MBA2670 10 Low Cost Purchases That Can Drastically Improve Your Life

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Hey, I need to talk about my loan. No problem. So I got the email. Sandy Spring bank is becoming Atlantic Union Bank. That's right. And will you still be your banker? Of course. More branches and ATMs. Way more. Still community driven, still live here, still give here mobile app.

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Everything right at your fingertips. And what about my business? Always here to help you reach your goals. Sandy Spring bank is becoming Atlantic Union Bank October 2025. Same bankers you love with even more to offer.

Introducing the new Dell AI PC. Powered by the Intel Core Ultra processor, it helps do your busy work for you so you can fast forward through editing images, designing presentations, generating code, debugging code, summarizing meeting notes, finding files, managing your schedule, responding to Nicole's long emails, leaving all the time in the world for the things you actually want to do. No offense Nicole. Get a new Dell AI PC at Dell.com AI PC how those ahead? Stay ahead. Today I'm going to share with you 10 low cost purchases all under around $200 that have drastically improved my life. These are not nice to haves. They're not gadgets that sit in a drawer, but real things that I use almost daily that really have made me a lot more productive, more energized, more focused and just happier. And no, this isn't some sort of fake influencer gear list. These are actually honest and practical recommendations that I love. Things that I absolutely think that you should have. Let's dive in. Welcome Back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenholm, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you start, grow and scale your. Before we jump in, can I get 30 seconds of your time? We love guiding you on your business journey and we want to help even more people build their dream businesses and lives. So if you could hit the follow button on this podcast app, it would be greatly appreciated. It's completely free and it helps us out more than you know. Thanks. Let's start with number one, which in my opinion is a no brainer and that is Spotify Premium. I don't think people realize how much value you get from Spotify Premium. Yes, you get commercial free music, which is absolutely amazing. I mean, think about that. The whole idea of Spotify, by the way, is crazy. All the music from all the world since the beginning of time is at your fingertips. It's mind blowing. But outside of the fact that you get no commercials while you're listening to your music, there's some really cool perks that I love about Spotify Premium that people don't talk about. Number one is the free audiobooks that they launched about a year ago. Yes. You have access to audiobooks that you would normally pay 15, 20, $25 for, for free. As a Spotify Premium customer, I think you get 15 hours a month, which is about two books a month, which is plenty. I'm talking about all the titles, all the books that I talk about here on the show, from personal development to business, even fiction. There's lots of amazing books there. And you get it as a part of your premium subscription and commercial free music. Let's not snooze on that. I don't care. Anybody says good music during a workout or a sprint, a walk can completely, like, reset you and give you new energy and a new mindset. And that's so valuable. I also want to say that if you want to save a bit of money and you have multiple people in your family that use Spotify Premium, then there's a family plan that we actually use is absolutely amazing. And it's a little less expensive when you go with Spotify Family Plan Premium. Number two, Masterclass. I think Masterclass is an incredible value because you get to sit down with the best of the best in the world. They bring on the best experts in so many different fields from performance, like Usher teaches a class on performance or astrophysics. Neil Degrasse Tyson teaches you about science, which is incredible. Or negotiation by Chris Voss, who wrote the book Never Split the Difference. It's just an incredible value. You get to sit down with like Richard Branson and he tells you his favorite stories. It's really well shot. It's really well done. There's workbooks and all kinds of stuff, but, you know, don't accept. Expect to learn everything you need to know about business from Richard Branson. It's more like an extended TED Talk or documentary series. And I feel like it's really well done, but also great value because you get to learn so much from about different things in one place. I use it for creative inspiration. It's not about memorizing tips or tactics. It's for me, about seeing how the greats think and how they come about in their craft. How do they approach certain things in their world? You know, one of my favorite courses I took there is a course, a course on poker, a hobby of mine from Phil Ivey. Phil Ivey, who's known as like the. The goat of Poker. He gives a masterclass. I mean, that's incredible. I love the fact that you get to sit down and learn from exceptional people in different fields. In my opinion, it's also a perfect way to use 20 to 30 minutes in the evening or in a commute instead of just firing up the Netflix number three Amazon Kindle. This might be one of the best purchases I've ever made, period. Okay. I love this thing. It's amazing. It's amazing and I'm gonna tell you why. I've had a Kindle for over 10 years and you can buy a Kindle for under $100. They have different versions. You can buy the cheapest one. It's just as powerful and incredible. You can even buy a refurbished one or a used one. It's great. Pick it up. And I'm gonna tell you why. Because I've literally read hundreds of books because of it. You can buy book far cheaper number one via Kindle, but you can also carry literally thousands of books in this device. And it's just so much easier to pick