WSO Podcast | E108: McKinsey to Private Equity from a Non-target School (Part 2 of 2)
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In part 2 of this 2 part chat with Paul, we cover his days working at McKinsey and how he managed to make the difficult transition into private equity as a consultant. We talk all about the private equity recruiting process, imposter syndrome, meditation and how he was able to find balance. In this part 2, Paul has some really great foundational advice for young motivated go-getters, so make sure you stay until the end.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 108) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it in part two of this two part chat with Paul. We cover his days working at McKinsey and how he managed to make the difficult transition into private equity as a consultant. We talk all about the private equity recruiting process, imposter syndrome meditation and how he was able to find balance in this part, too. Paul has some really great foundational advice for young motivated go getters. So make sure you all stay till the end. Enjoy. All right, Paul, so we left off when you had just received your offer at McKinsey or you're just about to start at McKinsey. So why don't we start there? What was what was it like?
Paul: [00:01:05] Yeah. Mckenzie was a great experience. I think it was definitely everything that people had promised in terms of the kind of learning curve that you get working in this kind of industry, super smart people, really interesting. All kinds of backgrounds. You're kind of trained over the next several years to think in a very structured way. That kind of almost like the financial modeling equivalent to banking is like structured thinking and problem solving. Within consulting, you're given way more responsibility than any. Twenty two year old should have autonomy, I feel like. But it's good. You learn a lot and it's challenging to. I mean, you know, you're as someone coming right out of school. Like, maybe you have some internship experience, but you really got to learn how to do this not for 10 weeks, but for years. And how do you sustain that? How do you continue to grow and not be shortsighted? Because I think like a lot of people are constantly coming out of school thinking, OK, what's next? You know, like with all of these stepping stones, I think especially for me and a lot of the students I've talked to over the years, like once you finally got that full time job, it's like, what's next? Mentality, you know, keeps firing and you got to just be president and focused on the projects that you're working on and really trying to get value out of those.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:02:34] So yeah, I always say I don't know how kids stay focused nowadays when they get the investment banking offer or consulting offer, at least the investment bankers right after they get out of training. Private equity recruiting begins for a job that's almost two years away. Yeah. And then even if you imagine if you get that offer, how are you supposed to focus and work and learn as much as you? I mean, I don't know how you can motivate.Its tough.But so, so you you obviously. Well, first off, you went
Paul: [00:03:01] All the way down to Atlanta, right? Yep.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:03] So was that a choice of yours? Tell me about the practice you were in the banking and payments practice and specifically, was that something you chose was something they just push you toward? You had mentioned because of your banking internship experience. That might have been a reason they push you there.
Paul: [00:03:17] Yeah. So so I got pushed towards that group and that was in part based on just networking and kind of the, you know, it's like dropping one of those like coins down that thing that pegs around and you never know where it's going to end up. And that was kind of the group that I landed on. And in a way, I think it was good to to start off in a in a group that I think tapped into a lot of the skills that I had developed out of my banking internship. Because, you know, coming into this role, I think especially from a non target school. One other challenge you can face is feeling like an imposter, you know, like, Oh, I've I've had all these conversations. I've said the right things, and now I just can't get found out for the next few years. And I think coming from a place where I was able to say, No, you know what, I did like this 10 week internship where I was the only analyst. I know I got great training like the the analyst associates at Morgan Stanley that I worked with were genuinely very focused on investing in me over that period. And so like, I came into McKinsey, very confident in my modeling abilities and, you know, felt like, OK, well, there are other people that are able to, you know, maybe problem solve more creatively than I can. But when it comes to modeling, I feel super confident I'm going to really dig in there. And I think that led me to kind of get off on the right foot in a way.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:56] Is it tough, though, because I mean, it's a banking and payments practice that you're dealing with, like a lot of fig,I assume so like assume the financial modeling is different there.
Paul: [00:05:05] Yeah, I mean, we didn't do as much financial modeling. I don't think in the entire time that I was there, I had to build like a DCF or anything like that, right? We did. In some ways, it's a nice combination because you get the real intensive financial modeling, training in banking. And then once you're dangerous and excel, you go to consulting and you'll get all of these random scenarios that require creativity in the way that you build things. And so we were doing a lot of stuff across the value chain in either payments or banking and helping clients think about what markets they should focus on based off of growing volumes and fees and interest rates and all that strategy.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:47] So basically, yeah, but data database strategy?
Paul: [00:05:51] Yeah, exactly. And like I spent a lot of time like one of my favorite projects, I flew over to Europe and this was actually right before I transferred. I was on a project where we were helping build a.Essentially, a global forecast for the entire payment transaction space and all the different revenues and fees and profit pools that would come out of that and basically got, you know, a set of free weekends in Europe out of that trip and tapped into my strengths and really felt like that was that was about like a year, year and a half in. At that point, I I just felt like I was growing in the work that I was doing and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:35] A lot of value for the for the client with that,
Paul: [00:06:38] That type of work. And like, I was starting to get familiar with this type of industry, you know, like a lot of the learning curve starts to level off. And so if at that point you could ask me what the next few years would look like, I would have just been like, Yeah, I'm going to keep growing in this role and probably remain focused on those clients and then probably, like, go to business school. A lot of my path after entering McKinsey is is things that would have surprised me before those decisions, I think.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:09] So what was that first kind of surprise? Is it the transition internally at McKinsey?
Paul: [00:07:14] Yeah, and you know, I think transitioning within firms like depending on the type of work you're doing, at least in my case, it was very light, like it wasn't like I went through this intensive interview process. I mean, I think they kind of count on whoever interviewed you and that whole system to have done a lot of the quality control. A lot of it was fit, you know? So the fact that I had come from first of all, I found out, like a lot of times, McKinsey will reach out internally if there's a role that they're interested in filling. If they think that they can do it internally because it just saves the recruiting process.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:57] Were you actively looking at that point or it sounds like.
Paul: [00:08:00] No, I was. I was. Yeah, I was super happy with my
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:02] Interest in the trip to Europe. Your site, you.
Paul: [00:08:05] It was like, Hey, this email came through. I should this. This sounds interesting. Why don't I click it and see what happens? And then it kind of creeped into it? Well, I can always say no if it doesn't work out or if I'm not interested at the end and so had a bunch of conversations with more and more people in the group. And it sounded like, you know, it sounds like it sounded like those days where you're in the office and investment banking and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:32] You're modeling
Paul: [00:08:33] These mergers. And all of a sudden there are these cogs synergies that you just, you know, assign a percentage to. It's like, well, the companies will figure that out and like this kind of work was promising to like really break into that type of strategies. How do you create value in a merger setting? One thing I really didn't appreciate was just how much, you know, internal plumbing goes on at each of these companies to make organizations run.So I couldn't have predicted that it would have been as interesting as it was, but I was intrigued enough to take the jump and the next year and a half, I ended up spending working on a lot of different merger management type projects where it's like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:18] Post integration. So after an acquisition, you go, where you going? So you're going for specific clients looking at the acquired company, figuring out how to way to get the systems to talk or or transfer over and all that.
