OMD Journal

Value Investing in Culture, Bottom-up Powerlifting and Self-Mastery

Lifting Iron, Buying Stocks, and Writing Observations…

OMD Journal (Old Man Dan’s Journal) is a newsletter that documents my journey in investing, powerlifting and writing. It’s the premium product that keeps OMD Ventures afloat.

If you were looking for the free newsletter Go Here.

My goal is to become the best investor, powerlifter, and writer I can be. The Journal is my way of sharing the progress, mistakes, and learnings with those who enable my dream to become a reality.

Powerlifting, investing, and writing are how I go about executing on Ben Franklin’s modus operandi. Everything started with powerlifting.

Explore the Archive & Philosophy…

• Investing Articles

• Powerlifting Journals

• OMD Ventures Annual

Read on for a story…

A short origin story…

I started powerlifting in 2008. I did what every fat kid does. I ran 4km every day for four years until my time went from 28mins to 14mins. Then I wanted to get stronger.

I set a couple of junior world records in 2012 and 2013 and won the junior world championship in 2012. Luck helped. I was early to an unpopular sport in a less crowded league. But I did train ~15 hours/week figuring things out on my own.

I discovered Warren Buffett and the world of value investing in 2014 when I wanted to find a career similar to powerlifting. I left my job as an accountant, read as much as I could on investing, and got my shot working at a top value fund in 2017.

Investing was a great job. I was surrounded by those who loved what they did and I realized it was different for me. In 2018, I left the fund to explore.

I went on a journey of building a Personal MBA. Writing and creating came out as a constant over the three-year journey.

Writing was how gave form to the exploration I loved doing. After dozens of projects and hundreds of interviews, I decided to explore how I can combine the things I loved doing: investing, powerlifting and writing.

This came together in the Spring of 2021.

The Optimally Suboptimal Pursuit

I like to figure things out on my own. At least, for investing, powerlifting, and writing. I didn’t go to school or get ‘certifications’ in any of the three.

I learn from training day in, day out. I make lots of mistakes and it takes me longer than those who’ve streamlined it by hiring “professionals”. But I love the daily practice so why would I ever delegate what I enjoy?

The “rational” approach would be to delegate what you aren’t the best at. But no one starts out great.

I may never be the world’s best at the three things I love doing. I’m fine with that. I can’t control what the world does. I just want to get better and become the best I can be.

Appearing suboptimal in my approach and decisions is fine. They are optimal for me and that’s all that matters.

I tell you this so you understand how I approach my training to become a better investor, powerlifter and writer. There is no magic sauce or tried and true method.

The Journal documents my exploration. It’s about how I tinker and reflect on incrementally improving at my chosen fields. If you share my predilections for building strength, wealth and knowledge—in the ways that make sense to me—then this might be interesting for you.

Chances are, it probably isn’t. I haven’t met many. But in case you are, continue reading.

OMD’s Journal Format…

The current format is 48 newsletters in a year. It comes out to four newsletters per month, delivered on Sundays.

• 35 Investing Articles

• 12 Powerlifting Journals

• 1 Annual Report of OMDV

The Annual Report is about OMD Ventures, the business. It’s a reflection on building a creative career. It’ll include reflections on my journey as an investor and powerlifter as well. This will come out at the end of the year.

The Powerlifting Journal is a monthly reflection on the full health system of recovery, nutrition, and training.

The Investing Articles are explorations into the culture and owner-operators of public companies. They aren’t the traditional format of investment research that gives recommendations. Rather, it’s a dive into the people behind companies as I study various companies that adhere to my philosophy of “Investing in People.”

Explore the Archive & Philosophy…

• Investing Articles

• Powerlifting Journals

• OMD Ventures Annual

Investing in People

Exploring Owner-Operators & Cultures

I view people and the culture they create as a competitive advantage for businesses. My philosophy is to invest in the warrior who builds a team of real fighters.

Everything started with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Their tenants for intelligent investing are still the foundation of my investing.

After exploring business models as a management consultant, I joined Mawer Investments ($60B+ AUM value fund) as a generalist investor. I researched hundreds of companies outside North America and found myself obsessing over the people and culture of these organizations. That formed the basis for my investing approach.

My Philosophy…

• Rooted in long-term, value investing. It is the only form of intelligent investing.

• Human capital is the core asset that scales the business. It’s not an operational expense. It’s growth CAPEX.

• Human creativity is scaleable (e.g. code, media, capital).

• Leaders need to build environments that allow for individuals to flourish. It needs to embrace chaos.

• Cultures bring and develop the best people. Culture compounds.

• Invest in your people and they’ll take care of the customers, suppliers, etc.

• The best people and companies defy base rates. Think calculus, not statistics.

• People build companies. People solve problems. The numbers tell their story.

• It’s Return on People over Return on Capital.

Incesting influences: Phil Fisher, Buffett, Munger, Nick Sleep, Mohnish Pabrai, Josh Tarasoff, Rob Vinall, Ian Cassell, Michael Shearns, Chris Mayer, Yen Liow, among others

My Goal…

To achieve an annual return of 30% until a 5% yield on the capital covers my annual expense.

