These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Fake gurus don’t respond to criticism by taking a hard look at their business and cleaning up their act. No, the way they see it, the problem isn’t their bullshit teachings; the problem is people calling them out on their bullshit teachings. So they try to silence those people.
2
Talking with a friend who has grown his business from $4k/month four years ago to $200k/month now. $4k felt like a lot to him back then. Now he’ll do that before lunch. He’s trying not to see $200k as a lot, aware that he could eventually be doing that in half a day.
3
Listening to Neville’s new podcast, interviewing a guy who dropped out of law school to become a game designer, raised almost half a mil for his most recent game on Kickstarter. Love hearing stories like that, people succeeding off the beaten track.
4
Is it just me, or are folks far more accepting of advertising than affiliate marketing? You can have a random sponsor for your newsletter or podcast or YouTube channel, and it’s considered fair game. But put an affiliate link in there, even with a disclosure, and people are wary.
5
I’ll need to dive into TikTok at some stage, study how people are making money on there. But for now it gives me the heebie-jeebies. Powerful training for developing a short attention span methinks. Essentially the opposite of meditation.
6
Of all the things we take for granted, reading has gotta be up there. Such an unnatural thing that feels so natural. I’m going back and forth between two books now, one by Maya, one by Phil. Symbols on a page, putting me inside their heads.
7
Almost 19 years since 9/11, half my life ago. Strange how strong the memories are from those late teenage years. I started traveling the world in my late 20’s but even memories from that time struggle to compete.
8
Third dentist in a week, fishing for a good one. This place has a family feel, offering me tea while I wait, neighbors popping in to say hello. They take the time to properly diagnose and explain. I book an appointment for next week, then cancel two from a previous practice.
9
My social media for eBiz Facts kinda sucks. And that’s okay. It would take time and effort to make it not suck, and that would be time and effort taken away from more important things. I won’t lose sleep over being bad at something I’m not striving to be good at.
10
COVID numbers on the increase here. Still quite low overall, but it seems everyone’s gotten a little too relaxed. Many shops and restaurants no longer care if you wear a face mask, and the streets and parks are packed with people once again.
11
Saw this evening that another website has stolen my identity and some of my content, making me out to be the owner and operator of the site. More amused than anything, such a pitiful attempt to make money online. Regardless, I’ll report them to their host.
12
Heard about a guy on YouTube plagiarizing content. At 20k subs, he was exposed by another channel. Several months later, he’s at 170k subs. Clearly no incentive for him to quit stealing. It’s far too profitable. Presumably YouTube doesn’t care so long as it boosts watch time.
13
No matter how productive I am – and I’m generally fairly productive – there’s always a part of me that thinks I should be doing more. Regularly have to remind myself that it’s okay to take some time off, to not get done what I’d planned to do today.
14
Is now a good time to start an affiliate site? Yes and no. In some ways it’s easier than it was five years ago: better research tools, easier to build a website, etc. But it’s also harder because there’s more competition now. If you’re going to try, don’t do it half-assed.
15
Afternoon blades at my feet, evening blades at my teeth. Had my toenails taken off again for shits and giggles, and started a run of visits to the dentist to fix the neglect. In between I managed to get some work done, next review almost ready to go.
16
The way Phil Knight built Nike was truly was a case of “working several years like most people won’t, to live the rest of your life like most people can’t.” Non-stop stress and little time spent with his kids. Impressive what he achieved, but I wouldn’t want to emulate.
17
Easy get caught up in the day-to-day and not appreciate how far you’ve come. Chatting with a friend who didn’t know I’m earning $10k/month consistently now. That’s the level she wants to be at, the level I was striving for not so long ago. How quickly it became the new normal.
18
The restaurant is a hidden courtyard, all red brick, wooden decking, random cats, and the sky somewhere above the trees. Three hours fly by, talking of economy and ecology and all the things the future might bring. We’re in the prime of our lives.
19
For several months now I’ve only used Facebook for Messenger and groups. I almost never browse the news feed. Too much outrage there, and advertisers retargeting me with products I’ll never buy. I find myself using Twitter more often.
20
On of th kys on my laptop stoppd working. No prizs for gussing which ky. On rpair shop hr says thr’s nothing thy can do. Anothr quotd m $900 for a fix. I bought th thing 3.5 yars ago for $1500. So it sms my bst option is to go buy a nw laptop.
21
Bought a new laptop. An Asus Vivobook. Cost $900 and it has great ratings and I hate it already. Seemed solid in the shop but after using it for an hour I realize the touchpad sucks and the OS is buggy. I want to throw the thing against the wall for wasting my time.
22
Got a refund and went crawling back to Apple, typing this on a new MacBook Pro. Didn’t fancy taking another shot on a different brand and OS. I’ve lost a couple of days to this laptop fiasco already. All I want is to get back to work.
23
Dentist worked on me for 2 hours yesterday, did 3 root canals. The bill came to $65, so about $33/hour. I know everything’s cheaper in Georgia, but man, if I studied and practiced something difficult like dentistry for 20 years, I’d want to be earning more than that.
24
Back to full speed, flying through tasks. Keyword research, recording commissions, paying a contractor, troubleshooting a custom RSS feed and hooking it up to Zapier, scheduling content promos on social, setting up a new exit intent, optimizing content with Surfer…
25
I go back and forth between feeling like I’m crushing it with my business – on pace for $15k this month – and feeling like I’m only an amateur. The latter mainly because I’m still a one-man show. I want and need to get good at hiring and management to get to the next level.
26
I’m more wary of strangers than I used to be. Maybe it’s due to the pandemic, maybe it’s because I’m older, or maybe it’s that I’m not only looking out for myself now. No doubt my interaction with that young Georgian dude would have been different several years ago.
27
Everyone should watch The Social Dilemma. Part in there about tech being good and bad at the same time. That’s hard for us to appreciate methinks, the nuance, the shades of grey. We like to be able to label things as one or the other, and we can’t do that here.
28
Occasionally exposing yourself to other people’s stupidity is good for self-esteem methinks. My usual fix comes via SciManDan videos. Got another fix today from responses to a writing job I posted. It’s as if some of them are trying their best not to get hired.
29
The first time I can kind of understand because many people wanted radical change. But after seeing him in action the past 4 years I can’t imagine how anyone can take that man seriously and vote for him again. It’s an impossible job, but he’s especially bad at it.
30
Trying a new work schedule. Each day has a specific focus. Monday to Wednesday is for new content. Thursday updating existing content. Friday the newsletter. And over the weekend I do coding updates and other bits and pieces. We’ll see how it goes.