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Interesting Business Model – hostadvice.com

I use the site hostadvice.com quite a bit to quickly determine where a website is being hosted. It’s not perfect but it’s a nice thing to have in your back pocket.

(Side note: I just submitted my own business to their site in the hopes of getting a backlink which would be extremely useful – might need to look up other lists of hosts and submit myself)

I was using it today and I realized how brilliant of a business strategy it is.

Basically they provide a simple, free tool (the ability to check who hosts a website) and then over additional information and affiliate links off of that.

They get tons of traffic and links with their tool, which helps them also rank highly for other hosting-related keywords.

They don’t really have customers at all. They just sell other people’s products and profit from that.

It’s brilliant!

I would love to do something like that. Build some kind of basic tool that does something people really want, and then build a whole affiliate marketing site off of it.

It checks all of the boxes of my dream job: no sales, no clients, no boss, no employees (potentially), no schedule, and fully remote.

The site is basically a glorified online directory, but with this tool it becomes quite legitimate.

I don’t currently have any ideas of what I could do along those lines but I should keep my eyes peeled for anything like that, and certainly start thinking about what I might be able to put together along those same lines.

 

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On the Yearly Cycle Children Experience

I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books (in Spanish, for practice) and today I started thinking about how different one important aspect of children’s lives is.

From year to year, basically everything is different.

They go through this yearly cycle where they go back to school, have new teachers, have different kids in their class, focus on learning a specific set of things, and generally have a stable life.

And then the next year, it might all be completely different.

To a child, that’s all they know so they wouldn’t really question it. But to an adult, it’s quite intriguing.

There are, of course, pros and cons.

One pro that I first considered (and which, I suppose, figures prominently in Harry Potter), is that if things are really bad, you just tell yourself that it’s only for this one year, and then it will be over.

It gives you hope to know that a really difficult situation definitely has a shelf life and that no matter how hard it is now, it will be over within a predetermined timeframe.

And that, of course, is rarely how anything works as an adult. Most difficult situations are difficult to forecast. Maybe they get better soon, maybe they don’t.

Perhaps they last forever.

This applies to good things as well. For a child, perhaps part of why they are more inclined to live in the moment and truly enjoy their experiences is because they know they won’t last. But they are still confident that they’ll have plenty of new, great experiences even if the old ones end.

Life as an adult is characterized much more stability. For most people, most years, life doesn’t change much from one year to the next. You hope it will get better, but you still generally have the same job, same friends, same living situation, same hobbies and activities.

Obviously things do change but it’s absolutely nothing like it is for a child.

I think maybe I’m naturally resistant to the stability adulthood brings. I’ve always hated recurring events and obligations and have always been drawn to the unknown and new situations.

It would make sense, then, that much of my adult life (since I’ve reached a level of flexibility that allows me to do what I like, anyway) is characterized by wandering off to other countries and continents alone, to cities I don’t know.

The idea that I’ll keep doing exactly what I’m doing no – no matter what that is – has always been unappealing and even a bit depressing to me.

While I’m very confident that I’m enjoying my adulthood more than I enjoyed childhood (I hated structure and being told what to do, so childhood was not ideal), I felt myself drawn today to the idea that every year would be completely different. It’s exciting to me.

So now I’m wondering if there’s something I can and should do with this idea.

I think I need to be totally open to new experiences and ideas, and explore opportunities as they come along.

An outside observer might say that I am absolutely already doing that, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong.

But I think I should also be pursuing other professional options and ideas. At one point I scoffed at the idea of “side hustles” and splitting my time between many professional pursuits (in favor of working harder at one thing), I’m thinking now that I really need to be open to pursuing other ideas and things that come up.

I think any sacrosanct ideas or beliefs that I’m holding on to should be open to questioning.

And I think I need to make a strong effort to ensure that each year is quite different than the previous.

Maybe that even means getting really into a new hobby each year, or working really hard at something new.

I’m planning to not really drink at all this year and that will likely help give me the time and energy to put towards new pursuits, and I should definitely take advantage of it.

Here’s to hoping that this year is the most different yet.

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Not Snoozing Alarm Should be #1 Goal

I’ve been trying for years to fix my sleep cycle. I’ve talked about it countless times in this blog.

The thought occurred to me today that maybe I’m trying to do too much. If the goal is to get up when the alarm goes off, why would I make it more difficult than that?

I don’t need to also get up really early.

I should be setting my alarm for a time when I’ve had plenty of sleep. basically the time I spend snoozing anyway should just be added to the time I expect to sleep. Then I’ll be in bed the same amount of time but actually be able to wake up when the alarm goes off.

Once I have that established, I can then work on improving my sleep schedule.

