These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
I’ve done little on the site the last several months but publish thin content, and yet I just got a rankings boost. SEO can be a black box like that, hard to make sense of it. If I’d been super proactive trying to improve my rankings, who knows, maybe I’d be worse off now.
2
Been stuck on a plateau the last year but now feeling like I’ve turned a corner mindset-wise. When I hired help in the past, I’d retreat pretty quick and end up doing everything myself again. Now I’m fully committed, can’t imagine going back to how things were before.
3
Many taxi drivers are reckless here. To overcome the resistance to speak up and tell them to slow down, I imagine how I’d feel after a serious accident, how pissed I’d be that I hadn’t said anything. If a life was lost, would I ever be able to forgive myself?
4
Watching Flash Gordon from 1936, the most popular sci-fi movie of the day. Leading man Buster Crabbe also had starring roles as Tarzan and Buck Rodgers after winning a gold medal 400 meter freestyle swimming at the 1932 Olympics in Amsterdam.
5
Remember in Scooby-Doo how the bad guy would always get caught and repent at the end? In real life, bad guys don’t always get caught and they don’t always repent. Often they think they’re the good guys, being oppressed or misunderstood.
6
We spend quite a bit on food here each month, two healthy meals a day delivered so we barely ever need to cook or go to the supermarket. Must save us at least 20 hours per month. Gotta keep reminding myself of that so I don’t think we’re throwing money away.
7
Effective Hourly Rate = profit from your business each month divided by the hours you worked. Crunched those numbers for May and my EHR worked out to $153 per hour. Aiming to at least double that by the end of the year. Mainly via hired help.
8
Water for half the city was off for about 15 hours overnight. Walking around the block I step past a dead rat, lumps of dog shit, and a hypodermic needle. I want to keep my memories of this town positive, but the longer I stay, the harder it gets.
9
Waiting outside the hospital, a dozen people gathered around some benches crying and consoling. Someone must have died, someone young I’m guessing. These poor folks, I may well be witnessing the worst day of their lives.
10
Burnout sucks but at the same time I don’t want to leave excess energy on the table. Use it or lose it. So my days and weeks are often me seeing how close I can get to that line without crossing it. Tricky thing is, sometimes I don’t know where that line is until I’ve crossed it.
11
Sam Harris talking about the last time you do things, how you often don’t realize it’s the last time until much later, if ever. We’ll be leaving Tbilisi next month. Maybe today was the last day I’ll walk in that park, or visit that store, or cross that particular street.
12
Working my through Poor Charlie’s Almanack, a few pages a day, taking notes. I like Munger. Incredibly smart, insatiably curious, plays the long game, pulls no punches, strives to operate with honesty and integrity, loves his work and well-renowned for it.
13
Actually enjoying the hiring process. It’s a puzzle to solve: assuming there is a perfect person out there for the role, how can I find them? Requires some creativity, patience, persistence, psychology, lots of learning. Thought I wasn’t cut out for this part of entrepreneurship but maybe I was wrong.
14
Reading a book about the last 20 years of Sinatra’s life. One of the brightest stars the entertainment world has ever seen, but he was on stage forgetting lyrics at the end, in his dressing room thinking his wig was growing. We cling to this old faded thing, that used to be.
15
Four weeks until we blow this town and start a new chapter. Could well be the last time I pack up everything and move my life to a new place. But who knows. None of this seemed likely only a year ago. You never know what’s coming for you.
16
Doctor is late. I have my phone but let’s see if I can sit here until she arrives and just be content without any distractions. Thinking about that thing Blaise Pascal once said…
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
17
Trying to do better tracking my work time. Answering emails is work time. Checking Twitter is work time. Arranging tasks for tomorrow is work time. Tempting not to track it, so I never have to face the truth. But if I truly want to manage my time better, I have to track it better.
18
Street kids on the metro. She’s ten, he’s eight. They’re running around, laughing, chasing each other, falling into strangers, trying to get hands in pockets. Older passengers yell at them. They leave three stations later, still laughing, spraying a bottle of water back in the window.
19
She posts in a local group that we have this air purifier thing for sale, 33% less than we paid for it. Still not cheap. Some dude replies, angry at the world, calling her the c-word for trying to sell something most people can’t afford. Must be tough to live in his head.
20
Another person who “cannot afford training” asking me to mentor them. I ask what they think that would look like. “You please tell me,” comes the response. Okay, lesson one: put forth some significant effort before asking someone to help you. Otherwise, they’ll never take you seriously.
21
Trying to get two new people hired and trained before moving to a different country in three weeks. It’s a bit ambitious for me, a guy who doesn’t have much experience hiring and training people. At the same time, I’m enjoying the challenge.
22
Max Levchin is one of the founders of PayPal. He was 27 years old when he walked away from it with $30 million in his pocket. He says the year after that was the worst of his life. He sat in his fancy apartment with nothing to do, pining for those days in the trenches.
23
There’s a line in The Big Sleep where someone tells Philip Marlowe – that’s Bogart’s character – he should be ashamed of himself. And Bogart just replies casually, “I am,” and moves on with the conversation with nare a hint of shame.
24
It’s crazy how much info we process each day. Even if you’re having a lazy day, you’re likely still consuming a lot of entertainment, which takes processing. No great way to give your brain a break unless you can get out in nature with no tech.
25
After 90 minutes at 3 Vano Sarajishvili, I head to the quietest place I know in this city. It’s a hillside cemetery, a scattered maze of graves, some almost 200 years old, some with flowers, some with faces. I find a bench, unpack my lunch, listen to a podcast and nothing else.
26
Seen this guy Bruce Bennett in a couple of Bogart movies. Turns out he won an Olympic medal for shot put in 1928, starred as Tarzan in the 30’s, served in World War II, later became a successful businessman, was married for 67 years, skydived at age 96, and finally died just shy of his 101st birthday. What a life.
27
Four people on the team working today, logged 15 hours between us. That’s about 3x the hours I can do solo on a good day. A big goal of mine this year is to transform eBiz Facts from mostly a one-man operation into a proper business. Making good progress.
28
Ido Portal with an important reminder for someone (like me) who spends a lot of time sitting at a computer…
The body will become better at whatever you do or don’t do. If you don’t move, the body will make you better at not moving, by locking the tissues together. But if you move, the body will allow you more movement.
29
There’s recent video of a tourist on a motorbike here in Georgia, maneuvering along a flooded country road before he’s swept away by a freak landslide. They found him later, dead. Looked like a young guy, on a big adventure, all gone in a blink.
30
Proud of myself today for calling out bad service and pushing back at the excuses offered, holding them to account. I tend to hold others to much lower standards than I hold myself to, but that is slowly changing. I like myself better this way.