Some Completely Random Thoughts After Another 365 Days Around The Sun
It was my birthday this week. Don’t worry, I harbor zero negative feelings toward you for not sending me your best birthday GIF. Especially this one…
As you do when you successfully have another revolution around the sun, I reflected on life, business, entrepreneurship, food, marriage, getting older, health, money, and wombats. I’d like to share those things with you, but also have a record of them so I can look back on my thoughts in the years to come.
I’m not afraid of getting older, I’m actually kind of enjoying it.
My 20-year old self would have vomit-emoji’d at that statement. Enjoying getting older?? WTF? But I’ve come to embrace the wisdom and experience more time can bring.
Until Elon comes up with a way for us to not age, we can’t fight it, so why try? I think stoicism comes in your 30s as well and I’m not mad about it.
I kind of enjoy not giving a shit about stuff or having any FOMO at all. Something will come along soon that will be what my parents probably dealt with when the VCR came out. I’m okay with that. The world will continue to turn if I can’t figure out how (or understand why) to put virtual dog ears on my selfies. I will continue to enjoy boomerangs though…
I got married this year and never thought I’d do that.
Divorce has run its course through my family (and my [now] wife’s family). For as long as I can remember the idea of marriage just didn’t make sense. Like, is there a real reason we need to do this? Marriage started out as a way to have two families form an alliance (with the actual marrying people having no say at all). If you just love the hell out of another person, do you need a legal agreement to prove that?
And then my best friend and I got married.
Marriage does make things easier: It’s easier to explain to people (“life partner” sounds so odd). There’s a tax benefit to it (seriously, WTF?).
Nothing was conventional when it came to our nuptials:
- There wasn’t an engagement.
- We spent almost no money on our rings.
- Heck, no one was even at our actual wedding to see it except a photographer and pair of videographers (so, technically, we paid for the only friends who watched us get married on a cliff).
- We had a ton of fun and absolutely zero stress on our special day.
I’ve been working for myself for 12 years and I think I’ve finally “made it.”
If you work for yourself you know that damn hamster-wheel feeling: Stuck in a never ending cycle. Worried where money or inspiration will come from. Constantly pooping on sawdust.
I’m not “rich” by the common entrepreneurial definition. I didn’t sell a company and stockpile a ton of cash. Most of my businesses and ways I make money are obscure and weird. However, I know what I enjoy creating and by continuing to create those things (and helping people along the way) I make a comfortable living.
In other news: We’re all “rich” by somebody’s standards.
Two years ago I had an article 75% written that was titled “What I Learned After a Decade of Entrepreneurship.” I never finished it or published it because I didn’t feel like I’d earned a place to share reflective thoughts. Isn’t that kind of sad? Luckily with age, and writing experience, I don’t care or let those self-defeating thoughts affect me anymore.
Here are a few of my biggest entrepreneurial takeaways, boiled down into simple bullet points for brevity:
- Being consistent and authentic are some of the best business tactics you can have.
- Chasing success, fame, and money, is an (unfulfilling) race you can never win.
- Build the life you want around the work you do. We tend to think we’ll have a great life once we put in years of hard work. The work should be part of the enjoyment, not a mode of difficult transportation to happiness.
- I grew a business to 7-figure revenue and multiple employees. It was the unhappiest time of my life. Staying small is awesome.
- You will have to make sacrifices: Friendships. Time. Netflix binging. If you want to make awesome shit, you have to create space for it to happen.
- Books are awesome, but learning from your own experience will prove more valuable than any chapter written by any guru/expert/etc.
This tweet from Jason Fried is probably one of my favorite things he’s ever said (and I read all his stuff).
I’ve never had a mentor and I’ve always felt weird about it. Like I was supposed to have one to succeed or to figure out how to get through the difficult times in life/business.
Sure, learning from other people has incredible value. My entire livelihood relies on people wanting to learn from my own experiences. But I don’t love the idea of being someone’s mentor and think you become a stronger and more confident person without the hand-holding of a mentor.
We successful paid off $124,000 in debt. It wasn’t easy, but it feels fucking amazing to be debt-free.
Debt is awful. It causes shame, embarrassment, and the mental toll it takes on you is incredible.
We spent the past three years focusing all our efforts on getting out of debt. It wasn’t easy, but that’s why so many people stay in debt for most of their lives.
If you want further reading I have two in-depth articles that outline everything we did to get out of debt: Part 1 and Part 2.
My wife and I are vegan now.
Well, 90% vegan. We eat 100% vegan at home, but it can be really difficult to stay vegan when you eat out or travel.
Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals was the straw that broke the (vegan) camel’s back for us.
We also watched Food Choices, Forks Over Knives, and a few other documentaries.
I’m going to miss barbecue brisket the most. But I’m not going to miss the pollution that factory farming causes, not to mention all the moral/ethical debates about killing animals for food* (when we don’t actually need animal protein in our diets).
My wife and I haven’t even scratched the surface of trying to be vegan consumers. Do I have to immediately burn the leather chairs I bought from West Elm last year?? They were $700 and I really love them. What a first-world problem.
*This statement just skyrocketed the blood pressure of half of the people reading this story. It’s okay. We can still be friends. I ignored the truth for 34 years before deciding to stop being selfish and actually do a bit of research.
Sustainable health, you fickle beast, I think I’ve finally found you!
In 2012 I turned 30 years old and was the most out of shape and unhealthy I’d ever been. I weighed over 260 pounds. I hated looking at myself in the mirror. I felt gross all the time. So naturally I did a super unsustainable 90-day challenge and lost 44 pounds and got in the best shape of my life.
While that 90-day challenge wasn’t sustainable going forward (and I gained most of the weight back in the years after), it did create the next step in my journey to be a healthier and happier person.
That leads us to today where I’ve trimmed back down to under 230 pounds. Eating a mostly vegan diet and working out 3–4 times per week (for less than 20 minutes per day) has created results I believe I can keep up with for years to come. Not to mention the most important part of all:
I feel the best I’ve ever felt, physically and mentally.
I also have to give a shoutout to Brian and Paul from HealthGeeks as they were hugely helpful in looking at all my internal health data last year (through a handful of weird/fun tests).
I’m finally a millionaire. Wait. No I’m not, and that’s 100% okay.
As previously mentioned, I’ve done a bunch of introspection and realized the importance of having the life I want, more than chasing the arbitrary entrepreneurial goals that exist in the world.
While many people continue to focus on growth I’m focusing on enough.
I’ve learned that constantly trying to grow and getting personal validation from growth is a losing-sum game. There will always be another hill to climb. Always another financial milestone to hit. Always someone doing better than me that I must crush like Ivan Drago in Rocky IV.
My wife and I make enough money to live a very intentional life with a ton of autonomy. Sure, my software products could have a much higher monthly recurring revenue (how much you MRR, bro?) My online courses could sell to way more people if I built better “funnels” (but screw funnels). My crazy ideas could be pushed in front of way more people. But by not chasing growth, I get to maximize the amount of time I can reply to people who email me. Or randomly jump on Skype calls with customers who need a kick in the ass. Or better yet, enjoy a life filled with travel, adventures, and seeing movies at 11am on Monday mornings.
What’s growth for if you’re only hoping to enjoy the benefits of it 20–30 years from now? If you died tomorrow, you didn’t really get to enjoy any of your hard work.
I never ever ever thought I’d be a writer, yet it’s the easiest way to describe what I do.
The term “writer” only applies to best-selling authors who understand things like prose, grammar, adverbs, and basic punctuation, right? But guess what? I write a crapload of not-best-selling things and make a good living from my imperfect words.
Obviously I need to impress you…
I’ve written over 150 newsletters to the Action Army. I’ve published over 400 articles (and subsequently deleted 150 of them because they were awful, but I had to start somewhere). I’ve written actual pieces for Inc Magazine, Entrepreneur, The Next Web, and had paid writing gigs that did way more for me than the fancy media outlets. I wrote a book in 2013 before I’d really ever written anything besides tweets and I made nearly $100,000 from it.
Maybe you’re a writer and you don’t even know it? Maybe you make a living from the words you rattle out of your keyboard on a daily basis? I was always afraid to use the title “writer” because I felt it was only reserved for important people. As my friend Paul Jarvis says, labels are for jars.
All it takes to be a writer is to write.
I also choose to describe myself as a writer because no one in the normal world really understands what it means to be an entrepreneur: “So like, are you building the next Facebook??”
The current state of America scares me.
There’s nothing “United” about the United States. If anything, we feel like the Fragmented States (not a good phrase to rally behind early on, I get that — I kind of wish we were the Fraggle Rock States).
I can’t believe Trump got elected. I can’t believe there are people in this country who think Hilary is on an equal human level (but her crooked emails!!!) Every day it seems like a ridiculous new story, allegation, or controversy occurs. None of it feels like America is heading toward being great again. At all.
Politics (somewhat) aside, we recently spent 18 days in Italy. Wow. I never realized how US-centric my thoughts and beliefs were until I spent time in another culture as an adult. Sure, I love America and the opportunities I have within it, but shouldn’t we be doing better?
Like him or not, Michael Moore really brings some amazing things to light as it relates to smarter and better decisions being made by other countries/economies in Where to Invade Next.
Politics (not actually) aside, it seems I’m a socialist. I truly believe in taking care of the less fortunate. I have privilege in my life, both given and earned, and I wish I lived in an economy where my fellow privileged citizens contributed to a more united nation.
Then there’s this moral dilemma: Do I stay in the US and do my part to try fix things? Or is the system too broken and should I just move somewhere that more aligns with my values and lifestyle?
Getting older tends to bring these heady questions. But seriously, Trump?? WTF.
I’ve offended half of the people reading this and that’s totally fine by me.
Ten-years-ago-me would have worried so much about not pissing people off (especially when putting controversial opinions out on the Internet). But I’ve learned the value of turning off the people you don’t want to surround yourself with.
I’m 100% open to thoughtful conversations with people who disagree with my thoughts and ideas. Do those thoughtful conversations ever actually happen without tempers flaring?
Wombats have backwards pouches and cube-shaped poop.
I mean, what?? It’s true. Wombats have pouches that are positioned backwards, opening toward the mother’s butt rather than her head. This allows @MommyWombat22 to dig without getting dirt in her pouch. Also, wombat poop is cube-shaped. It’s kind of like they have a special cube Play-Doh attachment on their butts.
Nature is amazing and brilliant.
There’s a big difference between sharing every moment of your life and capturing the moments of your life.
Being on social media is what propelled my entrepreneurial career forward. Sharing my thoughts and moments from my life on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc, is what got me to the position I’m in today. But just because it got me to where I am doesn’t mean it still serves me.
I no longer think “how can I share this awesome moment” when I’m doing anything of interest. Instead I think, “how can I capture this moment so I can remember it and possibly enjoy it later on.” The former is completely interruptive to the moment and to people around you. The latter is something we’ve done forever (as humans) and doesn’t have to impede the actual moment itself. I’ve found that I care less about sharing all the moments because I got to enjoy them and that was enough.
Quitting Facebook last year has been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life. It was also a really tough decision because I’d poured so many years and hours into building relationships there. Social media detoxes have been hugely impactful for me and I do them a couple times per year.
The next time you pull out your phone during a moment of your life, think less about how you can share it and get the dopamine response of people liking it, commenting on it, etc, and think more about how you can just enjoy the moment (and capture it for later enjoyment).
Well, that’s as good a place as any to wrap this thing up.
Hey, I said these would be random thoughts. You knew what you were getting into!
I look forward to reflecting on these thoughts in a few months, years, or even decades. Perspective is also one of those things you really come to appreciate as you get older.
👍🏻