up and read your book than having to use the physical book or have it around with you all the time. Now. I love physical books. I read physical books all the time. I love them. They're not out of my life. But the Kindle is fantastic because it travels so well. It allows you to carry so many books in this small little thing. It's fantastic to read in bed because it's light, it's backlit and listen, if you've never read on a Kindle before, it's not like reading on your phone. It's something totally different. It's using some ink based technology. It is very close to what it feels like to read a physical book and your eyes don't get tired or have that blue light that you experience with a phone. It also has some really great features, like in terms of increasing the font and, you know, auto dimming and all that kind of stuff. But honestly, the best feature of all is that you get to sleep on your side in bed and click through and read until you fall asleep. And it's the easiest way to get an extra 15 to 20 minutes of reading every day, whether you're reading bed at night or when you wake up in the morning. It's just a fantastic device. They just nailed it. And I love the fact that it's just a single use device. There's no distractions, there's no ads, there's no searching the web or anything like that. There's a browser in here, but it's incredibly slow and it's not Easy to access, and it's just fantastic. There's nothing I don't like about it. It's engineered perfectly. There's no glare. It's just easy to read off of it. And I've read more because of it, and this is why it's a game changer for me. And I love the fact that it's so cheap and it's so accessible to people around the world and the Battery life is like 40 days or something. Like, it's ridiculous. Just buy a Kindle right now. It will change your life. I certainly am a big fanboy and it's changed mine. If you're running a business, you know that every time you miss a call, you're leaving money on the table. Every customer conversation matters. And that's why you need a phone system that keeps up and helps you stay connected 24 7. That's why you need OpenPhone. OpenPhone is a business phone system that streamlines and scales your customer communications. It works through an app on your phone or your computer, so you're not carrying two phones or using a landline. With OpenPhone, your team can share one number and collaborate on customer calls and texts, just like a shared inbox. That way, any teammate can pick up right where the last person left off, keeping response times faster than ever. Listen, your customer support is how your customers perceive you. And with OpenPhone, you can become the market leader when it comes to serving your customers. We made customer support the number one priority in all our companies, and that's why we've had any kind of success over the years. OpenPhone is offering my listeners 20% off of your first six months at openphone.com MBA that's O-P-E-N-P-H-O-N-E.com MBA and if you have existing numbers with another service, OpenPhone will port them over at no extra charge. OpenPhone. No missed calls, no missed customers. Are you buried under nonstop meetings and struggling to remember what was discussed or agreed? Next steps? Don't worry, you're not alone. I've been there. And luckily, there's Fireflies. Fireflies is an AI teammate that keeps track of it all. From key takeaways to next steps, Fireflies keeps you organized. This AI tool is incredible. It transcribes, it summarizes, it analyzes your conversations that you have in your meetings so you can get the most out of every single meeting. It's the smarter way to work, helping you understand what was said. Generate personalized notes to find information that was discussed and also to take action on the next steps that you have to take in your business. It also develops workflows to create internal efficiencies so that your meetings are getting more and more productive. Listen, I mention on this call all the time that I like to have as little meetings as possible, but they're required in order to collaborate with the team to train your team members to get things done. So what we like to do is use Fireflies when we run these meetings on Zoom. It makes it so much easier to extract what was discussed and what needs to be done next, meaning to create our to dos for the week or the month or the quarter so everybody knows what they need to do or get done so that we accomplish our goals. How many times have you been in a meeting where you discuss some great ideas and things that you should do and then nothing happens? Well, because you didn't actually extract that information, document it. And that's what Fireflies does for you automatically. And right now, when you sign up for a yearly Firefly subscription, you get your first two months free. Just go to Fireflies AI/ MBA. That's right, two months free when you go to Fireflies AI/ MBA. That's Fireflies AI/ MBA number four. A desk timer. I actually got my desk timer from a buddy of mine and colleague, Ken. Ken, who works on our team and helps us produce our video podcast. He gifted me this, but it's about $15 on Amazon. And you basically just set your timer. It's a physical timer. Ooh, I just beeped. I just. It's a physical timer that you could set, so that way you can make sure that you're productive. There's something about a timer that keeps you on task. I use it to run work sprints. Like say, for example, I'm scripting an episode and I'm gonna say, okay, I' to give myself 30 minutes to script the first draft and go right. Or I might say 25 minutes and give myself a five minute break. It gives me a chance to really focus. And when you see that time clicking away, it really allows you to say, okay, now it's time to get in the zone. Let's get it going. There's just something about a physical timer and racing that clock that keeps you honest. And it turns procrastination into a game in a lot of ways. So I always get a lot more done in less