These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Every year on this day I watch Benjamin Button, have done since 2009. But not this year. Didn’t feel the urge. Went ice skating instead. Hard to know sometimes if it’s best to do something even when you don’t feel like doing it, or if you should yield to the resistance.
2
You ever get that feeling like you’ve done a load of work but have little to show for it? I tend to feel like that whenever I’m about to launch something new, always thinking more about what more should be done instead of how much has already been accomplished. Launching an update of my site tomorrow and mostly I’m seeing all the holes still in it.
3
Last call with my coaching group. This was a 5-call trial run for a bigger coaching program I was planning this year, but decided not to go ahead with it. I like coaching in many ways, but turns out I’d much rather be working on my own site, or even doing freelance work. Scheduling is perhaps the biggest downside to the coaching, having to be on calls at certain times.
4
Pro tip: when you switch to a new email marketing tool and message your list of 3,438 people boasting about how smart you are because the move saved you $700/year… best make sure you didn’t get all the names jumbled up in the transfer. Been getting replies all evening along the lines of, “My name is Paul. Why did you call me Muhammed?”
5
Long coffee with a couple who make a living via their Instagram. Very cool people, open and honest. Tough game though. See a nice Instagram photo and mostly I’m thinking about all the work that went into it. The organization, the shoot, the editing, networking and responding to comments. And you have to keep doing it. Take a break for a few days and you fall out of favor with the Instagram gods.
6
Flying to Vietnam today. Savvy travel pro that I am, only realized yesterday that I need a visa. Mad scramble to get it organized, brain fart cost me almost $200. Now I’m sitting at Ho Chi Minh airport, waiting an hour for my name to be called. Tomorrow I’ll be on a tropical island but rather than looking forward to that I’m wishing I didn’t have to travel at all. Problems of privilege.
7
Getting here was a pain in the ass. More stress at the airport this morning. Now it’s evening and we’re walking along a quiet beach after a soft sunset, playing on a big swing and finding tiny stars in the sand. This is Vietnam’s biggest island, and it’s experiencing a bit of a tourist boom. There are plenty of beautiful beaches, resorts, wildlife… mixed with mad roads lined with rubbish.
8
Making our way through a crowded market, on a scooter. Raw meat hanging from hooks. Little old ladies selling seafood. Beeps and smells and chatter. The whole place is chaos. We have to double back to find an escape route, end up twisting our way through several alleys, past run-down shacks and sleeping dogs, piles of garbage and live chickens, brushing by entire families on two wheels.
9
Bats don’t rely on eyesight to navigate. Instead they emit high-pitched sounds and listen for an echo to determine if anything’s close by. This is very similar to how people drive in Vietnam. They rarely keep an eye out for other vehicles on the road. Instead they emit a series of high-pitched beeps and listen for anyone beeping back at them. Doesn’t work great though. Their rate of road fatalities is 6x that of Ireland.
10
Finally, I can swim. Never learned as a kid. Started teaching myself in spurts 11 years ago, but only recently has it felt like I’m actually swimming comfortably. We’re staying at a resort on the beach here. I’m in the sea 2-3 times per day. I can be out there front-crawling for half an hour without a break, without losing my breath. Like going for a nice stroll. Total Immersion has helped a lot, but it’s taken a good bit of practice.
11
Been reading The Millionaire Fastlane and getting a lot out of it. I especially like his CENTS framework. If you want your business to make you rich, the more of these the better:
- You should control the system (no one person/company should be able to disrupt your income)
- There should be barriers to entry (to discourage competition)
- The business should fill a need in the economy
- Income should be detached from your time
- The business should be scaleable
12
In a little roadside shop. Most of these places seem to double as living quarters. There’s an elderly lady and three young kids sitting down to a meal at the end of an aisle. I ask them for tissues. No English. I mime a sneeze. They hand me baby wipes. I take a tissue out of my pocket and show them. They look at it curiously. I consider miming something else but think better of it and Google Translate “toilet paper” on my phone instead.
13
Airports are so broken, man. Getting to and from Pho Quoc has been a gigantic pain in the ass. Horrible customer service, convoluted procedures, booking a refundable flight you’ll never take just so they can tick a box, taking your shoes off because some dude fifteen years ago had a bomb in his, rushing to stand in line after line after line… really puts a dampener on travel. Got in a foul mood today wading through all that shit, felt like kicking kittens and punching old ladies.
14
Okay, gotta shake out of this grumpy mood. Back in Chiang Mai now and everything is easy again but still suffering from some lingering crankiness. Feeling unsocial and uncooperative. Really hard to like myself when I’m behaving this way. Let me go do something nice for someone. That might help.
15
Spent about 7 hours programming a feature on my own site these past two days. Not my strong suit, and it’d be more cost effective to outsource it and spend the time doing client work. But hey, I was enjoying myself. There’s a craftsmanship to coding, feels good when you weed out all the bugs and get that thing working nice and smooth. I believe Derek Sivers still does much of his own coding despite being a multi-millionaire. Something I can appreciate.
