Q3 2022 Review
This is my 11th consecutive quarterly review. It's a reflection on my goals for the third quarter of 2022. 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.
If you want to conduct your own quarterly reviews, here's my free comprehensive guide and my toolkit with templates, trackers, and video instructions.
I wasn't sure how to write my introduction this quarter, so I left it blank and wrote it last. After writing the rest of the review, this is the quote that came to mind:
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill
This seems to be the theme of my review for the quarter. I've definitely made some major strides—mainly with fitness and reading—but I've seen a major lack of success in the areas I was most hoping to make progress—finances and golf.
It's kind of funny. My wins this quarter were in areas I wasn't expecting, and my L's were in the areas I was sure I would win. I'm not religious, but that old saying about you making plans and God laughing is pretty damn accurate.
I was long winded in my explanations this quarter, so I'm going to keep the introduction short. The most important progress I made in this review was my thought process around investing, and the broadly applicable lessons I learned from failing miserably on my golf goals.
Let's get into it.
Complete Successes:
These are the goals I nailed.
One investment program analysis.
As I mentioned last quarter, I dialed back my stock purchases in favor of accumulating cash. I continued my bi-weekly purchase of VTSAX, VTIAX, and VEMAX, but I only made three small stock purchases adding to positions I already maintained.
I'm making a slight adjustment in my investing plan for the next quarter after learning about solo 401ks. Since I've been self-employed this year, I'm eligible to contribute to a solo 401k. As I understand it, these have much higher contribution maximums ($61k) than a typical 401k. Since learning about these, I decided to pause all stock and mutual fund purchases in my taxable account and divert all my investable income for the rest of the year to a solo 401k. This will significantly reduce my taxable income and allow me to ultimately keep more money in my pocket.
I'm happy with my consistent execution this quarter, and I'm proud of my ability to continue holding without selling anything in such a turbulent market. I attribute this to three factors:
Initially holding enough cash to be able to weather storms
Having a friend with the same goals who I can talk to about investments. We send each other a monthly net worth email and talk frequently about the psychology behind investing.
Reading and re-reading The Psychology of Money, and internalizing the lessons.
To highlight just how bad the year has been from an investing perspective, I'll share one of my stats. Year to date, I've added $64k to my brokerage account. The majority of that money has gone into mutual funds, and I haven't made any withdrawals. Even with these contributions, my brokerage account balance is $20k lower than it was on January 1st.
I began the year encouraged and hopeful to significantly increase my net worth. I had a new professional opportunity that provided me with significantly more investable income than I've ever had. I devised a plan to get that money into the market in a consistent, methodical manner. I've largely followed through on that plan, and the results have been devastating.
Luckily, I knew this was a possibility before I started, so I was somewhat prepared for what happened. That said, knowing you can experience extended periods of market losses and actually living through that experience are two very different things.
So my net worth goal for the year is out the window, but on the positive side, I own a lot more shares of companies and mutual funds than I did at the beginning of the year, and in due time, most—if not all—of them will recover and reach new highs. It may take six months or six years, but volatility is the price of admission for building wealth.
I'll continue to control what I can control and not worry (too much) about the rest.
On another note, I'm still holding all 26 small cap stocks I mentioned in previous quarterly reviews. I purchased equal dollar amounts of all 26 companies in May 2020, November 2020, and May 2021. Now the plan is to hold through 2025 and see what happens. As of this writing, the "fund" is down about 33% since inception, down from a -32% paper loss as of last quarter, and down from a 128% paper return at its all time high. What a wild ride.
Send 14 newsletters.
This one is pretty straight forward. I sent 14 issues of The Lake Street Journal - one each week. At this point, I've sent 144 consecutive issues of The Lake Street Journal. I haven't missed a Friday in nearly three years. If you're reading this and aren't subscribed, I'd love for you to sign up.
If you want to read it first, check out the archives here.
Spend 50 hours reading.
This was a great quarter for reading. I spent 55 hours and three minutes with my nose buried in a book, and I loved every second of it. I read for about 21, 16, and 18 hours in July, August, and September, respectively. As you'll see later, I spent a little less time golfing this quarter. Looks like that time was reallocated to reading.
This is a significant improvement from the ~27 hours I spent reading last quarter, and I'm proud that I kept this as a goal and achieved it.
