Q1 2021 Review
This is my fifth consecutive quarterly review. It's a reflection on my goals for the first quarter of 2021. I conduct these quarterly reviews to track my progress on my ten year plan, which I published at the end of 2019 and suggest you read to get the most out of this article.
I'm posting this publicly as a way to hold myself accountable and so others have a framework to follow if they so choose.
A note on consistency: I'm finding these quarterly reviews are becoming somewhat repetitive and maybe even boring. That's a good thing.
In focusing largely on the same goals every quarter, I'm moving more of them to the complete successes column. If one of my goals is a complete success, that means I've been as consistent with it as I intended to be. From consistency, I will eventually realize greatness. It may not be in everything, but the more things I can do consistently for long periods of time, the better I will get at them, and the better chance that one of them results in disproportionate success.
As I consistently execute on goals in consecutive quarters, I may experiment with adding new goals. However, I think the ideal approach is to find the handful of goals that are worth achieving and then pursuing them with relentless consistency. As a result, I'm quick to purge goals that aren't serving me, and I'm slow to add new goals. I don't want distractions. I want consistent execution in a few very important areas.
So if you're becoming bored by reading my quarterly reviews, good. They're supposed to be boring. They're also not for you. They're for me. Read them if they're helpful, but be quick to click away if they're not. Don't waste your time reading articles that don't serve you. Prune relentlessly, and spend your time pursuing consistency in the areas that are important to you.
Complete Successes:
These are the goals I nailed.
One investment program analysis
Much like the last quarter, my investment activity was simple. Remaining consistent, I continued to dollar cost average into VTSAX and VEMAX every two weeks.
I conducted a handful of transactions with individual stocks. Namely, I sold some of my TSLA position and started small positions in FUBO, LMND, ASAN, and PINS. I also added to my positions in SQ, FSLY, and SE.
I anticipate my individual stock purchases to cease in Q2 - aside from the small cap purchases I'll mention below. Going forward, when my cash reserves exceed my target by 20%, I'll deploy that excess capital into individual stocks. In the meantime, I'll continue to only purchase my two main funds through dollar cost averaging. The reason for this is so that when I have a chunk of money to invest, I can focus my research, buy quality companies I intend to hold long term, and ignore them until I have another chunk to invest. This prevents me from wasting time continually researching companies when I don't have a significant amount of capital to deploy. It’s my version of an 80/20 approach.
I'm still holding all 26 small cap companies I mentioned in my last three quarterly updates. I purchased equal dollar amounts of all 26 companies in May and November of 2020. As of this writing, the "fund" is up about 70% since inception. In the previous two quarters, it was up 61% and 37%, respectively. The fund remains volatile - it was up as much as 128% this quarter - but it continues moving in the right direction. I will deploy the third and final round of capital in Q2 of 2021 and continue holding for at least four years after that.
I made one additional cryptocurrency purchase in Q1. I added one ETH when the price dipped to $1,000. It's currently sitting around $1,800, so my timing was good on that one.
Finally, I made my first angel investment. Don’t get excited, it was only $1,000. A new SEC rule allows companies to raise up to $5 million from the public. In mid March, Gumroad took advantage of this rule and raised $5 million in 12 hours - even with a $1,000 per investor cap. You can read more about it here.
One workout program analysis
I've been in the gym consistently for eight months now, and I've been focusing on the same movements and following nearly the same routine the entire time. I'm very happy with my progress. All my measurements improved year over year. I tested all my numbers in January. Here's where I'm at:
Body Weight: 177 pounds
Body Fat Percentage: 11.7%
Consecutive pull-ups: 16
Consecutive push-ups (2 minute time cap): 51
1 mile run: 5:41
5 mile run: 35:41
1 Rep Deadlift: 385
1 Rep Squat: 345
1 Rep Bench Press: 245
My weekly lifting workouts still include one push day, one pull day, and one leg day. And I'm still running about two days per week. I plan to continue this routine in Q2. I also plan to add more HIIT/Metcon workouts for two reasons:
I'm going on my honeymoon for 2 weeks. Then I'm moving to a new city, so I probably won't have access to my normal gym equipment for an extended time period.
