#252: Annual Report 2021 - 19 Books Read, 2 Books Written, 18% Investment Return, 114 Essays, 2 Newsletters, 235 Days of Training...
Hello! This week’s newsletter is the OMD Ventures Annual Report for 2021. This was the OMD Journal issue this past Sunday. OMD Journal is the premium newsletter that dives into my practice of investing, powerlifting and writing. I shared the inaugural issue for the investment research and powerlifting journal in the past. Keeping with the tradition, I wanted to share the inaugural annual report as well. This report was written with the intention of addressing my practice of building a writing career, which includes all the investing, powerlifting, books, newsletter, and everything about OMD Ventures.
It’s all about sharing the results of the practice. The investment research on companies and people are the practice of trying to become a better investor. The powerlifting journal is a monthly reflection on the daily training. The annual report is the reflection on the year’s worth of essays, newsletters, and books I’ve written. With that, I hope you enjoy it.
I also started a Patreon page. It came to my attention that some of you really enjoy the Tuesday newsletter and find the contents of OMD Journal to be boring. It makes sense. Some of you found an old donation link I had set up back when I was hosting the Accounted For podcast and have been kind enough to donate as Tuesday newsletter readers. With that, I wanted to explore a proper avenue to build OMD Ventures into a sustainable business so started up the Patreon page for the Tuesday Newsletter supporters (as well as for new projects I start in 2022). Here is the way to the Patreon if you’d like to support the venture we are on together! Thanks!
Welcome to the 2021 Annual Report of OMD Ventures. This is it. It was my first year of setting my foot down and telling myself I wanted to build a career the way I envisioned it. I didn’t hit it, yet. There were ups and downs—duh. I thought more might’ve happened and disappointment was a common feeling throughout the year. But that’s as much a product of my inability to celebrate the many small wins as well as learning to stay on my own path. This is a review of that journey. Thanks for being a part of it.
Highlights From 2021:
OMD Venture Community by December 31, 2021
OMD Newsletter Subscribers (Free): 302; 100% growth from March 2021
OMD Journal Subscribers (Premium): 7
OMD Ventures Total Page Views: 20k for 2021; 37% growth yr/yr
The Practice
Reading: 19 Books
Writing:
Essays: 114 Published
Book #1: ~110k words; in-process of the second draft
Book #2: ~65k words; the first draft fermenting
Investing:
Research on culture and people: 25 Published
Investment Return for 2021: 18%; 4-year CAGR of 24%
Powerlifting:
Training Days Logged: 235 Days; 64% of the year logged with training
The following report is split into the following segments:
Reading
Podcasting
Writing: Newsletter
Writing: Books
Investing
Powerlifting
The Year Ahead
Reading
I read 19 books in 2021. It was five short of the goal of 24—that’s two a month. It was a volatile year of reading where I crushed a long book like Dune in days while I struggled to read the simplest of memoirs.
In fact, it was a year where I quit a record number of books—particularly after reading more than 50% on many occasions. I quit both Marshall McLuhan books, paused Dave Egger’s biography as well as Werner Herzog’s—this was a surprise because I blew through it until I lost interest.
Learning to quit was the major theme of the year. I can’t stress how difficult this was before. The nature of setting goals like reading two books a month can lead to a good habit of making time to read. But it can result in the kind of list-ticking phenomenon that results in pushing for completion while forgoing learning. I’m referring to the kind of act where I’m reading words but not understanding any of it. We’ve all had those for assigned reading material in school.
The ideal balance would be to have the goal that pushes me to make time to read while making a system where the process of reading is always enjoyable because, well, reading is for the joy of learning and that doesn’t happen when it feels like a chore. In my experience, such forms of learning rarely stick and it’s really a waste of time in the long run.
Compared to other years, 2021 was the year I read the most number of novels since I picked up the habit again in 2014. The fact is, I didn’t read for much of university—except for the Hunger Games series. But that was to get close to the girl I’ve been together with for nine years now, so I guess that novel series was a good investment. The stories themselves were good too.
