These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Hunting for a new apartment online. To rent, not buy. Though buying might actually be easier, given how picky we are. I’ve seen so many apartments with great potential, ruined by crappy furniture, awful wallpaper, ugly AF interior design. Upsets me more than it should.
2
Went and viewed five apartments today. First was the best, with three nice bedrooms, a workspace in each, big modern kitchen and living room, and a gym downstairs. Quite cheap for all that at $1200. But that’s more than double what we’re paying now.
3
The more we see alternatives, the more we appreciate what we already have. Decided today that we’re going to stay put and spend a bit of money to make our current place top-notch. It’ll work out easier and cheaper than moving elsewhere.
4
I’ll need to get back to writing reviews soon. They’re the money-makers. Put them on pause the past couple of months to focus on the passion project, the framework and profiles stuff. I badly want that to exist but I doubt it’ll do much to boost the bank balance.
5
Hypothesis: you have to be world class in your niche to earn a living with affiliate marketing. Not much room at the top of Google, bit of a zero-sum game. But as a freelancer or remote worker you don’t need to be world class to earn a living; you just need to be above average.
6
Reading a book about writing. Thought it might be pointless, since I consider myself a fairly solid writer already. But found a tip in there pretty quick that should pay dividends. I guess the only way to get better is to never think you have it all figured out.
7
Some weeks I get caught up feeling like I need to check everywhere and everything to find the best content for the newsletter. So many possibilities that it can get overwhelming, and no matter how good it ends up I can’t help but think it could have been better.
8
Can’t hang it from the ceiling but we could probably find someone here to design and build some kind of t-shaped contraption with two curtain rails across the top. Hang some fabric from them, separating the tables, a nice potted plant at either end… should do the trick.
9
Sometimes you can tell right away that a person’s a bit off. Like this guy, staring at other people’s screens as he walks slowly through the cafe. Then he stops and asks me about wifi security, says you can’t be too careful with all the Israelis around here.
10
Been suffering from occasional hip and back issues the past few years. Coming around to the idea that it’s due to poor muscle balance and worse flexibility. A result of sitting long hours at the laptop, then exercising haphazardly on a crappy foundation.
11
Liking Tim Urban’s cook-vs-chef distinction. I’m mostly a cook when I write reviews. They’re not all that different to reviews on other sites. Whereas the framework stuff has me feeling like a chef. I’ve had to invent my own recipe there, not just tweak an existing one.
12
One of the best things about having more money: being able to afford more expertise. Obstacles are easier to overcome when you can hire experts to help out. Like the rehab specialist the other day. Or the two lawyers this afternoon.
13
Lying down, listening to five minutes of magic composed by a Frenchman some 125 years ago. Not his intention, but I’m hearing in it the ups and downs of an entire human life. Childhood, adolescence, self-actualization, love, parenthood, facing death, making peace.
14
Feeling more energetic lately. No magic bullet, more a combination of things. But the lead domino is the finances flowing easier. That reduces stress. Which improves sleep. Being better rested, I exercise more and make healthier food choices.
15
Imagine you wrote a review of a movie. You say the movie’s decent, but you find the marketing misleading and you don’t entirely trust the people who made it. Later, those people threaten legal action if you don’t delete your review from the internet. That’d be bizarre, wouldn’t it?
16
If there was one truth you could magically know, what would it be?
- What happens after we die?
- Does God exist?
- What are next week’s winning lottery numbers?
- Something else?
17
Heard Eric Mosley say recently that business is mostly bad news punctuated every now and then with some good news. That sounds kinda awful, but true. Most days working for yourself means solving problem after problem. Solve enough of them and you get the good news.
18
Getting excited now seeing this big chunk of content coming together. We’ll be pushing publish on it next week. Should end up being about 100 pages of freshness. That original vision I had for eBiz Facts almost two years ago is becoming a reality.
19
Today I was 100% sure of something only to realize an hour later that I was very wrong. Looking back, my initial self-talk was ridiculous, like a cartoon yes-man living in my head, telling me only what I wanted to hear, keeping me from considering other perspectives.
20
Saw a bunch of people criticizing Tai Lopez this morning. Which is fine; he warrants criticism. But some folks seem so intent on pointing out what they don’t like about the man that they completely miss the good they could learn from him. He’s clearly doing some things very well.
21
From Psychology Today:
The ability to identify and assert consequence(s) is one of the most important skills we can use to “stand down” a difficult person. Effectively articulated, consequence gives pause to the challenging individual, and compels her or him to shift from obstruction to cooperation.
22
It’s 3am, couldn’t sleep, been up the past few hours gathering the evidence and writing out this entire saga. It’ll be more than two thousand words by the time I’m finished. If all goes well, only one person will ever read this. Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst.
23
Working all day on a Sunday, a hectic end to a hectic week. Feels a bit mad to be working this much when I’ve earned $30k the past two months. Part of me wants to relax. Another part remembers the words of a great warrior: 勝って兜の緒を締めよ
24
Went through 4 designers trying to get some images created. Detailed job description. None of the 4 asked any questions. And none came close to delivering what I wanted. Pretty sure they all had the talent, but it takes more than that to deliver a good service.
25
Obvious benefits to knowing the local language. But also benefits to not knowing it. Perhaps the biggest is that you rarely pick up on people gossiping or judging. Everyone seems so nice here, possibly because we don’t have the option to eavesdrop. Fine by me.
26
Love-slash-hate the deadline. Completely self-imposed, no real need for it. Running on fumes trying to get these 100+ pages published by the end of the week. But without the deadline I’d probably stay working on it for another month, let that idealism get the best of me.
27
There’s a silly subconscious expectation when I publish something like this that people will love it and throw a big party to celebrate. In reality, it’s never quite as big a deal as I hoped it would be. But that’s okay, a good reminder of what I’m entitled to.
28
Some types of online business seem to follow a power law. You have a few super-successful people at the top while most others struggle. YouTubers and affiliate marketers come to mind. Whereas with freelancers and remote workers it’s a more even distribution.
29
Fake gurus prey on unconscious incompetence, people who don’t know how little they know. Watching a video by a fake guru today and it’s obvious to me that he’s full of shit, but I would have been impressed with him several years ago, might even have bought his course.
30
I think he might be bipolar or something. It’s as if I’ve been communicating with two different people these past few months. One is fairly nice and reasonable, while the other is like a toddler throwing a tantrum. After today, I don’t want to hear from either of them ever again.
31
Looks like the legal threat is over. Mixed feelings about it. I stood my ground for the most part, didn’t delete the review, but part of me wishes he’d kept pushing his luck. It would have gotten messy, but I’m pretty sure it would have ended far worse for him than for me.