Paul: [00:09:31] Yeah, it was kind of a mixture of things because like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:33] The actual implementation or was it more of the strategy around how you should implement
Paul: [00:09:38] Both? And I think you can think of it in different phases. So like so we for one example, one one project I was on, we we were there before close like the client had had hired us before actually closing the acquisition. And then we were helping them think through, OK, how are we going to across all these 16 different divisions that sort of overlap for both companies, but sort of don't perfectly align how we're going to functionally make sure that each of their interdependencies and functions are able to track towards this, you know, operating single entity at close whenever we help them issue the press release and all that stuff. So that was one example. I think there are some more value creation specific focused projects. So like there's another deals on where we would we came in. It was actually post merger, but regulation had lifted that finally let these companies merge. They were they were kind of held separate, even though they'd already gone through the transaction. And once that regulation lifted, McKinsey got brought in and we had to essentially
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:51] Figure out like an antitrust thing that was in review or something like that. Yeah, yeah, OK. Yeah, so can't say that's fine.
Paul: [00:10:59] Yeah, yeah. Once once that lifted, it was basically like, OK, now we have all these groups that we expected to merge. Here is our top down assessment of what each of the synergies could be. But first, we need to figure out, OK. This group has this this many costs associated with each of the different divisions. This other part of the organization has these costs associated with the divisions, and we're going to now form a future state organization who's going to claim what costs. I mean, there's a lot of contention going on in that kind of environment will want controllable costs that don't want uncontrollable costs. You know, there's just a lot that goes on from politics standpoint from these merger projects. Pretty, pretty tough. But you get to see a lot of value created because once you work through that process, you help them understand, OK, who's owning?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:57] What do you feel like there are with the right acquisition? There is a lot of value created because there's a lot of arguments that acquisitions for the sake of acquisition, you know, a lot of them destroy value.
Paul: [00:12:08] Yeah, I think you have to be really strategic and Mackenzie will tell you, you know. You really should hire a consulting firm that can help you do this effectively. I do think it makes a big difference. A lot of the ones that I worked on, the logic was pretty straightforward where the value was. I think a general rule of thumb is it's easier to create cost synergies than revenue synergies, and that's where things can get a lot trickier. A lot of the work that we did was on integration and cost synergies,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:39] Just centralizing destiné.
Paul: [00:12:43] Yeah, there's a lot of fixed costs that you can cut when you when you merge organizations and and you know, sadly, there's a lot of pressure on the headcount side that you can place, and it was just really interesting seeing like the interchange between this model that says, Hey, you should be able to cut 30 percent and then these division heads that were like, Oh my gosh, look,I want to cut 30 percent of these people. And so, you know, a lot of contention, a lot of value that you can create for the merger itself. There's a lot of personalities you're honestly dealing with.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:19] I'm sure there's a lot of contention in politics and everything. I'm sure it's it's very interesting, though. So you were up in Boston for those that year and a half or almost two years. And so that first transition internally was a surprise. In McKinsey, your next jump into private equity was also surprised for you. Were there for almost been there for about four years now?
Paul: [00:13:40] Yeah, so I was there for three years. I think I was like a month under three years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:46] Yeah. So like, when did you start thinking of maybe going by side? Or was it again just a surprise fluke thing that you ended up
Paul: 00:13:52] Taking? Right. So I can't remember if that time I already bought my Jamat prep materials or what? Because I knew, like longer term, I wanted to do an MBA. That was kind of the path that I thought was logical, that a mentor had sort of set for me. And so I figured, Well, I'm getting good experience here. Maybe I'll do an MBA apply next fall or something. And I remember it was probably one of the more intense projects I've been on. It was the winter of August twenty sixteen. It was basically like that that winter right before I was coming up on the summer of my three year mark and I had a project where I was traveling every Monday on the 6:00 a.m. flight to LAX.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:48] So Boston to L.A.,
Paul: [00:14:51] Boston to L.A. you land at 9:30 local time. And then I would drive for an hour to get to the client. And so I mean, it was it was a brutal experience. And then, you know, you trying it out on like a four p.m. flight. And if you can do that, you get back at two a.m. local time. Otherwise, you're confined to the red eye.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:17] So that's on Thursday night.
Paul: [00:15:20] Yeah, yeah, that's on Thursday night. And this was also like just a really intense project. And so I didn't have the same like health issues I did at Morgan Stanley, but my body was run down. I was like, Definitely feeling it. Wrong time to have wine as your hobby, too.It's like I remember just blowing my nose like so much of these sessions stuff and.My I say I say this from partners, because I think like four analysts who are coming into these roles, you know your your personal burn rate is like such an important variable to manage your first few years and just like figuring out what what works for you. And at the time I like, I started to like dabble in meditation and and like other things that I think were just like healthy hygiene habits to be interested in maybe being good in and of themselves, like just helpful things like sustain you while you're trying to like crank on these projects that require a ton of travel. And I have this conversation with my girlfriend at the time, now wife, who basically was like, Look, something is off. This is in like January or February. You're like, rundown all the time, like, I hate seeing you sick, you know, maybe you can deal with this on a daily basis. But like, I don't want to see you feeling sick all the time. So like, something needs to change.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:16:51] And so you're traveling across the country twice a week.
Paul: [00:16:56] And so I remember like coming out of a conversation like, OK, well, maybe i need to switch to some like local projects or just really stand up for myself in terms of like setting a boundary or something. Can you not like I woke up the next morning with a voicemail from a partner at the Private Equity Fund that I went to incite, reaching out because I can't even remember how my resume or contact information had been passed along to him. But he basically one of your
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:32] Five hundred calls or whatever you had done.
