Interview with Mats Lederhausen
Mats Lederhausen is a Swedish businessman and the founder of Andas, a family investment firm.
Get Moving
Contents
Max Raskin: The place I definitely want to start with you is on diet, health, and exercise. What does your exercise routine look like weekly?
Mats Lederhausen: My general philosophy on health and wellness is centered around eating, moving, sleeping, and recovering. So, they're equally important. And one of the problems I find in our modern society is that we always are served up false dichotomies between different things to choose from. So, everything becomes sort of faddish.
I think at the end of the day, living well is about finding harmony between your most important priorities in life. For instance, you can't eat really healthy and then have a terrible sleep regimen and never exercise and never move, and vice versa.
My wife calls it “moving” instead of “exercising,” and I think that's instructive. It's more than just a word choice. You don't really need beach muscles, but you need grip strength to carry the groceries. You need to be able to open and close the trunk. You need to lift your kids up. You need to travel. You need to lift your suitcase up. These are movements you need to function properly.
My regimen is that I try to exercise my heart at least once or twice a week. In my case, I'm 60 years old, so I should get my heart rate up around 160. If you're younger, higher. But you should get your heart rate up. And the best way to exercise your heart is really through interval training. You can actually get by with a 10-minute workout if you really are crushed for time. If you do Tabata-type exercises, you can do two minutes full on and then two minutes rest, and then two minutes full on and two minutes rest. I try to find aerobic movement that are gentler to my aging joints. So walking on steep uphill, biking, swimming etc.
MR: Do you listen to music when you exercise?
ML: I only listen to music when I exercise with my wife when we have a trainer. She really needs music to exercise. I don't, but she does. And I am grateful that she does because I do like moving to music. When I do Peloton, I guess I do. When I do long walks or something else, I typically listen to podcasts because I have so much content that I need to go through. And if I don't do it then, I won’t find time to listen to all the great content out there.
Content
MR: What are the podcasts you're listening to now?
ML: Many. I religiously cover The Free Press or Honestly with Bari Weiss — I am quite disciplined in all things. Sam Harris, basically everything he publishes. I listen regularly to Russ Roberts at Shalem College from Israel. I love his EconTalks. Same with Tyler Cowen. When Krista Tippett is active on On Being, I listen to most of her stuff. Love her. I also listen to Lex Fridman, occasionally to Tim Ferriss and often times to Dr. Mark Hyman who is my wellness guide!
MR: That's a lot of content you consume.
ML: Yes. I consume a ton of content.
MR: In the morning, do you read a lot of newspapers or blogs?
ML: I do. So, newspapers, I consume very, very, very quickly. I skim the New York Times every morning when I wake up. I probably spend more time on Wordle and crosswords than I spend on the actual newspaper, even though I'm getting really good at Wordle. I'm a huge David Brooks fan. I read all his op-eds. But I scan through most opinion writers in NYT, WSJ, Washington Post, FT and others to get a broad-based diet of opinions. It’s important.
I do subscribe to a ton of Substacks and newsletters, probably 30 of them and most of them weekly. And many of them are weekends, thank God. But I do read them, and I scan them.
MR: When you were beginning your career did you consume as much as you do now?
ML: I don't think so. It's hard to know. But certainly, when I became a CEO early in the '90s, I tried to understand this thing called leadership, and I became incessantly curious. And curiosity is like other muscles. It needs work, so I work hard at staying and improving my own curiosity. I find the learning is asymptotic. The more you learn and discover the more you can learn and discover. It’s not a zero-sum game at all. It’s ever-expanding. Which is awesome.
I approach life primarily with a "who" question because there are answers to most things. There are at least perspectives to most things that I don't have. So my first dig when I have a question is: Who would have an answer to this?
I would say early in my career, before technology was so incredible, I think that was a more typical. I spent more time reaching out to people, talking to people. Today, you can replace a lot of that — not all of it — but a lot of it with podcasts and contents and Twitter, and there's just a lot available to you. The search cost is higher because there's certainly a lot of noise when looking for the signal.
Contact
MR: How do you keep track of your contacts? You have an amazing network of people that you've met over the years. I'm talking about the actual tools of the trade. Do you have a big notebook with people's names and addresses and notes on them? Do you do it digitally?
ML: That’s a good question — and I think you're starting to sound like Tim Ferriss.
I would say I have primarily two tools or tricks of the trade. One, which I do, I think in a more disciplined fashion than most people I know is that my contacts book is pretty damn well-organized.
MR: Can you say how many people are in it?
ML: I don't know. Like 12,000, 14,000 or something.
MR: Wait — 12,000? 14,000?
ML: Yeah, something like that.