I finished four books: Scars and Stripes by Tim Kennedy, Outdoor Kids in and Inside World by Steven Rinella, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold. And, although I still haven't finished Truman by David McCullough, I spent 16 hours navigating its pages in Q3. I started this 1,000 page monster in Q2, and, while I enjoy it, the reading is slow.
As you know, I track the number of books I finish, but it's purely for the sake of having information. I care about time spent reading far more than number of books finished.
I've been lucky enough to find a book that changed my life both last year and this year. Last year it was The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter. After reading it, I ran a misogi with my wife and regularly go on multi-day backpacking trips like this one and this one.
This year, the book that changed my life was The Omnivore's Dilemma. It provides a detailed description of how the food we eat gets to our table and how we can do better for our bodies, the environment, and the animals we're eating. I made several changes since reading the book, including buying our beef from a local farm and buying more of our produce from the local farmers market. I imagine this is only the beginning, as I'm exploring lots of adjacent rabbit holes and learning a lot about farming, food, ecology, and conservation.
I also spent a ton of time reading articles, which I don't track. Many of them end up being shared in The Lake Street Journal. One I didn't share but found riveting was this six part series on the Golden State Killer.
One workout program analysis.
I'm still high on CrossFit.
I'm very happy about my overall fitness, and I'm pumped about the progress I'm making in CrossFit. I'm a good combination of strong, fast, and flexible, and I'm even improving in some of the more skilled movements—like double-unders—which allows me to be more competitive in workouts.
Some stats for the quarter:
36 CrossFit classes attended.
26 runs for a total of 84 miles.
1,014,755 steps or about 11,030 per day.
In Q2 I attended 37 CrossFit classes and ran nine times for a total of 46 workouts. I attended one less class this quarter, but I ran a lot more and tallied a total of 62 workouts for the quarter.
My limiting factor in Q2 was recovery time, and my body only felt like it could handle about three classes per week. In Q3, my recovery time definitely improved. My body felt like it could handle four classes per week, but I took two weeks off to rest a nagging shoulder injury and one week off for a beach vacation. I think in Q4 I'll probably attend 40-45 classes.
While I'm happy with my overall fitness, I'd like to add more raw strength, so I'm going to complete two six-week lifting cycles in Q4. The first six weeks will be deadlifts, three times per week, with the goal of increasing my 1RM to >425 lbs. The second six weeks will be strict overhead presses, three times per week. I don't have a specific goal for the overhead press other than to increase upper body strength. Simply completing the program (missing fewer than 3 sessions) will be a success for me. These sessions will be in addition to CrossFit classes, and I plan to complete them immediately after class.
I was also invited to run a Spartan Race in November. This will be a first for me, and I'm diving right in with a 21k/30 obstacle race. I'll report back next quarter.
Partial Successes:
These are the goals I didn't quite nail but I didn't strike out on either.
Add 200 newsletter subscribers.
I began the quarter with 1,187 subscribers and ended the quarter with 1,339 subscribers for a total of 152 new subscribers. I fell short of my goal, but it represents a QoQ increase of 12.8%, which actually feels like a solid growth rate, especially if I can sustain it.
My big bumps this quarter came from David Perell sharing my Essays That Became Books curation and Jack Raines sharing my Lessons from 30 Years of Living article. Big thanks to both of these guys, and thanks to all who signed up.
Newsletter growth is generally a result of consistent publishing followed by sporadic bursts of good luck when someone with a big following shares your work. My growth has been relatively slow, unsurprisingly, because writing is not my main focus. I work a full time job, and I have other hobbies where I spend a lot of time.
Because of this reality, I don't expect to have tremendous short term growth. I'm happy with slow, steady, long term growth.
In the short term, I focus on delivering a high quality newsletter every week for my readers and high quality articles when I have the time. As long as I send a quality newsletter every Friday—which is totally sustainable for me—and I commit to only publishing quality work, growth will continue. And if I'm ever able to spend more time writing, I'll be building upon a strong foundation, and growth will increase significantly.
One of my goals from the beginning of the year was to hit 1,500 subscribers by the end of the year (from a starting point of 649). This was a bit of a stretch when I set the goal, but it's within reach now. Let's see if I can get there by the end of the year.