I noticed this was my weakest area of performance in Q1.
I'm happy with my progress, and I'm excited to continue getting stronger and faster.
Send 13 newsletters
This one is pretty straight forward. I sent 13 issues of The Lake Street Journal - one each week. This has become an engrained habit - one I enjoy very much.
You can find a more in depth analysis of my newsletter growth below under the partial successes heading.
One afternoon volunteering
I continued participating in the Big Brother program that I mentioned last quarter. Unfortunately, we were't able to meet up at all due to COVID, but we had a Facetime call every week.
Add one interesting person to my contacts (who I speak with 1-2 times per month)
I added one interesting person to my contacts this quarter. Contrary to what I anticipated in my last quarterly review, it was not someone from On Deck.
Additionally, I remained in regular contact with one of the two interesting people I added in Q4.
Publish six podcasts
Pretty straight forward. I planned to publish a podcast twice each month, and I followed through. I published episodes with:
I plan to keep this going through Q2 of 2021. If you have any podcast guests you'd like to hear, let me know!
Publish six essays
Also pretty straight forward. I planned to publish two essays per month and I followed through. Each essay shares a story about some of the greatest people and events in history. Through the stories, I distill the actionable takeaways you can apply to your life.
I wrote about people like Samuel Zemurray, Malcolm X, the Wright Brothers, and Martin Luther King Senior. Here they are:
This will also continue through Q2 of 2021. If you know of any exceptional people I should learn about, let me know!
Journal at least twice per week
I wrote 25 journal entries for a total of 9,137 words. We could split hairs here and call it a partial success, but with 12 weeks and change in the quarter, I'm counting this one.
At this pace, I will be writing between 30 and 40 thousand words about my life every single year. This is cool for so many reasons. If I ever want to remember a specific event, I can go back to it in my journal. If I want to share a memory with my kids or grandkids, I should be able to easily find it. If I ever want to write a memoir or autobiography, I'll have a lot of leg work already completed.
My fiance's grandfather recently told me to enjoy every moment now because before I know it, I'll have kids and be growing old. When I told him about my journal, he thought it was a wonderful idea. Getting the stamp of approval from a man in his late 80s is a good sign on a project like this. It's definitely worth continuing. I only wish I had started sooner.
Partial Successes:
These are the goals I didn't quite nail but I didn't strike out on either.
Add 150 newsletter subscribers
I didn't hit my goal here, but I'm still happy with my progress. I added 134 subscribers this quarter, which represented 29% growth and brought me to 591 total subscribers. Interestingly, this is the exact same percentage growth I saw last quarter. My open rates remained consistently between 33% and 37% for most of the quarter.
My largest growth event of the quarter came when Barry Ritholtz shared my Essays that Became Books curation in his "Friday Reads." From one single share, I added more than 50 subscribers in a couple days.
It's really exciting when these growth events happen. The thing is, they're fairly unpredictable, and they only happen if you're consistently publishing and promoting your work. I've seen growth events from my curation of Morgan Housel, two viralish Twitter threads (here and here), and now from Barry Ritholtz sharing my article. I've also published a handful of curations and dozens of articles, Twitter threads, and podcasts that barely added any subscribers. That's just how it goes. You don't get the growth events without the consistent publishing.
Like last quarter, I consistently published content every single week this quarter in addition to my newsletter. I published six podcasts, six articles, and nine Twitter threads. I also added sign-up boxes to most of the new pieces I published, and I retroactively added them to some of my older but more popular pieces. As I planned, I also updated my Start Here page, which is where most of my signups occur.
I didn't transition to Convert Kit, as my research indicated that wouldn't help with open rates. Additionally, On Deck was not helpful with subscriber growth.
ROMWOD every day
ROMWOD is a daily stretching routine with video instruction. I highly recommend it.
Although I didn't accomplish this 100%, I'm happy with the result. I only missed two days during the quarter (down from four last quarter).
