🔥Welcome to Volume #00082!🔥
I’m Christian Champ. This is ☯️The Middle Way Newsletter ☯️. It is a place where I write, explore, share, and invite you along for the journey.
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🚪When Opportunity Knocks🚪
Wait, it traded at what price, I said incredulously.
Our trader yelled out an impossible number.
His voice echoed across the trading floor.
I felt a shiver run through me. Then I said a couple of four-letter expletives to myself and one out loud.
An automotive supplier's debt which I tracked closely, traded down massively. One of the largest holders sold their entire block, leading to the impossible price decline.
We owned a tiny piece of this debt, and I talked to other lenders and our advisors (legal and financial) daily.
We tracked it closely for a potential entry point.
When the news hit, I jumped on the phone to ensure we didn't miss something.
Nope, we didn't.
Opportunity knocked at this moment.
We huddled as a group and quickly decided to buy. We took advantage of follow-on sellers, building a significant position.
The company planned to sell an asset, the crown jewel of the business. The debt jumped from the thirties to the mid-fifties when they announced the sale.
We took huge profits and exited the trade.
As the debt holders waited for the sale to close, the paper traded down again. It happened when the company closed a plant in Mexico that supported Ford.
Suppliers rarely take offensive moves against the OEMs (Ford, GM, and Chrysler), and this shutdown rattled holders.
Opportunity knocked at this moment.
Again the paper traded back down to the 30s.
One of my now good buddies (who I pitched the idea to at a conference after buying the first time) beat us to the punch, and his firm bottomed ticked the price.
I found myself back on the phone trying to confirm that Ford and Chrysler needed to support the company. When this checked out, it became game on.
Once again, we purchased a substantial amount of paper in the 30s. After the asset sale happened, we watched the paper trade up into the 60s.
It took preparation and perspiration to get to the point to pull the trigger on the trades.
My good buddy (a newsletter subscriber) and I joked that we probably never find an opportunity to find an upper 8 figure investment and find 30 points of upside.
We hope to be proven wrong, but it's not looking good.
The trade worked because the opportunity knocked, and our team moved on it.
Not once but twice.
The best trades of my career all happened before I turned thirty years old. It was a year of a lot of fist pumps for us.
The more important part is that I made many good friends from the situation. Five years later, my good buddy and one of the advisors from the deal made their way to Mexico for my wedding.
We never know when opportunity knocks, but it is on us to answer when it does.
📓Things to Think About📓
What is your money metaphor by Venkatesh Rao
Do you view money as a clock, freedom, renewable energy, a commodity, a lever, or power? How does this metaphor drive your decisions and how you relate to money? Does this metaphor serve you?
Rao explores our use of money metaphors and what it means for how we act.
The metaphors you use determine your money personality, and how much you will be able to do with it. To get to the next level of money, you probably need to think with the metaphors appropriate to that level. Think too far above your league, and you’ll be reduced to daydreaming. Stick to your own level of metaphors, and you’ll never move anywhere.
Nate Kadlac on Sketching Our Travels and Learning How to Draw
Nate is a designer who runs a class on Approachable Design that is on my to-do list. As someone that is trying to see the world better, his idea of doing quick sketches while on vacation appeals to me.
Instead of focusing on perfection, he wanted us to see the simplicity of the process so we could quickly apply this even if we were sitting on a bench with just 5 minutes to spare.
Even if the sketches weren’t capturing every detail, my memories of the moment were being absorbed by the paper. Like a delicious meal, I can easily recall the pillow-like grass we were sitting in, the differences between high and low relief construction, or how the flush glass seemingly dissolved into steel.
Drawing doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be fun just to sit in the middle of an intersection, quickly drawing the pillars of a museum in a 2-point perspective.
🎧Things to Listen, See, and Watch 🎧
Neuroscientist and Author (Successful Aging) Dan Levitin on producing and recording music in his 60s.
Music that Inspired this Episode - Warm Winter Mix 2022 by Shallou
💣Words of Wisdom💣
Kim Scott, Radical Candor
"Your ability to build trusting, human connections with the people who report directly to you will determine the quality of everything that follows."
Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit
“And what else?” breaks that cycle. When asking it becomes a habit, it’s often the simplest way to stay lazy and stay curious. It’s a self-management tool to keep your Advice Monster under restraints."
Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life
"Last, I thank all life trackers the world over. The tracker finds a path where there isn't one, and we need that more than ever."
Margaret J. Wheatley, So Far From Home
"NO HOPE NO FEAR Many years ago, I was introduced to a phrase that both intrigued and confused me. It is a familiar phrase in Buddhist texts: “the place beyond hope and fear," a state of awareness that frees us from suffering."
Musashi
"Instead of wanting to be like this or that, make yourself into a silent, immovable giant. That’s what the mountain is. Don’t waste your time trying to impress people. If you become the sort of man people can respect, they’ll respect you, without your doing anything.”
Ram Dass
“In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight.”
Venkatesh Rao
“Be careful with status symbols. Status symbols create envy, making it more difficult to maintain a flat, collective culture. Visible status symbols are especially tricky. Examples include titles, desk location, parking spots, and office equipment (fancy desks or chairs, size and number of monitors).”
🙏Thanks for reading🙏
How can we make sure we answer when opportunity knocks? How do we prepare for the opportunity?
Any thoughts or comments, please share!
Namaste,
Christian
The crew working on our drumming.
🚪When Opportunity Knocks🚪