Month: November 2023

Borrowing Energy From… Tomorrow?

Published on November 30, 2023

We only have so much energy we can utilize in one day.

And because of the productivity-obsessed, it’s-never-enough, hustle-based culture we live in, many of us are inclined (brainwashed) to try and squeeze every last drop of energy from our being every single day.

And while in theory this sound logical—after all, YOLO—the problem arises when we start borrowing energy from tomorrow.

See, what so many of us do in our modern world, is squeeze every last drop of energy we have… and then take substances (e.g. caffeine) that give us a few drops more… and then stay up late even though we’re utterly exhausted to squeeze a few drops more… and then try to wake up earlier to preemptively squeeze a few more (because, you know, 5am club)… and so on.

Until, of course, we’re so exhausted of drops that there’s hardly any left to give. Imagine an orange pressed through the juicing machine on it’s 30th consecutive press…

That’s you on your 30th consecutive press of energy without giving yourself the proper recovery and recharge that allows you to switch out the orange altogether.

…Hardly worth the effort.

Rather than obsess over how you can squeeze every single last drop of juice from the orange of our day… What if we focused on squeezing the 70% best juice of our day and then… here’s a radical idea… we stopped squeezing.

What if we left 30% juice in the tank for the next day?

What if… instead of obsessing on 100% squeeze today… we focused on 70% squeeze, every day, for a decade?

What if… starting today… you squeezed smarter instead of being so obsessed with harder?

Hair-Pulling Issues

Published on November 29, 2023

I’ve been experiencing some hair-pulling email issues over the past few days.

Things that were supposed to happen when somebody opts in to get my daily or weekly emails, wasn’t. The plugins and forms that were supposed to fix the problems, weren’t. And when I invested $800+ for a Cyber Monday deal to switch to a new email service provider… I quickly realized that they came with their own set of new, hair-pulling issues that I’d have to resolve. And so it has gone so far this week…

But then…

I heard that one of my students’ mom got her finger broken by her autistic daughter…

And that one of my coworker’s sisters was in the hospital…

And that one of my students’ dad passed away…

And that another one of my students’ mom passed away which lead him to drop everything and fly to the other side of the planet to be with his family…

And I remembered…

Email issues are laughable issues in the grand scheme of things.

When you’re feeling like you’re about ready to pull your hair out over the issues you’re facing in your life… try zooming out from your micro perspective and soaking in issues from a wider lens.

…Not because we want to think about bigger, badder, more heart-wrenching issues… but, because we want to gain perspective.

…So that we can ease our way back into our lives with a deeper sense of understanding and so we can revisit our “hair pulling issues” from a new head space.

…One that maybe puts “hair pulling issues” in air quotes and no longer has them bolded and underlined.

10,000 Email Subscribers

Published on November 28, 2023

Yesterday, the number of people subscribed to my MoveMe Weekly newsletter and 1-Minute Insights daily email crossed 10k.

And what did I do to celebrate this milestone?

…I unsubscribed close to 4,000 of them.

…Why?

Because for the first time since I started collected emails for these newsletters (about 10 years ago), I decided to finally clean the list.

And by clean, I mean anyone who hasn’t opened an email from me in the last 6 months was unsubscribed.

…Obviously the newsletter and/or daily emails isn’t for them.

This worked out to be close to 4,000 people.

It was a humbling reminder (the gift to myself) that quality trumps quantity in this regard.

Why keep sending emails to people who obviously aren’t getting value from them? It’s a waste of space in their inbox and resources used to send.

Better to hyper focus on those who are opted in, engaged, and aligned with us on the journey forward.

…Both in newsletters and in life.

Is The Suffering Worth It?

Published on November 27, 2023

Is the suffering worth the contribution?

I have this question sticky-noted at the bottom of my computer screen so that I read it every day.

And whenever I feel like I’m suffering from the work I’m choosing to do… I ask myself… Is it worth the contribution it provides?

If the answer is no, I stop doing it. Or begin to plan ways I can phase it out of my life (whatever “it” is).

