What You Need to Know Today: September 17

Good afternoon, Early Risers!

Here’s what you need to know

TECH

Let’s make a deal. This is big. Lyft, the California-based ride-hailing company, aka Uber’s competitor, just announced a deal with Didi Kuaidi, the Chinese ride-hailing company that controls 80 percent of the ride-hailing market in China. The deal is structured so the apps are interchangeable depending on what country you are in. For example, if you’re on business in Beijing, you’ll be able to use the Lyft app to hail a Didi car. And vice versa. Here’s why I like this deal. Instead of building something new, these two companies found a way to make the user experience effortless. Thus creating more value. Whether you’re trying to get customers to buy your product, affiliates to mail out for you, or your boss to say yes to a proposal, you need to make the decision a no-brainer. And you know who else understands this concept well?

Millennials should NOT take this for granted. “One thing about working with my father, I felt there was a lot of pressure to make sure I stand on my own and gain respect from colleagues,” currently the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer for BankMobile, the first fee-free digital bank in the country, this 29-year old suggests millennials working with a parent, should not take it for granted. Meet the woman who created the 1st branchless, no fee digital bank.

+ It’s time to cancel Apple Music before it starts automatically charging you.

CAREER

2 rules to win your days. “If it wasn’t hard enough keeping up with the Kardashians, now I’ve got Caitlyn Jenner to worry about, not to mention Donald Trump, the Iran nuclear deal, my family and friends, the drought, global warming, and how to get maximum support to Bernie Sanders. My day breaks up. It fractures. No longer do I have the luxury of one smooth unbroken expanse of time. Now the hours splinter. They come at me, chopped and diced into fragments. How can I work this way?” Finding the time to work on your #1 priority is never easy. Even bestselling authors like Steven Pressfield can relate. Here’s Pressfield’s 2 rules for conquering fractured days.

“People’s problems are their hobbies.” – Dan Kennedy. “If you buy one diet book, you’re going to buy ten diet books. Many people often don’t have success because they keep buying different books and they’ve turned their problem into a hobby,” says Craig Ballantyne. “Now you want to come along, solve their problem and be the last person they ever need to go to for information. But, it’s very important for you to understand that other people have your customers.” This is secret #3 of Craig’s 7 secrets to achieve mega online success.

Why Trump insults people. The short answer: math. The long answer: read this. You often hear people say you should ignore haters on the internet. They’re not worth your time and energy. For most people (including myself) I think this is a good rule to follow. The amount of time wasted on coming up with the perfect point to support your stance on the Syrian refugee crisis is not worth the time you could have spent building something of value to the world. But with all great rules come exceptions. In this case, Donald Trump and Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, are two exceptions who strategically insult their haters. Make sure you read the Bonus part at the end of this post, you’ll find out why Bernie Sanders is “confused.”

+ 5 psychological tactics Donald Trump has mastered.

LIFESTYLE

How to build a sports superstar in 2015. “He is 15 years old, 5-foot-9 and 185 pounds of cartoonish muscles on top of muscles. He had six-pack abs when he was 6. Today, he bench-presses one-and-a-half times his body weight and can leap from a standing position to the top of a car. He averages four touchdowns per game and hasn’t lost a wrestling match since 2012, making him the nation’s top-ranked football player and wrestler for his grade. And even though he doesn’t begin high school for another two weeks, he already is one of the most talked about athletes in New Jersey.” Find out who this is and how he got this way.

+ Why dating apps might not be to blame for “hook-up” culture.

#NOWYOUKNOW

Why Do We Admire Mobsters?

From The New Yorker

“People who see themselves as “all-American” can be fascinated by Italian mobsters, and even admire them, without worrying that their lives will come into contact with mobsters’ lives. It’s no coincidence that the other glamorized mob figures in the U.S. are Irish: from “The Departed” to the forthcoming Whitey Bulger biopic “Black Mass,” they’re presented as similar enough for sympathy, yet different enough for a false sense of safety to creep in. For reasons of language, culture, and race, members of the Chinese and Russian mob have proven harder to romanticize.” Full story.

Know someone who should be getting The Daily Brief? Send this.

Check out what you missed in the last Daily Brief here.