time when I'm using a timer. It's a small purchase that can make a big difference for you, especially if you have you Know many things on your to do list and you have a hard time kind of getting started or you get overwhelmed, just set a timer. Okay? Gonna give myself 15 minutes to work on the first thing. Let's see how I go boom. And you just get started. And for me, it's an easy, yes, easy purchase for the amount of value you're getting. Number five, GMB Fitness. In particular, the Elements program. GMB Fitness is a mob fitness program and this program saved me. It's helped me recover from injury when I broke my fibula in a snowboarding accident. I move better now when I snowboard, but also when I do any kind of sport. When I play basketball, I'm a lot more mobile. My lateral movement is much easier. I stay active because of it. And even when I have a busy day, GMB kind of can fit in no matter what. So what is it exactly? Well, it's an online course. Basically, you pay once and you have access to their Elements program, which is, which is really focused on mobility. It's not yoga, it's not Pilates. It's allowing you to strengthen your hips, your joints, your muscles, your legs, your arms by doing certain movements like bear crawls and stretches that don't feel overwhelming, but at the same time are strengthening you slowly but effectively. I absolutely love it. I discovered it because I met the founder in Japan once through a mutual friend. The founder is Andy Fawcett. And I absolutely love Elements. I heard people raving about it beforehand and then I was like, okay, I'll pick it up. And I'm raving about it now because it's just functional and smart and there is actually no excuse because I'm not very mobile. I started using it. They have a beginner's program. It kind of paces based on your level of ability. It kind of assesses you. In the beginning, it was not that hard to kind of do the things that it was asking me to do. So I, I gotta say, if you are am intimidated by this, it's actually quite easy and approachable and it's perfect for travel. Or if you have a busy day and you run out of time, you can do a workout that's 15 minutes. They have like a 15 minute version of it. So there's no excuse. You could just like open up your laptop and just clear a space. You don't really need any equipment or weights or anything like that. You just need a floor and that's it and you can get your workout in. I love GMB because it helps keep me flexible, mobile and Most of all, injury free, because I want to continue to enjoy the sports I love, which is priceless for me because if you're active like me, you know that if that's taken away, it's like a recipe for depression. I'm not joking. Like, if I can't play basketball, if I can't snowboard, that would be really sad. So this allows me to not only play and enjoy those sports, but also do it at a level that I'm happy and I feel, you know, supported and feel like I'm not going to get injured and I'm not pushing myself. Number six, the camelback water bottle. This is a very simple water bottle, Very, very simple. But it's like 10 bucks or something like that. But I never understood the hype about these bottles and why people love water bottles. I don't have these humongous ones. I like this size. But the reason why I love it so much is that it allows me to stay hydrated. And I put a little electrolytes in here. Keeps my mental clarity throughout the day. And it helps me also just curb my appetite as well until it's time for lunch. This bottle sits on my desk 24 7. And what I love about it is it has this kind of magnetic top and it kind of screws nice and easy. And because it's at my desk and I have all these electronics, my computer and all these devices, I feel safe because if it ever tips over, it's not going to leak because of that magnetic seal. And it's pretty tough. I've traveled with this a bunch of times. I've dropped it a bunch of times. Nothing. Not a scratch, not a bump, not a dent. It's pretty indestructible, really. And what I love about it too is it's got this little handle. So if you want to hang it from like a carabiner or something like that from your bag, it kind of saves and makes things a little bit roomier in your bag. I probably think I drink about 3 liters a day just because it's here, just because it's on my desk and I see it's, you know, getting empty and I fill it up again. And it's a low cost, high ROI thing. You know, staying hydrated is like 25% of staying healthy, right? It's just making sure that you're getting your fluids in and flushing things out. Number seven, chat GPT Plus. ChatGPT plus is an absolute joke. At $20 a month, it's an incredible value. If you're only using the free version, you have no idea what you're missing. The tools, the different models that you can use now, they have a agent mode which allows chat GPT to have its own little computer and work on complex tasks like planning out your holiday or doing a whole research project on a new product that you're creating or whatever it might be. Right. It's an incredible time saving tool when it comes to writing research, scripting, whatever it might be. It's like hiring a full time assistant for 66 cents a day. If you're running an online business, writing content, selling products, or just trying to get more done, this is a no brainer. Okay. And if you're listening to this, I assume you like good ideas and good execution. This gives you both. The thing is that when OpenAI releases any new models or new features, it releases to the paid users first. And often it doesn't trickle down to the free users until like six months later. So you are ahead of the curve, ahead of competition when you're paying as low as $20 a month. Number eight, a MagSafe battery charger and stand. So this is a battery pack that charges my iPhone, okay? And as you know, with MagSafe, you have this kind of magnetized thing. I'm sure other phones do this as well, but I could just easily stick this to my phone, put