Hey all,
Happy Sunday!
I’m not going to lie to you: the quality of my life is directly correlated to the quality of my work.
I get questions from founders in the Knight Vision portfolio about how to balance it all.
Every day, I’m balancing servicing unicorn startups in the Knight Vision portfolio with my personal life. Friends, family, workouts, museum hopping, concerts.
If work is bad, life is bad.
If life is bad, work is bad.
I don’t want either of those things to happen.
For that reason, I have found a few (awesome) things I’m obsessed with that make it all great.
Today’s newsletter will cover THE list of obsessions that:
10x my work life
Make me totally happy + at peace in my personal life
Add fun into the mix
Get everything to work together
If you want to read something more tactical, check out last week’s newsletter on how to build an epic UGC program.
Let’s get into it.
WORK LIFE:
I am adding work into this list first because (truthfully) if work is not going well, it’s very hard for me to be happy overall.
I know that’s not the sexiest thing to say, but I know it’s true for so many of my readers, too.
Where I’ve put in so much work over the last year, specifically, is how to work through challenging points at work. I’m calmer, more collected, and get through rough points in under 2 days now. This took an incredible amount of work to shrink this time from what used to be 1+ week.
Now, I don’t have that kind of time and have to keep it moving. So I forced myself to learn how.
And in all of that, have curated a list of obsessions that make everything run smoothly.
My work life is 10x better because of these obsessions:
My Executive Assistant, Ilya:
Ilya is based in Mexico, and her entire job is to make sure everything gets done, and I do all the things I need to do.
Every single day I wake up with a text from her of exactly what I need to do that day. She tracks everything on Linear across KV, personal life, and meetings.
If there is more than one task for a KV portfolio company, they will get their own section that day (e.g. LIGHTFIELD: Make sure UGC coordinator finishes scripts + meet with Matt)
Example of what I wake up to every day, thanks to Ilya
Linear
Everything gets ticketed – whether it's responding to a list of emails in my inbox, booking flights to lecture at UW Madison, getting birthday presents for friends….it all gets a ticket
Wired headphones
They don’t need to be charged, and I don’t lose them. Plus they are $20 from Apple
Jake (KV’s Growth Partner)
Jake leads our growth builds at KV (and through that, now works with so many of you reading here!).
Positive mindset
This comes from the energy of the people you’re surrounded by.
Picking the people I get to work with
I worked with plenty of people who weren’t it, weren’t excellent, or just weren’t my people. That stretch is a price you have to pay.
Building your own team is a real milestone. It means you’ve earned the right to choose.
Now, everyone I work with through KV, and everyone we deploy into our portfolio companies, is truly level-10 at what they do. Hardcore operators. Tried and tested. We’ve built together for years.
They’re sharp, accountable, low-ego, and insanely good. And even better: they’re reallll friends (“Alexa, play “Real Love Baby”).
Software Rotation:
beehiiv (newsletter, website, digital products, email list)
Lightfield CRM (best CRM ever + incredibly good at notetaking)
LinkedIn
Spotify
Claude
Perplexity
Gamma (insane for presentations)
Grammarly
Notion (KV hub lives here)
Slack
Granola (tbh, getting replaced w Lightfield)
PERSONAL LIFE:
The ideal state I want to be in when I’m hanging in my personal life is CHILLING.
I aspire to just be so chill and relaxed. I want to run around in amazing outfits at night and workout clothes during the day. I love skiing and being with friends.
You can always find me by the ocean when I’m home in Florida.
Going to concerts is everything.
Here’s a list of my obsessions rn:
Health:
Pilates by Izzy: My best friend Becca showed me this free YouTuber and I can’t stop doing her workouts
“Legs up the wall”
I sit with my legs up the wall for a minimum of 15 minutes every single night, and it makes me feel incredible
Expert level decompression and you’ll sleep amazingly
Blackout sleep mask
I think I’m addicted to these, but you’ll sleep so well
Nutrafol: Pretty sure my hair is 10x more amazing because of it
My gym is the best thing ever. It’s 4 people x 1 trainer. I’m an ex-athlete (Equestrian and skiing), and I’ve never been stronger and less injury-prone.
I got to the UES location, but they have locations in Williamsburg and Flatiron
Skin Script face wash literally changed my skin (and is so affordable at $30)
Builder gel: My nail tech has a full-time job at Anduril (on brand) and does my builder gel every 3 weeks
Fun:
Morgan Museum: I went in NYC a few weeks ago with my good friend Arthur and we had the best time.
Since then, I’ve taken on the challenge of listening to “House of Morgan” on Libby. It’s 34 hours long, and I’m ~10 hours into it.
Huge pieces of interesting art: I love looking at art all around my apartment
Concerts:
I went to 15+ shows last year.
Can’t wait to see Chris Stapleton this year!
Horses:
They are like big dogs, but smarter. Hanging out with a horse has a 99.9% chance of making you happier.
The Real Real
I have to limit myself but it’s a very gamified way to shop and find cool things. I like the curation of the site too, you can really find anything
EBTH.com: very fun to hunt for on stuff here (luxury auction online store) like art, jewelry, home decor
Le Specialità: Amazing Italian restaurant in Miami’s design district. The decor, food and vibes are amazing — everyone here is happy and enjoying themselves and their families!
Media:
THIS Spotify playlist has all my favorite songs rn (I made it just for you)
New iPhone: I love it, but i have the Max size, and I think my pinky finger is messed up from how heavy it is
Movie theater: Soho House has a comfy movie theater that I go to at least once a week. I love documentaries, foreign films, dramas, and thrillers.
Bridgerton: obsessed with this season + just started the video podcast with the show runners on Netflix (love this offering bc to get even more invested in the show)
Apple TV: Has the best TV shows of any streaming platform, you can’t convince me otherwise
Landman on Paramount
Pinterest: My entire life is mood-boarded (and my Pinterest used to get 150K views/month as a totally anonymous account lol)
I love Western style
One of the best additions to my life in the past few months was making a list of all the interesting things in NYC I want to do and (what really helps) actually doing them.
For example, I spent my birthday in early January with my friend at the Natural History Museum on the UWS, standing under dinosaur fossils. 10/10 would recommend.
Art shows, museums, concerts, restaurants, parks, pop-ups – I do something from this list every single week and it makes life more fun and full.
Well, How’d I Do?
I know, I know. A bit of a different newsletter from my typical marketing builds.
I just can’t get over how happy I am these days.
This is everything I’m doing that contributes to it.
The quality of your obsessions determines the quality of your life.
LET’S BE OBSESSED WITH THE RIGHT THINGS!!!
Special shoutout to all of you. I’m obsessed with you & so lucky to get to connect with YOU every single Sunday.
I hope you pick one thing to feel grateful for this week across work x life. Reply and let me know what it is!
Julia
