#017 – The OODA Loop & Insider Trading

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Bringing 5 interesting ideas to your inbox every Thursday morning to ignite your curiosity and drive your growth.

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read time 3 minutes 

#017 at a Glance:

• Quote that will get you thinking: If it doesn’t challenge you...

• Podcast you should listen to: Australia’s biggest insider trading scam.

• Mental Model: The OODA Loop.

• Hack you should try: Read more fiction.

• Tweet I liked: Don’t judge where they start...

Quote that will get you thinking:

I’ve had this written on the wall above my desk for the last year.

SUCH an important reminder.

There is absolutely zero growth in comfort.

Podcast you should listen to:

The Sure Thing

The Sure Thing is a 7-part podcast series by the Australian Financial Review that dives into the untold story of how two mates from university performed Australia’s biggest insider trading scam – and almost got away with it.

Chris Hill and Lukas Kamay first met in the classroom at the University of Monash in Melbourne where they both studied commerce. Having each come from humble beginnings, they were hungry and ambitious to make something of themselves and only two years after their graduation, this desire ultimately transpired into the largest insider trading heist in Australia’s history.

With Chris working at the Australian Bureau of Statistics in Canberra and Lukas on the trading floor at NAB back in Melbourne, Chris would feed key economic metrics directly to Lukas ahead of time who would then trade on that information to pocket millions of dollars.

Their downfall was a big one…

After a very public criminal trial, Lukas was sentenced to 7 years and 3 months in prison, along with Chris’ sentence of 3 years and 3 months.

Each episode is approximately 30 minutes and what was really surprising to me was how involved Chris was in the production. So, not only do we learn about the crime from an investigative/news perspective, but also get to hear the story directly from one of the beneficiaries of the crime.

Super fascinating combination of financial crime, relationships, human psychology, and investigative journalism.

Listen on Spotify here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here.

Mental Model:

The OODA Loop 

The Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) Loop was formulated by US Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist, Colonel John Boyd as a decision-making framework for use in complex and high-stress situations.

It consists of an iterative process of 4 steps:

1. Observe: Survey your surrounding environment and gather information about the situation.

2. Orient: Analyse the information gathered in the observation phase and assess how it relates to the current situation.

3. Decide: Decide on a course of action based on the information gathered and the analysis conducted in the previous two steps.

4. Act: Act on the decision made in the previous step – with decisiveness and conviction.

Came across this gem courtesy of Sahil Bloom (you should follow him if you don’t already).

Hack you should try:

Read fiction books

Like the majority of you, most of my reading these days predominately consists of non-fiction. Autobiographies, biographies, self-development books, books about business, finance, history, etc.

But more recently, I’ve been changing that up a little…

I’ve started reading more classic literature like The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm, and Great Expectations, in addition to more modern works such as The Alchemist and similar books of that nature.

Reading fiction has such an incredible way of transporting your mind to different places and sparking creativity. I genuinely have begun to feel more creative since my mind is now being forced to visualise all of these different characters and stories which leap off the pages thanks to the incredible skill of these authors.

I’ve found this experience to be radically different from the non-fiction reading I typically undertake which is more focused on information consumption and learning as opposed to a literary experience. (As it should be.)

Now, I’m not saying to throw out the non-fiction books and focus exclusively on fiction – not at all. Non-fiction still takes up the majority of my reading.

I’m simply suggesting that you mix it up with a fiction book every once in a while – it frees your mind to think more creatively and forces you to use those parts of your brain which you probably haven’t used since you were studying English in high school.

Give it a go.

Tweet I liked:

That’s all for this week, thanks for reading!

Grateful for your support.

Stay hungry, stay humble, & stay curious. ⚡

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