If I end up setting the alarm fairly late: no problem! There’s no need to feel guilty. It’s just temporary while I get this habit down.

Saying it now, it seems pretty obvious. I’m going to try it and see how it goes.

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I Want to Feel Obsessive Over Things Again

I recall that not too long ago, with almost every new thing I would become obsessed. I would learn a little bit about a topic and I would feel incredibly motivated to spend an incredible amount of time learning about it and practicing it.

I haven’t felt that way in a while.

I suspect that what I was feeling was a surge of effective dopamine and related neurotransmitters that made me excited and hyper-focused on the topic or activity at hand.

If that’s true, then the question is: why don’t I have that anymore?

One of my friends describes his affinity for video games as an “addiction”. When he starts playing, everything else disappears and he just has to keep going. He is extremely motivated and focused on the game.

I don’t want quite that level perhaps, but in general it is sort of what I want. I want things to utterly captivate me. I want to feel, even if fleetingly, like nothing else matters and truly dive into something like I used to.

I’ve learned a lot about dopamine and other neurotransmitters lately and specifically about things like dopamine fasts and other general ways in which you can make them more effective.

I’m already doing most of the things that are suggested like not drinking, avoiding most social media, and generally avoiding addictive-type things that give you lots of dopamine and leave you resistant to it when you need it.

It’s possible that over time, I’m going to feel everything come back and I’ll feel exactly how I did before.

If not, I think I need to put some more thought into what else I can do to help it along.

I’ve considered also that it’s possible my other regular activities are using up the dopamine in a healthy way and there just isn’t any left for other things.

For example, I workout regularly, I study a variety of things daily, and obviously I work everyday and have many habits related to that. Is it possible that these things are using it all up?

I don’t think that’s the case, but it is possible!

I think I just need to keep an eye on it and see how it goes.

If, at some point down the road, I feel like I am back to where I was, I could consider testing bringing some of my old things back and seeing if it has any effect on it. It would be interesting to see what the primary causes were.

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My Desire to go Deeper than Most Prevents Me from Learning Many Languages, Among Other Things

I’ve gotten to a point in my Spanish-learning journey that is far beyond what most American learners would ever reach. I can converse with just about anyone and my vocabulary is huge, by foreign standards.

But I still don’t feel satisfied where I’m at, to the point where I’m really hesitant to move on to another language.

I’m not sure that I’m a perfectionist, but I do have a strong desire to go deep on things and really be thorough in both my process and my results.

I’m not sure that this is a “good” or “bad” thing, but it has its positives and negatives.

It certainly allows me to accomplish things that most won’t. Most people would say “good enough” and then not go any further.

But it also limits me. The difference between being able to carry on a very basic conversation with clear-speaking native speaker and being able to converse with anyone in addition to understanding almost every word in novels is huge. In terms of a time investment, you are probably looking at 300 hours vs. more like 3000. 

I could look at my survey results and ballpark how much time I’ve actually spent learning and practicing Spanish, but I suspect I’m in the ~2000 hours range. And yet I don’t feel satisfied with where I’m at.

I’m sure this applies elsewhere, too. While I don’t have much else that I’ve actually dedicated that much time to (although I’m probably around 2000 hours for playing DotA), I think where it really affects me is that I’m hesitant to spend even minimal time on things because I feel it would be pointless without getting really good.

Whether that be sports, music, etc. While it’s just fine to really focus on certain things and get great at them, I think it’s also important to balance it out and realize that I don’t have to be great at everything. Certain things I can just enjoy even though I’m bad.

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People Usually Respond with Anger When their Dishonesty is Called Out

This is a pretty random thought I had today and it seems kind of intuitive and obvious and perhaps there is plenty of written material about it already, but… People generally respond with anger when their dishonesty is called out.

I was thinking in my head of a hypothetical situation. Let’s say something incredibly unlikely happened, especially as it pertains to human behavior.

Or better yet, I have a real example.

I was in a club in Paris a handful of years back with my friends. On this trip, I had been regularly using an over-the-top French accent based largely on Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast.

I was chatting with a French girl at the bar (in English), asking her for a drink recommendation. After one question I asked her, she responded with,

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you. Your British accent is too strong.”

Now, this by itself is pretty funny. I’m not sure where she learned English that my accent is “too British” for her. Given that I’m from middle America.

Unfazed, I instead repeated my original question, but this time using my ridiculous French accent.

It worked!

She understood me immediately and didn’t seem to notice that I had done anything unusual.

Now, it’s kind of a strange story and there’s a lot you could unpack here. But back to my original point, I’ve told this story before and people have questioned its veracity.