Five of the nineteen were novels. That’s not including the classics I started and quit like Frank Kafka’s The Trial, Gabriel Marquez’s Hundred Years of Solitude, and other classics with authors like Jack Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson, and Thoreau’s Walden. I know, I thought Walden was boring. But my stance is that I will pick up the book again when I’m ready. I’m just not ready to understand it yet.
This switch to finding and reading classics started becoming an idea once I decided I wanted to pursue a writing career. That also explains how four of the books I read were directly related to writing and becoming a writer. Before 2021, most of the books I read were non-fiction that revolved around business and psychology.
It was a fascinating mindset shift when I decided to be a writer. It was weird and I struggled with it. But what I learned from reading novels with the purpose of becoming a better writer was how truly great works of fiction had a way of showing more of the human condition than non-fiction did.
This shouldn’t be too surprising given how I spent my teenage years reading all kinds of novels about medieval history, Norse mythology, Greco-Roman history, and WWII. My bookshelves were filled with such books. But reading novels in 2021, it became very apparent that great novelists were able to tell the inconvenient truth with the guise of fiction.
In this way, the authors played out the kind of ecstatic truth that Werner Herzog talked about. These stories actually told more about the truth that we couldn’t see in non-fiction because people would say it lacked data or proof. But the human condition isn’t something to be anchored with stats or data.
It’s a qualitative condition. But in a world that wants objectivity, certainty, and a desire for black or white, such subjectivity doesn’t play too well. This translates to a view that non-fiction might be closer to fiction because authors are obsessed with making a point—no matter how flawed and inconclusive their data is—and want to look like an expert on the subject. Novelists don’t have this pressure and there is greater honesty with what they write because they won’t be judged as an expert.
It’s like how the court jesters were looked upon as the real truth-tellers in medieval times because people didn’t need to take them so seriously. They were no different from the startup comedians of our time like Dave Chappelle or Bill Burr who would tell the inconvenient truth in the wrapper of a joke. But great novels are harder to read than non-fiction. I think there’s a level of maturity required for them and I hope to be ready to take more on in the new year.
Amidst my wrestling with the struggle of rejecting classic literature and books people I respect have said were fantastic, my favourite book in 2021 was Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Yes, Dune was superb and I loved Derek Sivers’s books and Stephen King’s book, On Writing, was a close second. In fact, I liked every book I read in 2021. That’s why I finished them! I liked Bourdain’s book for what it was. Ididn’t care what others said about it, I thought it was amazing, I loved the writing, I loved the story and it made me want to do nothing else but read the book. That’s what constitutes a good book for me. With that, I took one step forward to becoming a better reader in 2021.
Podcasting
This did not go as planned. I planned to launch a new podcast by the Summer of 2021. Late spring focused on recording seven episodes for a new podcast. It would’ve been the third one I made.
I wanted to make a podcast where I would have 2-hour conversations with people to learn about what they did and the culture within the city they worked at. These were some episodes I recorded: a Muay Thai pro in Thailand, an art gallery operator in Singapore, an architect in Vancouver.
Each conversation was fascinating. But the project ceased to become a priority. It was a combination of other projects taking priority but also not wanting to “mess up” the episodes given this would be my third attempt at building a podcast.
Despite technology making it easy to start podcasts and my experience building two, starting a new podcast isn’t a joke. I wanted to do it right. So, I opted to not do it if I wasn’t going to do it well.
In the latter half of 2021, I had the idea of making the podcast the evolution of Accounted For, my first podcast. I liked the name and what I was making was what I intended Accounted For to be in the beginning.
When I started Accounted For, I told myself I was in it for the long haul and focused on making something I would be proud of. I was proud of the interviews I did.
Some guests genuinely tickled my curiosity and I wanted to dig into how they ended up going on a weird career journey. But I also had guests I reached out to because of their public profile to grow the podcast through the fame of my guests. It was no different from all the big podcasts interviewing the same 100 “experts.”
