• Business Insider spoke with three perfume experts about the best fragrances to wear for winter.
• Gourmand scents are still popular, and heady, musky fragrances are great for cold weather.
• Perfumers also recommend leaning into brooding, dramatic, dark-academia vibes this winter.

When the chill sets in and you find yourself swapping lightweight sweaters and trench coats for bulky jackets, don't forget to give your fragrance shelf a seasonal refresh, too.

Winter fragrances often lean richer, warmer, and more enveloping — think amber, spice, woods, and heady florals that wrap around you like a cozy, knitted blanket.

Business Insider spoke with three perfumers about which scents they love for winter and why. From narcotic florals to warm ambers, here's what they said about their seasonal favorites.

Warm yourself up with amber.

Amber fragrances provide some coziness in cold weather.

Dana Schmitt, New York City-based perfumer at the fragrance company Givaudan, said that one of her longtime favorites is Chanel Coromandel, a soft yet luxurious scent. It's a plush, amber perfume anchored by patchouli and frankincense.

Another staple she recommends is REPLICA's Jazz Club, a classic scent built on rich, spicy, and woody notes.

It evokes the feeling of settling into a dim jazz lounge on a chilly winter night in the city — making it perfect for a romantic date night.

Just like in the fall, gourmand scents continue to stay popular.

Gourmands — including vanilla, caramel, and honey — are just so cozy for winter, bringing warmth and comfort when the temperatures drop.

Bryson Ammons, New York City-based perfumer and founder of The Alloy Studio, likes to push the category a bit further by incorporating a bit of spice.

He really enjoys Amphora Parfum Honeycakes, a sweet yet savory scent that feels both nostalgic and surprising. "It's like a spiced coffee — a very sticky, syrupy fragrance," he said.

For something more amber-forward but still gourmand, Schmitt points to Mugler Angel Eau de Parfum, a sweet, praline scent that also features signature notes of patchouli and bergamot.

Narcotic, headier scents are the way to go.

Winters can be cold. When it's under 30 degrees, New York City-based independent perfumer Asia Grant likes leaning into narcotic, smooth fragrances that feel like wrapping yourself in cashmere and tucking into a dim, cozy library.

Rich musks and heady florals really come alive in cold weather, and also add a brooding, dark-academia vibe that pairs well with chunky sweaters and penny loafers.

Grant recommends Dominique Ropion's Carnal Flower, an intoxicating, full-bodied fragrance that features notes of melon, tuberose, and white musk.

Because it's so highly concentrated, she often likes layering it with lighter, fresher scents to balance it out.

Brighten up the chilly weather with citrusy scents.

Lemons, oranges, limes, and grapefruits might make you think "summer," but they're technically winter-blooming fruits, which makes them a natural fit for cold-weather fragrances, said Ammons.

They also add a bit of brightness and zing to the chillier months.

Bring the outdoors in with a fresh, woodsier scent.

Although spicy and ambery scents are a given for winter, Ammons likes to shake things up with fresh, woodsy one. Think: light florals, clean laundry, freshly-fallen snow, and a wisp of smoke.

One of his go-tos is Aesop's Rozu Eau De Parfum, which pairs notes of rose and bergamot with sandalwood and musk.

"There's something clean and kind of chic about it," Ammons said.

• Netflix has become a rival to Hallmark and Lifetime with its original holiday films.
• This year, it released four new holiday films.
• "Jingle Bell Heist" is easily the best.

When Netflix released "A Christmas Prince" in 2017, it became one of the true viral moments of the holiday season — eight years later, the streamer is still chasing that high.

This year, Netflix released four new Christmas films: "My Secret Santa," "A Merry Little Ex-Mas," "Champagne Problems," and "Jingle Bell Heist." They range from entertaining to bonkers.

Here are this year's new Netflix holiday movies ranked from worst to best.

4. "My Secret Santa"

People have been describing "My Secret Santa" (a title that doesn't even make sense, by the way) as the "reverse 'Mrs. Doubtfire.'"

To that I say: just go watch "Mrs. Doubtfire."

My list of notes, observations, and questions was by far the longest for this movie, which stars Alexandra Breckenridge as Taylor Jacobsen, a single mom (and former teen rock star, somehow), who decides her daughter must go to an exorbitantly expensive snowboarding school at a ski resort, and the only job she can find requires dressing up as an old man to become the resort's resident Santa Claus.

Along the way, she meets a man, Matthew (Ryan Eggold), who is quite determined to get to know her — for truly no reason besides the fact that she's pretty — but, gasp, he turns out to be the resort owner's son.

This might all sound pretty normal, but believe me, this movie seems like it was written backward. As in, since they needed Taylor to have access to some of the best prosthetics since "Frankenstein," her brother and his husband happen to be obsessed with Halloween.

Also, Taylor was just really bad at being Santa for too much of the runtime.