Paul: [00:17:35] Yeah, because I wasn't even like proactively looking into private equity at the time.Yeah. But just like a friend of a friend, a friend or something, he reached out, liked my background and insight is an operationally intense. I mean, everyone says that, but you know and say it was founded by former Bain Consultants that came in with the investment thesis. Hey, like a lot of these middle market companies are don't have the tools or the capabilities to really create the kind of value that that we're able to do at Fortune 500 companies. Why don't we bring this to middle market businesses and so they love to hire from mixture of consulting and finance backgrounds? And yeah, I don't know. I hit it off with the partner and I told him I was like, Yeah, you know, I I really like what you guys are doing. This sounds super interesting, but I just. You know, I to be honest with you, I just had a conversation with some people I care about, and I told them I'd be, you know, making better health decisions. And so I just don't think that this is the right time to be recruiting for private equity. But I'd love to stay in touch. And maybe, you know, like six months from now or something, I'd love to like, entertain this conversation. And he was like, Yeah, it's not really the way that we do recruiting, but yeah, let's grab coffee next time you're in town. And I didn't I didn't think anything more of it. At that point, I could genuinely say, OK, this is
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:09] Like, are you in or are you out? Basically?
Paul: [00:19:12] And I was like, I'm like, You realize what?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:14] I just offered you, right? He's like, Are you kidding me? Yeah.
Paul: [00:19:17] And I'm like, I'm out, but you seem great. Let's get coffee. You know when I'm in Dallas.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:23] So why? Why would you turn down a private equity job coming from consulting? And a lot of consultants are trying to make that jump? I know you're at McKinsey, you're at a great place, you're working on interesting projects, but you seem like you were traveling. You were on a really tough with a really tough engagement. Did you see that as? I mean, wouldn't you see that private equity recruiting for, yeah, for a few weeks of pain as a potential way out?
Paul: [00:19:46] Yeah, I sort of I think like it's at that point, I'm almost twenty six. And I think if you like chart this path all the way back to like my sophomore year, I think. Or I guess, to. Yeah, sophomore junior year. Like, a lot of a lot of other things were sacrificed in that time in order to, like, make these career leaps and like, I wouldn't go back and and change things like I feel good about the path that I've taken. But at the time, it was kind of like. And you know what, I. I have been making a lot of sacrifices, and clearly if I'm feeling this bad, then maybe maybe it's time to to focus a little bit less on my career and more on myself.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:36] And then you felt like McKinsey would provide that a good just because you were already there. I wasn't starting a new job variable.
Paul: [00:20:44] You know, I built credibility i the learning curve. I knew there would be a new one in private equity that is kind of like a synthesis of the two. And so it's kind of like, you know, who knows what's what's behind this store, even though this guy sounds great.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:59] And you had had some health issues in the past, so you didn't know what was it really like working there? Yeah.
Paul: [00:21:05] If I hadn't had that conversation with my wife the night before, then I probably would have just said, Yeah, like, I'm interested. Like, Let's see where this goes. Kind of like the past experience, but.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:22] Like the previous six years of your life?
Paul: [00:21:25] Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:26] So, OK, so you have this conversation, you're he seems interested. You say, Well, yeah, maybe in a couple, maybe in six months. So this was like right around February or so.
Paul: [00:21:37] Yeah, this was like end of January. And so you're never in.He's I assume he's in New York.He was in Dallas. So he's
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:45] In Dallas. So you're never in town, in Dallas, are you?
Paul: [00:21:48] So, so that's where I'm from originally. Yeah, I would go back occasionally, but they have a Dallas and New York office. And so I worked in the New York office for three years. So like sort of spoiler to where the story goes, but so. We left said that I was like going to maybe get coffee with him when I'm home, visiting family or something and. All of a sudden middle of February rolls around and they're doing their recruiting, and I've like rolled off my travel project in California, I'm like local and like exercising again, like we've got a good rhythm with work. And I remember getting this email and it's from the VP who is leading recruiting at the time, and he's like, Hey, Paul, this partner passed along your resume and said that you're interested in our recruiting process. Would love to, like, hop on the phone and chat with you about the firm if you want to get involved in this recruiting process. And at that point, I'm kind of like, Huh? Did he just forget or did he just ignore it?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:56] He just ignored, like, this kid can't be serious. He's going to take the job if we just talk to him.
Paul: [00:23:03] Yeah, so very glad that whatever happened there, my resume was passed along. And so the more people like at that point, I was feeling better. I was like, You know, I have kind of shifted back into the mentality of, OK, let's see where this goes, and I can always say no.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:23:22] And at that point, like when you got that call and were you thinking probably makes sense to go rejection recruiters as well to try and get into some other processes.
Paul: [00:23:34] I honestly, I didn't want to just take any private equity role. So I think I kind of like set a threshold for fit at that point that was like super high. And I was like, You know what? I like? I'm living intentionally with my work life integration like never balance, but integration. And I. Felt like, OK, you know what, this firm feels like, it's a good fit for my background. I'm going to see if I like the people. I'm to talk to them.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:06] Are there other firms that you that are kind of look more for the operation operationally minded folk or the strategy consultants?
Paul: [00:24:14] Yeah, there are, I think.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:17] Do you have any off the top of your head besides insight?
Paul: competitors, but yeah, I think that there are a handful of firms like of like wind church is one that I know does hire from kind of a mixture of backgrounds. And this focus, I think you've seen a lot of smaller firms come up like lower middle market firms over the past decade. And you know, you, you Google search operationally intensive private equity and you can find a lot of them with the same tagline. But I would just recommend people like, really look into the backgrounds and bios of the people leading those firms because, you know, you leave like a Wall Street type group or a consulting firm with, like institutional culture. And it really does get heavily shaped by whoever is at the top in these smaller firms. So. Yeah, basically, I made that jump mentally to be like, OK, I'm going to start recruiting. And I was kind of more focused on, you know, angling properly and firing at the right time, then like finding more bullets to shoot at other opportunities. So I remember like, you know, basically employing the same strategy I took when I pivoted from banking and consulting like busted out the resume, I figured out like, OK, how how did these look for private equity? You go to templates, you look at what people are using. You find people who have been in the industry try and get their input
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:05] Or private equity resume template is really more banking heavy. Yeah. Who's doing how to shape the transaction experience all that stuff. But even for I've seen consultants using it and instead of saying client engagements, they'll even call it transaction experience to make it look more like, you know, operate financially.
Paul: [00:26:25] Yeah. You know, it's it's smart. It's smart. Yeah, you definitely know your audience and you tailor it accordingly. But yeah, I mean, mine is just that. Like, I took a banking style resume and I changed select transactional experience to select project experience and just, you know, tried to show a set of of experiences from McKinsey that fit well with this company. You know, like make sure I knew how to talk about the most recent deals and or like mergers that I'd worked on. And yeah, from there, like it just felt really natural. I mean, you know, you have to nail your two minute story, right? There's always that. There's the behavioral questions. You have to be prepared for those and then just brush up on LBO and technicals. But I think like the risk for consultants is to be. Too self-conscious a lot of times about the financials and over prepare in this area, that's not their strength. Like, I'm not telling you you shouldn't know your financial
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:33] Model, LBO modeling and all that good stuff.