I created Accounted For because I wanted to give a voice to the 99% that were not covered by the popular media. I was looking for what to do next with my life and I wanted to find it in a world not dominated by bells and whistles. I wanted to explore what people who didn’t do the prestigious 1% of jobs did and what the founders of non-VC-backed companies did. I wanted to explore the stories of the 99% of people who didn’t get the media attention. Yet, I saw Accounted For gravitate towards the 1% focus and it stopped being fun.
I was dealing with the marketing people at large tech companies. They asked for my download numbers, reach and audience clout, etc. These were all fair questions. But I looked myself in the mirror, asked myself what the hell I was doing because I didn’t want to interview people who only wanted to talk on big shows because they were special. I didn’t want to make a podcast with them to begin with. But I found myself sucked into the game while I tried to figure out what I was going to do with my life.
So, I thought about rebooting Accounted For. I wanted to rekindle that idea. Now I’m laying out the plans in 2022 to reboot it with these new episodes. I’m still afraid of how I’ll make the time. I can barely keep up with writing a book and doing two newsletters a week. My social life doesn’t exist and if I didn’t live with my girlfriend I don’t know if I would even be able to see her once a week. But, it is what it is. These are the decisions I make and I’ll try to make the best decisions I can with the goals and facts I have.
Writing: Newsletter
I published 297 essays as of December 31, 2021. The first essay was published in May of 2016. Then I wrote a couple more the December the year after. Then I started writing regularly in March of 2018.
I moved to Substack in March of 2021. Long-time subscribers will know I was on Mailchimp before. I wanted to have the option of building premium newsletters and Substack was the ready-made solution I was looking for.
Newsletters made a lot of noise in 2020 and this opened my mind to the possibility that someone could make a living off of it. I knew there were a handful of people like Ben Thompson and Benedict Evans doing it but I never gave it serious thought. But 2021 was also the year I decided to pursue writing as a career and I thought why not?
Free Tuesday Newsletter
I had been writing the OMD newsletter since the inception of the website around April of 2018. It was a monthly endeavour until it became a weekly one and finally a daily one in early 2021.
I wrote daily for about three months until it became no longer tenable. Simply put, I wasn’t happy with what I was putting out. It was similar to when I was podcasting daily with OMD Daily. That too was about a three-month venture until I wasn’t able to put out work I was proud of. But the desire to write remained.
I resumed my weekly writing schedule—whether it was to endure my narcissism or a belief I was writing something of value I’ll leave that judgment up to you. I believed in both, depending on the time of day.
The free newsletter evolved when I moved to Substack. I freed it from the specificity of topic to specificity of origin. It was going to incorporate various things I found worth writing about from movies, books, research to random thoughts and musings. That’s how the three categories in the Tuesday newsletter came to be. I’m happy to report I didn’t miss a single week of publishing for this newsletter.
Premium Newsletter
The premium newsletter was launched in June 2021. It was under development for about three months. I had been collecting ideas for something like this over the years. I attempted to give the idea light multiple times but couldn't get over the technical difficulty of premium subscriptions—among other matters of confidence in the self.
Even after launching the premium newsletter, it went through an evolution a few months afterward. I wanted to call it Ironvesting in the beginning—you’ll even see this tag in some URLs in the old samples. I wanted to combine my love for powerlifting and investing. But I backed out of it because the original idea was about writing research articles for both topics. I wasn’t as interested in digging into the research of strength training as much as I enjoyed the empirical process of training whilst documenting and experimenting.
So, the premium newsletter started with a singular focus on researching public companies in the manner I found fascinating: looking at people and culture. But this too hit a snag. There was a reason I didn’t want to work at an investment fund and one of those reasons was not wanting to write research reports on companies every day. Does this trend sound familiar?
Just like the free newsletter, I reverted the specificity from topic back to origin—me as the writer. That’s how the newsletter evolved to OMD Journal. I wanted to make it a documentation of my practice of investing, powerlifting and writing.