This brings me to the villain, Natasha, as played by Tia Mowry. She's hyper-competent, dedicated to her job, and has been at the resort for years. But when it's time for someone to get a promotion, Matthew the Nepo Baby gets it instead. Was I supposed to not root for her as she tried to sabotage his (quite poor) attempts at running things? Because I did not! She deserved the promotion!

Ultimately, this movie is deranged (but not in a fun way), the two leads have no chemistry, and it makes the cardinal sin of evoking a much better movie. It was a skip from me.

3. "A Merry Little Ex-Mas"

Now this is a movie that's deranged in a fun way.

"A Merry Little Ex-Mas" stars Alicia Silverstone as Kate, an architect turned stay-at-home mom (and handyman, for some reason), who is recently separated from her husband, Everett (Oliver Hudson), their small town's doctor.

So many choices in this were baffling. For instance, everyone in the town calls Kate's house the "Mothership." Why? It doesn't matter — it never gets explained. Kate and Everett's daughter, Sienna, brings home her British boyfriend, who inexplicably thinks he's a character in "Harry Potter," which is a bit dated in 2025. Fellow '90s queen Melissa Joan Hart is in this movie for around 5 minutes, and it was, frankly, rude not to give her more to do.

This movie's saving grace was Kate's much younger boyfriend, Chet, played by Pierson Fodé, who was hilarious. Everett's new girlfriend, Tess, played by Jameela Jamil, also brought a lot of laughs.

However, the romance between Kate and Everett just wasn't explored enough. From the first scene they're in together, it's clear there was no reason to split up in the first place — they needed some couple's therapy and to work on their communication skills.

I want better for two '90s legends than this.

2. "Champagne Problems"

Sue me, I thought this was cute! Any movie that takes place in Paris during Christmas is going to earn extra points with me, it's just a fact.

"Champagne Problems" stars Minka Kelly as Sydney, a dedicated employee at her mergers and acquisitions firm, but who has no life of her own. When she gets sent to Paris right around Christmas to pitch an acquisition of a local Champagne brand, she takes one night for herself and meets Henri (Tom Wozniczka). Can you see where this is going?

Yes, of course, Henri is the son of the man whose business Sydney wants to take over.

But Sydney's not the only one competing for the chateau's business. There are a few pleasantly kooky side characters who are along for the journey.

My main takeaway from this movie is that I should probably book a flight to Paris immediately (I also frantically Googled if the bookstore in the movie was real. It's not, sadly). My secondary thoughts include that Kelly and Wozniczka have great chemistry, and I need to pop a bottle of bubbly this Christmas.

1. "Jingle Bell Heist"

This was an easy choice. "Jingle Bell Heist" is the only one of these movies that didn't have an overly bright, but somehow still flat, aesthetic.

It also stars two promising young actors, Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells. Holt plays Sophie, an American living in London so her mom can access cheaper cancer treatment — Sophie is also a star pick-pocket who learned everything she knows from her magician grandfather, which … sure. Swindells plays Nick, a computer expert who has recently been released from jail after being accused of robbing a department store.

Nick and Sophie link up to rob that same department store on Christmas Eve for their own reasons, but, of course, things never go smoothly in a film like this.

I give screenwriters Abby McDonald and Amy Reed a lot of credit, because this movie had more than one twist that genuinely shocked me. I also vibed with Michael Fimognari's direction, as it's clear he was doing his best '70s crime-thriller tribute. Lastly, the brassy score by Steve Hackman was great; it was giving "Ocean's Eleven."

My one knock on this movie is that the relationship between Sophie and Nick was pretty boring, all things considered. Perhaps they just had better platonic chemistry than romantic.

Even so, this was easily my favorite of Netflix's holiday films this year, and one I would recommend to anyone.

• Northeastern retirees are opting for North Carolina over Florida for its low-key beach lifestyle.
• North Carolina has a warmer climate than the Northeast and is more accessible than Florida.
• Calabash, North Carolina, has a calmer lifestyle than some Florida cities, and is still near the beach.

Fleeing the Northeast and flying south — usually to Florida — to wait out the winter in warmer weather is a common move for snowbirds. But some retirees aren't flying quite as far south anymore for an escape.

Take Diana Cawood, who skipped Florida altogether and relocated to North Carolina from New Jersey at the end of 2019.

"Florida was not an option," Cawood told Business Insider, adding that it was important that she be in reasonable driving distance back to New Jersey to see her children and grandchildren.

"We can drive back to New Jersey in about nine hours," she said. "That's a day trip rather than a couple of days."

Cawood, 61, started looking for places five years before she retired in 2019. She knew she wanted a warmer climate than New Jersey, more favorable taxes, and a quieter life than the city provided. Wilmington, North Carolina, didn't quite fit the bill, and neither did Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Then she discovered a retirement town that's less crowded than Florida cities like Naples or Tampa and is a shorter commute back to the Northeast: Calabash, North Carolina.