Not only do I have the names, but I would say for a good 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 of them, I put in a contact and make sure I have their email and cell phone, but I also make sure I type in the note section any conceivable information about that person.
Let’s say I'm really interested in exercise, and I talk to some doctor or someone like Andrew Huberman that's really smart around the issue, I make sure I put that information in my notes. Their wife’s name, for instance. Whatever I need to know.
I also purposely inject words that will remind me about the person. I might not always remember their name, but there will always be something I remember about that person. So if I type “exercise” in my contact folder, 19 people will show up and then I can probably find him or her. Do you know what I mean?
MR: That’s great.
Do you use Microsoft Outlook? Do you use Google?
ML: I’m thinking about changing it. I'm an Apple freak. I've always been a Mac guy, so I just use their contact book.
But everything in my life is managed by Google. My email and everything is on the Google platform. So, I could go to Google contacts if I really want to search because Google is much better than Apple on search.
For our family office we are using this product called Affinity, which is pretty damn good.
MR: Are you an Inbox Zero guy?
ML: No. I aspire to be, but I fail. My inbox is my to-do list. If I run way behind and I have hundreds of thousands of emails in my inbox, I get a little antsy. I try to clean it up all the time.
Clothes
MR: Where are your glasses from?
ML: They are from a store I found in Copenhagen Airport called Copenhagen Readers.
MR: They're really cool.
ML: People liked them so much that I ordered four pairs and shipped them to my in-laws in Sweden and picked them up. They don't ship them here.
MR: Are you a clothes person at all? Do you care about clothes?
ML: Yes, I do. I care about function, form, and fashion. I like clothes that are good-looking, feel great to wear like a PJ, and you look awesome in.
MR: So I think for most men shopping is a discrete activity that takes place like once or twice a year, but for women it’s a continual process. Where do you fall on this?
ML: I put clothes in the same category as I put everything else — I am curious, and I am an experimenter, an explorer, so I buy a lot of stuff to see if I can find something better. Maybe more than some guys, but not a lot.
But I also have found by this stage of life my style. I almost exclusively wear black. Both Jessica and I have worn black forever because I just learned early on that I look good in black. It's easy.
MR: If you look at your closet, where would you say you’ve bought the most items in it from?
ML: The majority of my clothes for a long time was from a Swedish brand called J.Lindeberg. They have a store in SoHo. I was a shareholder of them, and they did tailored clothing for a while, which I loved.
MR: What kind of shoes do you wear?
ML: I wear either gym shoes — Hokas or APL — or sometimes if I want to fancy up a little bit, I will go into a black Cole Haan because that's almost like a sneaker. But the older I get, the more I am greedy about comfort for shoes. I used to wear a brand called Heschung. Beautiful shoes. I still have them, and I wear them sometimes. They are fantastic, but I walk a lot, so I prefer just wearing very comfortable shoes.
Vices?
MR: Can you check on your phone and tell me what your top three most played songs were on Spotify last year?
ML: “Hey, Soul Sister,” “Musica è” by Eros Ramazzotti, and “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars. Also “That Wasn't Me” and “The Joke” by Brandi Carlile…I'm a huge Brandi Carlile fan. Sting and Peter Gabriel are my all-time favorite artists.
MR: I know you’re a musician — what kind of music do you play?
ML: We play rock from the '70s, '80s, and '90s. Mainly European.
MR: Are you a guitarist?
ML: I am originally a guitar player, but I play bass in the band.
MR: What’s the name of your band?
ML: Hugh Too. We play gigs in Chicago.
It's a cover band, named after our founder, Hugh Parsons.
MR: What’s the first television show that pops into your mind right now?
ML: Truth Be Told. It's a fairly new one on Apple that we just happened to watch last night. So, I have a recency bias.
MR: What's the first movie that comes into your mind right now?
ML: Golda. Jessica's a big Golda fan, so she's been talking about it.
MR: Did you ever smoke? You strike me as someone who doesn't have any vices. That's just my impression, and I know it can't be right. But do you have any vices?
ML: Let's define vice.
I don't do drugs. I've never done drugs. I have tried pot in America because I just had to with my kids. So, it was fairly recent. Didn't do a thing for me. I drink whiskey. I love whiskey. I don't think of that as a vice, to have a glass of whiskey here and there.
MR: Do you ever smoke cigarettes?
ML: No. I have on occasion at parties in Italy in particular, but I'm not a smoker. I have weaknesses that I wish I didn't have. I love ice cream. That's a hard thing for me to say no to.
MR: I would say ice cream's a vice.
ML: Okay. Then I have a vice. Then I have an ice cream vice.
