These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Spent pretty much the whole day working today. My “work” involved going through an affiliate marketing course and taking notes so I can write an in-depth review later. I was fully engaged, loving the process – digging, questioning, reasoning, investigating.
2
In my early 20’s I worked two jobs one summer. I remember telling my dad that I was working about 50 hours a week, thinking he’d be impressed. He looked at me puzzled, then said, “50 hours? Sure that’s a light week.”
3
Reminder to self: be grateful when you pay for things. You spend your money thoughtfully, you invest in products and services that bring you value. So don’t be hesitant or resentful when it comes time to pay. You’re exchanging that money for a better life. It’s a good deal.
4
Gotta love American reality television. So much drama. I feel myself reaching for a bag of popcorn and waiting to see what mad shit Trump is going to say or do next. Seriously though, it’s as scary as it is entertaining. How the hell can that guy still hold the highest office?
5
Reading Founders at Work. PayPal, Hotmail, Apple. Sounds like they didn’t get much sleep building those companies. They were obsessed. I think you need that, for at least a little while. Without obsession, you can make a living, but I’m not sure you can make a massive impact.
6
Decided not to head back to Europe for Christmas, going to stick it out here in Bali for another few months. The living is cheap, my routine is solid, and it feels like now is the time to knuckle down and take eBiz Facts to the next level.
7
Prepping interview questions for online money makers. We’re trying to come up with a solid batch that we can ask everyone, and scale quickly to several interviews a month. Much simpler than the case studies we were doing, and better in many ways. Or so I hope.
8
Little more than five hours sleep. Been awake now for sixteen hours. Spent twelve of those writing this Project 24 review. Not finished yet. Not even sure I’m happy with it. But I’m at least happy with the effort.
9
My average wake-up time this month is 5am. This morning it was 3:40am. Not intentionally. I’d love to sleep longer, but I’ll wake up to use the bathroom, or wake up mid-thought… and my brain rarely lets me back to sleep after that. So I get up and go downstairs and start working.
10
Re-reading Steve Martin’s memoir. Those first couple of lines hit hard:
I did stand-up comedy for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success.
11
I envision someday putting together a line graph showing my monthly earnings since quitting my day job back in 2010. Little ups and downs for almost a decade, nothing super impressive. And then, at a certain point… hockey stick.
12
One of those days where you chip away at a few things and end up getting way more done than expected. Even started redesigning the site layout. The current design lacks weight, authority. Won’t take much to fix it.
13
Early morning, at a remote waterfall, just the two of us, sitting quietly, watching the sun on the river. Two butterflies, black and bright, flitting and flirting. Birds like checkered flags. Spiders walking on water. Wild monkeys in the treetops.
14
When we first came to Bali, we were shocked by a lizard the size of my hand crawling the kitchen walls, had to call someone to get him out of there. Now there’s another one in the kitchen, and we’re not bothered. He can stay so long as he’s not in the way.
15
Started combing through Google’s 167-page Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines three weeks ago. Finished today. No big surprises. Main takeaway is that Google helps websites that help people. But of course they’d rather cut out the middle man.
16
61 consecutive days doing my stretching routine. Took two days off before that to rest my back, which broke a 68-day streak since my dengue adventure. No way I’d be stretching this much without the Mastermind penalty in place.
17
A friend has been confined to his bedroom for a month with health issues. But armed with relentless optimism and an internet connection, he’s meeting people, reading epic books, having spiritual breakthroughs, sharing and inspiring. Legend of a man.
18
Something like 1% of people own 50% of the world’s wealth. From a business perspective, you’re better off targeting just that 1% with your products and services. Because that’s where the money is. Which makes 99% of the world’s population an afterthought.
19
The Tai Lopez affiliate program is the worst. They’re supposed to pay every 14-30 days, but I haven’t been paid for two months. No reply to the four emails I’ve sent them about it. Now they’ve subtracted $450 from my account for a refund on a sale well beyond the refund period.
20
One thing oft-overlooked about The 4-Hour Workweek, is that Tim Ferriss himself wrote how he put in 80-hour weeks to build his supplement business. Then he optimized it down to 4 hours a week. Doubt he could have built it doing 4-hour weeks from the get-go.
21
The main challenge with eBiz Facts now is to keep working on it 100%. I’m eating into my savings trying to reach break-even, which is fine. But if I don’t start earning more from it soon, I’ll need to go back freelancing, and that will slow all progress.
22
Another day, another affiliate marketing course. I got excited for this one after watching the video on the sales page, but man-oh-man has it failed to live up to its lofty promises. I’m sure they’re making great money selling this crap. I’ll try put a dent in that.
23
Sometimes I think my biggest strength in business is that I actually give a shit about doing good work and providing value. Other times I think the same thing is my biggest weakness. Lots of people getting rich flogging dead horses. Like these CBU guys.
24
Scooter takes off from the side of a busy street… too fast. They hit a pothole, girl on the back bounces on her seat. They hit another pothole, then there’s the scrape of metal on concrete as the bike goes down and they fall into the middle of the road.
25
Pushed publish on the first in a new interview series. Not going to make any money from these directly, but they should inspire a bunch of people and help us build links. And I just love that my job is to learn all about other people’s online businesses.
26
Touch wood, but almost everything seems to be trending upwards for us now. Affiliate commissions looking good this month, just had our best traffic day since July, and we’re steadily climbing the rankings across the board.
27
Had this feeling once in Dubai, standing on a beach, dwarfed by Blade Runner-style skyscrapers. That surreal intersection of nature and technology. Now tonight, my back to this futuristic, open-air nightclub, staring up at the cosmos, basking in music and starlight.
28
Man, these guys are unreal. I knew they’d pulled a bait and switch the first time I went through their sales funnel, but upon review… it’s far more devious than I thought. And they must know, this can’t be accidental. They’re purposely misleading people to make more money.
29
Threw a bunch more hours at that review today, up to 34 now total. There’s something in me that hates seeing people getting away with shitty behavior. I seem more motivated to expose bullshit than celebrate excellence. I spend more time reviewing the bad than the good.
30
From Founders at Work:
“There’s no such thing as easy entrepreneurship. It’s going to be painful, it’s going to be emotionally unstable, you’re going to feel insecure. If you’re not already bipolar, you will feel like you are.” – James Hong
31
My morning routine in Ubud: wake up an hour or two before my alarm, try and fail to fall back asleep for ~20 minutes. Get up, head downstairs, work a while. Walk to my favorite cafe for 7, right when they open. Order the breakfast special, grab my seat by the window, and plug back in.