The research into companies didn’t change but the evolution allowed me to add articles on powerlifting. This gave me time to spend longer on the investing articles but also forced me to reflect every month on my development as a lifter. Finally, the annual report was going to be the cadence by which I could explore my development as a writer and that’s what you are reading now. At the least, it makes me approach OMD Ventures as a business supported by stakeholders (i.e. you my readers).
Now, as far as numbers go, the newsletter venture is not a sustainable business, yet. If you aren’t impressed with my subscriber numbers, how do you think I feel as someone who is faced with this reality every day?
I would be lying to you if I didn’t go through periods of agony every now and then—more frequent than I’d like—where I would look at the repository of near 300 essays and wonder if people actually read it. I know there are pageview numbers but it’s still something I can't seem to wrap my head around without defaulting to pessimism.
I know I shouldn’t concern myself with things I can’t control. I know that. I know the focus should be on continuously writing work I am proud of. But dammit if I don’t have the Einstein quote ring in my head every now and then:
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein
I know every essay I write will never be the same as the old one. The nature of writing is not like science in its purpose for running experiments to achieve specific, objective, and quantifiable results. Writing is much messier and there can be no formula that can be applied to all. I’m sure I’ll come up with a kind of system for myself but this system, I think, will only be applicable to my own production function then have any commercial viability.
What I could control were my writing and publishing. I was able to complete this task and that’s been a win in its own way. To even gather seven individuals who trusted me to deliver was also something to be very grateful for. I’m also not discounting all those who entrust me with their attention for the free newsletter as well. I periodically check the open rates on my newsletter and seeing an average open rate of 40% has been very uplifting. Given the average open rate for most newsletters floats near 10%, I’m glad to have an engaged group of supporters.
However, for me to continue building OMD Ventures and write more, I need to make this a sustainable business that I can make a living off of. I have no idea how the process for the books will go. I work on them daily but I didn’t start with a book deal so I’m aware of the lottery-like nature of trying to get published.
I’m not going to bank on that and that’s what the newsletter is aimed to alleviate and be the engine for the entire venture. Now, this might change as the venture evolves every month but it’s the vision I have in my head today.
Finding ways to introduce OMD Journal to more subscribers with similar interests will be one thing but I’m also going to introduce a Patreon for the supporters who prefer my free content over the premium one. Though the origin of both newsletters is the same, the focus is different and I can understand there might be a different audience for both, I don’t know what is right or wrong. I’ll let the market decide over a number of years and I hope to have my answer then. Until that time, I can’t do anything but to sit my butt down and write, write and write. They say the good shit sticks so let’s see what sticks.
Writing: Books
I finished two books in 2021. The idea started in December of 2020 and I didn’t give it serious thought until January of 2021. By December 2021, I had two first drafts. One was fiction and the other non-fiction. To me, both are non-fiction in essence because they are both stories from what I’ve experienced.
The novel came out to ~110k words which translated to about 500 pages in book form. The non-fiction came out to ~65k words which are about 300 pages as a book.
I started the non-fiction right after finishing the first draft of the novel because I read Stephen King recommend a fermentation period for the novel so that it would retain some novelty when I read it again.
When I finished it, I thought it was a hot piece of trash that I poured 3-4 months into. I read it 5-6 months after finishing it. I came away thinking it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t good. But not terrible.
I printed the entire manuscript out as a single-sided, double-spaced tome at Staples and marked it up with red ink. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I found myself focusing on grammar but I learned that was not the focus. I needed to find the story within the story I wrote.
I intended to cut 50% of what I wrote to come out with something that might be a 250-page book. I entered the process of rewriting the entire book again in late 2021. That’s my approach for the second draft. You might wonder why?
It’s because I don’t know how else to do it. I learned how to approach the first draft from reading what Stephen King and Anne Lamott said. Then I edited like how Werner Herzog approached his films. Then I decided to rewrite like how Paul Theroux said he did his. You know the funny part?