Paul: [00:27:36] Yeah, but I think that becomes the focal point for a lot of people preparing out of insecurity when in reality you bring like a very different skill set to the table and to the extent you can effectively talk about that in your story and your behavioral stories that you've come up with. That's where you should really be. I think digging in and anchoring,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:59] I think that really helps. If it's an operationally intensive you fund, you can continually keep framing it as that value that value because they respect it and they they value it, obviously. Basically, they've hired. Yeah. So, yeah, no, I agree. I mean, you want to keep framing it around your strengths, right? Every single one of your answers, if you can bring it back to experience you had and whatnot, I think it's gives you a much better shot. So. So was this the only was insight the only firm you wanted done. So tell me the VP asked if you were interested, you said yes. What was the process like? So how many days later? How many weeks later were you invited in or how long did it take you to get on a call? And when were you made it in for
Paul: [00:28:39] My homework before this call to just looking at a timeline? But roughly roughly, yeah, I think I think we talked sometime in the next couple of days. So we had a good conversation like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:51] He was selling you on the firm a little bit like they really wanted you right from just from your TV.
Paul: [00:28:57] I didn't get that sense. And like having seen the funnel now, like I know that he definitely wasn't selling me. I think we talked over the weekend too. So like, I think he was just trying to get as many of these in as possible. But like what he said struck a chord with me, just based off the firm's background, and I liked that it was a Texas based firm because I could either be in Texas and make that leap or be in New York, which is a city where a lot of my friends were and I could visit home whenever. But so, yeah, I really clicked with just,I think the investment strategy and thesis of the firm like and liked the first two people. I talked to the partner in the VP. And I think recruiting kicked off in the next week or two. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:53] And do you remember how many rounds or how that worked?
Paul: [00:29:56] Yeah. Yeah, it's two rounds. Nothing's normal about this process. So.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:01] And how many? How many associates were they bringing in? Did you know that beforehand?
Paul: [00:30:05] I did not. I had no clue. There's going to be two three. So they ended up hiring two. And usually what happens is like each each first round. Usually, an associate will interview six candidates six to eight. I don't know how many of you squeeze in, but then you kind of like force rank those and narrow it down to your Super Day group. And I think there were like. Eight to 10 of us on Super Day, something like that. And so this again goes to show you just how
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:43] They're still really bad.
Paul: [00:30:44] Yeah, yeah. But I wasn't thinking about it from a probabilistic sense. I was just, you know, going along with this and everything continued to make more and more sense more. I went so. To just again, hammer home, like how human this whole process is. So I happen to be in Dallas for actually, I came here for a funeral or a ceremony or something. I was in town for the week that they were doing the phone interviews. And I remember the associate reached out to me and. Was asking when I was free for a phone interview and I told him, Hey, you know, I'm free, you know, basically whenever, whenever you want to talk. But also I happen to be in Dallas right now, so you know, no pressure at all if you just want to do this over the phone. But I'm happy to meet you if you want to do that. And this was on the Thursday, and the associated was like, OK, great. There's this bar and it is, you know, a mystery. Let's meet up here for a drink or for an interview on Friday afternoon.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:58] So was it a drink or an interview?
Paul: [00:32:03] We had pretzels, cheese dip and we drank beers, and I felt very relaxed all the time, obviously. I mean, it was kind of awkward because like I was in this suit or this, and especially on Fridays, like it's very much consultant environment or culture like people are dressed out a little bit. But yeah, it was a great conversation. It felt more just fit and conversational in nature, I'm sure. Maybe he like. Dug into my background to to a certain extent, I think he like, pulled up my resume on his phone or something, but that was the extent of it and we just had a really good conversation and I came out of that thinking, Wow, if the other associates are like this guy, then. And if the rest of the process is like this and this will be a great experience and. Yeah, I just felt like the stories I was able to talk about from my background really jive well with the kind of work that Insight does with its portfolio companies. And so, yeah, I pulled up, I was like, Well, I think that like, that's the best I could have done. You know, so might as well feel good about it. Sure enough, like a couple of days later, I get invited back for the Super Day and like a week or something, and that's when I was like, OK, now I really need to pull up all my like old financial modeling guides and and stuff. And like, you know,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:32] All the modeling tests, did you do any of those? Get ready?
Paul: [00:33:35] I did. Yeah, I did like a handful of videos and then I did just a couple of like paper.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:44] Yeah, it's tough. And so. Did they test you on that?
Paul: [00:33:49] We did a modeling test. So I felt that that went fine. I'm sure there are some bankers who blew the water in that respect. But I had a little bit of banking experience in my background. Yeah, you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:02] Did. You did so. So there was between eight and 10 of you. A couple of you got offers as you're going through. How many partners? How many of reps did you meet a couple other associates?
Paul: [00:34:12] We met the entire firm, people
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:14] Like 20 20 professionals or so.
Paul: [00:34:16] Yeah, 20 ish everyone, everyone from New York, except for one guy who I think his wife was pregnant, flew in like it was. It was a whole ordeal. Two on ones I want to guess probably did like. Yeah, eight to 10. Two on one interviews and. Yeah, I don't know, it just resonated with the group, and my background was a good fit, which I think like, you know, is something you can't really substitute for, like you can sell like, that's why it's super important to start this stuff early on in your college career is like you can try and sell yourself as much as possible, but if you haven't. Gotten the right experiences that make you a good fit for whatever you're going after, then it's just all an uphill battle
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:03] Because the odds are already stacked against you. You not only have to be good with your IQ, with your with your social cues and intelligence and speaking in the interview and be comfortable based on all the reps you did that helped you. But you also you also just need to have the right background period to even be in the room. So. So tell me, did you know like it was going well as you're going through this? Was there any like curveballs like technical? Like, What's the IRR? Your money doubles in three years? What's the IRR or something like that? Yeah, I. Or was it more like operationally structured? What would you do in this situation? Any sort of cases?
Paul: [00:35:40] There was there was a case. It was it was pretty straightforward. It was more of like reviewing an investment opportunity, giving giving your thoughts
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:52] A little more heavy ish, kind of similar.
Paul: [00:35:56] I think I think it was probably down the fairway so that either either side could lend there or demonstrate their skills. They gave that to us like a couple of days or maybe like the day before. And I don't know. I just remember like going through that process of like studying that, building out like a few quick pages of my own thoughts, which I brought in and apparently, like a lot of people, didn't do that. I've seen a handful of candidates do that over the years now recruiting for insight, like why not go above and beyond with that kind of stuff for an interview? I remember like feeling excited
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:35] Rather than just like a few slides.
