We’re one quarter into the year. With that in mind, I am taking stock of my progress against the goals I set out at the beginning of the year:

Professional:

Assess long-term interest in healthcare: I continue to think I am more “situation-oriented” than specific “mission” oriented. The “who” is more important than the “what” – if I am part of a motivated team that I can help/teach/mentor, and am working for someone that cares about my development, I’m realizing that I’m quite flexible on content. Similarly – I want to be additive quickly, I know that I get down on myself and frustrated when I don’t feel like I’m making an impact. Intellectual interest comes later – but with the right other ingredients, there are definitely parts of healthcare I’ve been spending time in that I’m not sure would’ve captured me otherwise. There are definitely limits – there are some parts of healthcare that I just think are bad ideas (as an investor, due to low probability of success relative to valuations) – there’s probably a very short list of people who could convince me to spend a meaningful amount of time, let alone make a career bet, on these spaces. What to do with this info, I don’t know yet.

Conversations with “new” connections: So far, so good. This has been a good reminder on winding paths we all are taking, i.e. how people with whom I had professional overlap went in different directions, or people ended up in a similar place as me but got there very differently. It’s also been a good way to exercise parts of my brain I don’t get to in the day-to-day. I want to do more of this with people that are local – becoming a bit more embedded in the Denver community civically is something I’d like to explore, and it feels like the best way to do that is by meeting / spending more time with people who have been here longer than I have with similar backgrounds.

Comfort with sourcing and “hit rate”: Over the last few months, I’ve spent most of my effort working on a new investment that should sign imminently and close soon after. I bring this up only because I find the investor job is a juggling act and inevitably one ball falls or is at risk. I often tell new junior investors that this job is a great way to get a diverse exposure to a bunch of different situations, but in the short run, there may not be very much diversity – they might spend weeks or months just focused on one portfolio company, one new investment, etc. But over a couple years, they should get to do industry research, due diligence on live opportunities, work with portfolio companies, etc. All this is to say that doesn’t fully go away at my level, and outbound sourcing has been the thing that dropped off in Q1. So this is definitely a focus area for Q2. One thing I am focused on is not letting the “perfect” get in the way of “good” as I know I could spend a lot of time on things like automation – that might make sense if I was doing a search or trying to institutionalize this, but I’m not there yet.

Financial

The “FI” in Fire: I’ve definitely paid more attention to asset allocation and long-term financial planning over the last few months, though haven’t made any material changes. I need to deep-dive into the robo-advisor I use as I can’t tell whether it’s actually driving market-level returns (or better) which feels like a pre-requisite to continuing to use it. This also got a little more complex because work decided to force us onto one brokerage platform for all new positions and I’m really dreading having one more finance account to manage. But I’ll probably need to rip off the band-aid in Q2.

New SMB or Angel Investment: Not much here – current debate is whether it makes sense to have a more concentrated portfolio or to just invest in a fund. I think the key question here is whether I’m driving at maximizing returns, minimizing volatility, actually being engaged with the CEO/founder, etc. I think it’ll point me to trying to be a value-added LP for someone else, but I’m definitely going to be opportunistically open here too. I missed the Wharton ETA conference this year (was in Philly the week prior) but might make a point of the HBS conference this fall. There’s also more to be done in the Denver ETA community – made it to one SMB meetup this quarter and had some great conversations, and going to try and hit a different one in Q2.

Buy A House / Set Aside Down Payment: I still think I’m a quarter or two away from being ready to house-hunt seriously, but I have a decent idea of where in Denver I’d like to be. For all of these goals (career, financial, personal) that bounce around in my head, I have to remember – I can’t do everything, but I can do many different things, and at a certain point, I just need to commit. So I can’t go deep into SMB investing and buy a house and have a high dividend paying passive portfolio all at once, at least right now. And as much as I’d like to have a space that feels fully mine again, there are real trade-offs with that too in terms of being “locked in”.

Personal

Attend 10 Concerts: Finally, something we’re ahead on! I hit four shows in Q1, including one of my favorite bands from high school (Thursday), one of Erica’s favorite bands of all-time (Sleater-Kinney), and a local band that I’m convinced is going to hit it big (A Place for Owls). But the highlight was Foxing and The Hotelier, a double bill of two of my favorite bands playing seminal albums from 10 years ago, front to back. The closest thing to a religious experience I’ve had in a long time was the Hotelier’s lead singer, Christian Holden, yelling “I just slept for years on end…fuck” to punctuate the first song on the album. Maybe you just had to be there, but it was incredibly clear how much Home, Like No Place is There means to people. I saw the Hotelier in NYC eight years ago right after Goodness, their final album, came out and the band faded from public view, only playing together sparingly after that album. I honestly thought I’d never see them play live again, and at all of these shows, I had the same thought – what if this is it? But that’s only a thought a person has when they’re moved, when they connect with something. So – if it’s the last time, I’m grateful I got one more.

See Family and Close Friends at Least Once: This has manifested in a couple ways – 1) taking time out on work trips to see friends in the area and 2) taking that marginal trip I might not have otherwise taken. A 16 hour trip to Boston was a failure on this front, but I did OK on this front during the mess that is JPM Healthcare Conference in SF. And we’re going to Vermont for the eclipse next weekend – not because I care all that much about the sun disappearing for a few minutes (just setting low expectations because it might be cloudy!) but because it’s a good reason to be home.

Visit a new state and a new NASCAR track: We’re halfway on this one – we spent a long weekend in Vegas, Erica got a new state, and I got to see a tripleheader (the two minor league races plus the headline Cup race). Weather cooperated and the track is less than 30 minutes from the Strip which was a huge plus, but you can’t bring in alcohol (different than New Hampshire). And saw a bit of history on Friday night, with only the 3^rd black driver to win in one of the top three series getting his first career win. Not sure Las Vegas will be the track we go back to every year, but it was a successful trip. I need to pick out a state for later this year – as of now, when it warms up, I’m thinking about driving to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills.

Health

Run a 1:30 half marathon: This has been a super frustrating quarter for running as I’ve had a nagging hamstring injury, but as of quarter end, I can finally run for an hour at a time again. And I’m thankful for developments in at-home physical therapy, as I would never go to a traditional PT with the regularity I’d need to make a meaningful difference. As a Packers fan, I think this is probably karma for being annoyed with how frequently Christian Watson misses games with hamstring injuries. Okay Christian – I get it, hamstring injuries suck. This probably delays my decision to sign up for a Q2 race, but if training gets better in Q2, then a Q3 race it will be.

Primary Care / Recommended Testing: I’m pretty frustrated with the medical community after dealing with a bunch of dental x-rays and scans for something that a specialist then shrugged at. Letting that one wear off before I even think about this.

Make Significant Strides on a new outdoor hobby: I didn’t ski once again this year, which honestly, I’m good with. I remember my college cross-country coach describing me as a “blue collar” runner and I took a ton of pride in that. I didn’t give a shit about what was happening in pro running, and you’d more likely find me out in cheap gray sweatpants than some expensive kit. I think about skiing similarly – the “blue collar” skiers have been crowded out, and they’re almost certainly not in CO, to the extent they exist. Maybe I’d go to Bolton, Jay or Burke back in Vermont, but the idea of fighting traffic on I-70 to spend hundreds of dollars for the privilege of waiting in lift lines sounds like my personal hell. Suffice it to say I can’t wait for the snow to melt.