2010 Survey Results

After a long day in the sun at the 2010 Crossfit Games in LA, I’ve flopped into my Aeron in the RV, which is parked near my old stomping grounds in Hollywood. I found an amazing parking spot right near the Farmer’s Market that has no street cleaning and is always empty at night. You’d be surprised how important things like street cleaning become when you live in an RV. Anyway, I don’t have enough energy left to pull myself out of my chair, so it’s time to tally up the survey results from a couple weeks ago and share what I learned.

Life Nomadic

This one was totally unexpected. Around a third of the people who responded said that they want more Life Nomadic. To be totally honest, I didn’t know people were that interested in it. The site, when it was separate, never developed the same sort of following this site has.

The truth is that I’m actually traveling quite a bit, although not as exotically or frantically as before. I went to Japan for a couple weeks last month, went to Canada this month, am now in LA for the Crossfit Games and X-Games, and will be in Austin next weekend. Then after all that I’m doing another trip to Boston and Burning Man. I’ll spend more time covering these sorts of things, or at least work the highlights into normal posts.

Gear

Speaking of Life Nomadic, one of everyone’s favorite posts there was the gear post. That was pretty well reflected in the survey, too-a lot of people want more reviews and more gear. Great. I have plenty of new awesome gear pieces which have replaced the old ones. In fact, I could easily move to a smaller backpack now, even though I’m better equipped. When I went to Japan, my backpack was half empty. Or half full if you’re a pessimist.

RV

I was glad to discover that people want to hear more about the RV and RV lifestyle. Even though it’s such an extreme step, this might have been one of the most successful topics in terms of people making actual changes. I’ve gotten more emails than I can count from people who have moved into RVs (and love it), including a bunch of Rialtas. A couple weeks ago in San Francisco I saw a Rialta that had the solar panels just like mine. I wrote my name in the windshield dirt, thinking they must have read my site. No response, so maybe not.

Anyway, there will be more RV posts. I’ve done a bunch of really cool modifications since my last post; when I finish up a couple more I’ll do another video tour.

Girls and Pickup

A bunch of people also asked about pickup, girls, and relationships. I won’t be writing much if anything on this in the foreseeable future. Sorry.

I don’t write about pickup because I’m not doing it. I’m not innovating and I’m not thinking about it. It’s something I have a lot of domain knowledge in and experience in, which is why I wrote a book about it. Beyond what’s in that book, I honestly don’t have much to say.

I could write about girls and relationships, but doing so in the past has had negative unexpected consequences. The truth is that I’m happy to have just about anyone know just about anything about me, but when those stories are created by two people, I can’t be the only one making the decisions on them.

Every girl I’ve dated since I’ve written my book has read the book before dating me. I think that’s fair. As a consequence I make a concerted effort to not do anything in the book because it makes girls think that I’m running through a checklist rather than actually connecting with them. Writing about a relationship would be even more weird for the girl (“oh, he said that to me two days ago.”), so out of respect I don’t write about relationships. Again, sorry.

Making Money

Making money was a close second in requests to Life Nomadic. I’m not totally sure why. I’m not an expert at making money. If anything, I’m an expert in spending money on things that matter. Most of my income comes from selling my books on Amazon. The money I get from that is more than enough to pay for my food, cell phone, plane tickets, spa membership, RV upgrades, etc. My overall income is not very impressive. My income per hour obligated to work for anyone else is extremely high, which I think gives people the impression that I’m some sort of money making expert. I’m not.

For financial advice, I recommend reading my friend Ramit’s blog, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. It’s probably a little less radical in terms of tone (“transition to working for yourself” vs “quit your job, buy an RV and do what you want”), but I really like his principals and his advice.

I WILL write a blog post (I actually wrote half of it and then my computer died because I don’t have a battery for it [long story], and it got deleted) about how to self publish books. I don’t think people realize how easy it is and how profitable it can be. I’m not an expert on that either, but it’s something I’ve done twice and have been successful at.

Last on this subject, I think that how you make money should be intimately tied to how you live your life. Do something you enjoy which fits into your lifestyle. I’ll never be the guy who thinks that everyone should all be doing X or Y. So when people ask how they can make money, that, to me, is like asking what kind of girl they should date. I don’t know-it depends on who you are and what is important to you.

Philosophical Posts

I cringe at calling that, because I think it makes me sound like I’m some sort of noble philosopher, chiseled out of solid marble. But. that’s what you guys call those posts, so I’ll go with it. Many people said that these were there favorite posts, and a small but significant minority said that they wanted less of them. I like writing these, but I’ll take a few tips from people who offered their thoughts. A couple readers suggested that I tie my own life more into them, offering observations and thoughts on those observations, rather than just thoughts. Full Participation is an example of weaving stories and my own life into a philosophical post. So hopefully that will make the philosophical posts more interesting to those who aren’t crazy about them, and will also improve them for people who do like them.

More Posts

This part was not surprising – everyone wants more posts. It’s a rather self selected group (people who care enough to fill out a survey), but that’s who I’m writing for anyway. So, more posts it is. Two a week, minimum.

Thanks Again

Thank you again for filling out the survey. Over two hundred people filled it out, which was more than twice last year’s response. It took me a while to read every single comment, but doing so gave me a much better idea of who you are and what I can do for you. So. I’m on it. If you have any thoughts on the changes I’ve outlined here (positive or negative), I’d love to hear them in the comments.