The coastal town near the border of South Carolina is about 27 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach and offers a quiet, beachy lifestyle for retirees. Cawood and her husband settled on Kingfish Bay, a housing development about four miles from the nearest beach — and 569 miles from Medford Lakes, New Jersey, where they moved from. But that's still a better commute than driving home from anywhere in Florida.

Florida isn't for every retiree

Kathie Yllanes, 64, grew up on Long Island and moved to Calabash in 2017 from Raleigh, North Carolina. She's been retired for just over a year and said she travels to the Northeast about six times a year.

"Our oldest son still lives on Long Island, our grandkids are on Long Island, our daughter just moved to Boston, and we have a son who's in the Charlotte area," Yllanes told Business Insider. "Being able to get to Long Island, even though it's not easy to get there, is a lot easier than if you were in Florida."

Although the weather isn't as warm year-round in North Carolina as it is in Florida, it's still significantly warmer than in the Northeast — a plus for many retirees.

"The weather was a big factor in why we wanted to move here," Cawood said. "We love the fact that this area gives us all four seasons without the dramatic effects of winter. It gets pretty hot in the summer, but I don't know that it gets any hotter than where we were from in New Jersey. It may stay hot a little bit longer, but it's certainly not uncomfortable. But that is the reason we did not want to go to Florida, because we just didn't want to deal with that heat all the time."

Florida still is one of the better places to retire, though that depends on what you're looking for. While cities like Fort Lauderdale and St. Petersburg offer a lot for retirees, some lament that they've become overcrowded and expensive.

North Carolina real estate agent Darren Bouley said that not only has he seen an uptick in Northeasterners choosing the Calabash area, he's also seen "half-backs," or people originally from the Northeast who move to Florida and then move halfway back up the coast, leaving Florida for North Carolina.

"From the feedback we've been getting, Florida has lost a little bit of its allure simply because the costs have changed down there," Bouley said. "Also, the population has just gotten a little more dense than people are interested in having."

Yllanes' parents were half-backs who moved from Deerfield Beach, Florida, to Calabash, North Carolina. She said Florida wasn't for her, either.

Ex-Floridian retirees are finding a lot to like in North Carolina

The pandemic years were a boon for people moving to Florida, helping it become the fastest-growing state in 2022 thanks to its sunny weather and generally affordable cost of living. But as factors like home insurance price increases have people leaving Florida, states like North Carolina are capitalizing.

State-to-state migration data from the US Census shows nearly 40,000 people moved from Florida to North Carolina in 2023, the highest number from any state — including neighbor South Carolina.

Samuel Miller, a representative for Kingfish Bay, told Business Insider that Calabash, North Carolina's cost of living is on par with Florida's, and maybe better.

"We've had people come up from Florida to the development and particularly from the Northeast because they see the value down here, both in the housing prices and what you get for your buck," Miller said.

"When you talk of the state tax rates, for example, it's better in North Carolina than the Northeast, and that's obviously not a comparison for Florida," he added. "But in Miami, the cost of living is higher. You're going to get areas in Florida that are less expensive, but certainly the big centers are going to be more expensive. On the whole, Calabash is generally a very cost-effective place to live."

• When my son wanted a new toy, I told him to start a business where he could earn money.
• He decided to help neighbors collect and take out their trash.
• He had to work up some courage, but now he's making money and becoming part of the community.

After listening to my son try and convince me that he absolutely needed whatever the latest toy was that he was fixated on, I replied with, "That sounds like a want, not a need. You can use your money to buy it."

He told me he didn't have enough cash. At 6 years old, his only sources of money were birthday gifts and the tooth fairy.

In our family, we don't give money for household chores as we believe it's everyone's responsibility to pitch in and complete the tasks that keep a household running. We also don't give a set allowance.

My husband chimed in with, "Let's think of some ways you can earn money."

After tossing around a number of ideas, one stood out above the rest: taking in and out the trash and recycling bins for our neighbors. My garbage and recycling truck-loving kiddo was excited and ready to go.

As parents, we're there to support, but not do the work for him. He was about to get a crash course in business and in life.

He first had to gain some confidence

In order to get clients, we helped him prepare a marketing flyer and a short pitch. But when he realized that he was the one who would have to go door to door, he almost gave up before he got started.

This led to a talk about facing your fears, understanding that getting a "no" is simply part of the process, and that you can only control your actions — not another person's.

After gathering his courage and multiple practice sessions, he was ready to go. He knocked on the doors of neighbors he had never met and was rejected more than a few times. But those first few neighbors who said "yes" gave him the confidence to keep going.

Now he has nine clients, but more than that, he has gained skills that most kids don't learn until their teenage years or beyond.

He quickly earned some money

Initially, he charged 25 cents a week, and once he gained experience, he increased his rate to 50 cents. Each month, my husband creates invoices in QuickBooks, and my son delivers them to his customers.

In the first month, one of his clients showed him a water bill with all the extra fees associated with it. He explained that if a company can tack on seemingly random fees, then he wanted to give my son additional pay for good customer service and on-time delivery. His $1 rose to $5.

To help him learn about saving, we opened a bank account and told him that whatever he decides to save each month, we would match, but it needs to remain in his account for at least six months. The rest he can spend as he wants.

Initially, he was excited to spend his money, but as time has passed, he has started to think more strategically because he now understands how much time and effort it takes to earn it.

He's learned about commitment and community

Tuesdays are trash takeout days. It's also a full school day followed by his First Communion class, which means he doesn't get home until around 5:30 p.m.

That first Tuesday, he came home after class, saying he was tired and wanted to rest and watch TV. We reminded him of the timeframe he gave his clients — between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.— and that keeping your word comes first. After a few grumbles, he got going.

Over the months, he has shown up on time, rain or shine, with a smile on his face and has earned the trust and respect of his customers.

His business has also allowed him and us to become part of the fabric of our community. We moved into our neighborhood a year and a half ago and would wave to neighbors and exchange pleasantries, but now we're forming true relationships.

He's been invited into what were once strangers' houses, been given birthday presents from people he didn't know a year earlier, and walks down the street with a sense of belonging that this is his community.

But most important is how he sees himself. When the subject of his business comes up, he beams with pride, noting that he is a business owner who earns his own money and helps his neighbors.

And that toy he claimed he needed? Turns out he didn't want to spend his hard-earned money on it after all.

• As a travel writer, I never expected to hire an advisor to plan a vacation for me.
• However, I worked with a travel advisor to coordinate a trip to Paris in June.
• Her recommendations, like a small macaron-making class, provided us with incredible experiences.

As a travel writer, I've always taken pride in handling every detail of my trips solo.

I've spent years unearthing hidden boutique hotels, interviewing travel experts, and helping readers craft itineraries packed with under-the-radar experiences — all in a day's work.

But this year was different. I wasn't just balancing deadlines and assignments; I was also caring for infant twins.

Between bottle schedules, nap routines, and trying to hold on to a sliver of personal time, I didn't have the energy for my usual deep-dive planning.

That's why, for a long-awaited five-night trip to Paris with my mom and sister in June, I turned to a travel advisor — something I never thought I'd do, especially given my job.

To get started, I reached out to travel agency Fora, and was connected with one of their advisors. Though the one I ended up working with didn't charge for her services, each advisor sets their own rates.

I loved how personalized the process was

Our advisor kicked things off with a thorough 30-minute introductory call to learn about us as travelers.

Not only did we discuss where we wanted to go, but also how we liked to spend our days, what types of hotels felt right, and what kind of experiences would make the trip memorable.

I appreciated that she welcomed feedback, taking the time to explain why certain spots suited our travel style and why some of my initial "must-stay" picks might actually fall flat.

For example, she gently steered us away from a more traditional property near the main tourist sights and instead proposed a modern, design-forward hotel in a different neighborhood that might better match our vibe.

Our advisor also helped me avoid my usual habit of overplanning each day by suggesting a more thoughtful and realistic day-by-day approach, so we wouldn't feel rushed or exhausted before dinner.

Plus, she tailored the itinerary to our budget, allowing us to skip pricier experiences, like a private Seine boat cruise, while still enjoying thoughtful alternatives (more on those later).

The experiences made the trip

Thanks to our advisor's planning, we had a lineup of experiences that felt personal and truly unforgettable. Plus, most of them were pre-arranged, so all we had to do was show up.

One of my favorite parts of the trip — despite having zero baking skills — was a small-group macaron-making class.

We also spent a day in Champagne with a private guide, who stopped at landmarks along the way, including the abbey where Dom Pérignon is said to have perfected his famous sparkling wine.

Our advisor handled almost all of our restaurant reservations, as well, saving us from last-minute panic and endless "Where should we eat tonight?" debates.

She sent a list of vetted, well-researched options tailored to our preferences, recommending places that felt special but not overly stuffy, and steering us toward neighborhood gems we likely wouldn't have found on our own.

One of our favorites was Bistro Marbeuf, an elegant French bistro located conveniently across the street from our hotel.

I learned to let go and enjoy the trip more

Initially, handing over the reins to a travel advisor felt strange, especially as someone who not only obsesses over every detail but also makes a living helping others plan their trips.

But instead of feeling disconnected, I was more present on this trip than I had been on any vacation in years.

I could simply show up and enjoy, without second-guessing whether I'd picked the perfect dinner spot or booked the right museum time slot. As a new parent, that freedom felt especially luxurious.

In the end, I realized the best trips aren't about obsessing over every detail. They're about giving yourself the space to actually enjoy the experience — even if it means letting someone else handle the planning (gasp).

• Business Insider joined a British Voyager tanker to see it refuel fighter jets over Eastern Europe.
• Videos show how close the fighter jets get to the tanker aircraft during the refueling process.
• Midair refueling is a dangerous maneuver, but it enables longer-distance air operations.

IN ESTONIAN AIRSPACE — For most people cruising along at 30,000 feet, it's pretty unusual to look out the window on a flight and see fighter jets.

But for the crew of this Royal Air Force Voyager, a British aerial refueling tanker, it's just a regular day. They’re tasked with linking up with fighters in flight, matching their speed, and pumping fuel midair to keep those jets airborne and on mission for longer than their tanks alone allow.

Business Insider joined a Voyager crew in late November for a nearly nine-hour mission that launched from an RAF base in England, crossed the Baltic Sea to the edge of Eastern Europe, and looped past Russian territory on the way home.

During the fight, the Voyager refueled several British Eurofighter Typhoons, twin-engine multirole fighter jets manufactured by a consortium of European aerospace companies.

The Typhoon was introduced in 2003 and is operated by several NATO countries in addition to the UK, including Spain, Germany, and Italy.

The Voyager also refueled JAS 39 Gripens, single-engine multirole fighter jets manufactured by the Swedish aerospace firm Saab.

The Gripen, which was introduced in the mid-1990s, is operated by fewer countries than the Typhoon. Ukraine is set to procure dozens of these aircraft, widely seen as an ideal fit for Kyiv's needs in its fight against Russia.

Refueling a fighter jet in the air takes roughly 10 minutes, a process that can be longer for larger aircraft, such as the E-3 Sentry, a surveillance plane. The Voyager offloaded about 20 of the 109 metric tons it can carry to the various aircraft during last week's flight.

The Voyager aircraft features two underwing pods equipped with retractable hoses and small baskets at their ends. These connect to a mechanical arm at the front of the fighter jet. At this point in the refueling process, both aircraft are flying at around 300 miles per hour.

The fighter jets move carefully as they approach the Voyager's trailing hose, inching closer until a locking mechanism connects the basket with the mechanical arm that receives the fuel.

When a fighter jet finishes refueling, it breaks away, and another one takes its place. The entire process happens just a few feet away from the tanker, making it a highly hazardous task that requires extensive training and a calm demeanor.

At certain points during the flight, Business Insider observed several fighter jets flying alongside the one refueling.

The Voyager's interior resembles that of a commercial aircraft, with rows of economy seating, overhead luggage bins, toilets, and even a heated meal service.

The tanker — based on the Airbus A330-200 — can carry nearly 300 passengers, which is why it doubles as a cargo or personnel transport aircraft in addition to its refueling missions.

Tankers like the Voyager are crucial for military airpower, as they can significantly extend the range of fighter jets and other military aircraft, thus enabling longer-distance and duration air operations. It is an essential logistics and support capability.

The November flight supported Eastern Sentry, defensive operations that NATO launched in September following Russian drone incursions.

• I've been away from my hometown for 15 years, since I was 25 years old.
• My parents are getting older, and on my last visit back to the Gold Coast, something shifted for me.
• My husband and I decided to move back for a year to be closer to my family and see how it goes.

When I was younger, a friend invited me to move to Canada for six months to work as a waitress in Banff. I jumped at the opportunity, and within a couple of months, I'd resigned from my job in journalism, sold most of my worldly possessions, and said farewell to my friends and family.

I'll never forget that feeling of driving out of my hometown of the Gold Coast, Australia, toward Brisbane, where I was departing from. I was 25 years old at the time, and so excited about the prospect of living abroad and setting out to explore the great big world.

I stayed overseas for three years before coming back to Australia

It was supposed to be a six-month working holiday, but plans changed, as they often do. My partner, Sam, joined me in Canada, and we ended up on quite the world tour, traveling through South and Central America, as well as the US, before moving to London for a year. We used London as a base and travelled through Europe and Africa.

Eventually, after three years overseas, Sam and I moved home to Australia. At that point, I had no desire to go back to the Gold Coast, which is where Sam and I originally met, so instead we settled in Melbourne — one of Australia's most vibrant and cosmopolitan cities.

Melbourne will always hold a special place in my heart. It's where two of our kids were born, where we started our businesses, and where we purchased our first family home. But after eight years of living there, we were ready for a tree change, and so we relocated to a small town called Bright in country Victoria four years ago to be closer to Sam's family.

We visit my parents occasionally, and this last visit, something shifted for me

From time to time, I'd fly to my hometown of the Gold Coast to see my folks and old friends, but I felt relatively settled in Bright for the most part. We welcomed a third child in 2022, and made lifelong friends during our time living in country Victoria.

On my last visit to the Gold Coast in July, something shifted for me. I was sitting in a park with my dad, who is now 80, and he was telling me how much he loved me and that I had been a great daughter. I'd noticed a decline in his health on that trip, and that conversation somehow felt like a goodbye.

As I sat there holding his hand and watching my kids play nearby, it dawned on me that my time with my parents was running out. At 40, I had been living away from my folks for 15 years, and they had missed out on spending so much time with our children and me.