Paul: [00:36:38] Yeah, a few slides with like my thoughts on like the positives of of the deal.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:43] You didn't feel like it was to try hard or anything like that and doing that. Were you like handing them out to the two on ones? You wrote a bunch of copies and stuff.
Paul: [00:36:49] I made like a self-deprecating joke about like, you know, I'm a consultant. I love making pages. I think, like, I don't know. I think it struck the right balance where they appreciated the work that had been put in. But yeah, it was, you know, handful of of behavioral questions. Case model. And then, you know, you've got interesting partners at all these different private equity funds. This has changed. So I'm not like spoiling anything for for this partner,But I got asked the question who? Barring religious figures, is the most influential person in human history and why? And. And you have to give your spiel and make your case for who you think that is and like get dug into by the partner.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:48] So brutal.Yeah.
Paul: [00:37:50] So they like to make you think with some of these things. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:54] So the offer come later that day. As you walk out, you shake everyone's hand. There's where was the other offer given to a consultant as well? Or was it to a banker?
Paul: [00:38:05] The other one went to banker. And yeah, I got I got a. I think it was an email later that evening just like, Hey, are you free to chat tomorrow? And I walked out like not feeling like it was in the bag, but I had a good feeling. It was kind of like the first round where it's like, Well, I think I've done as well as I could do here, and I feel good about the result. And so then the next morning, we jumped on the phone and they told me that I was getting the offer, assuming my references checked out and obviously that went fine.And yeah, so I basically.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:44] And so it was for the New York office or how did that get determined?
Paul: [00:38:46] Like, I think that they asked me my preference at some point during the process, and I just said that I wanted New York and my wife's family's in Jersey.
So I just.I knew that if I went back to Dallas, then I'd be in Dallas forever, and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:05] They were
Paul: [00:39:06] Just yet ready.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:08] You're still young.
Paul: [00:39:09] Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:11] Great, so I guess going through this whole process, you made the jump you. Didn't stress out you were in a good place physically, you recruited at one place, you didn't stretch yourself too thin. Do you advise other people to be that almost presumptuous? I won't call it a little bit presumptuous because you're so confident or was it just more like you knew your time would come later if it didn't come, then?
Paul: [00:39:36] Yeah, I definitely was not confident that it was going to work out like as I went into this process. So it wasn't it wasn't like, OK, I'm just going to interview with one private equity fund.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:47] And because you're so confident it's going to happen.
Paul: [00:39:49] Yeah, no. I think like, you know, there's one of the terms that you cover in MBA negotiations. Is Betina the best alternative to negotiate an agreement? And I just I think part of what really was working in my favor for this experience was that I had sort of gotten my footing. I knew that I was in a good place at McKinsey and. I could be patient, you know, like I could wait for the right opportunity to come around when I would go for an experience, it wouldn't be because I felt like the bridge was burning behind me. You know, it's because I'm excited about this opportunity and I'm going to try and put my best foot forward. And so I think like the mindset going in doesn't need to be, Oh, this job's going to work out, but I think you should at least have a signal going off in your head like what the intention is behind, not a panic signal. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:49] Yeah. And I think it definitely helps with your mindset going in. If you can be just super calm, just really be excited. Like you said, going in to just almost look at the interview process like, Oh, this case, so interesting, you really just go into it with intellectual curiosity.Yeah, it's like it opens up your brain to not be so panicked. Only am I delivering the right answer,And that comes across as confidence, so I think it can help.Question McKenzie,Your Bertino is great. You're at an incredible consulting firm. Did you feel like there was room there to get promoted, continue to stay on? And is that very common? I know. Or you felt like business school would have been in the cards, say to the following year? Yeah, I think so.
Paul: [00:41:33] I definitely felt like there was room for growth. However, I think the calculus is very different for someone coming from a Yale that is in my role at McKinsey versus someone coming from a less well-known school. Again, like Wheaton was a great experience, a great academics like professors, you know, amazing in terms of how much they invest into you. However, when people make snap second judgments about who you are based off of the brands that you have on your LinkedIn and your resume and whatnot, there's a lot more value to going and getting a really great MBA experience. And I. I think that was very palpable for me, especially, you know, I mentioned earlier kind of the risk of feeling like this imposter syndrome coming from a non-target school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:25] Why did I get a target on your résumé, basically?
Paul: [00:42:28] Yeah, exactly. And you know, I'll say this. I think I think the more brands, that's not necessarily the solution to the to dealing with imposter syndrome. If that's something you have like, I think really digging into the work and continuing to feel more confident in what you're producing is ultimately going to be the way that you. You do that, but for me, it's sort of like, yeah, I want to go get. And so I knew I believe in the firm, whether it be three years, four years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:02] It. Ok, fair enough. So you get the offer. Do you mind talking about, I guess, let's go to like pay from when you started at McKinsey, do you mind giving a range in terms of like bonuses or stuff like that? It doesn't have to be exact. And then I assume it was a pretty big pay jump going to to, but maybe I'm wrong.
Paul: [00:43:23] Yeah, I think I think regardless of where you go from your first consulting role, you should probably get a pretty big pay bump because you're not getting the brand compensation anymore. You're not getting the growth opportunities or optionality as much anymore. But yeah, I think just loosely, I will say. Somewhere in the range of 70 to call it 50 to 100 percent just to be super vague, you're
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:03] For the bonus on the McKinsey's.
Paul: [00:44:06] Oh no, I'm saying just in terms of like the jump in in total.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:10] Oh, the jump in total comp. Yeah, yeah, OK. That makes sense. Which is a big jump. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Paul: [00:44:16] And that definitely felt palpable and like it almost felt more representative of the type of opportunity that I was getting, you know, more than the pay bump. Like at the time, I was a guy who's like, you know, single, I guess, dating my wife at the time, but like no major expenses in my life. So it's all kind of gravy after a certain point that just wasn't really a huge motivator, but it did feel like, Oh wow, like this signals.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:47] Did you treat yourself at all to anything when you got the offer a nice dinner with your future wife or.
Paul: [00:44:53] I did go on a trip to Napa Valley with Buddy. My my wife was busy working, so she missed out on that. But I went with some friends to California to celebrate.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:06] Very fun, very fun. And so once you started, what was the transition like going from McKinsey to a PR firm? Was it was it relatively smooth because of your previous work or was was there a little bit more of a learning curve than you expected in terms of like handling all the due diligence and managing those teams?
