Sometimes it feels like I take my blog a little too seriously, probably because so many people read it and some of the topics I cover are serious. When it started I literally wrote strange rambles about every nap I took, and now I feel like every post has to have some practical use.
As I try to come up with something to write about (I half-finished a post about the Bachelor), I found that I had a lot of little things I wanted to write about. So here are a few life updates on what I’m doing.
Coaching
I’m now up nine coaching clients and am slowly making my way through the waitlist. I originally said I wanted to take on two people because I didn’t think I’d get more than five or so, and that number would be awkward because it’s enough to impact my schedule but not enough to justify building systems around. I’m not sure if that makes sense.
But I got over twenty people who are interested, so I wrote my own scheduling software (I couldn’t find one that defaulted to being unavailable) and have been blocking off days for calls.
I’ve really been enjoying it. I just finished my first round of follow-up calls from the first few new people I added, and everyone is already making some great improvements. I love that I get to do the strategy and then a month later hear about the results. I’m also starting to see patterns between people which is both fascinating for me and useful for my clients.
I suspect that twenty people is about my upper limit for how many clients I want, so I’ll probably jack up my rate (for new clients only) after I make it through the people who are already on the waitlist. That should discourage too many people from signing up while still making it possible, and I like that the early-adopters get locked in to a lower price.
Dating
I have a girlfriend! We met on Tinder through fairly unlikely circumstances, and ended up spending almost 100% of her free time in Vegas together once we met. On the second day I distinctly remember thinking, “this girl would be a really great partner.” Hard to explain exactly, but she’s a really great mix of being strong and independent but also easygoing. I visited her in Texas and then she came back to Vegas to visit me a week ago. Now we’re planning a lot of trips together, including one to China where she is from.
Will it last? No way to know, but it feels like everything is in place for that to happen.
Writing
I’ll be writing a new book, probably called Life Nomadic 2, this spring. I’ve already booked the cruise on which I’ll write it, as I’m basically unwilling to write books on land now.
Life Nomadic 1 was written pretty shortly after I started traveling. Only in retrospect is it clear that I was doing something new at the time (actually working while traveling). A lot has changed since then and I’ve become a much more seasoned traveler, so I’m excited to share what I’ve learned. It’s going to include a lot of flight hacking stuff, more about setting up home bases, more about nomadic friendships, and a lot more. I’ve got the outline partially written and I’m fired up to write the book.
Family Travel
One of my big dreams for many years has been to travel with my family. I’m very close with them and want them to travel with me both to experience what my life is like and to be exposed to some of my favorite things. In one week my mother, aunt, uncle, and cousin will all be coming to visit me in Budapest!
Most of them have traveled outside of the country a few times and sometimes not for many years. I’m so excited to show them one of my favorite cities in the world. I already have so much stuff planned that I’m not sure we can really fit it all in.
Home Gear Post
Just a little teaser, I’m going to write a Home Gear Post, probably in June when I return from Asia. I know people love the travel gear post, and similarly I have a lot of cool stuff in my house now that you don’t see recommended anywhere else. Sometimes I wonder why most people don’t get obsessed with the things I get obsessed with.
Art
I probably won’t buy more art for a while, but I did just buy a few awesome new pieces in the past few months. One is a painted wood inlay piece by John Cederquist. I’ve seen his stuff at the MFA Boston and DeYoung in SF for years, and was finally connected to him and able to buy a piece directly.
Another is a birch box made by the Mi’kmaq Indians. What makes this special is that it’s about a hundred years old and back then they decorated the boxes with dyed porcupine quills. The Mi’kmaq Indians are from the area the island is in and I’ve seen their porcupine stuff in the MFA, so I’m excited to have a good example of their work.
Last I bought a ~200 year old matcha bowl made by Hozen Eiraku. He was one of the “three great potters of Kyoto” and the bowl I have is one of his best works. I have literally waited years to buy a matcha bowl because I never found one that I loved. This one is beautiful and it uses the Korean inlay technique I like so much. It’s also been repaired using kintsugi, which I’ve wanted to see up close. This bowl should probably be in a museum somewhere, but I drink tea out of it. I always want to drink out of the ones I see in museums.
I also made little placards for all of my art so that my living room is like a museum. All of the art is stuff you’d actually see in good museums (though sometimes not quite as good condition or as large works).
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Photo at the top is the matcha bowl, the other two are pretty self-explanatory.
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