Publish 8-10 articles.
I published two articles, one curation, and one quarterly review for a total of 5,705 published words. This is about the same amount that I published last quarter.
I'm not disappointed that I missed my goal because I know I didn't put in the work necessary to achieve it. I spent that time elsewhere—exercising, playing golf, making money—and I don't regret doing those things. We only have 24 hours in a day.
Something I've continually struggled with is wanting to do too many things and then being perpetually disappointed when I don't do any of those things at a high level. This is a silly attitude to have. Being exceptional at anything takes an insane amount of time. Aligning your expectations with your actions, especially for people with type A personalities like me, is crucial to avoid always feeling poorly about your performance.
This is one of the topics I've been thinking about, and keeping extensive notes on. I plan to write about it in detail in the future, along with the idea of what it means to be an adult and how to actually feel like one. These are big ideas that I can't unpack in a couple hours, so I'm reading around them, taking a ton of notes, and I'll eventually spend a lot of time organizing my ideas and publishing pieces that do justice to these huge topics. In the short term, there's no reason to rush.
That said, I'm going to keep this goal of 8-10 articles published per quarter because it's a constant reminder that I need to keep writing.
These are the pieces I published last quarter:
Relatedly, I don't count my weekly newsletter as part of my published writing because it is more ephemeral, but over 14 issues I wrote and sent somewhere between 10k and 11k words (most issues average between 700 and 800 words).
ROMWOD every day.
ROMWOD is a daily stretching routine with video instruction that lasts about 20 minutes. I highly recommend it.
I missed 26 days this quarter, meaning I stretched on 66 of the 92 days. This is a slight improvement from 29 misses last quarter.
Quarter after quarter, a consistent theme remains: most of the days I skipped were days I wasn't home. In Q3, I visited my family in NY, took a weekend trip to Myrtle Beach to play golf, spent a week in the Outer Banks, went camping for a long weekend, and spent a long weekend visiting family in CT. These trips accounted for most of my missed stretching days. I don't have any issue with this. I'm stretching enough to stay limber, and I like not having to worry about it when I'm traveling.
Spend 20 hours writing.
I only spent six hours and 39 minutes writing in Q3 for a total of 8,618 words written. This is a slight improvement from last quarter but it's still well short of my goal.
Similar to last quarter, the time I spent playing golf took away from time I would have spent writing. I'm not upset about this. I enjoyed my time spent playing golf, and as the weather changes, I won't be able to spend as much time on the course. I imagine my writing will continue to ebb and flow with the seasons, especially since it's simply a hobby at this point.
Also important to note, I don't count any of the time spent writing my newsletter toward my writing time. I have a couple reasons for this. First, it's harder to track because I often write it in bits and pieces, as is conducive to the format. Second, the newsletter writing isn't about writing longer pieces with central ideas and arguments. It's more about writing tidbits, so it's not the same as the writing I publish on my website.
All that to say, I spent a lot more than six hours and 39 minutes writing last quarter—and every quarter—but for the purposes of this specific goal, I'm not counting it.
Failures:
These are the goals I didn't accomplish. They serve as good lessons and points of reflection.
Journal at least twice per week.
What a colossal failure here.
I wrote three entries for a total of 2,125 words. This is my worst performance ever since I started tracking my journaling.
I've fallen off my journaling practice this year. Looking back at the last two quarterly reviews, I've mentioned different plans to improve, to no avail.
At this point, I need to go back to the basics and take a page from Atomic Habits. I'm going to start smaller than I think I'm capable of achieving. When I was journaling a lot, my goals were something very easy like, "write two sentences three times per week," and I ended up writing a ton. I basically just need to reduce the friction of getting started.
So this quarter, my goal is to write one entry per week, and I've created a 15 minute recurring weekly event on Monday mornings designated for journaling. Happy to report, I've already checked off the first one.
Reduce my handicap from 13.5 to 12.
My god this one is painful for me.
Let's start with the stats. All in for the quarter, I played 15 rounds of 18 holes and 11 rounds of nine holes. If you figure an average 18 hole round takes about 4 hours, then I spent 82 hours playing golf in Q3. This doesn't count all the time I spent practicing.