Paul: [00:45:25] Yeah, so so InSight's pretty special in that the role is really split 50 50 between working on deals and working on portfolio company stuff. And that might vary in a given month, but you know, it'll average out over the course of a year or over a two to three year experience. And I felt like. I felt like I was very well equipped to find ways to help out at the portfolio companies to work well with the management teams. A lot of the value that I think I was able to add over my two to three years, there was stuff that didn't necessarily get asked of me, but things that I figured out could be valuable to the poor codes.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:46:13] You mean specifically?
Paul: [00:46:15] Yeah, exactly. And and I think like, you know, that kind of work is a really helpful way to, I think, differentiate yourself at a younger stage in your career because like deals essentially are, you know, they're not commodities, but they all have the same different milestones, benchmarks and their metric size. So there's a little bit of difference there. But I think if you're able to find really meaningful ways to impact a portfolio company and shift their EBITDA like that's I think that's pretty special. I did have, you know, I definitely had the brush, first of all, brush up on the modeling stuff I had done in banking. And then I would say, you know, the first year, year to year and a half was like kind of learning stuff from a lot of my peers, like really great other associates that kind of helped me fill in the gaps where I didn't know stuff. And I think mentally there is a shift kind of around that year, year and a half mark where instead of instead of asking like, oh, like, I wonder what the right way to do this is and being concerned that you're not going to do it the right way, you kind of have those fundamentals down and there's a shift to like, OK, how do I build this out in Excel?And how do I think of this creative way to toggle this or display this and kind of get over the hump of worrying about doing things wrong and are more like thinking about, OK, how do I do this creatively in a way that's going to be a useful?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:52] Yeah, that's really cool. So did you feel like you knew you were still going to go to business school?You knew. Yeah, at some point.And so tell me a little bit about that thought process because it's not a. I mean, I'm not sure if Insight allows you to stay on is that it considered a to an out program and then potentially come back
Paul: [00:48:12] Two or three and end out with some people getting offers to come back after business school expectation is VP and above have MBAs.That's, you know, obviously not the case at all PE funds, but just, I think given these insight, that's important to them. And so I came in and it's, you know, you can get a third year promotion if you do well, your first couple of years. So I came in kind of like, Wow, this is a huge opportunity. I don't like, I say all this stuff and kind of cushion it in retrospect. But you know, a huge part of me is like, Man, am I going to be able to do the modeling that's required to be successful in this role? Of course, Gary. Yeah, I was I was super intimidated. And I think like, you know you, you get the hang of this other role. Like, I was just feeling like, you know, super comfortable in my in my skin at McKinsey and which takes a lot longer in consulting because you're always getting thrown into new projects, I feel like. But so I was kind of like, Well, I'm going to hold on for two years, like, this is going to be a ride, I'm going to learn a ton. And like, you know, hopefully I don't screw things up and I'm going to figure out a way to. To make it through this, that was sort of my mentality going in so very much from like a intimidated but like super interested by the kind of work that they were doing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:43] Did you know kind of going into this that it was extremely competitive to get a private equity role? Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. You kind of had it the perspective of like appreciating what was in front of you and how how desired it was.
Paul: [00:49:57] Yeah. And so it was kind of know I'm going to do whatever it takes to. You do a good job for these two years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:04] What about work life, though? You said you were worried about health or at least some people close to you were worried about health. Tell me about that.
Paul: [00:50:10] Yeah. So I think I just sort of set out to to to do things that kind of kept my sanity. So like my first year of P.E., I did a lot of running and like basically every day would incite was great. And it's not a heavy face time culture because you're traveling so much like if you're not in the office, it's assumed that you're at a portfolio company or out of the management presentation. So you're given a lot of autonomy, and I think it allows you to if you're proactive about it, integrate things that you need to be doing, like healthy habits for me. Like I'd get a three mile run in pretty much every day, and I felt like that really helped. But still, it was really like that first year and a half that I was just kind of like, I'm like learning what happens in this situation, you know, like, I'll figure it out and hopefully I don't screw things up.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:10] You did better than me. I got fired within six months of my first gig.
Paul: [00:51:13] Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, the best it worked out.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:20] It worked out. But yeah, you never know. Sometimes you don't know what you're walking into. Sometimes you're naive. As I was
twenty four at the time I was, I was a baby.
Paul: [00:51:29] Yeah, yeah. So I was like, You know, I think that imposter syndrome kind of carried with me and was like, Oh man,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:38] This non-target BS man is the thing is like, you'd already proven yourself at some top consulting firm. You still had it.
Paul: [00:51:46] And I think I think I like had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder that that after having done the investment banking experience like in a way, I felt like I had gotten an incredible internship because I was like, the one analyst, right? So like anything that has to get done during that 10 weeks that they want to dump, like came to me, I feel like I grew a ton. But at the same time, I would always in the back of my mind, I was like, Well, am I going to get really sick? And you know, this all fall apart, right? So it's sort of like, OK, let's let's hang on, let's do these two years and just get into a good school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:24] Was that was the fear of health more around you were kind of getting you got sick with the internship. You're getting pretty sick at McKinsey, with the tough, with the tough project, with the flights and maybe the weather for a while there. Was it more like fear of the pneumonia coming back? Is that something that that can that can happen? Or what was the thought process there? Or was it just like
Paul: [00:52:44] I had like a recurring sinus infections every few months, probably like the first half of my 20s? Like, you know, it turns out that drinking less is correlated with getting less sinus infections that was working out. You know, like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:02] You were drinking pretty heavily throughout your like early finance date or consulting.
Paul: [00:53:06] You know, like it wasn't even that it was just that like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:12] I don't know, like a glass of wine. Not a big deal, but you just it wasn't good for you.
Paul: [00:53:16] Yeah, I think I think it just like sticks
to me in a way it doesn't to most people like, I inherited that from my mom and I didn't like accept it. I think a little bit later, like beers is like much less of a challenge for me. But like,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:31] I just go on the opposite. I love beer, but like, it does not sit well with me at all. I can drink more.
Paul: [00:53:39] Yeah, so like a huge part of your twenties, it's just like, you know, figuring out how your body works and managing whatever. Drink any scotch. I do that is great and it is pretty hard the next day for me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:52] Yeah. Well, you don't need too much. I mean,
Paul: [00:53:54] Yeah,Yeah, I've I've cut
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:53:57] Way back. And so I had a had a drink a couple of nights ago with my wife, and I remember it was just like, Wow, I was like, I am definitely 40 now. I turned 40 about a month ago, so I have like I can feel it and I threw out my back.I'm just an old man.Yeah, so OK. So you're kind of getting through this.You're like business school.I just got to get through a couple of years. So tell me about the whole business school application process while you're trying to take the GMAT, what was that like trying to balance all this and then we'll wrap it up.