At this point, I've done a ~20 minute stretching routine on 348 of the last 365 days, which I'm very happy about. Daily stretching has become a habit at this point, and I plan to continue doing it forever.
Publish four Twitter threads per month
I published nine Twitter threads this quarter, not counting mini threads I posted to promote my podcast. I wasn't very disciplined with this goal, and most of my threads didn't get much engagement. However, I used two of them as the outlines of articles, so it was helpful to write them.
I'm planning to post 12 threads in Q2, but I don't care if it turns out to be four per month.
Failures:
These are the goals I didn't accomplish. They serve as good lessons and points of reflection.
Read a lot about decision making and take good notes
This was a weak goal to begin with. "A lot" is a subjective measurement, so who knows what success looks like?
I took notes generally on what mental models are, and I took notes on two different mental models - entropy and second order thinking. I found myself using the idea of entropy throughout the quarter.
I also wrote down four of my favorite mental models:
Read like a writer
The Greener Grass Test
Where can I make one decision to eliminate 100 decisions?
If I lose money in one area, I don't need to make it back in the same area.
I added this goal because I enjoy learning about mental models, and I find it useful. Unfortunately, I didn't make this goal a priority, and most of what I mentioned above took place on one day, so I'm considering it a failure.
I'll continue learning about mental models as I have time and interest, but I'm not keeping this on my goal list for next quarter, as I think it's a distraction from my main focuses.
A note on scrapped goals:
Interestingly, last quarter I scrapped the goal of publishing one curation piece per quarter because I was doing it for the purpose of adding subscribers, and I didn't think it was helping me achieve that goal. Coincidentally, I had a good idea for one this quarter, so I published it. Lo and behold, it blew up and landed me a bunch of subscribers. I think the lesson here is twofold:
Curation pieces can be great subscriber magnets
Curation pieces are not great subscriber magnets if you force them
Going forward, I'll publish them only when I have cool ideas. That way I enjoy creating them and they're hopefully a higher yield activity.
Conclusions:
As I've said before, writing these reviews is one of my favorite things to do during the quarter.
Consistency is always a theme here, but it's standing out as even more important this quarter. I've been consistently publishing content on my website for about 2.5 years now. I've been reasonably consistent with my Twitter posting over that same time period.
Next Monday, I'm starting a new job. I recently left the financial crimes compliance industry after eight years to accept a position as Director of Operations with seanwes media. This is a job I was offered almost entirely due to my consistent online publishing. I didn't have a formal interview. I never submitted a resume. I didn't need a college transcript or references from prior employers.
Everything I needed was published on my website or my Twitter account. There's no way to fake more than two years of consistent publishing. When I started my website in 2018, I had no idea there was a job offer waiting for me on the other side of 100,000+ published words and dozens of hours of published audio. I had no idea that more than 60 consecutive weekly newsletters would lead to a total career change.
The one thing I did know was the importance of consistency. I knew I needed to show up on a regular basis for a long time. So that's what I did. I proved myself right. Consistency - in whatever you do - leads to positive outcomes. You'll rarely known exactly what those outcomes look like when you start, and that's why consistency is difficult. When you're not sure of the destination, it's difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other. But it's one of the most important things you can do. Keep showing up. Every. Single. Day.
Last quarter I wrote, "These quarterly reviews are keeping me accountable and keeping me in the game. If I remain consistent, success is inevitable."
I had no idea just how true those words would be less than three months after I wrote them. This is only the beginning. I'm less than two years into consistent, focused execution. The best is yet to come. I can't tell you what it is, but I can tell you it's going to be amazing.
I'll see you back here next quarter. Thanks for reading.
Q2 2021 Goals:
One workout program analysis.
One investment program analysis.
Send 13 newsletters.
One afternoon volunteering.
Publish six articles.
Publish six podcasts.
ROMWOD and/or The Ready State every day.
Journal at least twice per week.
Add one interesting person to my contacts who I speak with at least 1-2 times per month.
Add 200 newsletter subscribers.