The Results…Investment Returns

The Tools… My Portfolio

I eat my own cooking. This is where all my money is. Keep this in mind when reading my articles to account for my bias.

The Practice…Companies & Owner-Operators Explored (alphabetical):

Activision Blizzard Part 1—Blizzard's Niche over Activision's Mass Appeal

Activision Blizzard Part 2—Organizing Unbounded Creativity

Amazon: Jeff Bezos's Letters Part 1

Amazon: Jeff Bezos's Letters Part 2 - Culture of Builders

Berkshire Hathaway: Buffett Partnership Letters 1957-1969

Berkshire Hathaway: Acquiring People it Deserves via 1971 - 1980 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: Financially Sub-Optimal Yet Optimally Human via 1981-1986 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: Families of the Sainted Seven via 1987-1991 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: Ordinary Things by Exceptional People via 1992-1996 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: Think for Yourself & The Compass to Decentralization via 1997-2001

Berkshire Hathaway: Owner Capitalism via 2002 to 2005 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: The Self-Aware Organization via 2006 - 2010 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: The Berkshire System & Imperfect Cultures via 2010-2014 Letters

Berkshire Hathaway: Contagious Behaviour & Long-Dated Human Assets via 2015 - 2020 Letters

Costco: Where Culture is Everything

Danaher: A Culture of Continuous Improvement

Danaher: The Best Team Wins Part 2

DISCO Corporation: Micro-Economies Where You Pay for a Desk, Meeting Rooms and Bet on Ideas

Exor: The Italian Prince of Cars, Newspapers, Tractors & Juventus

Fairfax Financial: Necessity for Human Excellence in Insurance via 1985-1999 Letters

GitLab: Iterations & High Performing Teams

Hubspot: Growing via Culture (Free Sample)

InterActive Corp: Barry Diller & The Able Thrive

Jeronimo Martins: Portugal's 200-Year-Old Retail Giant

Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy: Bernard Arnault's Luxury Paradox (Part 1)

LVMH: Decentralized Maisons, Centralized Production & Family Control (Part 2)

Nick Sleep’s Letters from Nomad Investment (Free Sample)

Philip Morris: Smoking & Human Desire for Addiction

Power Corporation: Generational Disruption

RCI Hospitality: Sin to Capital Discipline

Topicus: The Incubator Culture (Free Sample)

XPEL: Protecting Customers of All Levels

Explorations from Pre-OMD Journal (all free):

The following were written to test how much I would enjoy writing about companies before starting OMD Journal. They aren’t an accurate reflection of the type of exploration I do on OMD Journal. But it gives you an idea of tone, style and the limits to my knowledge.

• Alphabet

• Lululemon

• Morningstar

• Pinterest

• Trupanion

• Wix

• Workday

Powerlifting Journal

From overweight to world champion to one good knee…

I started strength training in 2008 out of high school. To give you an idea, my high school gym had 12 squat racks. The U.S. Winter Olympic team came to train there in the 2010 Winter Olympics and my fitness instructor had strength coached the Canadian Olympic Wrestling and Snowboarding team. I got really lucky with my start. 

I started competing in 2012 and set a couple of junior world records in 2012 and 2013 for the Squat. It’s because I started early and powerlifting wasn’t a popular sport. I was there at the right time.

That’s not to diminish the fact I trained at 6:30 am every day in high school and trained 4 hours a day all throughout university. I didn’t have a coach and figured things out with the help of the internet and making lots of mistakes. Starting early in an unpopular sport gave me such a leeway to see success despite mistakes.

I tore my meniscus in 2014 and spent two years seeing various doctors who misdiagnosed me. I got surgery in 2016 and got my first powerlifting coach in 2017 to help with the rehab and rebuild. My orthopedic surgeon said I wouldn’t be able to lift 400lbs again without a meniscus in my left leg. I went on to squat 450lbs at 145lbs bodyweight to win my first open meet in 2018 and came second in all men. 

Having learned a lot working with a powerlifting coach for two years, I decided to blow everything up and restart in 2019. I wanted to go back to programming training for myself and have fun lifting instead of obsessing over competing in a sport. I couldn’t care less if I could make it to the world stage. As powerlifting grew, the sport became more about “moving the maximum possible weight” instead of pure strength. 

Powerlifting journey continued…

I decided to train the way I wanted to use methods that I thought would be fun. Still, they are rooted in the foundations taught by the greats like Pavel Tsatsouline, Dan John, Stuart McGill, Mark Rippetoe, and Mike Tuchscherer.

I’m not an expert on anything. Just like with my investing, I’m just a curious person trying to be better. 

All I can tell you is what I’ve done thus far. I’ve squatted 3x my bodyweight and deadlifted 4x my bodyweight in a drug-tested competition. I’ve trained for 10+ years and never taken a year off. 

When I broke my collar bone, I cycled every day. When I had knee surgery I did pull-ups and upper body isolations until I was cleared to rehab. No gyms in COVID meant 2-hour love fests with kettlebells 5x a week.

