Wall Street's hacks and habits to stay on top of its game

• Wall Street's top performers are hard workers who tend to work long, intense hours.
• Business Insider asked its 2024 class of Wall Street stars about how they stay mentally sharp.
• Here's how finance professionals are unwinding and staying grounded.

Call it superstitious, but Mark Zhu, a 34-year-old managing director at Blackstone, likes to start every day the same way. He has two Trader Joe's yogurt cups, one banana-flavored and one blueberry-flavored, eaten in the same order, followed by his supplements, which also have their specific sequence.

"Those are just examples of how I bring a level of consistency and sequencing to my life," he said. "Because you know the moment after 9 o'clock, the days can get chaotic."

Similarly, the 90 minutes between 5:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. are precious to Craig Kolwicz.

The Moelis investment banker uses that time to put himself in control for the rest of the day, whether by going to the gym, meditating, or reading a book.

"You're not getting pulled in all different directions with your deals, your transactions, or just things in life," said the 35-year-old managing director.

"It's sacred time to me — anything before 7 a.m. is my time."

It's no secret that working on Wall Street is demanding. Finance giants from Blackstone to Goldman Sachs attract some of the brightest and most driven people, and to climb the ranks is no easy feat.

When we asked top up-and-comers on Wall Street about the habits or routines they followed to keep themselves mentally sharp, no one mentioned cold plunges, 10-step facial rituals, or biohacking trends that tout themselves as life hacks that instantly make you more attractive, healthier, smarter, and more balanced.

Most of these high performers featured on Business Insider's 2024 list of rising stars of Wall Street are spending time with their families, keeping physically and mentally healthy with reasonable workout and sleep routines, and finding opportunities to recharge.

Here's what we learned about the hacks, habits, and routines that help top talent on Wall Street stay on their game.

Morning routines

Chicago-based Bank of America investment banker Corey White is another early riser. He relies on his Apple watch to wake him up gently, with a little vibration at 5 a.m. The 35-year-old works out. He's partial to weight lifting but recently took up running thanks to his twin brother, who works in private equity. He sends his kids off to school and listens to a podcast on an hour-long commute into the office.

"My mornings are super important to me to have a nice, kind of slow start to the day. And I found it's regulating," he told BI. The routine helps him stay present with his home life as well as work, he added.

Nina Gnedin, a San Francisco-based portfolio manager from Man Group, starts her day at 4:30 a.m. because she works East Coast market hours.

"I wake up. I do my face. I do my skincare. I brush my teeth. I drink my double shot of espresso. I do all my morning work rituals, where I check the trades. I check on the portfolios around 7, 7:30. I get coffee again."

Her "very regimented" workday ends at 3 p.m., which allows her to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. "There's no day of the year where the sun's down when I'm done with work," she said.

Productivity hacks and habits

Bridgewater Associates deputy chief investment officer Blake Cecil likes to push himself (and his team) to meet deadlines that might be arbitrary on paper but give him a mental goal to chase.

The 32-year-old overpromises on projects intentionally to " trick" himself into working more efficiently and diligently. One example is he will ask his team and himself this hypothetical: "Let's imagine we had to deliver this in 24 hours — how would we do that?"

Often, this leads to creative and innovative work, he told BI.

BlackRock's Chi Chen, 34, winds down her weekends with a Sunday evening reading ritual that helps her "distill my brain."

It's a two-hour affair, starting with one hour of the books she's reading. The fixed-income portfolio manager is a fan of non-fiction and just read "Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst" by Robert Sapolsky. After that, she turns back to the markets. She reads external and internal research and prepares for the week.

Commuting with a purpose

Since starting at Bank of America, Justin Elliott has had a daily regimen designed to take up his 20-minute commute to work.

"It's really around my faith — I do a devotion. Read a Bible scripture, pray. Come into the office and listen to a gospel song," the 29-year-old vice president on the institutional rates sales desk at Bank of America told BI. "That's my every morning routine for getting me centered for the day. It's about reminding me why I'm here and what it's all about."

He also goes to the gym two to three times a week and has recently been doing sound baths and meditation with his wife.

Listening to music on her drive to her Boston office helps Fidelity Investments' Palmer Osteen, 31, take her mind off what's about to come and what's ahead so she can start her workday with a clear head. It also works for her way home.

Music "helps me reset and decompress and not go to bed with a hamster wheel in my brain," she said.

KKR's Alissa Song, who grew up in Silicon Valley but now lives in New York, uses the time to touch base with family and friends.

"It just keeps me connected to the people I care about," the 31-year-old industrials investor told BI. "I've been doing this since my college internships."

"Part of it is just that we came to the US when I was really young, and so here it's just the four of us here, my two parents and my brother. And so we're really close," she added. "That's been a way that I've kept in touch."

Friends and Family

Similarly, making time for quality time with friends and family keeps Daniela Cardona, 29, grounded.

"I work a ton," the RBC investment banking vice president said, but "most important is I've never lost sight of my friends, my support system."

Bank of America's White has a family day every Saturday with his wife and two young sons.

"We go to the museums, go to the zoo, go to the water park, wherever it is, we just fully, deeply focus on our family," he said. "And I think being able to give 100% to whatever you're focused on is really important for just productivity, but also for the mental side of I'm here right now in the moment with my family and being fully immersed in that."

Hobbies that help take you away

Ben Carper, who finished his Padi open water certification a couple of years ago, tries to take a trip or two a year with his wife that focuses on diving. Along with a chance to see exotic locations, it's a chance to completely unplug.