16
One of the main things I want to do on eBiz Facts is review courses, tools, books, job boards, etc. related to earning money online, help steer people towards best and away from the rest. Went through a course about freelance writing the past two days, paid $199 for it, made 20+ pages of notes. Glad to find that it’s very good, will happily recommend. Enjoying the review process, too.
17
Your strengths can sometimes be weaknesses. If I tell someone I’ll do something, I make sure to follow through and do it. Which is a great trait most of the time, but today I found myself in a fluster trying to follow through on something I promised a guy back in November, something that no longer makes sense. Took some effort to shake free of the compulsion.
18
Got word today that a friend passed away unexpectedly. James Schipper. A good, honest, friendly dude. Had been meaning to meet up with him here in Chiang Mai but never got around to reaching out. A lesson there. On a positive note, the man was living life on his own terms right up until the end. His time was cut short, but he made good use of it.
19
Had low expectations for the Nomad Summit conference but have to hand it to them, they did a great job. Excellent speakers, well prepared with their topics. And I got to meet a bunch of cool people. Best of all though, I come away from it reassured I’m on the right track. Lots of shiny objects were on display but I’m tempted by none of them, just going to take a few bits and pieces and apply to what I’m already doing.
20
I’m definitely more at peace with rest days nowadays. Used to be that I’d feel guilty about sitting on the couch all day watching Netflix, but now I see it as refilling the tank and feeding my subconscious. Alex Banayan, the guy who wrote The Third Door, said in an interview that he had to keep taking breaks while writing that book. It wasn’t one big push that got him there, but a series of them, with good stretches of rest in between.
21
Alright, published the first “deep review” on eBiz Facts, looking at that $149 course for freelance writers. Pretty proud of it, easily the best review out there for that specific course (not that there are many). And it sets the standard for the type of content I want to be creating consistently. Thoughtful analysis and advice to help online business builders make better decisions about where to invest their time and money.
22
Turning my attention now to Tai Lopez. Yup, the lamborghini-here-in-my-garage guy. Is he legit or full of shit? I’ve already bought one of his courses, will buy one more, and review them both. Did a few hours research on the man himself today. Definitely some shadiness about him. Thinking his courses are probably decent but hard to like/trust the dude given his marketing tactics.
23
On a group call yesterday talking about getting to “the next level” with your online business. It’s really one of two things that you need to improve, usually both: the service you provide, and your ability to sell the service you provide. You need to get better at the thing, and you need to get better at selling the thing. Or get really good at just one and partner with somebody who’s really good at the other.
24
At a meetup to remember James. I didn’t know him all that well, really. Met a couple of times here over the years, stayed in touch online a bit. Meeting some of his friends this eve, at his regular hangout. It’s okay, a bit strange somehow. Not sure what I was expecting. I’ll walk home all tangled up in thought.
25
A few months ago I figured out that all I really want to do for a living is follow my curiosity and share what I learn, help people live more free and think more deep. I started broad, was looking at random stuff like numerology. That was fun, but didn’t feel quite right. Now I’m focused, niched down to online business. This feels right. Not earning me a living yet, but I’m betting it will before too long.
26
Met a lady from Canada at the coworking today. She’s a lawyer, runs a law firm with a friend. They’re based in Toronto but she handles more of the business side of things so she can up and move to Thailand for a month, work remotely. Just goes to show that, these days, pretty much any job you can do from an office, you can do just as well from halfway around the world.
27
Been working my way through the Harry Potter books for the first time. They’re good. The editing impresses me most. No fluff, tight and fast-paced. Been thinking how there are seven books in that series. Feel like I’m writing my own 7-book series at the moment, about Tai Lopez. I’ve accumulated 157 pages of notes about him, his courses, his marketing tactics. Perhaps they’ll adapt it all for the big screen someday 😛
28
Chatting with a friend about ebb and flow. He’s piecing together an idea. Maybe it will be a book, or a blog, perhaps even a comic strip. He’d like to figure out a perfect plan and get started, but he knows better than to rush it. What’s that saying? You can’t make a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. Some things just take time.
29
Been working a lot lately. Worked all through the weekend. Not because I had to – because I wanted to. That’s a beautiful thing, and I’m grateful for it. I’m also grateful for days like today, when I pop into a cafe for a few minutes en route to coworking, see that Sam Harris just released a 2-hour podcast conversation with Stephen Fry, and let myself sit and listen to the whole thing while sipping hot lattes.
30
Finished going through the 67 Steps by Tai Lopez. Will be writing a review soon. In short, I found it long-winded, poorly organized, overly repetitive… and often profound. I’ve seen thousands of comments in there from people saying they’ve gotten a lot from it. For folks just getting into personal development, it’s not a bad gateway. But little beyond what’s freely available on Tai’s podcast or YouTube.
31
“How many hours do you work?” Always been hard for me to answer that question. Sometimes watching YouTube counts as work. Writing these Momentos could be counted, too. I track every hour at my laptop with RescueTime though. This morning they sent me a 2018 summary. Some highlights:
- Only 1 day all year where I didn’t log any time.
- Logged 2,645 hours total, or 7.25 hours per day on average.
- Almost an exact split between “productive” and “distracting” hours.