Today I thought about.... September 2020.

The month started in Vancouver and it really was a three-week period of family time. 

There were a number of updates made on OMD Ventures as a result. An attempt to make the best use of the time to embark on a new set of projects. 

Developments on OMDV

• Converting "This Week I Learned" to a daily newsletter called "Today I Thought….”, I really don’t seem to have a knack for naming things but it was a new project to address a desire to think and write daily. 

• Re-branding OMD Daily. A failing from last month’s goal to restart this. After some thought, I decided to move on from the daily podcasting model as a) it wasn’t fun and b) ….a) seems sufficient. The monologues were an experiment (second try after the Vlogs) and I’d much rather interview people I can learn from. Just having a conversation is so much better. Also, bought off more than I could chew with a daily schedule. The plan will be to re-brand the podcast to a weekly interview-based one like Accounted For (my first podcast). 

• Re-designing the website. This one’s been a real head-scratcher. After lamenting the restrictions on Squarespace, I sat down and spend a number of days learning about how to actually use it ‘right’. It’s not complete yet but I’m in the process of revamping the content and layout. A painful and ongoing process. 

• The new contents include drafts of new pages to record my journey of investing and training that are still in production.

• The Now page was another that got updated as I thought about the core focus, which has been to apply to people-focused roles in startups. Applying has taken up a lot of time and I’m still getting used to asking those in my network for help but the few I’ve asked have already been so helpful…which should make this process easy but I can’t seem to get comfortable with it. 

• I’ve also entertained thoroughly the idea of going to school to study psychology and one particular program has caught my eye but I’ll have to speak with the folks there to get more information. 

• Building a performance coaching practice has gotten slightly more…real?… and it’s been one I’ve been noodling in my journal but it’s one where I’ve yet to land on something concrete. At the moment, the ideas are merely floating like clouds. 

The pursuit of self-mastery.

Healthy

• Despite the travel, training has been awesome. Had a chance to train at the Jungle Gym in Vancouver (technically in Richmond) and it was awesome.

• Thankfully, my brother also had an entire weight set and squat rack so I could do some training at home as well. Not many homes have 450lbs worth of weights and three barbells. 

• The pursuit to be ‘Oldman strong’ has seen some progress. Squatting with flat shoes and no belt was comfortable at 355lbs for 3 reps. An RPE of 8. Conventional deadlifts without a belt were comfortable at 425lbs for 3 reps at an RPE 8 as well. Still far from the goal of 455lbs squat and 530lbs deadlift but positive progress none the less. 

• The new training regime was set at 5x a week and trying to be mindful of the lower back stress given the move to flat shoed low-bar squats and conventional deadlifts. Since my previous competition lifts (squatting with heels and sumo deadlifting) had minimal taxing on the lower back in comparison….I’m having to watch the volume more closely. 

• The upper body push movements (i.e. bench press and dips) have been paltry and disappointing. It seems I’ll have to return to 4x a week of heavy push training to build strength there but with 1 hour time limits in the Toronto gyms, it puts me in a bind. Oh, I do miss the luxury of 3-4 hour training sessions I had in Vancouver. 

• The experiment for the following month will be 3x a week of sub-maximal push exercises at 65-80% weight with a very low volume of 3-5 sets for 4-6 reps to tack onto the end of each squat/deadlift session. Then I’ll combine it with 1x a week of only pushing heavy weights for an hour. We’ll see if my push strength comes back. 

Wise

• Quite disappointed with my reading speed. I only finished one book and was mid-way on the second (Friedman’s book on the Best Place to Work) but I couldn’t make the dent I wanted to. I was rather engorged by financial documentaries during the reading hours instead. 

• I purchased four additional books to add to my library and reading Peter Thiel’s Zero to One has been exhilarating so the shift will be made here. 

• I’m also quite behind on the book notes as well. Some crucial ones will be pulling out book notes on both Taleb books. I’ll need a proper system for this as well.

• But, the focus of October will be on completing two books first and foremost. Maybe making up the deficit in my pace as well if I can. 

Wealthy

• It was all ‘quiet on the Western front’…. I wonder if any of you my readers will get this joke? There was practically no activity to my portfolio. I didn’t perform much research on specific companies either. 

• Though, I admit I’ve been constantly thinking about concentrating my portfolio holdings to the best 3-5 opportunities making up 80% and moon shot ideas making up 20%. That would be ideal but at the moment, ~10 ideas make up 80% of the fund. 

• The solution? Research more companies. Just like you won’t know if a rock is actually heavy without having turned over thousands of them…same for a company. Will need to study a lot of good ones to really have the conviction to spot the great ones. 

Looking out on October 2020

• Discipline. It’s a never-ending battle. Maybe I’ll start posting post-its with Discipline everywhere. 

• Today I Thought About newsletter will continue. Though I did lose subscribers…..I’m quite enjoying this daily process so I plan to make it a permanent part of the newsletter for now. Pray, I’ll have the discipline to push through during days when my mind gets lazy. 

• I would hope to have made progress in rebranding the podcast, revamping the site, and getting a handle on how to coach entrepreneurs and investors but….the ultimate focus will be on addressing the near-term cash flow problem. This could be a job or maybe the coaching side. The priorities may shift but that will be the singular problem I’ll focus on for the month.