Last quarter I wrote at length about how much golf I was playing. This was the first year in a long time I've been able to play a lot of golf, and I saw huge improvements in the first half of the year. My goal for the whole year was to shoot five rounds in the 80s, and I achieved this goal in Q2 alone!
So I updated my goal to shoot one round in the 70s and hit a single digit handicap by the end of the year. I knew this would be a stretch, but it was possible.
The interim goal for Q3 was to reduce my handicap to 12. This seemed within reach since the previous quarter I reduced it to 13.5 from well north of 20.
As it turns out, I overestimated my skill level. In Q2, I had managed to string together some great rounds, which dropped my handicap quickly—probably more quickly than my ability was actually improving. Fast forward to Q3, and I was having a hell of a time posting a good score. I only shot three rounds in the 80s—the upper 80s—and I even posted rounds in the high 90s and low 100s. This effort catapulted my handicap to 14.8—far from the 12.0 I was hoping for.
In mid-August, I kicked off a six-plus week stretch of terrible, embarrassing golf. Since then, I've hit thousands of range balls, taken two more lessons, and experienced more frustration than at almost any point in my life. And if I'm being perfectly honest, I'm not really seeing any tangible benefit.
While I'm disappointed in this failure, I think it's exactly the reminder I needed, and three major lessons here translate to other areas in life.
First, it's relatively easy to improve from beginner level to intermediate level in many pursuits, but it's much harder to improve from intermediate to advanced. Learning and applying the basics allows you to make huge strides. This boosts your confidence and leaves you feeling encouraged for future progress. Unfortunately, the skills required to make the second progression take longer to learn and hone, and the improvements you make from the skills are marginal. Also, progress at the second stage isn't always in the positive direction. You'll experience many more peaks and valleys. The valleys can be dark, and they can crush the confidence you built when moving from beginner to intermediate. This is where persistence, resilience, and realistic expectations become crucial.
The second lesson pertains to mindset. When you're in the midst of the valleys, it's almost impossible to imagine you'll ever see another peak. When I'm hitting snap hooks off the toe for ten straight rounds, I can't imagine I'll ever play good golf again. When I keep adding money to my brokerage account only to see the balance lower every month, I can't imagine the market will ever rally again. But life is cyclical, and it's only a matter of time before the sun shines again. I imagine these downturns in life will be easier the second, third, fourth...times I see them, as long as I remember the ones I've experienced before.
The final lesson is about knowing when to quit. Everyone has natural talent in certain areas. If you apply an equal amount of effort in two areas—one where you have natural talent and one where you lack natural talent—you will progress at different paces. Sometimes, no matter how much you want it, your progress won't be sufficient to justify the time you're burning to achieve it. Because we all have limited hours in the day, it's important to be realistic about our return on investment when it comes to time. In my case, I'm spending too much time and money on golf to justify the minimal return I'm getting in exchange. And because of that, I'm going to significantly dial back my efforts and reallocate that time to other pursuits where my ROI will be greater.
Well that was a lot of words to explain my woes on the golf course. But last quarter I didn't have any "failures," so this one felt particularly useful to spend some time on.
Conclusions:
As the sun sets on another quarter, conducting this review was a useful, clarifying experience, as always.
The successes—like every quarter—felt great. But the value came from the failures, where sober reflection and subsequent action paves the way for future success.
The biggest lessons I learned (or re-learned) this quarter:
Progress usually takes longer than we'd like.
Persistence is a prerequisite to progress.
But knowing when to quit versus when to stay the course is equally important because quitting in the wrong area frees up resources to persist in the right one.
So here's to more quitting and more persistence, the symbiotic relationship of progress.
Thanks for reading. I hope this was as helpful to you as it was to me. I'll see you back here next quarter.
If you'd like to set, track, and achieve goals like me, check out this free how-to guide I wrote. I also built templates, trackers, and step by step video instructions you can purchase here. It's a $10 purchase that could change the trajectory of your life.
Q4 2022 Goals:
One workout program analysis.
Complete two six-week strength cycles (deadlift and overhead press).
One investment program analysis.
Send 13 newsletters.
Publish 8-10 articles.
ROMWOD every day.
Journal at least once per week.
Pass 1,500 total newsletter subscribers.
Spend 50 hours reading.
Spend 20 hours writing.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