I did not feel even a speck of anger at that response. I understand why people would question whether it really happened, but I know 100% that it happened exactly like that, so I have the confidence to withstand such skepticism.

And in my experience, people telling the truth virtually never respond to skepticism with anger.

Obviously, if their true story is intended to determine a course of action and people are resistant because they don’t believe it, that could be frustrating and they may get angry.

But especially in low-stakes situations, an honest person should never really be angry.

People who are lying, however, seem to get angry all the time. I assume it’s because such a strong emotional response is likely to quell any criticism. People are unlikely to press the issue seeing the response they are getting.

But like with most situations, the most emotional and heated person is probably not right.

I see a lot of videos and other content of weight lifters being questioned about whether they are “Natural” or not. Many of them respond immediately with anger when questioned about it.

Especially the ones who are obviously not natural.

But to a truly natural lifter to have people questioning, it’s actually a compliment. It means they’ve gotten so big and strong without steroids that people literally cannot believe they did it naturally.

They have the confidence that they are 100% right, and it doesn’t bother them that people question it.

I think that in general, anger or emotional reactions that seem inappropriate for the situation are extremely strong warning signs that something else is going on. Perhaps that person is lying, maybe they are hiding something, or maybe they have some other emotional issue at stake that you are unaware of.

Or I suppose they could just be really unstable, too. But I generally try to avoid those types of people!

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We Have A Sense That if Something Was Important, We’d Know About It: But It’s False

I think just about everyone (myself included) seems to have this innate sense that they already know the most important things for them to know. And it’s 100% false.

I see it in others all the time, but much more pointedly in myself. Sometimes I’ll learn some new thing in my field or wherever, and it sounds like something that would matter a lot to me.

But my first instinct is usually to discredit it or downplay its significance. It’s difficult for me to believe that there could be something so relevant and important to me that I didn’t yet know about.

I think it might be a bit of a defense mechanism. You’re protecting your fragile ego. Because otherwise, how could you justify being ignorant about something so important?

You want to believe that you are incredibly knowledgeable about the world, particularly in certain areas. And when you find out that you have this gap in your knowledge or understanding, it feels like a personal failing.

But just think about how limiting that is.

If you believe that you already know everything that’s important, or if you refuse to seek out new knowledge for fear of it making you feel dumb, then you won’t learn anything.

I think it’s important to note that we will always have gaps in our knowledge and there will always be things we don’t know that could help us tremendously. We need to accept that and, more importantly, seek those things out.

Otherwise we’ll just continue missing out on important opportunities without knowing it, and stagnate where we are.

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BNI Made me Complacent

Perhaps I’m not accepting enough responsibility on this topic given the title, but I feel that I became fairly complacent with my business in BNI.

There was this sense that I could simply be in BNI and that my business would grow. And it sort of felt like that was actually the case for many years.

Granted, I was fairly active in the chapter and more or less did the things I was supposed to do.

But I was still coasting. I didn’t really do anything else in my business at all. I just went to BNI, got clients, and did the client work.

That’s basically it.

I’m really not blaming BNI here because it wasn’t really their fault. In fact, it was the early success of that system that made me feel like I could just coast.

And coast I did, for quite a while. Granted, things did generally improve year-over-year. I started with nothing and grew slowly to where I was making a real living. I bought a house, paid off my debts, and slowly started transitioning to where I am now where I can travel the world, go wherever I want, and hopefully retire early.

But there’s so much more that I could and should have been doing.

What’s most frustrating to me now is that I didn’t even notice when BNI stopped working for me. It had probably been at least 3 solid years with virtually no new outside business. And it’s a huge time commitment.

I was a part of a lesser group for a short time (which will remain nameless), but at least in that one, I realized that I wasn’t actually getting any business and it was demanding a lot from me, so I quit.

Why didn’t I do that with BNI?

I guess it’s because it had been such a crucial part of my business for so long and can be credited with the early growth of my company. For the longest time, it would be sacrilege to suggest that I leave.

So much like some of my romantic relationships, I just didn’t question it and it went on far too long.

And actually, just like my relationships, things have become so much clearer after leaving.

Even up to the moment I quit, I was still second-guessing myself. I didn’t know if I was making the right choice.

But it didn’t take long after I left before I was much more confident in my decision. Having my Tuesday mornings free and not having to worry about all of the duties that come along with being in a chapter were immediately liberating.

And it didn’t affect my business coming in at all, since there really hadn’t been any for a long time.

I’m not sure every post really needs to have a lesson, but I guess in this case, I just think it’s important to take a step back from things and really analyze whether they are benefiting me.

That could apply to literally anything. Relationships, memberships, service offerings, hobbies, and more.

Just because I’ve been doing something a long time doesn’t mean they serve my interests anymore.

