You ever hear the advice “80% of success is just showing up?” I’ve known about this quote for years. But it has never been as useful to me as when I started attending mining conferences! This particular story is about one of my best experiences at PDAC 2019, attending an event hosted by Bob Thompson.
Many people know Bob as a well-respected portfolio manager with Raymond James. But early in his career, Bob wrote a fantastic book called Stock Market Superstars: Secrets of Canada’s Top Stock Pickers. I’ve read this one multiple times, underlining/highlighting many pages (that means I really liked it!). I even made a brief YouTube video back in 2016, sharing my thoughts here:
I hadn’t thought about the book for a while. But as I plan my PDAC 2019 schedule, I see an event listed exactly as you see here:
I immediately think “Oh neat! This is a chance to maybe meet some of my heroes from the book!”
So I email and tweet to Bob (I follow him on Twitter) to register. No response at first. I email a few days later, thinking he might just need to be pinged. Interestingly, his assistant gets back to me within 24 hours, and makes the event sound exclusive! I’m told a few of the stock pickers will definitely be there. Most importantly, I’m now on the registration list and can attend. This event immediately goes into my ‘top 5’ expected highlights at PDAC 2019, and I am so curious to see what happens.
Fast forward to PDAC. I cut one fun event short to make sure I arrive right at 3:00 pm for Bob’s event. At the door, I realize there are NO walk-ins! This is unusual for an afternoon event at PDAC. Good thing I kept bugging Bob even though the event description said “Registration is preferred, but not required” on the PDAC schedule!
I go in, and it’s almost empty. I am thinking “Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t have rushed over here?” But at least this gives me a chance to introduce myself to Bob. As a nice surprise, Bob tells me he has shared my video with people who want to know more about the various stock pickers he interviewed! So that is great to hear.
I also learn that up to three of the stock pickers were supposed to attend. Unfortunately, Eric Sprott is not at PDAC, and not even in Toronto. Tom Stanley probably isn’t going to show up? But Normand (Norm) Lamarche is expected. Norm ran the flagship Altamira Resource Fund in 1991 and turned it into Canada’s largest fund in its group. Norm’s interview was one of my favorites from the book. So now a clear goal is to try to chat with him for at least a few minutes.
But for now, no stock pickers in sight. I don’t think of myself as the greatest networker. I tend to latch onto just a couple of people at various events I attend. But if I’m lucky, it will turn into a very engaging conversation, and surprise me. That is EXACTLY what happened…
Enter Jonathan (Jon) Gibson. Holy cow, what an interesting background Jon has! You can learn a bit about his story by checking this snapshot article with some fantastic pictures.
Jon is truly the adventurous type. He’s currently working on starting up small-scale mining operations in both Pakistan and Madagascar. I am simultaneously scared and thrilled as he explains what he’s been doing in Pakistan the past year. I also learn that he has 10,000+ connections on LinkedIn! LinkedIn is his main social media hub, while I am on pretty much everything else BUT LinkedIn. We talk about helping each other out in this way. Well, now I’m on LinkedIn. And this article is first being published at CEO.CA. Shout out to Jon, I hope you get some new followers from this article!
After about 30 minutes of intense conversation, @Brandon MacDonald, CEO of Fireweed Zinc joins us. By random chance, I bumped into Brandon on 5 separate occasions at PDAC, even though I was not planning to see him at all. He is one of those people you just want to hang around, as ‘lucky’ things tend to happen. I’m not kidding, this is a key part of my PDAC story!
After an additional 10 minutes of interesting conversation including Brandon, Bob comes back around and encourages Brandon to introduce himself to Normand Lamarche. Wait, Norm is now here? Norm did not have a grand entrance or anything. In fact, Norm is just quietly hanging out in the back of the room by himself!
This is where I need to make a simple, important (but not obvious) decision. I am not the one that is called over to talk to Norm. But I know Brandon, and what’s the worst that could happen? I get ignored, and then talk to someone else? Really, that’s what I am thinking. So I go for it! I simply follow Brandon over to Norm.
And this to me is surreal. I am at an event with the beginning headline “Meet Canada’s top mining stock pickers…” One of those stock pickers is here. The room is now buzzing with activity and people. And yet, Brandon and I are the ONLY ones talking to Norm! And this conversation went on for a good 40 minutes.
Granted, I do not learn anything mind-blowing from talking to Norm. It’s just great to be in the action and see what questions Norm asks Brandon about Fireweed. I eventually join in, and the conversation goes macro. Eventually, one other guy joins us. But I can not believe the access and luck, and that no one else seems to try to talk to Norm.
This is such a cool opportunity, and I am so thankful to be in the right place at the right time. In fact, it makes me think of my random encounter meeting Warren Irwin (from Rosseau Asset Management) in person for the first time a day earlier, which I documented in this brief post.
The event starts winding down, and Norm has to leave. I don’t get his card, but he says he enjoyed the conversation. That’s more than enough for me! Almost everyone has left, and Bob comes back around to chat for a few minutes as the room is getting cleaned up. He notices I actually brought a copy of his book to the event. Without any push from me, Bob offers to sign my copy! He asks whether he should make it out to ‘Nick’ or ‘Mining Book Guy’. Well, you can see my decision from the title image at the beginning! And what a nice way to wrap up this event.
I hope you enjoyed this fun, true story from PDAC 2019. This was sent out as the very first email on ‘The Mining Book Guy Free Email List.’ Most of the future content will be exclusive to those on the email list. If you would like to join, simply sign-up at the following link:
