Elevating Everyday: Private Equity Pros Share Transformative Life Hacks

Welcome to the Karma School of Business, a podcast about the private equity industry, business best practices, and real-time trends. This is a very special episode where we compile guest takeaways from one of my most favorite topics on the podcast, life hacks, gizmos, and gadgets.

I'd say cold plunging, but at this point that's become everyone's life hack, but I really do believe in it and I've become a big proponent of it. But one of the things I do is I travel a lot, so I'm always looking for anything that can make travel easier, changing time zones, sleeping in loud, noisy hotel rooms. So one of the things I've done, I actually have a small pillow that I take with me everywhere. I guess it's a little bit like a teddy bear, but it's really comfortable because if you have a bad pillow in a hotel room, overnight it's shot. So I roll it up really small and I can stick it in a carry-on bag, but that's made a huge, huge difference.

I'm clicking buy on Amazon, like as we speak. No, I don't even know if you can buy it on Amazon.

She's got her own website, but it's a phenomenal pillow. It also, you can put it over your head and it drowns out noise. So highly recommend. And then the other thing that I recently learned about, that a lot of people have told me since that they didn't know about either, but you can turn your iPhone into a white noise machine. So I used to travel with a white noise machine too, that used to be, that would have been my life hack, but in the settings accessibility part of the iPhone, you can now just have your own white noise machine.

Those are great. Particularly when I'm, you know, staying in hotels in New York, which are not the quietest places. I'm going to find that feature, and I love your sleep life hacks. I'm going to buy that pillow and then find where I can get that white noise on my phone, because I am in the constant battle, probably like a lot of people in our industry, for sleep. And particularly when you travel, it was interesting, I went down this, like probably a lot of us do, this rabbit hole, like why don't you sleep when you travel?

The only problem, too, is now. I was traveling recently, I ran the Chicago marathon. And so sleep was very important that night before, so I brought the pillow and then I left it in the hotel room. And so now I have this really big fear of leaving this pillow anywhere. It's like the Holy Grail.

You just have to get three of them.

Exactly. Exactly. No, that's true.

Next up, we have Andrew Joy, partner with Hidden Harbor Capital Partners. Andrew shares a life principle that's bound to work. As much as I like gizmos and gadgets, Andrew does a great job of bringing us a foundational maxim.

You're going to hate this answer, but I'm going to say it anyways. I think the more important message, there is so much narrative out there about get rich quick, make life easier, a five hour work week, Hustlers University. Our kids and young adults are just inundated, inundated, inundated with all this stuff in this social media and these advertisements to convince them that there's a hack or there's a shortcut to success. My life hack is just put your nose to the grindstone, work really, really hard, and maybe you'll be successful.

I think that is very well said. I love that answer, because if it weren't for that, I would not have a roof over my head.

I'd say probably the main one that a lot of people will know me for is actually very similar life hack to Mark Zuckerberg. I did not actually know he did this as well until I read about it. after the fact. I hate shopping. I think it's a huge waste of time.

I 100% appreciate that. For mostly that, I'll go to a store once a year and a maybe less amplified version of that. So the socks, I realized, like sorting socks is such a pain in the neck. I can never find the different patterns. And so I would do gold toe for years.

That's my sock.

They're the best. And my dogs will eat my socks too. So they just disappear. So I still have socks on auto delivery from Amazon, but I recently switched to Bombas. And so I think those are my next kind of upgrade.

No, I think the other thing that was important is like, I need to find a shoe. If you're going to wear shoes, they're going to start to degrade. You need to find a shoe where they will repair your whole shoe for free or for a small cost every single time. So there's not a lot of stores that will do that anymore. So I invested in good shoes.

I love it. No, it's just those simple things in life that just make things a little easier. And the shoe's a big one. I used to buy Allen Edmonds for the same reason, just because they would always fix them for you. But then they put metal shanks in there and they would always ding me going through security.

So I stopped there. Oh, wow. Okay.

So I'm like, all right, I'm done with these. Now I'm going to have to figure out. So I might have to get Ferragamo's. That's something I'll add back into my life. I'm going to replicate that.

So that's great.

They're a little expensive, but they're comfortable and you can get them repaired whenever you want forever.

So what about on the technology front? Anything that you're doing there?

