This Week:
- Packing up my van and flying to Europe!
- The crazy networking event I attended in Granada, Spain.
- The new side of life that my brain is having to rewire around.
August 2024
Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 8/1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |
18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Where In The World Was I?
- 🌳 Virginia
- ✈️ Washington D.C. Dulles (IAD) to Lisbon (LIS)
- ✈️ Lisbon (LIS) to Malaga
- Malaga, Spain
- 🚌 Malaga to Granada
- Granada, Spain
Metrics From The Week
😬😅
July 2024 Whoop Rankings (Group: Men 20-30; 116k members):
Metric | Month Average | Ranking | Community Average |
Day Strain | 13.2 | 15,292 (top 13.2%) | 11.3 |
Recovery | 66% | 12,994 (top 11.2%) | 60% |
Sleep | 85% | 8,304 (top 7.2%) | 74% |
Business Progress Update
This week I made some progress on the legal/administrative side of things. I added a Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and some other parts required from the YouTube API.
Aside from that, the rest of the week was all traveling and networking. I made some huge progress a couple steps ahead of where I am right now. I met some marketing guys at this networking event (more on that later) and they gave me some pointers and advice on how to get started marketing my SaaS. This was honestly insanely valuable, so I’ll be implementing all that in the coming weeks.
Final Days In Harrisonburg
Drove back up to Harrisonburg, VA, stayed with family, caught up, cleaned the van top to bottom, and packed up my two backpacks!
✈️ Off to Malaga
Dulles has a new Capital One lounge that I didn’t know existed and I have their Venture X card so I checked it out! And wow… The food (small plates) was fantastic, great environment. I felt super grateful to have that opportunity.
I flew to Lisbon and had an hour and a half layover. Well turns out all their immigration machines were broken so they were manually stamping people through… Nothing like a bit of a sinking feeling in your stomach to your travel day! Fortunately they called people on connecting flights and brought them ahead. I made it just as they started calling the final boarding call 😅
From Lisbon I flew to Malaga.
Why Exactly Am I In Spain Again?
So back in early March I took a big chance on joining this member’s club with a vision of buying houses around the world to live in. I mentioned it in this blog post back then, The Week Of Huge Reinvestments And Beach Town Paradise “The Biggest Reinvestment I’ve Ever Made,” March 10th, 2024.
Well this week was the weekend launch party of the first house in Granada, Spain. I decided to prioritize attending, as I thought it might end up being worth it.
Was it worth it? I’ll let you know later in the post.
One Night In Malaga
Some of the guys also flying in decided to group together in Malaga and splurge on this super fancy 5-star hotel.
Honestly, it was WAY out of my budget that I wanted to spend. I’m used to shared-dorm hostels, but I dunno, similarly I thought it might be worth it.
I talked about some of my thoughts on that in this video, My thoughts as a backpacker trying a fancy 5-star hotel.
Basically, I think there’s absolutely an added value to having a private room, private bathroom, running water, great customer service, breakfast, great location. The thing I come back to is that I think the price difference between a hotel that meets all those criteria and a 5-star hotel is just not worth it for me at this chapter in my life.
That said, the customer service there was absolutely amazing, the breakfast was unbelievable, and the aesthetics were just beautiful! I tried to appreciate it as much as I could while I was there.
As for the bed, I cannot confirm nor deny that we had three people in a two person room and so I cannot confirm nor deny that this was my bed for the night 😂 It actually wasn’t that bad… (Hypothetically, that is 😶)
It was about 6 or 7 of us that met up in Malaga. We had some great conversation about what we all do, got into some conversation about technology and social media in this generation, travel stories, and so much more.
Some of the guys were curious about my story, which I appreciated.
The next day I got back into my morning coffee shop routine. It was SO good to be back. Then did a nice little walk along the beach.
🚌 Granada
We ended up booking this penthouse Airbnb, the tallest apartment in all of Granada and the views were absolutely insane. I still can’t get over it.
Networking
First dinner at Restaurante Ruta del Azafrán Granada.
Meetup at the house
More house pics at: https://www.instagram.com/1mhouse
Fitness Park Gym workout with the boys
Dinner at Restaurante Gastrobar SIBARIUS, another insane dinner.
Then a night out on the town
I finally went to sleep at 5:30am 😂
Rewiring What Is Possible
I’ve talked more about my experiences in these video from this week (I feel way more confident socially, why is that?, I feel like I’m being treated differently because I know Spanish here, There’s so much more nuance to life than I expected, and the video being posted Monday Aug 5th eastern time).
I would say it has come down to a couple things.
I have met so many interesting guys and had incredibly good deep conversations about life. It’s reminded me of Bali a lot (The Week Of Sweaty Workouts, Deep Talks, And Morning Videos, November 19th, 2024), but about 10x better. I love these conversations.
I ended up speaking with a couple guys who do marketing and got some really specific advice on how to approach the start of marketing my software once I start reaching out to get early adopters. In addition, I ended up speaking to two guys specifically, one who was interested in using my product, and another who’s a video editor with a really strong network of YouTube creators. These alone has already been insanely valuable, it’s not really quantifiable.
I’ve felt much more comfortable and confident socially in these last couple days. Knowing that everyone already basically shares the same values has made it so much easier to approach people, say “hey, my name is Peter” and start a conversation.
The night we all went out until ~4am, there were a good handful of guys that stayed with the group going out to bars and clubs, but didn’t drink any alcohol (myself included, aside from the sangrias at dinner 😜). I saw one guy dancing in the middle of the group on the dance floor, then on our way out he turns to me and goes “this is totally not me, I came here to work” 😂
I never felt this level of connectedness last summer in Europe. I always felt this disconnect with the people that I met, that they didn’t share the same values as I did.
My brain has been literally rewiring assumptions about what it means for me to be social. I’m seeing a side of life and a side of myself that I’ve literally never seen before.
This has been insanely worth it.
And for that, I’m incredibly grateful.
I’m grateful that I took the chance on this. I’m grateful that I flew to Spain for this launch party and met everyone in person. And I’m grateful to be able to experience this side of life.
Other Granada Pics
What’s Next?
Not leaving quite yet! 🇪🇸