These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Some receptionists here, when you ask if they speak English, will respond with a proud and defiant no, accompanied by a look that says, tough shit. The lady yesterday was different. She spoke very little English, but she was kind and compassionate, helped us get everything sorted in slow Spanish. Thank you, nice human.
2
What are the most important questions in the world?
– Is there a God?
– What happens when we die?
– Are we alone in the universe?If anyone answered any one of those questions, it would change everything.
3
Is there anything more frustrating than making the same mistake over and over again? As they say, we don’t need to learn new lessons – we need to be reminded of old lessons we keep forgetting. Shouldn’t have sent that payment link today. I already knew it was a bad idea, but I forgot.
4
Moody morning, white puffs floating along the hillside. I make-believe those puffs are from the trees exhaling warm breath in the cold air. You need damp and chilly days like this. If it was sunshine every day, Andorra would be a desert, and life would be bland.
5
Past midnight, still working. Landed a new client today, that makes four in the past two weeks. Sometimes they come easy, more often hard. This one was hard. Checking something for another client before bed, making sure I didn’t mess up his website and email. I’ll have strange dreams tonight.
6
In four years I’ve only had one day where I didn’t rack up 7000+ steps. Currently on a 565 day streak. Before that it was 878 consecutive days. Almost broke my streak last night: a quarter to midnight, realized I was 1000 steps short. Raised the desk and ran like Nelson Mandela.
7
Veggies I have with my dinner:
- 200g steamed broccoli
- 240g steamed squash
- 60g steamed zucchini
- 25g of rucula
Turns out there’s almost half a liter of water in all that.
8
Love getting leads for clients. I see them all come through, via their websites. First lead for that roofer today. First for the appliance repair guy, too, hours after launching his site. And another couple for that landscaper in London, usually a dozen a week for him now.
9
Back when I was doing the digital nomad thing, a friend and I had talks with a production company about making a TV show. For each episode we’d do a different job in a different country. Like driving tuktuks in Cambodia, competing to see who could earn the most. They wanted us to self-fund and film the pilot, so it never went anywhere.
10
In my office, window open. I hear a little girl singing a happy song outside. She’s probably four years old. Pink jacket, pink pants, pink boots, pink patinete, orange sunglasses. She’s with her mom, a good mom. It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon. However that little girl is feeling, I feel the opposite.
11
Mornings like this, our hillside view looks like a postcard come to life. Blue sky with the odd cotton wool cloud, all the shades of green, still a little snow atop the crowning mountains, and yellow flowers dotting the fields like someone applied the perfect Photoshop filter to add another splash of color.
12
Imagine if cigarettes and alcohol didn’t exist, and someone invented them tomorrow. What are the chances they would be allowed into the marketplace? Incredibly low, I’d say. They’re both awful drugs in terms of harm caused to individuals and society. Invent them now and they’d be immediately criminalized in most countries.
13
Millions listen to Bill Simmons’ podcast regularly. So I’m amazed at the schadenfreude when his team loses. People who ostensibly like the guy, expressing delight that he’s sad. Is it because he’s otherwise happy and successful? Or because it’s sports, not to be taken seriously anyway?
14
With some of my clients, a big part of the job is talking them out of bad ideas. Sometimes they’ll want me to use a photo on the website that makes zero sense. Sometimes they’ll ask me to create a whole new page that won’t produce any benefit. Sometimes I have to talk them out of the same bad idea several times.
15
Never met in person. Internet friends. Used to talk regularly. He had health issues. Serious. Wasn’t going to live very long. As he got worse, he became more religious, strange. Found it hard to talk to him, to keep the connection. I let our friendship fade. I think he’s dead now.
16
Jalen Duren has sucked in the Playoffs. He can sign a new contract this summer, potentially $40M a year if he had maintained his level of play from the regular season. Now it might be half that. Why do I feel bad for the guy? 22 years old, peak physical specimen, will be a very rich man no matter what.
17
Easy to take it for granted, got a good reminder today: how lucky I am to have the parents I do. Nothing I did to deserve them. Pure luck. They’re good, honest, supportive people. Very easy going, no drama. Worked long and hard to build a good life for themselves and their kids.
18
I sometimes wonder about the roads not taken. What if I’d never picked up a basketball as a kid. What if I’d stayed in Ireland 19 years ago, kept dating that girl. What if I’d stayed in New Orleans 16 years ago, got the green card. What if we’d never gone on that ski trip. A million different paths a life can take, but you only get to travel one.
19
Victor Wembanyama had himself a monster game last night, got every basketball fan buzzing. 22 years old and seven wins away from a championship. I hope he can stay healthy throughout his career. Serious GOAT potential if so. I want to witness greatness.
20
Seeing this guy on YouTube talking like finding new clients is super easy, barely an inconvenience. Calls them cold, and regularly closes for $500/month on the first call. I don’t believe him. Who in their right mind would commit to paying $6K/year that fast to a complete stranger?
21
Marcus Aurelius, writing about cold calling 2000 years ago…
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.
22
In 1790, 25-year-old Fletcher Christian landed on a lost and uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific with eight other mutineers and a few Polynesians. He died there soon after. He’s since been depicted in movies by the likes of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, and Mel Gibson.
23
I’m a hardwired idealist. In the morning, I form an idea of how the day should go if everything runs smooth. Inevitably, shit happens and I’m left tense and resistant to the less-than-ideal circumstances. So I’ve taken to asking myself every morning: what is likely to go wrong today, and how can I be okay with that?
24
Felt like a zombie today until I took a nap. Lay there for 25 minutes but only drifted off for 5 max. It was like closing all the tabs and windows and rebooting a sluggish computer. Got out of bed a different person.
25
I’m biased towards execution, getting started. Often end up taking a tougher path because I was too eager to get going. There’s a term for this: satisficing…
A decision-making strategy that aims for a “good enough” option rather than the absolute best or optimal solution.
26
Vincent van Gogh:
- Poor all his life, barely sold any paintings.
- Killed himself in 1890 at age 37.
- Now regarded as one of the best artists who ever lived.
Ernest Meissonier:
- Became a rich and famous artist in his 30’s.
- Was the world’s highest-paid painter when he died in 1891 at age 75.
- Now largely forgotten, sometimes even ridiculed.
We want to live like Meissonier, and be remembered like VVG. But if you could only choose one or the other… no contest, right?
27
I am noticing the feeling of anxiety, frustration. Come back to my body, push my feet into the floor. Stretch out my arms, my neck, shrug my shoulders, a few slow breaths. Notice five things I can see. Cup of water on my desk, bright moon outside in the sky, indifferent to it all.
28
I’ll never forget the names and faces of kids I went to primary school with. Eric Falconer, Brian Gardener, Patrick Toner, David White, Martin Morrissey, Gavin Downey… Haven’t seen any of them in 30+ years, probably wouldn’t recognize them now if they passed me on the street.
29
From one of my favorite novels…
That’s all your life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience. Everything is explained by that simple formula. Tot it up—look at the respective piles. There’s nothing you can do about it: nobody shares it out, allocates it to this one or that, it just happens.
30
One of the best uses of AI: feeding it a load of data and getting it to notice patterns. I had it check the data from 100s of cold calls. Turns out if a business doesn’t pick up the first time, and they don’t return the missed call, it’s almost a complete waste of time trying them again another day.
31
A lively morning in Encamp, watching all the leisurely people enjoying the sunshine. A group of cyclists sitting outside at the cafe. Kids with their parents, after basketball. An older man, fit and healthy leaving the gym. Two women with a beautiful dog. Bikes on the back of vehicles.