dealers Clinch a Sale

Hint: It’s not like selling a Camry.

3. Bring the Car to the Client—or the Client to the Car

Aston Martin takes its atelier, as it were, directly to the customers, with personal exclusive “fittings” of its $3 million Valkyrie for the 150 individuals who merit the right to purchase one. (The materials covering the seats, dashboard, and headliner; the style of the body panels; and exterior trimmings such as rims and wheel covers are all bespoke.)

Pagani will do the same but in reverse, flying customers to company headquarters over the two- to three years it takes to develop a car that it tailors the vehicle to the owner like a suit, down to sizing the car for torso length and shoulder width.

“You can’t go sell cars—you have to offer an experience,” O’Gara said. “Especially with the young millennials, that is what everyone is looking for.”

6. Play Hard to Get

The other facet of cultivating the modern luxury buyer is fostering a sense of ultra exclusivity, both on the automaker level and on the dealer level. Production numbers must remain low—one-off models, ideally. Like red-carpet starlets in haute couture, the modern wealthy car enthusiast would never be so crude as to be seen in the same car as someone else.

“These cars are always instantly judged by their performance credentials, price tag, and ultimately, exclusivity,” explained Jonathan Klinger, the spokesman for Hagerty, which insures blue-chip collectible cars. “These exotic brands are basically sold and spoken for before the first production one is even ready, so that you have instant pent-up demand.”

Bugatti will make fewer than 500 Chiron cars total, Koenigsegg fewer than 40. Pagani will make just a little more than 40. Only half will go to the U.S., even though the company could sell all its inventory here if it wanted to, Horacio Pagani said. That’s by design. He wants even the ultra-rich to dream about his cars.

“The most important thing for all the human beings is to evoke a feeling,” Pagani said. “I don’t make any differences between a customer, someone who will eventually own the car, or someone else who can just dream about it. We are selling cars, but at the same time we want to give our fans the car of their dreams.”

Complete list (Bloomberg.com)

I Strongly Belive In This


(CavemanCircus.com)

Bigger Has Further Proven Never Be Better

How Porn Publisher Larry Flynt Hustled — And Wound Up Richer Than Hugh Hefner

One key to Flynt’s enduring wealth seems to be that, in contrast to the free-spending Hefner, Flynt has always been as focused on the bottom line as on political provocation. “My editorial staff on Hustler is 7,” he told the Daily Mail in 2015. “[Hefner’s] is probably somewhere between 40 and 50. I make a profit whereas he’s losing money every month.”

That attention to fundamentals has given Flynt the leverage to grow his core operation steadily, acquiring multiple other producers of adult entertainment, and growing divisions including the international cable TV operation Hustler TV. So while the Playboy empire was often on the rocks in Hefner’s final years, Flynt’s Beverly Hills headquarters still appear to be bustling. In fact, Flynt reportedly considered a bid to buy the Playboy Mansion last year.

(Fortune.com)

Well Said, Calvin


(CavemanCircus.com)