We decided to move to the Gold Coast for a year and see how it goes

When I flew back home to Bright, I broke the news to Sam. "I'd like to move to the Gold Coast next year, so I can be close to mum and dad," I said one night at the dinner table. Poor Sam was pretty shocked at my sudden change in where I wanted to live. But the more I thought about it, the more desperate I was to make it happen.

And so, we eventually reached a compromise. We're going to move the Gold Coast for 2026 and see how it goes. Our family will get to spend some quality time making memories with my folks, and we can decide whether it's our "forever home" after we've given it a shot.

It's a strange feeling to have come full circle and be heading back to where the story began. There's no doubt I'll miss our friends and family in Bright, and in that regard, the move feels bittersweet.

But I'm looking forward to showing our kids the experiences I loved growing up, and to living closer to my parents. At the end of the day, I don't want to regret missing out on this time with them, particularly as they're getting older.

For a time, I wondered if returning to my hometown would feel like taking a step backward. However, I've come to realize that we only get one life, and sometimes the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

• I lost my job in 2007 at the start of the recession and ended up living in a converted toolshed.
• While living there, I learned everything I needed to start my own business.
• I learned that resilience is the strongest character trait for an entrepreneur.

I lost everything in 2007 at the start of the recession. I was just 23 years old and suddenly homeless.

First, I lost my job overnight. With no income, I struggled to find a new apartment — just a few days after moving out of my old one. I was left with nothing but my car and a few boxes.

Luckily, my girlfriend at the time had a relative who had converted their toolshed into a home. The temporary shelter was a tiny space: rough, bare, and humbling.

I remember asking myself one morning as I stood emptying the portable toilet: "What has my life become?"

I felt like I had failed, but I was actually just starting out.

The toolshed was barely livable, but I made it work

The shed itself wasn't much. The family moved all the tools and put carpeting on the floor to make it a bit more comfortable. I then added a mattress to the floor.

They also put up vinyl on the walls, so it didn't look like a toolshed as much. In the corner was a little portable toilet bowl that I could use and empty daily.

It was barely livable, but since I couldn't find more stable housing, it met my needs for a year. I eventually moved out after finding a full-time sales job.

In that year, I learned everything I needed to start a business

I learned to value every dollar and make it count, to trade my skills for services, to ask for help without shame, and to treasure creativity over capital.

Eventually, when I started my first e-commerce business years later, I did not have startup capital or any investor promising to invest. I had something more valuable: The knowledge and ability to build from scratch. It was me transferring the experience I got during the bottom rock season of my life into my business, and it felt easier.

My perspective on business also changed. I stopped seeing business problems as an emergency. After all, losing a client is nothing compared to losing everything. A product launch failure was not a big deal.

I have already failed and bounced back, so nothing could stop me as I built my business from the ground up.

I learned that rock bottom is the strongest foundation

I originally tried building my life on the foundation of a stable job, conventional success, and other people's approval. However, that foundation collapsed in 2007.

When I started living in the tool shed, I realized you cannot build something durable on a shaky foundation. I knew I had to go about everything differently.

When I started building my businesses, they were built on self-reliance, not job security; skills, not credentials; resilience, not comfort; and purpose, not a paycheck.

The foundation has remained solid since then, not even the COVID pandemic, market downturns, or personal crises could crack my new foundation.

From the tool shed to teaching others

Resilience is not about never falling down; it is about getting up after a fall. Today, I run multiple businesses. I host "Founder's Story," a podcast reaching millions of entrepreneurs globally. I coauthored a book with my wife, which was a dream come through for me.

I will never forget my toolshed because I am proud of what came out of it and the lesson it taught me. Every successful entrepreneur I know has a version of my toolshed story: a failed startup, getting fired, immigrating with nothing. The entrepreneurs who succeed are not the ones who avoid setbacks; they are the ones who learn from them.

Your setbacks are not the end of your story. They are the beginning of your comeback.

• Capital Fund Management has been on a hot streak in recent years, growing amid strong returns.
• The firm fosters an open, malleable culture that's catnip to PhDs but diverges from many peers.
• It's not hypersecretive. It doesn't hire armies of PMs. And it isn't fixated on winning at all costs.

In recent years, multistrategy hedge funds have been on a tear, hoovering up hundreds of billions in assets from investors and watching their staff rosters balloon.

One dilemma such firms face: How do you maintain a consistent company culture in the face of a growth spurt?

The answer, says Philippe Jordan, president of French hedge fund giant : You don't.

Culture is often mythologized, but, in Jordan's view, it is the simple byproduct of past shared experiences at its core, and he warns against the impulse to lionize "the good old days."

"Nostalgia turns a culture into an artifact, and our culture is dynamic," Jordan told Business Insider in an interview.

CFM, a Paris-based quantitative multistrategy fund, has been on a growth tear of its own. Assets climbed roughly 25% from the start of this year to $21 billion as of September. Five years ago, the firm managed just $6.5 billion.

Head count has surged as well, from 260 employees at the end of 2020 to nearly 450 today. CFM's New York office has doubled in size in recent years to 40 people, including 15 researchers.