I haven’t finished any of the movies or books these artists made. But I like them. I like them as people, who they are, what they stand for, and what their process is. It makes sense in my head. So that’s what I’m trying. Doing something is far better than nothing, at least I think that’s the case when it comes to writing.
I don’t think there is a right answer. You pound away at it until you finish it and you won’t ever get to the point where you think it’s good until you keep on ripping it apart, putting it together, and ripping it apart again. At least, that’s what I think and that’s what most authors say. I’ll trust them. They’ve finished a book before and I haven’t.
Finishing a bad book is better than no book. I hope to have the discipline to say the book is finished when I can be proud of it. I just hope I don’t get crippled by the pressure I feel from those around me who think it should be an easy six months worth of work.
Every day I consume something. I’m reading other people’s books, I’m watching movies, I’m listening to interviews, and consuming anything that interests me. All of that impacts every moment I write.
IT impact every chapter I re-write and how I start thinking about the story. There is no storyboard. There is no pre-planned plot. There is no ending in mind. None of that is planned. Some authors do it. None of the ones I like do it though. So I’ll stick with their approach. Why? Because it makes sense to me. What’s the point of writing the story if I already know the ending? That’s boring.
I also learned that everyone loves asking when I’ll finish the book. Rather, they ask “are you done yet?” or “when are you going to be done?" I didn’t know how much I would hate those questions. If I knew those answers it wouldn’t be so difficult. This isn’t some mechanical production with an objective answer and tight right turns.
The best advice I got was from my grandmother who told me to ignore everyone else and don’t listen to people who think I should finish something fast. She said I should take my time and only produce something I was happy with. I should take my time, don’t rush, and do it the way I want. I knew that. But it was nice to have someone say something so understanding.
I think it’s worth noting the only empathetic answer/advice came from someone far older. I need to spend more time with older people.
Investing
My practice as an investor should—like my training and writing—focus on what I can control. What I can control are the decisions I make day in and out. Decisions like what companies to research, what to buy, what to sell, and to do nothing every new day. So, here are my reflections on what were and weren’t within my control.
Results
This was my investment track record over the last four years:
My fascination with investing started in late 2014. Yet, I show my track record as of 2018. That’s because the amount of money I was investing from 2015 to 2017 was negligible. I poured everything into paying off my student debt and had a measly sum during those years.
I also didn’t invest most of the money I was saving. I loved investing but I spent most of my time trying to get into an investment fund than manage my own portfolio. Now, I did invest in companies I thought were great. But I didn’t have the balls to throw 90% of my capital into the portfolio. I was still reading and learning. I didn’t have the confidence then.
Then I got my job at an investment fund and I was forbidden from buying stocks in my portfolio. My portfolio remained dormant during this time. I think my results might’ve looked great if I included a marijuana stock that went up 6,500% during this period when my portfolio was allowed to exist but not buy anything. But it was a tiny amount in an already tiny portfolio. It wouldn’t have been right to include that.
Since leaving the investment fund and going off on my own adventure, I used what I learned and threw 90% of my capital into the fund to treat it as a proper investment vehicle. The only stocks that carried over from my early experiments to the 2018 portfolio were my shares in Constellation Software I purchased in 2016 and Berkshire Hathaway, which I bought in 2015.
Now, a 24% CAGR over four years is not bad. I included a comparison to the S&P 500 and it’s nice to have beaten the index over the 4-year period. But having an index as a benchmark isn’t important to me. What matters is hitting my goal of a 30% CAGR. So far, I have not reached it and that’s what I’ll be striving for with my portfolio.
I concede that I may never reach that goal. But by employing a higher hurdle rate, I hope my results—even when not meeting the goal—will fall just short of it and still show an admirable record. That is, if I can achieve a 20% CAGR for 20 years, that would be exceptional. Easier said than done but the fun of life is the striving, is it not?
The reason I included the S&P 500 for comparison was that I wanted to see if I was irrational in my decision to manage money. That is, I wanted to see if my time would’ve been “objectively” better spent if I had dumped all my money into a low-cost index fund and done something else with all the time I put into investing.
