The Week Of UI Work, Rainy Season, And A Familiar Hostel

This Week:

• Finished the UI for my MVP!
• Moved back to the hostel I was at 3 weeks ago.
• Nature deciding that it no longer wants me to work out from 4-6pm.

February 2024

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
28	29	30	31	2/1	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	3/1	2

Where In The World Was I?

• 🇲🇾 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Metrics From The Week

Business Progress Update: The UI Is Done!

This week I finished up my UI and started working on scaling up my server and apps to handle multiple users.

I unfortunately don’t have a screenshot of the new results output table (which is like… the entire UI) because just before writing this post I exceeded my daily YouTube API quota 😅 I’ll add a screenshot once it refreshes. Update: done.

While it feels like “optimization” is not an MVP type of thing, my server could only handle processing 1 request at a time, which makes it pretty much unusable.

The last things I’m working on are just making sure everything is ready to go to handle more traffic. I just need to do one last clean load test before I’ll share the domain. I’ve never launched anything before so I don’t know what to expect. Either crickets or maybe it blows up you never know 🤷‍♂️

The One Major Change: Evidence

In other news, I had a couple conversations this week with people where I ended up answering the common question “what do you do?” It was interesting observing and comparing my answer this week to how I responded to this question even just a couple weeks ago.

I talked about these moments in this video from this week:

Basically it seems to come down to tangible evidence. It kinda makes sense that I didn’t feel confident in a business when all I had was a text document of research and notes. Having an actual public website running an actual app that does an actual thing is cold hard evidence. It’s fact.

It doesn’t seem too outlandish to claim that I feel more confident because I can point to an actual thing and say, “I did that.”

Personal Brand Update

I’ve slowly started adding more topical videos each week. My goal has just been 1 per week (usually Thursdays), but if I don’t have much to say about the previous day and have a video lined up, I’ve started throwing some more in.

My critique for my current videos is that their value aligns more in the reasoning why someone would watch a “day-in-the-life vlogger.” That’s fine, but long-term, I want to actually help people. I want that feeling of those 1-1 conversations that lead to change.

And so my thinking is that these more topical videos are one step closer to getting me there.

The reason I haven’t gone all in on these is because frankly I don’t think I could sustain it for very long. And, back to the original reasons why I started these DailyVs back up, I want to actually document my life and mindset in the present, not just always looking back on what I’ve learned.

So I’m trying to balance those two, but I think I’ve made a step in the right direction.

Also I’m not in a rush to double down on anything I don’t think I can sustain, or to optimize for more subscribers or views. The only reason I would feel rushed to do that would be 1. I need money 2. taking advantage of an opportunity (like a video blows up) 3. something else fundamentally changes.

And so 1. that’s why I’m doing [see business progress update from above] 2. is somewhat out of my control and 3. maybe changes from traveling?

But otherwise, I’m in this for the long haul. Do I want access to helping people? Yes. But do I also have 20 years of content ahead of me? Probably.

Speaking of fundamental changes. I watched this random niche video on this Skool.com internal leaderboard game they’re running with their creators. What piqued my curiosity the most was that Alex Hormozi was in there (who recently just made a huge investment into the company) and was explaining how communities are going to be big in the next couple years. The tides are turning.

So on the back of that, if I can align myself WITH the tide, that’s probably the most advantageous strategy. The problem? (I talked about it in this video from this week).

Basically it comes down to not knowing what goal I would orient a group of people (community) around. If I’ve learned anything from the last couple years, this is one of those things that I feel just filters out and clarifies with 1. time and 2. action. It’s kind of like one of those rock sifters where you just do enough things and eventually it’s like “hmm wait a second I keep coming back to this thing, maybe I should pull on that thread.”

I have some ideas but my main concern is that whatever it is (fulfillment, sustainable life setup, health), it’s too broad, and I’m not sure what to do about that.

And on top of that even if I had a perfect goal and created a new community on Skool.com, I’d still need some way to funnel people in, which gets back to YouTube.

So anyways, that’s a little status update on where I’m at, what I’m implementing, and what I’m thinking about.

The Loop Completes

Just over 3 weeks ago I left The Bed KLCC to check out some other hostels.

• 3 nights at The Bed Bukit Bintang
• 4 nights at The Freedom Club
• 10 nights at Ohana

And now I’m back at The Bed KLCC.

I’m glad I went out and tried out some other locations and hostels. I continued to refine what’s most important in a hostel and location.

But it feels good to be back. The A/C in here is amazing, the beds are comfy, and I’m close to my good food places/malls.

⛈️ Rainy Season

I haven’t kept track of how many days it’s rained this week, but I’ve noticed it’s somewhat consistently started raining in the evenings ~4-6pm.