Some people would say alcohol is a vice and that you shouldn't have alcohol. I don't believe in that. I actually think a glass of whiskey here and there is even good for me. So, I don't look at that as vice.
MR: What's your favorite whiskey?
ML: Macallan 18 probably if I had to go expensive.
MR: And how do you take it?
ML: Neat.
MR: Totally neat.
ML: Well, if it's an expensive whiskey, I definitely wouldn't dilute it with lots of water.
MR: Really? I think that's incorrect. I think a decent amount of cool water actually makes it better, but that's me. That's not you.
Travel
MR: What is the first city that comes to mind right now?
ML: Stockholm, London, and Chicago are always cities in my awareness.
MR: You travel a lot.
ML: I do.
MR: What suitcase do you have?
ML: Oh, that's a good question. I'm pretty anal about that. I have a Briggs & Riley, their biggest carry-on, a two-wheel roller, which is an awesome suitcase. It beats anything else that I've ever had. And I've had every suitcase. I've had this for years now.
There are two things I care about when it comes to the suitcase — the most important thing is that it's as big as it possibly can be, and still fit on every airplane. Because if it doesn't fit overhead, I'm done. I can't travel. So, that's the first criteria. The second criteria for me is that it just swallows a lot of space. Briggs & Riley handle folds so that it actually doesn't take up a lot of space inside the suitcase. So, I believe they are roomier than most other suitcases. It also needs a strap so that you can strap your backpack to the suitcase. If your bag doesn't have that strap, you're done. It makes such a big difference when you schlep around airports.
MR: What's your backpack?
ML: My backpack is a Tumi.
MR: Do you have a pack ready to go all the time?
ML: No, I don't have a bag packed, but I can pack in 28 seconds. I have my toilet kit always ready to go. It's in the bag.
MR: I think everyone wastes time on their phone; what is your preferred method of wasting time?
ML: I don't have a preferred method of wasting time. I don't feel like I'm wasting time. If I go to my phone, I check emails or I check LinkedIn. And then, occasionally I check Twitter, but very little. If I'm done with that, I go and listen to a podcast.
I do Wordle every morning and before I go to sleep, I also do Spelling Bee.
MR: Is that what you do to turn off your brain before bed?
ML: Yeah, that's my go to sleep thing, which people would say is a bad idea. But I'm a really good sleeper and it works for me, and I get tired and I stop.
MR: When do you go to sleep at night?
ML: I try to be in bed by 10:00 and 10:30 is when I try to really shut down. Sometimes it's 11:00. Very, very rarely after 11:30.
MR: When are you up in the morning?
ML: 6:00, 6:30.
MR: Are you a morning person or a night person?
ML: I'm more of a morning person. I never have a problem getting up in the morning.
MR: Are you very particular about your mattress or anything like that?
ML: I care about a good bed. I'm more of a feinschmecker about sheets.
MR: What kind of sheets do you have?
ML: Frette. They are super expensive, but they are super wonderful.
Swedish (Gefilte) Fish
MR: Is there anything else you are a feinschmecker about?
ML: I'm very anal or meticulous about my food and what I consume. Very. More than most people you would ever meet.
MR: In what way?
ML: In every way. First of all, we go out rarely. If we go out, I eat Roti. Or something I know I can trust. Clean ingredients with no added sugar or anything artificial. Grass fed meats, no antibiotics and tons of vegetables. So I order reasonably carefully. Not all the time but most times. And we order food from very special places. We have a berry supplier that's unbelievable. We ship food here all the time. We have a meat supplier, Force of Nature, that's just really, really good.
MR: Do you snack?
ML: I try not to. If I have a snack, I typically have a little piece of chocolate in the afternoon with my coffee. We started our own candy company trying to un-junk candy called Unreal. They are awesome. Best thing you can have for snack.
I'm also an investor in a company called Sakara. I eat their granola. I eat grass-fed beef sticks if I'm really starving for something. I buy sardines from Vital Choice, which is a great company.
MR: How do you eat your sardines?
ML: I eat them with some fried eggs and an avocado. That's my go-to lunch.
MR: What's the most Swedish thing about you?
ML: It certainly isn't my Judaism.
I think the hardiness about Swedes compared to Americans is noticeable. Today, I went to do a doctor's visit and it was pouring raining outside. I didn't blink for a minute to walk there.
Most Americans were like, "What?! Are you crazy? I would take a taxi.” When we go out to dinner with people, we're walking there and they're like, "Walking there?" And even if it's cold outside, we walk everywhere. We schlep. I think that's a Swedish thing.
But I am also very American compared to many Swedes. 25 years here have cemented and made me fall in love with the freedom loving and entrepreneurial pursuit that is evident in so much of American life.