Paul: [00:54:28] I took the GMAT to the gym as I was wrapping up McKinsey. I just kind of knew like, Hey, I don't want to be focused on this while insight and I feel like there's a law of the universe that whenever you're applying to get a weekend of GMAT prep in a deal is going to come up that blows up your weekend. So like I've seen a number of associates that just completely get derailed from their prep because it's so tough to juggle with. So I was fortunate enough to like not have that issue. It was more like, how do I write good essays? How do I get good recommendations? And the same process, like talk to people who went to Wharton, for example, I could talk to people who have thoughts on how to write your essays, how to tailor your resume. I didn't hire a consultant. I, I called my wife, my consultant, and she had a lot of good input. I do think that's a good investment. If you're in a place to pay for that, you just think about the incremental difference that could have
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:38] For it can make the difference between getting it and not. I didn't use one either, but I did have some friends that were at HBS that were incredible writers and help me.
Paul: [00:55:47] You just you. You tap into your network and people are super helpful. So I remember going through that process. And yeah, fast forward to, I guess it's December and I got into Wharton is super excited. And I over the next couple of months started to make that mental transition of, OK,I think things have gone well here. The conversation about opportunity to return doesn't usually come until the very end.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:21] Is that something you definitely wanted?
Paul: [00:56:23] Yeah, I really liked Insight and and so, you know, I was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:29] Well, because some people see like business school as a way to explore other avenues. Other people are like, they definitely want that post MBA private equity seat and it's just a function of, you know. Almost being forced to go get it, but also they like the brake, the brakes nice too.
Paul: [00:56:45] Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I think for me, just kind of seeing the BP role at Insight, it's kind of this quarterback type role where you're working on deals. Managing portfolio company projects. It just seemed like a cool next step if that was something that would be an option. And. Yeah, so, so anyways, that was sort of in the back of my mind like, OK, I need to finish well just to see what happens in like May or June.
and then part of me was getting crushed by, you know, a couple of tough deals that were popping up. And I just started to feel like run down again and like frustrated. And I remember buying Headspace account over Christmas, and I was like, You know what? I'm tired of just feeling stressed all the time. Like, I'm going to I'm going to try and like, go a little bit deeper into this. So I started meditating probably for like 10 minutes a day, and I started to feel way less stress, like noticing noticeable difference. And I was like, Great. I'm like, not stressed at work now. I like, why don't I see what 20 minutes can do? So it's sort of like competitive person's mentality with this new
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:08] Tool being the meditation. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You get a 20 minutes. You feel even better.
Paul: [00:58:13] Yeah, at 20 minutes. Genuinely, I started to feel like, Oh wow, I. I am now more engaged in this like management presentation about, you know, metal tubes than I was before. I think you. It sort of helped me get past a lot of my self-talk in my head and just focus on what was at hand, and I felt like a lot of creativity starting to come out of that. And finally, I and this is as things are getting more and more stressful. And finally, I'm like, You know what? I am about to leave inside. I have all this PTO that I've never used because nobody ever uses PTO. And if they really mean it, when they assign me all this PTO, then I'm going to take it and I'm going to do this meditation retreat for 10 days in April. And like, if they're upset about it, they shouldn't have given me the PTO. And that was sort of my mentality. And so the next month, it's all of this effort to make sure that things seamlessly are on pause for the ten days that I'm gone and. I did this retreat and kidnapped is like it's called Vipassana. I don't know if you've heard of it, but where is it? So there are centers all over the U.S. I think this is just going to continue to explode in popularity.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:43] But it's how do you spell it?
Paul: [00:59:46] Vip? A US as a and A. The passenger,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:52] The passenger got it.
Paul: [00:59:54] It means it's translated to see things as they are so very dramatic introduction. But basically it was like meditating for 14 hours a day, 15 hours a day. So you know, you hear about bankers talking about 16 hour days or whatever. This was like, you know, no reading, no writing, no talking, no eye contact and no dinner. You're fasting in the evening and from start to finish, you essentially focus on your breathing and then you're like, You're influx, like, I'm inflexible sitting there. One of the exercises, like focusing on the pain in your body and a lot of like what the retreat is about is like learning how to focus, learning how to be fully present and then learning how to accept where you are. And so I came out of this retreat and I was like, Wow, this is great. I'm really enjoying where I am at insight. And the next few weeks, I felt like so dialed into work and enjoying the kind of work that I was producing. I ended up deciding to not defer because I missed the deferral deadline for Morton, but I unenrolled from Wharton and decided to take a third year at Insight. And figured, you know what, if if I can do this third year, then. I don't have to leave for business school feeling like this potential imposter who just got through this two years. I can really make something of this third year and go into business school feeling confident, and the next year ended up being kind of all over the place in terms of the deals we worked on and stuff, but I'm super glad that I decided to stay. I was fortunate enough for Wharton to readmit me next year, although the the invite to interviews went into my spam folder and so I had this existential crisis the day the interview invitations went out like, You know, what have I done? Why did I turn this down? But, yeah, essentially I spent a third year insight and really was able to kind of come into my own and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:02:18] Really more about the meditation, you know, my dad was a cardiologist for 30 years. He's now in clinical hypnosis. He helps people with meditation and self hypnosis to help with pain and phobias and all that stuff. I think it's an important topic that doesn't get spoken about too much on the forum. So tell me about like those 10 days in, like you literally didn't talk to anybody or was there like in the morning you could call friends and family and then everything put away.Like, What? What was it like?Like, are you going to in a facility? Where are you?
Paul: [01:02:49] Yeah. So I did this in Texas.This was out on a ranch like, it's beautiful. I've heard that in some, like the northeast facilities there, like the retreat centers there, people share rooms. It's like hard to get good sleep. But I have my own room in Texas is great. And yeah, you don't. You don't talk all day. I mean, there there's instruction during the meditation session. So you're like being told, Hey, focus on the air coming in and out of your nostrils and like now focus on your body, that sort of thing. But you only get two minutes a day to like, have a conversation with a teacher if you want to like, ask questions, basically. I felt like such an idiot on like the second day when I'm like, What have I done and why did I burn all my PTO on this? This sucks like. And it wasn't even on board. It was like, I'm my body is in so much pain from sitting this way, you know, for 14 hours a day.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:03:55] When did you feel like you were better, like day three or four or five?
Paul: [01:03:59] So I like to say the first, like three to four days of this experience was like one of the worst three or four days of my life. And then the fifth through tenth day were one of the most rewarding phases of my life. You know, you shift from the first four days, like, could you not? You're just focused on the air coming in and out of your nose like that, is it? And the more that you graduate, the more is your
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:04:29] Mind still spinning a little bit. It's hard to calm it like.
Paul: [01:04:32] Yeah. And by like the third or fourth day, you start to get the hang of it and then you are like super dialed in by the fourth day. Like, you're able to focus on this little area right here. Is any little sensations coming your way? I was like lost the superpower since the retreat. People do, like, continue to meditate for an hour or two hours a day after these things. I try to keep up my practice, but definitely not that good. But you're like dialed in by the fourth day. Yeah. And. And then all of a sudden, once you have this heightened focus, they have you shift your attention. So now you've got this giant magnifying glass and they tell you a point that you basically scan your body and the goal is simply to remain at peace with whatever sensations you're feeling and you're sitting in like cross legged position for like hours like that hurts like your hips are killing you.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:05:29] I might actually die.
Paul: [01:05:31] Yeah, I'm too
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:05:34] Much back pain and hip pain, and I would be like in excruciating pain.
Paul: [01:05:38] Yeah. So the whole idea of days four through 10, and if I had known this beforehand, I don't know that I would have signed up for it. But the goal is to observe your pain
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:05:49] And to be OK with it.
Paul: [01:05:52] Yeah, exactly. And. Kind of rewire your brain through that experience. So I don't know if that would
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:06:01] Be a pretty dramatic difference, I mean, you made some pretty big decisions right after that.
Paul: [01:06:06] Yeah, I think I probably had way more clarity in a moment than I did now. Like, kind of like a normal human life, but I still try and meditate if I can every day. But yeah, like it really made a difference. I think it really made me. Think about not necessarily, OK, what's the next thing, like what's the next thing that can be done, but. Ok. You know what I really need out of this moment, what's worth focusing on, and for me, it was like, Well, I've got this great job, and I think that if I spend the next year here, I'll really grow a lot and super glad I did. I mean, it ended up becoming this meaningful senior associate role. I'm super obviously coming from a non-target school, super passionate about recruiting and got to be involved in helping run the recruiting for our associates for the next class and got involved in like the training for them. And so, yeah, just ended up being a really rewarding year and got the VP offer
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:08] Congrats
Paul: [01:07:09] And and am planning to go back after business school.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:07:14] So congrats. Yeah. So not surprising, though, based on your past. So tell me a little bit about before we wrap it up. Looking back, besides meditation, what else would you recommend to the young young folk kind of coming up kids in undergrad and on targets, targeted schools? Just looking back at your experiences there, what would you say? Yeah. Such a there's a lot, but like, you know, if you can just listen.
Paul: [01:07:40] Yeah, I think. Maybe starting from just kind of the typical. Um, you know, career development side of things, I do really think that the the law of Compounding has an effect with career experience too, like the earlier that you can be starting with this stuff and the sooner that you can be building experience, the more that's just going to continue to generate returns over time. So I think starting early is a huge part of this.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:08:11] Not the not the advice of it'll take care of itself.A lot of you know, yeah, OK. I agree with that.I agree with that.
Paul: [01:08:20] Nowadays, I think appreciating the value of of brands and really understanding how human people's assessments of you can be and how imperfect they can be. You know, I can't tell you the number of people at McKinsey who just assumed that I was going to be a really competent, diligent modeler because of the investment banking experience that I had kind of as a branding for me. And then, you know, in in private equity, because of the McKinsey brand, people assumed, Oh, this guy will be able to add value at portfolio companies without literally knowing anything else about me, right? So I think just appreciating the value that brands can have and continue to generate is really important, especially early on.You know, I will say one of the pieces of advice in that first talk as a sophomore that I got that's kind of stuck with me. The mentor had us, we're all sitting there and he says, you guys are all 19, 20 years old. I want you to think back to when you were 12 and think about the way that you viewed the world. You know your mindset mentality. You got it. Good, OK, the next eight years until you become twenty seven, twenty eight, you're going to have nearly as much change as you did from age 12 to age 20. So do you really want to assume that this version of yourself knows what you want to do for the rest of your life and lock in career decisions? That would be crazy? Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:02] And so like because at 19 20, you assume you know everything.
Paul: [01:10:06] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I'm on the other side of that now, you know, about to turn 30. And it's true. Like, I really do feel like I've changed so much since then.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:10:18] And it's now no worry. It slows down.
Paul: [01:10:23] Yeah. But yeah, so I think really, you know, taking your. You know, your career development is something that can change over time and not assuming that, you know, is a 20 year old what you want to do, but rather thinking about the kinds of skills you can build, kind of options you can create for yourself so that over your twenties, you can figure out who you are and your thirties can really be guided towards what you want to be doing. I mean. But I don't know. Maybe that time frame changes,But that's kind of the general sentiment in terms of career development. I think for more of like a personal standpoint, I just I think it's really easy to feel imposter syndrome or just feel like. You know, you'll be found out that you shouldn't be in these types of roles, and I think. You go through recruiting processes to get into these experiences, if you are constantly looking for a reason that you're not going to belong. Then you'll find it. That's that can't be your mentality. You really need to be drawing deeply from the strengths that you have like. In my case, I knew that I had done this investment banking internship, and I knew that I could push through to that level and make it through, even though I still have these doubts. And so I think know really working on. Your own self confidence and not just assuming that you need to macho American power through mentality, but but really, you know, take take yourself seriously and your health seriously too. I mean, I think a lot of people that go into these roles don't have the same volatility that I did. But still, like, you know, the amount that you sleep does make a difference. The amount that you exercise makes a huge impact. There are tools like meditation that can really help. You know, I think burnout is going to be a really has become a huge part of this generation, and I think that's probably not going to change. So being strategic about keeping good habits is not just like a necessity for yourself. You can think of it as an edge if that's the mentality you want to take. So. Yeah, I'll stop my monologue, but I just I do think that there's a lot of like personal stuff that can get neglected in these roles that. Not only can make life tougher, but it really does keep you back sometimes from doing your best work at work, you know?For sure. Couldn't agree more.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:13:04] I think, Paul, it's been a real pleasure to have you on the podcast. Is this true? It's turned into a two part series because I loved what you were saying so, so much.So thanks again for spending so much time with me and with fun. And hopefully, maybe, maybe in a few years once your partner will have you back. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street, Oasis, if you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way.Patrick at Wall Street, Oasis Dotcom and till next time.
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