Technology front. So I'd say one of the best investments I've made, technology wise, is having two pairs of AirPods. You'd be surprised. A lot of people don't have two pairs of AirPods. They have one pair of AirPods.

Earlier last year, I did have two sets of AirPods. And that's only because I'm the world's hardest person to shop for. So I got a gift of the AirPods for like my birthday, and they weren't the ones that I wanted. So I secretly went and got the other one that I wanted. And then I recently got busted for it.

Very recently, I have this mental quirk where I can't remember something that I don't hand write. Maybe I'm just, I've always been an old man, I don't know. I just can't remember something that I can't, that I don't hand write. But once I hand write it, I almost have a photographic memory about it. And so it's just a weird quirk.

Love it. Game changer. Love it.

Game changer.

How good is your handwriting?

Yeah, it's pretty good. I do find myself, again, being an engineer, I'll erase things that I write because I just don't like the way it looked.

Okay.

As I'm writing, I'll just look at it again.

Just your precision in process.

You're getting to learn about my quirks. I'll write something and say, I just don't like the way that word looks. So I'll erase it and write it over again. But also what it allows me to do is I'll go back after a meeting and I'll sometimes rewrite my notes to better reflect the actual point that was versus sort of my stream of consciousness notes. So it's been really interesting to sort of edit the past, if you will, and create something that gives me a little bit more longevity later on.

I'm going to have to look into that, because I certainly, I similarly like to write things down and I have hundreds of these like moleskin books somewhere. I can never find the notes when I need them. So it's really more about getting it into my head in a more efficient way, but I can never go back.

I started using this other app, Todoist, it's called, which is just a to-do list, to be very honest. And you can put classified, you can put dates to it. I'm probably using 10% of the capabilities of the thing. But again, maybe as an engineer, I like the idea of checking things off.

Satisfaction. Yeah.

There's very much satisfaction. I can check that off and it physically disappears from the things to do.

Next up, we had David Hellyer, partner with Bertram Capital. For you coffee drinkers, this one will change the way you drink coffee at home. This one is deceptively, a game changer.

So one is like the stupidest thing, but I'm like so focused on it. I always put my cream in my coffee cup first, because then I don't have to stir anything. I didn't have to wash a spoon. And I'm like super, more efficient. It's like cream goes in first, then the coffee, it's pre-stirred, you're ready to go.

It's so easy. I never thought of that.

Wait a minute, you had to stop again to do the stir, then you had to throw it away or clean it off. It didn't cause any environment. No stirs were harmed in the making of this coffee.

That is simply and elegantly brilliant.

I figured that one out a little while ago.

That's because it's game changer. Super efficient.

I can get to the end of the coffee line pretty quick.

That is amazing.

Plus, you're reversed too. So like you're hitting the cream and then you're like ready to go.

Yeah. And do you guys use like a Keurig or an espresso, or something like that?

So at home, we're definitely a, you know, build a pot, because, like it's constant. I just want it on demand. Yes. So we're brewing and let it, you know, percolate, and it's always there.

Now the question is, would you take it to even the next level and put it in the pot? Or would that get you in trouble with your significant other? Yeah.

Well, yeah, because she's definitely flavored. I am now an oat milk guy, so I will go half and half sometimes if I'm going to splurge, but you know, you got to leave freedom of choice for the rest of the community. But from an efficiency life hack standpoint, cream goes creamer or flavor goes first.

That's brilliant. I'm going to use it today.

That's embarrassing. I guess we are going to go there.

I love it. You're very atypical in private equity in that you're an influencer, you've got a podcast, you're on a daytime talk show. So clearly a multifaceted person here.

I'm not sure any of those are a benefit at all, but be that as it may, I'll continue to ride the horse that got me in here, for whatever it is that they say.

That's amazing. I'm sure our listeners can find it if they're clever with Google.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't entered the affiliate marketing game just yet. But a couple of months ago, I bought these noise canceling earphones that you see me wearing today. And in many ways, we live probably half our lives on airplanes back and forth. And it's my moment of Zen. You know, you go in, it's loud, you throw these earphones on, you watch a show, you listen to music.

I think that's a spot on one. I was recently given the same as a gift. And what a difference it makes on the kind of the noisy, rackety plane and just adding a little bit more peace, you know, and kind of a chaotic, you know, life and a chaotic experience too.