My results are completely suboptimal for someone who has trained for as long as I have. I’m sure anyone with decent genetics with a proper coach will far outpace my development over a five-year period. But I’d rather not train than delegate my health development to someone else. The fun for me is both lifting heavy weights and learning more about my body in the process. 

I consider powerlifting to be an essential system in my life. How well I invest, write and build relationships are all influenced by powerlifting. This might confuse you. When I say powerlifting, I’m referring to my entire health system. I’m referring to my mental and physical health. I’m referring to how I sleep, what I eat, and everything from stress and mood. 

I see the building of wealth and strength as a harmonious system and I make sense of most of my investing through my understanding of how I develop strength. That’s a lot to say for someone who hasn’t received any professional training other than lifting for a decade but that’s how it is. But I would never trust a skinny strength coach and a poor investor. That’s just how I think. 

With that, I plan to share everything I’ve done to become a better powerlifter—and subsequently a better human being. As the name suggests, it will read similarly to a journal. Rather, a reflection of a month’s journal entry with thoughts for the next month. 

The Goal

I don’t train with annual strength targets. I focus on being injury-free, having fun, and becoming stronger slowly. I’ll stay at weights I can do until I feel mentally ready to move on. It’s not aggressive but I’m not trying to prove anything to other people. Getting injured trying to impress others is idiotic and I want to do my best to avoid that. 

Yet, I would be lying if I didn’t have a long-term goal in mind. I would like to squat and deadlift 4x my bodyweight (i.e. 580lbs) and bench press 2.5x my bodyweight (i.e. 365lbs). This will keep me honest. My definition of strength is not the absolute weight someone lifts but the ratio to their size. Bigger people should lift more since they were blessed with size. 

If I can hit these goals in five years’s time I would be happy. I would also like to hit these numbers while looking like I hit these numbers. That means building muscles and looking strong. There’s a long way to go there for this narrow-shouldered 5’5” lad. 

The fact is, I need to achieve optimal health to be able to do everything else I want in life. A healthy body and mind will also cost less on the purse and whatever wealth I build will be best used by a healthy self. Health is the foundational system to everything else and working towards my goals will require the best out of myself.

The Detail

I mentioned earlier that I blew up everything in 2019 to go from moving weight to getting stronger. The details are everything here. This is to explain what I’m trying to achieve with the stated goal. 

This is what I mean by the following:

• Squat: Using a low-bar setup with flat shoes. I will use all equipment allowed for “raw” powerlifters (i.e. wrist wraps, knee sleeves, belt) as safety comes first. 

• Bench Press: Flat shoes and shoulder-width grip with competition pause. 

• Deadlift: Conventional stance with flat shoes. I will use all equipment allowed for “raw” powerlifters (i.e. wrist wraps, knee sleeves, belt) as safety comes first. 

This classification matters because it’s moving away from the way I lifted in meets (and trained 7-8 years doing) that is optimized to move the maximum amount of weight. That means I’m learning to train myself differently as of 2021 and that is a new journey on its own. 

Monthly Journal:

The first Powerlifting Journal was published in October 2021.

October 2021 - Back to Repping 405s (Free Sample)

November 2021 - End of 9-Week Cycle

December 2021 - New Environment & Tackling Deficiencies

January 2022 - Bread A Day Kept the Squat Away

February 2022 - Deadlift Conundrums

Personal Bests:

Bodyweight: 145lbs

Squat (Heeled): 450lbs

Bench (Belted): 275lbs

Deadlift (Sumo Stance): 525lbs

OMD Ventures Annual Report

OMD Ventures was created in 2018. It started because a mentor said I should write a book after he read my article on waking up at 4:30am every day. I told him I wouldn’t know what to write a book on. But I told him maybe I should continue blogging.

The monthly blog turned into a site with writing, newsletters, podcasts, and everything I created. At first, it was a vehicle to document my journey of figuring out what to do next with my life. OMDV, eventually, became a part of the ‘next phase’ of my life.

The Annual…

I don’t know how to build a media business. I’m not sure on how to make a successful writing career as well. The more I studied people I admired, I found the singular constant to be perseverance and honesty with the self.

While the investing articles and powerlifting journals may lean towards the documentation of persevering, the annual report is intended to lean towards an honest reflection. anything worth having takes time and a year seems to be a decent mark to reflect on progress for my life’s venture.

With that, the annual report will examine my performance to become a better investor, powerlifter, and writer. I’ll share what my investment performance has been over the years and share key mistakes and reflections from my investment journal. I’ll share the annual overview on training from the monthly powerlifting journal.

A major part of the report will be the growth of OMDV. I’ll look at how many people came to the site, the number of subscribers on the newsletter, and reflect on the journey of building a business, let alone a writing career.

Annual Reports

• 2021 Annual Report: 19 Books Read, 2 Books Written, 18% Investment Return, 114 Essays, 2 Newsletters, 235 Days of Training... (Free Sample)