These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
When I’m tired, I try not to take frustrations too seriously, or dwell on negative thoughts. So easy to get annoyed by the trivial just because your brain is sluggish, viewing things through a dirty lens. Best not make any big decisions or think too deep in that frame of mind.
2
Not in my nature to be a squeaky wheel. But I had to be today in the hospital, waiting three hours for word I thought would come in one. I found a guy in scrubs and made my problem his problem, not letting him go until a solution was found. Uncomfortable, but necessary.
3
My own expectations get me in trouble. On crazy days like this, when my routine is thrown completely out of whack, I somehow still expect to get a good amount of work done. Then feel stressed and irritated when I don’t. Knowing this pattern doesn’t help much to break it.
4
Today felt like a productive day without much down-time. But when I think back on it, I realize that I spent at least 2 hours watching basketball highlights and comedy clips on YouTube. Checking my logs for last month… and wow, I averaged 2.1 hours per day on YouTube.
5
Much of success is simply getting out of my own way, avoiding self-sabotage. It’s evident in little things. Like the daily task that requires several clicks to complete, but would require just one click if I took a couple of minutes to set up a shortcut. Why would I resist doing that?
6
Catherine Price has asked hundreds of people to recall the most fun times in their lives. The majority of memories involve other people. That’s true even for introverts. Ask yourself the questions:
- When have you had the most fun?
- How can you put yourself in more situations like that?
7
Irish voices in my ears, scenes of Blade Runner lingering in my mind, walking around this old park in the rain. There’s a place for basketball on one side, a place for chess on the other. Men under a shelter playing the latter. I befriend two cats and they follow for a while.
8
I remember hearing about a world-class jiu-jitsu fighter who would nap in the stands between tournament fights. As in, he’d actually fall asleep and would have to be woken up for his next fight. That’s something to aspire to, the ability to detach so quick, rest so deep.
9
Watching The Maltese Falcon, considered the first film noir and released a couple of months before Pearl Harbor. An old movie like this sends me down rabbit holes. One leads to Kylemore Abbey in Connemara. Another to Bogart’s marrying a starlet 25-years his junior. A third to the origins of the infamous Rat Pack.
10
Overdid it last week and I’ve been paying the price for a few days now. I manage my downswings much better than I used to – they could be fairly destructive in the past – but it’s still hard to accept when they drag on. Trying not to feel bad about feeling bad.
11
That line in Chinatown… think I get it now. You can have the best of intentions, try hard to fix a shitty situation, and only end up making things worse. When you know it’s a rough neighborhood – especially one you’re foreign to – probably best you forget it, Jake.
12
Recently learned about Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail solo around the world. Started from Boston in 1895 aged 51, completed the loop three years later. But here’s the most fascinating thing about him: despite spending much of his life at sea, the mad bastard never learned to swim.
13
Main thing I wanted to practice this year work-wise was hiring and managing a team. So far I’ve hired two people and it’s going well. I’ve gained some confidence that I can be good at this. Now thinking about the next hire, who and when that should be.
14
The thing that bugged her about Tinder: guys all led with the same comments and compliments. They lacked empathy, failing to consider what her experience might be like. If they had, they might have come up with an opener that stood out from the crowd.
15
Philip Zimbardo wrote about different time perspectives. I’m predominantly future focused. I notice it when my mind wanders. It’s usually wandering into the future, thinking about what I’m going to do later that day or week, or what I’ll do if this or that happens.
16
Once you get into classic movies, you’re never stuck for something to watch. And since you have a century of cinema to pick from, every selection can be a work of art. Tonight I watched The Asphalt Jungle from 1950. John Huston, fast becoming one of my favorites.
17
Poor chap feels he got scammed, wants me to expose the scammer. Well, I already wrote a critical review of that course. I’ve been even more critical of others, and they remain in business. Hell, Jordan Belfort went to prison for scamming, and plenty of people still buy whatever he’s selling.
18
Pushed it hard today, maybe too hard. Three calls, a bunch of deep work, and lots of little things scattered throughout the day, pulling at my focus. I should have taken the evening for myself to recharge, but fell into default mode and regretted it.
19
Another Huston movie, this one starring his father and Bogart: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Shot mostly in Mexico, one of the first major Hollywood productions to be shot abroad. I’m used to seeing Bogart play the hero but he describes his character in this as “the worst shit you ever saw.”
20
I’m a bit embarrassed by how anti-social I’ve been in Tbilisi, my lack of friends here. COVID was a good excuse initially, but not now. I guess I don’t see the point in spending time building relationships here when we plan to leave for good in a couple of months.
21
Inspired reading info and advice from someone running a bunch of content sites. She went from $13K/month – about my current level – to $100K/month in two years. Main thing she focused on was building a solid system for content production and getting good people in place to work it.
22
Way I see it now, if you can get good at figuring out process and hiring a strong team, there’s not much limit to what you can do. Blogging, podcasting, video, social media, software, real estate… whatever you want to succeed at. Build the machine, assemble the team.
23
Been waiting 15 minutes when a guy with hairy ears waltzes in and tries to jump the line, not a bother on him. I call him out and he leaves. I reckon jumping a line is a fairly reliable sign of someone’s willingness to screw other people over for their own gain. I hate that shit.
24
From George Carlin’s sortabiography…
And however much kinship I had with the counterculture, it brought up again the eternal dilemma: of longing to belong but not liking to belong—even though the group I wanted to belong to now were non-belongers. Maybe it wasn’t belonging that I longed for so much as being able to fulfill my proper role. I wasn’t doing my job. I wasn’t using my mind to produce the external evidence of my inner state.
25
Felt powerful yesterday, did two days worth of work. Younger me would have wanted to keep pushing today, but now I know to take it easy or suffer later. So I enjoyed a nice slow day with an afternoon snooze, a long walk, and a Yasujirō Ozu movie from 1959.
26
There’s a middle ground between building your dream business and working for someone else. It’s to find someone who has already built the type of business you’d like to have, and seeing if there’s a way you can work for them. Then it’s essentially a paid apprenticeship.
27
Watch out for personal incredulity. That’s when you assume something isn’t true because it doesn’t make sense to you. When something doesn’t make sense to you, the intelligent response is to learn more about it, try fill the gaps in your understanding. But often we just default to ridicule.
28
An ideal off day, following my curiosity, learning about the Reticular Activating System and the Arab-Muslim slave trade, watching highlights from Game 6 of Heat-Celtics, later starting into the original Godzilla, which I now understand was an artistic response to what happened in Japan nine years earlier.
29
Watching the 1937 film adaptation of Heidi starring Shirley Temple. It’s set in the Alps but was filmed in California, and they Hollywooded the bejesus out of it by adding in a song and dance dream sequence, a scene with a monkey, and a big crazy chase at the end. Somehow it’s still endearing.
30
Easy get caught up in all the things wrong with the world, or even with your own life. But really it’s amazing so many things work as well as they do. Take the fridge in our kitchen: 2 years, never had an issue with it, works perfect. There are a million little everyday things like that.
31
Reading about the first time Buffett met Munger. Buffett had never met his match before, someone as intellectually dominant as himself. Strikes me that most people in that position would have seen Munger as a threat, someone to be bested. Instead, Buffett was eager to partner with him.