Hey mates,

Even though I’m still pretty young by all accounts, a few things have made me reflect on my age and starting a new ‘career’ doing this online business thing. At 37, I know that I still have a lot left in the tank, though by conventional standards, I’m heading towards ‘mid-career’ and this is when typically I ‘should’ really be setting foundations for climbing further up the corporate ladder or setting myself for a bigger wage down the track.

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Taking a leap to do something new and still fairly unknown is a bit scary and there are definite elements of imposter syndrome and comparisonitis.

So the imposter thing is that I don't have the skills, experience or social media worthy day-to-day life for all that. And I’m a lot older than a lot of the whipper snapper tiktokers with millions of subscribers.

The comparisonitis thing (and this is probably worse for me) is that there are plenty of people, like Sahil Bloom (he’s great and I also find him inspiring), that have these established businesses, then they start the social media thing. By the time the little family is started they have this well established career they can just ‘take a break from’ to be there for the family.

I don’t have a particularly impressive resume or a business to lean on, I’m just extremely wealthy in experiences hahahaha. I’ve had about 28 jobs and career changes and 8 failed businesses in my wake.

I feel it all but I’m having a go anyway. There are plenty of examples of people of all ages and life stages that are getting in there to make a go of it. I feel like I have some valuable stuff to share and hopefully someone finds it useful.

Practical

My wife and I have spent the better part of 8 years watching YouTube clips (mainly these champs https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoNTMWgGuXtGPLv9UeJZwBw ) about tiny house living. It’s basically a done deal that we’re going to live in a tiny house one day. Our honeymoon was a camper van trip and we’ve been hooked on the simplicity of this way of life ever since. There are obviously some things to consider, like: the kid and making it family friendly, where we’ll park it and where we find one to buy or build.

I love the idea that the simplicity of this lifestyle can lead to a drastic overall reduced cost of living, which can in-turn free us up to focus more on family and other creative pursuits.

From our honeymoon - March 2018

Peaceful

One of the people I admire online is Naval Ravikant. I think I first heard about him on a Tim Ferriss podcast episode. He’s a pretty wealthy fella who runs a venture capital firm and all of his online content is about happiness and wealth creation. In this video he says - “...to be effective in business you need a clear, calm, cool, collected mind…”

Also his book, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, is a banger.

What I’m reading

Make a living, living - Be successful doing what you love. By Nina Karnikowski  

This book was really easy to sit with for ages. It’s mainly about creatives and how they sustain themselves financially while they work on their craft or just do what they love. A common misconception is that people just do a bit of their craft and then not do anything for the rest of the day (which is cool, too) though one of the people featured is Australia's youngest wood-fired potter who sometimes makes 100 pieces a day, just to pay the bills. “I make pots all day long while listening to music, and time just disappears.”

I can't remember the last time ‘time just disappeared’ for me. Can you?

Chiller of the week - At the moment I find myself inspired by parents who can juggle plenty of family time and get some work done, too. I met a bloke at the kids playground this week, who was a gym owner. He mentioned he works from 5am - 9am each day and his wife goes to work after. I didn’t get the perspective of his wife though he seemed very happy that he had the flexibility to spend so much time with his 2 year old son.

Face of the week

Jabba the drying shorts - spotted by my legend wife and sister.

Dad Joke of The Week

If the early bird gets the worm, I’ll sleep in until there’s pancakes.

Quote I like today - This was in Tim Ferriss’ newsletter this week - “Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.” Søren Kierkegaard.

Maybe if Søren was born later than his actual birth year of 1813, he would’ve update the quote to be ‘most people’, I dunno?

Catch you next week ✌️