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Intelligence Has Way Less to do with Success Than Other Factors

I wrote a post with basically the same title and premise back in January 2019 and, funny enough, I just read it as part of my regular review of old posts.

Today I’m going to present a bit of a different perspective, though it’s the same at heart.

I don’t want to give away enough details to identify this person, but I recently was thinking about how hard it is to work with someone in my life. And I put some thought into why that is.

This person isn’t dumb and isn’t unfriendly, but they are incredibly ineffective in a lot of ways. The primary reasons seem to be:

  • Lack of accountability
  • Lack of a system to organize tasks that need to be done
  • Inability to think critically and develop novel solutions
  • A sense that things outside their normal scope of care are either unimportant or outside of their control
  • General lack of initiative
  • Total lack of follow-through

These are all things that most people struggle with at some point or another. And none of them really have anything to do with intelligence (though it can help a bit).

But in the case of this person, I would say that these are the reasons they are difficult to work with and also are likely causes for any failures or lack of success they’ve had elsewhere, as well.

It could be totally different for everyone, but these are the main things I’ve seen with this person.

Everyone starts out with tons of weaknesses. Some affect them more than others. Intelligence might help solve some of those problems or improve those weaknesses, but by itself, it won’t accomplish anything.

I’m thinking now that the single most-important traits (or group of traits) is probably the ability to accurately reflect on one’s own weaknesses and to effectively improve or compensate for them.

Essentially, it’s the ability to accurately answer the question, “what’s holding me back?”

And then, of course, to figure out a way to overcome whatever the answer is.

More broadly, this could really be described as having a “growth mindset,” though I generally think of a growth mindset as being entirely internal, whereas external factors could also be holding you back and you still need to be able to overcome them.

A related trait that may be just as important is the ability to effectively identify and take advantage of the right opportunities. Sometimes there may not be anything holding you back, but you still need to be able to figure out which opportunities to pursue, and how to stick with them and pursue them effectively.

That last part is where I feel I’m weakest right now and where I really need to push forward. I’ve identified some excellent opportunities and feel I have everything in place to go after them.

I just need to do it.

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Ignoring Things to Give Them Time to Resolve vs. Being Proactive

I’ve heard two approaches to dealing with all of the tasks work and life through at you. Both seem to be championed by modern thinkers and yet they are diametrically opposed.

Supposedly Napoleon would wait a week or two before opening any letter he received. The idea was that most problems would resolve themselves, and there’s no sense wasting time on something that doesn’t actually need your help.

It makes sense when you think about it, and in my experience is absolutely true.

It’s easy to assume it’s just a terrible idea and that Napoleon happened to succeed in spite of this poor strategy. You’d think that in war, particularly, having rapid knowledge and acting on it would be a game changer. And my understanding is that it was once it was possible.

And yet, there’s some logic to it.

It is completely contrary to what I’d consider to be a considerably more popular idea among efficiency experts and self-help gurus. The idea that you need to proactively manage everything so that you avoid ever having to put out fires.

This is certainly more of the approach I’ve attempted to adopt in my life, and it does seem to be effective at making things calm and predictable and also allowing me to be as productive as possible.

It’s one of the primary components of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and basically every clone of that book ever released. Supposedly most people are just flying by the seat of their pants and simply react to avoidable emergencies as they come along.

So what do I make of this?

I want to believe there is some kind of middle ground between the two concepts. However I think the reality may be a bit more nuanced.

I’m not sure you have to be one or the other.

Something tells me that it’s more an issue of figuring out the things that are in your control, important, and also your responsibility.

Napoleon choosing to remain ignorant of problems within his empire sort of feels like procrastination. He could have simply read the letters right away and determined that he could ignore them. Or had one of his people simply respond and say that it’s their responsibility to solve it.

Or perhaps, had he delegated and established roles and responsibilities better from the start, he would have never even received the letter to begin with because the issue would have been dealt with locally.

I think there is a very small amount of middle ground for some things, however. For example, my recent post suggesting that responding to emails within a day is just fine, and that responding in an hour is totally unnecessary.

I receive emails several times a week with people having issues with their devices or their website that they quickly resolve on their own and let me know they don’t need me.

I think there’s room for that.

But for the most part, if I’m focusing on things that are important, in my control, and my responsibility, I shouldn’t be wasting too much time on other tasks regardless.

I suspect that people who employ the Napoleon strategy really only benefit from it because they end up only putting time towards the really important things, and end up ignoring most of the distractions.

That feels like more of a side-effect than the actual intention.

I have plenty of posts discussing more about that.

So overall, I’d say I can safely ignore the Napoleon approach and focus on being proactive.