in my pocket or put in my bag when I'm traveling or walking around and it charges my phone. Now if you are an iPhone user, you know your battery life is horrible. I love the iPhone. It does a lot of great things. Great camera, great everything. But the battery life is atrocious. And if I'm ever out and about, if I'm not at home or in the office, then I know my battery will die by the end of the day because I'm using it to take photos or videos or using it for Google Maps or whatever it might be, you know, Uber. And that kind of sucks up the battery and I don't want to worry about that all the time. So this small little battery pack thing here, which also has a stand that allows you to easily use when you're on the go or watching something. But this battery pack can basically charge your phone from 0 to 100 three times. So it's got plenty of power for you to be able to easily charge your phone over and over if it dies. There's a lot of different kind of models and makes and you can just go on Amazon and find the one that you know that you, you would like to choose or pay for, you know, I would just make sure that it works on your model of phone. Now, again, like I said, it's perfect for travel or if you're working from cafes, it's great because of the stand that you can use it to, you know, take a zoom call or a FaceTime, or even if you're just watching something, like something on masterclass or even YouTube. I gotta say, I've used mine way more than I expected. I love it because it's small and I never have to worry about, you know, running out of battery on my phone when I'm traveling. Number nine, 24 pairs of underwear and socks. Stay with me here. Okay? This is not sexy, but it is a game changer for me. Having plenty of clean socks and underwear means I can shower multiple times a day without having to stress or have laundry anxiety. One of the things I hate is feeling restricted, feeling like I can't do what I want to do. And I like to take multiple showers a day, and that's because I want to feel like, oh, I got to take another shower a day, or maybe I don't have enough laundry. No, I will take as many showers as I like. I don't want laundry to dictate my life, okay? So that's why I have so many underwear and socks, so that I can just, you know, wake up in the morning, take a shower, do my work, go to the gym, take a shower. If I want to take another shower before I go out for dinner at night, I could do so as well and not worry about it. Not worry I have to do laundry or I'm running out of. I got plenty. I'm serious. It's freedom. And you might not realize how much mental friction comes from not having these little comforts taken care of in your life. This one change made me feel less chaotic and a lot calmer and feeling a little bit of sense of luxury. Okay? I could do what I like and take as many showers as I need to and not have to worry about running out of underwear or socks. Number 10. Buy a book about something you love. Buy a book, any book, on a topic you enjoy. Think of the hobbies that you enjoy. You will enjoy them even more when you get into the nitty gritty of it, when you learn a little bit more, when you get better at it. For example, one of the books I have on my desk here is called the Mental game of Poker. Okay, I love this book. Author is Jared Tendler. I believe that's what it's called. How you pronounce his last name. And I love this book because I'm into poker. I love playing poker I've gone into in the last year. And this really allows me to dissect the mental side, not the strategic side and, you know, the probabilities, all that kind of stuff, but the mental side that maybe I'm not paying attention to the things that maybe are costing me tournaments or games, things like Tilt, which means, you know, getting angry or getting emotional about a certain hand that I lost or even won. So it's just interesting to go deep into something that you enjoy, and it makes you enjoy that hobby even more. Another book that I have here is called Bigger, Leaner, Stronger by Michael Matthews. This book I picked up because I'm getting older. I want to get stronger, I want to get leaner, I want to be able to enjoy the sports I love, like basketball and snowboarding. So this allows me to get a little bit better, get an insight on how I can, you know, improve my diet or improve my exercise or my routine so that I can again, enjoy the things I love more. I like to double and triple down on the things that you. That. That I love. Right? So if. If I love something, then why don't I get more out of it? Why don't I try to do more of it? And part of doing more of that thing is learning about it and kind of optimizing it in any way you can. And like I said, because you're learning more about something you enjoy, it helps you enjoy it more. It gives you also an edge, a spark, even more satisfaction in your free time. And there's a ripple effect to this, by the way. Happy hobbies equals more creativity and more energy and better work for you and your business. So you don't need a $10,000 life coaching program or a complete overhaul of your life to level up. Sometimes it's just small, smart purchases that stack up, things that make life easier, things that make things clearer or more enjoyable. You could pick one or two from the list that I gave today. Give them a shot, see what you like. Sometimes they're $15, like the $15 timer or $20 subscription. It's worth a try to see if it adds any improvement to your life. Listen, you only get one life, right? Listen, we're only here for a short period of time. This thing called life, right? Let's make the most of it, right? Let's invest in it. Let's try to enjoy it a bit more. So treat yourself and choose one or two of the things I mentioned today to level up your life. If you found today's episode helpful and you want more practical business lessons to help you start, grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

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