The only measure for this was to see if the index returns fared better. It appeared it didn’t and I breathed a sigh of relief. But, I mentioned with the OMD Journal that I was not going to make decisions that would appear rational.
I know what I may choose to do may be irrational in some perspectives. No matter what the results were with my portfolio compared to the index, I would consider my time to have been well spent because I learned so much more about the world because of my love for investing.
It’s just nice that I did make more money picking stocks than I did buying the index. But that’s a cherry on top for the greater win of striving every day to become a better investor and executing the disciplined practice of investing.
Holdings
This is what I owned in the portfolio on December 31, 2021. I had five businesses, though Constellation controls Topicus so you could say I had four businesses.
The year started with seven positions in the portfolio, excluding three that I hold one share of for tracking purposes. The year ended with five positions with one new position. Though Topicus is “technically” new, it was spun out of my existing holding in Constellation Software.
Writing is Thinking
As part of OMD Journal, I published 25 essays researching the organizational cultures and owner-operators of public companies. Given the mid-year start to the newsletter, it was more than intended and I was happy with it.
Eight of the essays were about Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett. I was worried that this might be too much concentration on one topic. But it’s as Bruce Lee said:
"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." - Bruce Lee
I have become more and more convinced with each subsequent Berkshire essay that more can be learned focusing on one of the great operators and investors of our generation. Everything we spend our time on is an investment decision. Given the importance of concentration in one’s investment portfolio for superior returns, the same principle could be applied to where we spend our time for investment research.
The essays on Berkshire have really helped me gain an appreciation for the standard of quality in the owner-operators and culture at companies. Applying such a standard to many investments opportunities, most are easily cut down and that is an important process for my investment strategy.
In addition to the investment research, I made 39 entries into my investing journal in 2021. My initial reaction was that’s low, I need to do a better job documenting my thoughts—no matter how fleeting they might be. But then again, I wrote down something when I thought it was worth recording. After all, this isn’t some checkmark to tick off daily.
Some entries were documenting trade decisions (i.e. buy/sell). Some were rants on regret from not buying up a business when I thought it was cheap, then to see it rocket up ~100%. Some were a self-directed conversation asking myself if I was being prudent with my decisions.
A few major learnings from the year:
Price is what matters. When businesses, even mediocre ones, become dirt cheap, they are raised by the rising tide. That is when they are companies of a decent enough size for there to be liquidity for the companies to see the fund flows lifting them all up from the indiscriminate ETF buyers. Holding on to those cheap prices would’ve done wonders.
Big bets reveal standards. It was a year of entering positions to exit them rather quickly. I made the decision to enter new positions with a ~10% position size. With the small amount of capital I manage, small sizes weren't going to make a material difference to my end result.
I wasn’t expecting to find the next Netflix or Amazon at IPO either. Those kinds of companies have characteristics that are hard for me to identify, particularly in those early stages where the low price and long runway need to be part of the equation.
I cycled through about five different businesses in which I invested, reevaluated, and pulled out. Such acts of commission might sound silly as holding onto them would’ve yielded positive returns.
It wasn’t that any of these businesses were poor businesses where I was going for a discount. I evaluated each one to be a good business in its own right, as far as my research had gone. But something valuable I learned was how strong my thesis had to be for me to hold onto these investments.
It gave me insight into a standard I had for investments that I was willing to have in my portfolio for the long term. It was also a valuable experiment to understand how different my behaviour was when it was a 10% position versus a 5% position.
While I’ve let 5% positions run on, I was much more mindful of the 10% positions. The larger ones that kept me up at night were the ones I ended up journaling on further, re-evaluating against the other businesses I had in my portfolio, and eventually switching them out.
In many cases, the management I was partnering with mattered a lot and that’s where I think selling Atlassian was a mistake.
