Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: birthday

  • Forty-one

    Today is my forty-first birthday.

    I had aspirations of making it a slower day, but that didn’t really happen. I did, however, start my morning “on the Bench” for one of our development projects and that was pretty spectacular, especially with the weather we had. Today has to have been the nicest day of the year.

    I very much enjoy my birthdays, but the cadence of them seems to only speed up. It feels like just last month that I turned forty. And so in many ways, birthdays are a reminder to me that it’s important to be decisive and not waste time. Life keeps moving forward whether we like it or not — usually quickly. So it’s best to optimize accordingly.

    At the same time, this is probably one of my biggest faults. I’m bad at slowing down and living in the moment. I get restless. Neat B tells me that I am at my most relaxed when we are traveling in Paris and just sitting idly in a cafe somewhere. That sounds right. But I’d like to do more of this at home.

    So that’s my birthday wish (goal) for this year.

  • Forty

    Today is my fortieth birthday. And despite a noble attempt to avoid having meetings today, I spent a big chunk of the day in them. Thankfully, I was also fortunate to spend a lot of time with family, friends, and colleagues (see evidence above).

    This is a birthday where I think I’m supposed to feel things. And I do. I’m grateful for the wonderful people that I get to have in my life and who love me. I feel lucky that I get to wake up every day and do something I love. And I’m genuinely excited for this next decade.

    It is, however, true that time does speed up. It feels like just yesterday that I was 30 years old. I had just finished my MBA. I was about to start writing this daily blog (yes it’s nearly a decade old). And I was trying to figure out how to make an impact on the world.

    Maybe not much has changed. It’s not in my nature to feel complacent. But there is something nice about getting older and feeling more confident with yourself and your abilities.

    If anything, birthdays are a good reminder that time is precious. We only have so many weeks. So we shouldn’t feel shy about asking the world for what we want. I think that’s what I’m feeling most this birthday, and I view that as an exciting thing. So here’s to forty years.

  • Two-way, all-day regional rail

    Neat B and I had a very good friend’s 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

    So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off — along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train — we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

    I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I’m always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical “two-way, all-day regional rail service” is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

    Anyway, I digress. Here’s a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

    Happy birthday Philip!

  • First day of summer

    Today was the first day of the year that truly felt like summer here in Toronto. It also happens to be my birthday. 

    So I did the only sensible thing one should do on a day like this. I went to a rooftop patio after work, with my family, for two of my favorites: a bowl of spaghetti al limone and a negroni. Simple.

    image

    In other news, Fred Wilson wrote a great post on his blog today about why he loves Canada and why it is an increasingly important place for the tech sector. 

    For those of us who already know that Canada is the greatest country on earth, it’s a noteworthy post not because it is likely to tell you a lot of new things, but because it was written by Fred fucking Wilson.

  • Today I am N+1

    Today is my birthday. 

    I am one year older, at least at face value. This got me thinking about something I read a number of years ago on Fred Wilson’s blog called The N+1 theory. The basic premise is as follows: whatever it is, there could be one more. It is an optimistic viewpoint that emphasizes continuous improvement and change.

    For example, let’s say you’re designing a building and you’re trying to make it as energy efficient as possible. You might think that you’ve arrived at the most efficient outcome, but in fact you’re probably just sitting at N. Stretch yourself. Go for N+1.

    Let’s say you’re working out at the gym and you feel you’ve done as many reps as you could possibly do. Well, if you stretched yourself, you could probably do N+1. People who lift weights will also tell you it’s that one additional rep that counts the most. 

    The mantra: Do as many or as much as you can possibly do (N), and then do one more (+1). The N+1 theory is a growth mindset. And if you apply this thinking throughout your life, I am sure you would see many benefits.

    At the same time, one could imagine this theory being applied in a destructive way. In a relationship, for instance, is it healthy to think of your significant other as N, meaning that you should be looking for someone better? That N+1. This strikes me as an unhappy way to live. I would prefer to apply this theory in a productive way. 

    Whatever the case may be, today I am firmly N+1. And I feel good about that.

  • 33

    Today is my 33rd birthday. 

    It’s currently raining here in Toronto, but the sun is supposed to come out this afternoon. The Raptors won game 7 of the first round of the playoffs last night and now go on to face the Miami Heat in the conference semi-finals. The last time they made it this far in the playoffs was in 2001! And at 33, I am pumped with where I am in my life right now. I get to do what I love every day. 

    It is good practice to live a life based on appreciation, rather than expectation. So I am trying to do that this morning as one more birthday passes.

    Recently, a good friend of mine (Chris) explained to me two theories for why life seems to speed up as you get older.

    The first is that as you get older your life becomes less punctuated with significant milestones. When you’re younger, you have: going to high school, driving for the first time, voting for the first time, going to University, as well as a series of other life events that help create temporal awareness. But as you get older, many of us fall into more consistent routines – which isn’t all bad. Consistency can be boring, but you have to put in the time.

    The second theory is that as you get older each year represents an increasingly smaller portion of your overall life. For instance, when you’re 5 years old, 1 year is 1/5th of your life. But when you’re 50, 1 year is only 1/50th of your life. So with each passing year, a year feels increasingly shorter.

    Whatever the case may be, time seems to be speeding up and birthdays certainly feel a little less significant. But they’re still a great excuse to spend more time with family and friends. And that’s exactly what I did this past weekend.

    Based on the above, birthdays are also a great reminder to try and punctuate one’s life with as many significant milestones as possible and to be grateful for them when they happen. I’ve been told that I tend to live in the future, as opposed to appreciating the now. (Probably has something to do with what I do for a living.) Perhaps I’ll get better at that with age.

  • 32

    Today is my 32nd birthday. It felt like a beautiful summer day here in Toronto and so I mostly took the day off from anything too serious.

    At 1:00pm though, I did participate in a Jane’s Walk taking place right around the corner from me. As part of that, I spoke briefly about why I think Toronto should remove the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway and replace it with a surface boulevard.

    Given what the other speakers had to say and given some of what I heard at the event, this is definitely not a universal position. In fact, one person commended me on taking a “courageous stance.”

    A number of people seemed to support Quadrangle Architect’s Green Ribbon proposal and/or the notion that, whatever is done, the Gardiner Expressway must remain in operation.

    At the same time, quite a few of the people I spoke to seemed unsure of any position and instead came to the walk simply to learn more about the options. Hopefully by the end of it they were closer to one.

    If I have one piece of constructive feedback on the walk it’s that it wasn’t interactive enough. It’s fine to standup and talk for 5 minutes, but it would have been great to also have a discussion and debate. At the very least, I would have liked to see where most people stand. Hopefully you will all share that in the comment section of this post.

    I continue to believe that removing the Gardiner East is the right city building decision. But I also respect anyone who is willing to take a firm stance. Toronto City Council has already punted this decision before. It’s now time to make a decision and own it.