"It's a change of scenery, and it's kind of hard to think about work when there's a 25-foot manta ray swimming nearby," Carper, a 34-year-old managing director on Jefferies' Private Capital Advisory team, added. His last dive was in the Maldives, and he's eyeing Thailand next.

Matthew Eid-Holm, a principal at Ares Management, skis or scuba dives at least every 6 months.

"A few hours of these activities that require 100% focus on the present are very effective at resetting," the 32-year-old told BI.

Also, on the ocean theme, Moelis' Kolwicz is a pretty avid surfer.

"Being out on the ocean, getting that physical activity — it's easy to zone out."

There are ways to decompress and relax on land, too. Melissa Ding, an infrastructure investor at BlackRock, likes to engage in meditative activities like cooking, pottery, or tending to her terrace garden to give the 33-year-old a "little bit of mental reset."

"When I need a little bit of rest time, there are just things that I do that where I can kind of zone out."

Her garden consists of flowers, including dahlias, and a recently planted fig tree.

Wells Fargo's Annie Cheslin, 34, recently learned how to play the centuries-old strategy game mahjong, which she's become "obsessed with." The managing director in high-grade municipal trading joined a club that meets twice a month to play.

Exercise routines

Physical challenges are a way to distract yourself from the day-to-day and counterbalance the time you spend in front of computer screens or client dinners.

Margaret Williams, a 31-year-old executive director at Morgan Stanley, said she exercises in some form or fashion every day. Williams will do anything, from a run in Central Park to weightlifting to laps at a hotel pool on the road to late-night walks with the dog.

"It's a part of staying balanced, physically and mentally," she said.

Being disciplined about daily workouts is also how Apollo's Austin Anton, 32, clears his head.

"I find that when I go for a run, I have my most creative ideas, and I love to run, and I tend to do that every other day," he said. "So I find that very helpful in terms of clearing my head and allowing me to think through something."

Erica Wilson's workout of choice is weightlifting, which "has become a real stress reliever over the last couple of years," she told BI.

The 31-year-old vice president at Blue Owl's daily habit has evolved into a competitive hobby. She participated in a power-lifting competition last year through Tone House — she deadlifted nearly twice her body weight — as well as Hyrox, a fitness race featuring eight separate physical exercises, such as sled pulls or burpee broad jumps, with a 1-kilometer run in between each.

For Harrison DiGia, morning is the best time to get a workout in.

"I try to wake up and move my body. I do some sort of workout every morning, whether it's strength training, playing tennis, or even stretching or yoga," the 31-year-old General Atlantic vice president said. "I'm a huge tennis player. I like using that time in the morning to clear my mind. It helps me reset and gets me ready for the new day ahead."

Getting some shut-eye

Patrick Lenihan, a portfolio manager at JPMorgan Asset Management, has a strict bedtime.

"There's some nights where you need to get things done, but I try to have a hard cutoff. Let's just say 9:30— that's lights out." That gives him 30 or 45 minutes to wind down and ensure he gets his sleep, not just for physical health, but mental, too.

He also makes a point to stay active. He played hockey his whole life, but after a few surgeries, he now does lower-impact exercises like pilates and barre at least three or four times a week.

"Now that I'm on paternity leave, I've been lucky enough to do it, get in a little bit more. But I think those two things help me to at least stay recharged and stay ready each day," he said.

Luckily, his infant son is a great sleeper and has not disturbed Patrick's rest so far.

"I definitely think getting sleep is important," Elizabeth Stone Redding, a principal at TPG, told BI. "It's certainly something I have realized as I've matured in my career, that you really need to use your brain, and you need to get a decent amount of sleep for that."

The 33-year-old also habitually sets priorities to stay on track and not get overwhelmed.

"It's very easy to obviously be overwhelmed with a large list of things, but narrowing it down and saying, 'Okay, these are the two or three things I really want to do today,' helps me a lot," Stone Redding said. "I try to have — even if it's just in my head — a list of two or three things I want to accomplish in a given day."

Taking a step back

Matt Gilbert, a 35-year-old managing director at Thoma Bravo, started working with an executive coach a few years ago. He was surprised when the coach pushed him to pull back at work.

"I would say, in general, workaholic or 'Type A' people tend to try to grasp more and more responsibility," he said. "And I actually think ultimately that was the case for me."

Gilbert now spends more time with his family. He has made a habit of watching TV with his wife every night and dropping his oldest daughter at school.

"I think I fill up my cup in terms of personal fulfillment so that my time that I'm at work, I can really, really focus and dedicate to that and kind of maximize the time that I have here."

Gidan Dan's key ritual at work is consistently staying in touch with his clients, but at home, the Citadel Securities senior vice president takes the chance to relax.

"A lot of my colleagues are really good runners and they work out and everything. I'm completely different," he said. "I think I work long enough hours, so I don't want to exhaust myself too much. So I would just go home, and taking care of my kids is enjoyable but exhausting stuff," Dan said of his two daughters, aged 1 and 4.

Feroz Khosla, a managing director at Goldman Sachs, isn't just looking for work-life balance, but "work-life harmony — which just means, when you look back at your career, you feel as if there was harmony between work and life," he told BI.

"Sometimes, you do need to have the power to say no, but do it gracefully," he said. "Maybe the answer is sure, but not right now—and being able to do that without disappointing people is super helpful."