You can’t teach experience. My costliest mistake on selling was cutting my Atlassian position a few months before the price doubled. I had divested it to make Spotify a major position, a stock that went nowhere.
I sold on concerns of stretched valuations and a feeling that I wasn’t as familiar with the business as I would’ve liked. The latter was a good reason to sell, but the former was something I misjudged because I wasn’t making a tradeoff for something that was so clearly undervalued as a slam dunk (though I might’ve convinced myself it was at the time).
It’s also come to my attention that when I learned about more businesses through the cycle of companies I held in 2021, I may have understood Atlassian’s business model better than I gave myself credit for. But I had an emotional uneasiness at the time. Time is the friend for a great business but also for an investor learning to become a better one.
I shouldn’t bother with trading. I had many regrets pertaining to this realm. These were noted in my journal on numerous occasions.
There were multiple times in the year when Trupanion sold off 30-40% from its peak and I noted I should trade in and out. But alas, I never did and held every share through the declines to the near doubling to more draw downs and subsequent gains.
I would’ve done well for myself if I could’ve timed those trades. But I didn’t even if I felt the sell-off was unwarranted at the time. I didn’t do anything about it and I think I’ll continue to do nothing about it in the future.
I am “Buy High, Hold for Higher Dan.” I have not been successful in any such trading shenanigans in the past and most attempts just make my water boil. The way I’ve made decisions in the past was to sell when I find a better opportunity and hold on until a better opportunity comes.
I think the faster I accept this about my tendencies the better it will be for my mental health, which will trickle over to investing returns over time. It is still my belief that a sound body and mind is required for long term investing success. Some succeed without it but I believe they do it despite the imbalance because they are such geniuses at their craft. I am no such genius so I’ll need all the help I can get from other parts of my system.
Powerlifting
I’m going to keep this one simple. This will be the annual shotgun comparison instead of the deep dives I do in the monthly powerlifting journals.
Training
I ended January of 2021 with these levels of strengths:
Squat - 310lbs x 5 @ 8
Bench - 215lbs x 4 @ 8
Deadlift with 300 Tempo - 350lbs x 4 @ 7.5
The last development cycle ended in November of 2021. My strength level were:
Squat - 425lbs x 2 @ 9
Bench - 265lbs x 2 @ 9
Deadlift - 475lbs x 1 @ 8.5
Nutrition
Lockdowns killed gyms at the end of 2020 and again for the Spring of 2021. The gyms reopened again in July of 2021. I looked sluggish and unathletic in Jan of 2021. I hated how I looked.
My weight was lower, optically speaking. I looked the best I had in years. My strength was still off from the peak pre-covid but the rebuild went well.
From Jan 2021 to Jan 2022, I fasted for 6,278h 15m. That’s ~17.2h of fasting per day.
Recovery
My best week of sleep was 7h 22m per day with a Fitbit sleep score of 81 on the week of September 5. The span of months from May to early October had my best sleep scores with multiple weeks scoring in the low 80s with daily sleep averaging 7h for many weeks.
My worst week of sleep was in December 12 with a sleep score of 75 and average daily sleep of 6h 42m. I’ve had weeks with lower average daily sleep time but this was the week that had the lowest combined score and sleep time. Scores were noticeably low from the December to February periods. What can I say? I hate Winter and I hate the dark.
Looking Ahead at 2022
Reading: 24 Books, continue to seek out books that excite me and quit them when they’ve failed to earn the incremental amount of interest.
Powerlifting: Limit injury, build stronger glutes and hamstrings, err on the side of caution (survive to train another day), Squat 465lbs of 2 reps, Bench 300lbs for 2 reps, Deadlift 500lbs for 2 reps, don’t get fat.
Investing: 30% investment return, 35 investment research essays published, build business managing money for friends and family
Writing: Complete a book, 50 Premium Subscribers to OMD Journal, 500 words of writing every day for the book, stay a week ahead of the publishing cycle.
OMDV: Make it into a sustainable venture that can pay the bills, reboot Accounted For if I believe I am ready.