The 35-year-old firm doesn't fit neatly into the hedge-fund typology, rejecting many of the norms that have come to define the industry. CFM has no larger-than-life founder that reigns supreme; instead, it's governed by a five-member board. It doesn't hire armies of independent portfolio managers. Unlike most of its quant brethren, it isn't obsessed with secrecy. And it doesn't espouse a ruthless, zero-sum mentality.

Compared with multimanagers that dominate today's hedge-fund landscape, which employ scores of siloed pods, CFM is "at the extreme other end of the spectrum," Jordan said. "Lots of collaboration, open environments in which people feel free to communicate, talk, and be curious about other people's businesses."

CFM was an early practitioner of the collegial, academic ethos model that's now common at many quant trading firms. Cofounder Jean-Pierre Aguillar, an engineer and computer scientist, launched CFM in 1991 and helped define the firm's culture before his death in a gliding accident in 2009.

While collaboration and intellectual rigor is prized, the firm isn't "throwing spaghetti at the walls." Performance matters — as evidenced by CFM's strong run in recent years.

"We want to win, but not at the cost of having a work environment that's not sustainable," Jordan added.

That balance has helped CFM maintain its edge and attract top talent, even as the industry shifts on its axis.

From physics labs to trading floors

CFM's investment engine isn't driven by traders but rather academics. The majority of recruits join straight out of PhD programs — typically in physics — and learn finance on the job.

The firm has around 100 researchers, and it aims to recruit 15 new doctorates a year.

"We're very good at hiring people with formal scientific backgrounds," Jordan says.

Part of the appeal is the feeling of never having left academia, despite working at a hedge fund. Most hedge funds shun the spotlight, wooing top mathematicians and scientists with the understanding that finance riches is the tradeoff for working in obscurity. Research is treated as state secrets.

Not so at CFM, where researchers, including chairman and chief scientist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, a theoretical physicist, regularly publish academic papers.

CFM isn't alone — firms like DE Shaw and AQR also publish, to name two — and it isn't giving away valuable trading signals, of course. But hundreds of white papers have emerged from its ranks on topics including market microstructure, execution costs, and factor crowding. Researchers normally present their work in weekly seminar-style meetings, much like at a university.

"You can be at CFM, be part of a group solving problems for investors and making money — but they're also publishing and having a life as a researcher," he said.

That blend of intellectual freedom and financial upside is catnip for the PhDs CFM targets.

As CFM has grown in recent years, it has added more experienced hires with a decade or more of domain expertise. Some firms codify culture into rules or "principles" that employees are expected to absorb and emulate.

CFM takes the opposite view: newcomers should respect the firm's collaborative ethos, but they're also expected to inject fresh ideas and entrepreneurial verve.

"Turning people into CFM clones is not a good idea," he said. "We bring those people in because they know things that we don't, and they're exposed to cultures that we're not."

The strategy has been working. Retention remains high, Jordan says, in an industry famous for burnout and churn, with many researchers staying close to a decade. (CFM declined to provide specific attrition figures.)

Increased competition in Paris, a budding quant capital

That doesn't mean recruitment has always been a breeze. In recent years, CFM has had to adapt to an onslaught of new competition as Paris has evolved from a quant-talent exporter into a full-fledged hedge-fund hub. The city has long produced elite mathematical minds — a legacy of its rationalist tradition shaped by figures like René Descartes and the education reforms of Napoleon — but for decades, many of those quants left for New York or London.

That dynamic has changed. Paris has undergone a quiet quant renaissance, with firms like Squarepoint and Qube Research building major presences in the city, and US heavyweights including Point72's Cubist group and Citadel expanding as well. The competition now spans every function — not just investment research but also HR, technology, and operations.

"Having two world-class peers emerge in Paris, created competition across the scope of the firm, which we were not used to," Jordan said. "But that's not bad because it sharpens you up, and it creates a pool of talent also in the city that didn't exist before."

Winning in the long run

No amount of cultural hygiene or philosophical purity matters if a hedge fund doesn't make money.

And CFM has been on a hot streak, with its flagship Stratus fund, now closed to new investors, earning double-digits the past three years. Last month, it returned $2 billion to investors in an effort to preserve performance.

CFM has pulled higher capacity strategies from the "main battleship" into new standalone funds. The Cumulus fund launched two years ago and is closing in on $2 billion in assets.

The understanding at CFM is that this success is a direct result of its philosophies that run counter to industry norms. Could it take a more cutthroat approach and maximize profits? Not without sacrificing performance in the long run.

"We have developed this culture over time and believe it is the best way to advance our understanding of markets and sustainably deliver investment outperformance," Jordan said.

• The UK had assumed trench building and clearing to be quite clean and surgical, an officer who trained Ukrainians said.
• But in Ukraine's fight, they're uneven and full of traps.
• It has led the UK to rethink its own approach to trench warfare, the officer said.