And if the answer is yes, well then, I suffer a little less and feel better as I get back to it.

The Cost Of Old Thinking

Published on November 26, 2023

When I first started building MoveMeQuotes.com in 2010, I was all about fancy and cool.

…Until speed came onto my radar as being a vital component of a search engine friendly website.

When I first started speed testing my (fancy/cool) website… I was pulling 15+ second load times.

…Which was/is AWFUL.

Thus starting me on the journey of simplification, optimization, and code cleaning… which eventually lead me to AMP.

AMP is a protocol that essentially strips your website of all complex code and boils it down to its most essential/clean version.

The problem is it often strips your website of so much code that it often breaks the site—like buttons, forms, comment section—nothing works breaks… like, bad.

But… if you stick with it and diligently fix the code, rework your layout, download the right plugins and get clever about how you do things… the benefit is lightning speed.

I opted in, spent hundreds of hours getting it to function properly as an AMP-based website, and eventually got it loading sub-second.

The problem was the ongoing work never got easier. Everything kept taking 5x more work than it otherwise should’ve/would’ve and simple things like allowing comments were ongoing issues.

But, I always kept my head down, put in the 5x more work, and told myself the speed was worth it.

This weekend, however, I finally decided to challenge that belief and reverted back to an updated (faster) version of an old website-theme I used to use.

And lo-and-behold… sub-second load times.

The lesson today is this: challenge old beliefs from time-to-time. 5x more work might not be the current reality our old thinking is making it out to be.

Interesting Little Problems

Published on November 26, 2023

I have never taken a web design class.

Nor have I ever taken a coding or branding class.

Yet, here I was, spending 6+ hours this weekend doing all of the above for MoveMe Quotes.

I revamped the whole website and feel like I did a pretty damn good job of it.

It all started with a curiosity back in 2010: “I wonder if I could build a website that could house all of my favorite quotes?” Which eventually became: “I wonder how I can make this website cooler?” Which quickly turned into: “I wonder how I can speed this site up?” Which then made me think about: “I wonder how I can improve its SEO?” Which today is essentially a compilation of all those thoughts rolled up into one.

And I can’t even begin to list all of the skills exploring this one initial curiosity has helped me develop.

All almost completely unbeknownst to me as any kind of formal educational endeavor.

All just interesting little problems I get to solve while building something I think is cool and useful.

Learning works so much better this way. Don’t use “I haven’t taken a class / course on that yet” as an excuse to not explore a curiosity. Everything you need is readily available and but a few finger taps away.

You just need to do it.

Closed Fisted Cold

Published on November 25, 2023

Today, some of my staff and I walked door-to-door in our local neighborhoods and dropped off flyers that said, “Help us to help those in need this holiday season. Leave a bag of non-perishable food on your porch and we’ll pick it up on Sunday by noon.”

During my walk, I had four encounters.

One was with a neighbor who swung the main door open not even two seconds after I closed the flyer into the screen door. He looked at me as if assessing the threat level, saw the flyer in the door, read it, nodded, and then just as quickly closed the door.

The second was with a Ring doorbell. After I closed the flyer into the door, it announced over its speaker, “YOU ARE ACTIVELY BEING RECORDED.” Kind of creepy… but I guess it wasn’t news.

The third was with two gentlemen who were sawing wood in their backyard. I walked up, smile on my face, and told them about the food drive. One didn’t acknowledge my existence at all. The other said “Okay” and pressed sharply on the buzz saw into the wood. I didn’t give them a flyer.

The final was at a house that had a car in front with two of its doors open. Just as I turned the corner of the house after leaving a flyer, I heard a voice yell, “HEY! HEY!! OYE!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” To which I calmly turned around, smiled, and told him. He was quite relieved.

I share this because, sheesh, maybe we need to go door-to-door MORE… for non-political/religious/salesy/sketchy reasons… and change the perception. Seeing a neighbor should lead to warmth… not closed fisted cold.