These are my Momentos, short personal diary entries I write daily – since 2013 – and publish monthly. Some links are affiliate links.
1
Stayed up late last night, exchanging emails with this guy in Los Angeles, producer for a TV show you’ve probably heard of. They’re doing an exposé on shady affiliate marketing courses, wanted my take. Not sure if I’ll end up on the show, but worth the effort just on the off chance.
2
Someone coded up a Telegram thing that reads my newsletter aloud to you. Pretty cool. Has me thinking I could eventually do a podcast and YouTube version of the newsletter. The content is already there, could just put it out in other formats with a little extra effort. Thoughts?
3
Out cycling that flat path through the mountains, around the lake and beyond. It’s especially nice to cycle in silence and tune out for a while. When I tune back in I try to remember what I was thinking about, and realize I wasn’t thinking about anything at all.
4
Been doing The Happy Body routine pretty much every day for a few years, but switching it up now, trying a routine from the Knees Over Toes Guy. Feels like THB was good for maintenance mode, but it wasn’t helping me fix some issues.
5
This isn’t taken seriously enough, from the book Effortless by Greg Mckeown…
People who sleep less than seven hours a night are more likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease, heart attack, stroke, asthma, arthritis, depression, and diabetes and are almost eight times more likely to be overweight.
6
Ugh, spent way too long today responding to a course creator’s post accusing us of being scammers. Doubt my response will make much difference, but I just can’t let that kind of thing go unchallenged. The irony of it is sickening.
7
We had a knock on the door from the immigration police. They were due to come around, make sure we’re actually living here. Apparently some people get Andorran residency for the taxes but barely spend any time in the country. Not an issue for us. We love this place.
8
I have to set up the new Mac before I can connect the bluetooth mouse. But I need to have a mouse connected to set up the new Mac. Takes me almost an hour to fumble through the setup with the keyboard only. Great job, Apple.
9
Spent a lot of time researching my new home studio setup. Now all the stuff is here, I realize a few things aren’t quite right. But that’s okay. I was never going to get it perfect on the first try, no matter how much research I did. Being willing to get it wrong is often the fastest way to get it right.
10
I love listening to old music on YouTube and finding comments from people who remember when it was new. Like this one for Stand By Me…
In 1968 I head Ben E. King sing this song at a small club on the coast of SC. King had a small band of 3 or 4 guys and I can still remember the single violin. The venue was not air conditioned. I was 18. The girl I was with was 17. 52 years later we are still a couple. And I still love the song.
11
Way more common nowadays: smart and capable people deciding not to have kids. If that continues, we could well end up with Idiocracy. Unless those smart and capable people look to positively impact other people’s children in some way. Mentorship, some kind of community service…
12
Watching the Super Bowl highlights. Always takes me back to 2010, in New Orleans watching the Saints win it all. Had to be the best place in the world to be at that time, right before Mardi Gras too.
13
Our bodies are still such a mystery. I felt a bit off today, but no easy way to figure out the cause of that. Did I need more sleep? Did I overdo it the day before? I had a slight cough last night, was that a sign of something? Maybe I have a vitamin deficiency? Could be a hundred different things, and all I can do is guess.
14
Spent the last six months reading Peter Grainger novels. Finished the 18th and final one last night, about extracting a young woman from an island cult. Easily the most books I’ve ever read by a single author, and I enjoyed every one. I hope those books have made him rich. He deserves it.
15
Today I’m a driving instructor. When I was learning to drive, I remember thinking that life would be so much better once I’d got the hang of it. But once I’d got the hang of it, I moved on to desiring to be better at some other thing. Turns out there’s always another thing just around the corner, a thing we think we need to figure out before we can be at peace.
16
Ozempic. OpenAI’s Sora. Apple Vision Pro. Seeing and hearing a lot about those things recently. The speed of technological advancement has me feeling dizzy. What will the world look like in 10 years? Probably very different. But will it be good different or bad different?
17
On fire today, plenty of energy for work and everything else. Easy to feel like this is how it should be, and every day I’m less energetic is wrong somehow. But no obvious reason why I should feel so good today. Didn’t even sleep great last night. It’s all such a mystery.
18
Fitting: better sleep last night, less energy today. Go figure. But I recently saw a tweet that’s good to keep in mind on days like this…
On the days you only have 40%, and you give 40%. You gave 100%.
19
Several hours of deep work today, lost in flow, time flying by, letting lots of other tasks pile up while I’m rethinking and reworking our whole review system. Just me and ChatGPT and a bunch of docs and spreadsheets. Loving my work.
20
The dream wakes me up in the middle of the night. I was at a dinner party with people I knew twenty years ago. They’d all stayed in Ireland, been a part of each other’s lives. I was the stranger, some of them weren’t sure we’d ever met. And all eyes were on me.
21
Counterintuitive but exercising every day is easier than 3 days a week. With the latter, it’s tempting to keep putting it off, and you rarely end up doing the 3 days. But with the former, there’s no negotiation, you just do it every day. Glad I have the every day rule. Otherwise I definitely would have talked myself out of exercising today.
22
Up on the hill, looking down on the village, and all I can see are cars. Parked and moving along the roads. Looks like a society of big metal machines on wheels. On a day like this 100 years ago, you’d probably have seen dozens of people milling about down there.
23
Despite lots of experience with burnout, it still catches me by surprise somehow. Should have seen this one coming, eight consecutive days at max output. Instead I’ve been frustrated for three days, resisting the downswing, thinking the feeling is all wrong.
24
Rewatching The Sting with Newman and Redford. That movie came out 51 years ago. Reading about it winning best picture at the 1974 Oscars, right after a streaker ran across the stage and Niven gave a great quip. Further down the rabbit hole, I learn the ultimate sad fate of that streaker.
25
Might just be the lingering burnout, but feeling down about the business lately. Revenue isn’t looking great, and I know all the work I’m putting in now will take several months to pay off. That long feedback loop can be tough to deal with. Feels like you’re pushing hard and getting nowhere.
26
Email from a guy angry about a story in the newsletter, thinks it’s a scam. I double-checked, confident it’s not. Reminds me a bit of those people who doubt we landed on the moon. It would actually have been easier to go than to fake the whole thing and keep it a secret.
27
To avoid burnout in future, I’m going to try scheduling more non-work stuff. Movie nights, spa days, long walks in the woods, that kind of thing. Because if I don’t have it scheduled, I can easily convince myself that I’m too busy with work and stay stuck in front of my computer all the time.
28
Have all the gear for my YouTube setup now, but spent hours today trying to configure my camera. Turns out it’s not really compatible with Mac. All the time I put into researching this stuff and I still get caught out. Frustrating.
29
Last Feb 29th we were still in Bali, right before the pandemic. I was working hard but had only earned $14K the previous 6 months. Now we have residency in a country we love and the business earned $158K the last 6 months. I wonder could we 10x it again by this date 2028.