The trenches in Ukraine are too messy and irregular for the UK's classic "tactically safe" trench-taking methods to work well, a British military instructor told Business Insider.

As the UK leads training for Ukrainian troops fighting against Russia's invasion, it’s finding that parts of Western doctrine don’t hold up, prompting changes to its own training.

Key lessons are in trench warfare. Along the front lines in Ukraine are crisscrossing trench networks reminiscent of the earthworks of World War I battlefields. The West hasn't fought a war like this in a long time.

Maj. Maguire, a British military officer who led part of the Operation Interflex training for Ukrainian troops, told Business Insider that in the British mindset, "we arguably had this idea that trenches were all pretty clean and sort of surgical."

Maguire, who spoke to BI on the condition that only his rank and last name be used, said that in the UK's training estate, trenches were built to "British building standards, and with treated wood, gravel bottoms for drainage."

In Ukraine, "that's not true."

For Operation Interflex, where Maguire led a subgroup for Ukrainians who had already seen combat, Ukrainians often dug trenches that were unusual to their Western counterparts and "inconsistent."

They would leave tree roots behind and wouldn't bother wasting time to build it just right.

Trenches are necessary for survival in Ukraine amid relentless artillery fire and deadly drones filling the sky, but digging them leaves troops vulnerable. Taking longer to construct a perfect trench doesn't necessarily make sense on a battlefield where even removing dead bodies from the edge of a dugout can be risky.

A different approach

Ukraine is in a desperate existential fight, which has sparked urgency and innovation not typically seen among its partners. He said Ukraine is "driven by necessity." They are adapting to the demands of this war in real time.

Before Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, British thinking on attacking trenches "was very much about what we might call being tactically safe — things are taken quite slowly."

But the "Ukrainian mindset is very different," Maguire said. "They have to go through these places really fast."

The trenches can be complex, with multiple entry and exit points, as well as booby traps.

Some fundamental assumptions made by Western militaries are gone, Maguire said.

For example, Western troops in recent wars could often count on lifesaving care within the "golden hour." In Ukraine, that assumption isn't valid. Wounded soldiers sometimes have to remain on the battlefield for hours or even days before they can be safely evacuated for treatment. As the West braces for a potential future fight against a well-armed foe, it's recognizing that much of what it has long depended on might not be available.

Trenches full of traps

When the Ukrainians move to capture an enemy position, they know there's "going to be mines and booby traps everywhere."

Ukrainian troops and officials have said that Russia builds fake trenches to tempt Ukrainians into death traps and also leaves behind explosives in areas they depart, including in everyday objects, like refrigerators, toys, and children's books.

Ukraine has also encountered explosive traps on Russian bodies, Maguire said. "A lot of the stories we've got last year are bodies being mined or people surrendering being mined on purpose."

The Ukrainians also create rigged defenses, Maguire said, "be it classic Vietnam mirror style booby traps or mines and fake trenches."

Beyond the traps is just entrenchment on a massive scale.

A difference from classic British doctrine is the relentlessness of Ukraine's entrenchment. British troops are taught to improve defenses and fortify their positions, but Ukrainian forces are ordered to dig wherever they stop — and to keep expanding defenses constantly, Maguire said. It can lead to fatigue and other problems, "but it means that every bit of the line is digging trenches all of the time."

The trench systems are "absolutely massive," nothing on the scale Western militaries have experienced in decades. The West, as a result, is paying attention to the lessons the Ukrainians are bringing back from the battlefield.

Ukraine is teaching the UK

Concerned that Russian aggression could spread elsewhere in Europe, the UK and others in the West are watching the war closely. Britain has drawn numerous lessons from both the effective and ineffective practices it’s seen in Ukraine.

Operation Interflex, led by the UK with support from 13 partner nations, has trained more than 56,000 Ukrainians. Those Ukrainians who have been through the courses have shared valuable feedback that Western forces are eager to receive.

The lessons brought to the UK from Ukraine's trench warfare experience are something Maguire's colleagues have also acknowledged. Two UK military officers told Business Insider last year that the UK, having studied Ukraine's fight, is now putting more emphasis on trench warfare in its own training and that the instruction draws on Ukrainian tactics.

Trench combat is one of multiple areas where Ukrainian soldiers in Operation Interflex actually have more direct experience than the Western troops who are training them, something the UK military is aware of.

Maguire said he would tell everyone on the course that "we're not here to impose our doctrine on you. We're just here to show you different ways of doing things." Ukrainian doctrine would often be adopted into the course.

Col. Boardman, commanding officer for Operation Interflex, previously told Business Insider that this dynamic was seen in the operations' trench warfare training.

Many of the Ukrainians who come to the training "know very well how to clear a trench because they were doing it a few weeks ago" and may reject the Western doctrine, which hasn't always been successful against Russia in this war.

The result of the back-and-forth results in a combination of Ukrainian and NATO doctrine, "and it ends up with the sum being much greater than the parts."