The problem? This is exactly when I go to the gym.

Quick tangent on why I go to the gym at this time, because I’ve been doing it for maybe 2 years now.

Okay so I do intermittent fasting every day (~16/8s; essentially I just skip breakfast – lunch at 12/1pm ish, dinner at 6/7pm ish), which I do because I value my focus and morning productivity. I’ve found nothing that comes even close to the mental clarify, flow, and focus from morning work while fasted.

I’ve experimented with doing exercise while fasted a couple times and it’s reeeeeeally tough. Maybe first thing in the morning, but even still, it’s incredibly draining. The other thing is, as I understand, it’s important to eat protein and food soon after a workout. Not necessary, but beneficial. Morning workout while fasted, then coming back and NOT eating anything just sounds like torture.

So that basically removes the 7a-12pm block of time to work out.

Then basically I can’t workout at least 1-2hrs after a meal (so I don’t throw up).

This essentially leaves ~3pm-dinner/6pm and between dinner and sleep.

Well… My Whoop tells me that exercising within ~1hr of sleep can disrupt sleep.

So I found the best routine was to workout in the ~4-6pm timeframe and then immediately going to eat dinner.

Now you know why I picked that time slot and why I’m now in a bit of a pickle because my optimal workout time now aligns exactly when the weather decides to absolutely dump down buckets of rain 😂

Braving The Storm

One day this week I saw it starting to rain out the window, but fairly light rain. I didn’t want to not work out though… so I figured out a strategy: I’d wear my rain jacket, hike up my shorts, wear my sandals, and put my socks and shoes inside my rain jacket.

I was ready to get wet on the walk over, but then BOOM I had fresh socks, fresh shoes, bang out my workout, then walk back. Easy.

I jumped in the elevator.

And when I walked out the door it was BUCKETING down rain 😅

I thought “uhhhhhhhhh okay maybe not 😂”

Mind you, it takes me 8.5-9.5 minutes to RUN to the gym. Google Maps says it’s a 22 minute walk…

I stood there, defeated, tail between my legs as I walked back inside 😢

BUT almost literally 20 minutes later it all cleared up. So I went on a run instead.

Calling An Audible

Then on Thursday I made it to the gym no rain.

But I was about 75% through my workout when I looked outside and say this big black dark cloud front overtaking the buildings in the distance.

Then I saw flashes of lighting.

And my mind flashed back to when I got stuck at the gym post workout, rain bucketing down, waiting 30 minutes for it to clear, then getting soaked and denied entry by security into the mall (video: Why I got stopped by security trying to enter the mall).

So I literally cut my workout short (sorry cable bicep curls, neck, and abs 😢) and dipped out early.

I got outside and it was already starting to sprinkle.

Here’s a clip I took as I started running back:

Made it back only mildly wet instead of drenched. Nice.

But then this literally happened AGAIN on my workout on Saturday. My poor neck and ab muscles are so lonely 😢

So anyways, I may end up shifting my workout to around 2-3pm, we’ll see.

Interesting Content From The Week

The Perfect Male Timeline (from 1M) – 16-25: learning, failing, figuring out your purpose; 25-35: success, fitness, investing; after 30: becoming more well rounded, skin care, culture, travel; 35-50: holidays, travel, settle down, family; Really interesting to hear the kind of grind/hustle/entrepreneurship message but integrated with travel, enjoying your life, actually making the most of your life.

Skool Games “Opening Ceremony” with Alex Hormozi (from Sam Ovens) – this is the Skool.com games ceremony video I was talking about that I watched. It’s not really meant to be a public video, it was an recording of the video from the internal community, but it was still interesting and piqued my interest.

Eric Weinstein – Why Does The Modern World Make No Sense? (4K) (from Chris Williamson) – definitely felt a lot of emotional feelings like “yeah everything’s broken, everything’s a mess, it’s all screwed” which isn’t that helpful besides riling people up, but there were some interesting thoughts and moments in there.

Gaining Experience with Women Young vs Late (from 1M) – I think this getting experience late is the strategy I’m adopting. Will it work out, only my future self knows.

27 is the Most Important/Dangerous Age for Men (from 1M) – fascinating statistics on the average ages for stuff like: sex, mortgage, marriage, dating costs, business costs, housing costs, child costs, etc.

Cafes From The Week

Shoutout to Spillstone Coffee, amazing vibes last Sunday.

Also went to Seeds Origin this week – great healthy food! Bit on the expensive side though (RM39, US$8.18), but really good quality. (Yes, welcome to Kuala Lumpur where $8.18 is considered expensive)

Snaps From The Week

(Non-normal) Food From The Week

The food I HAVEN’T posted a bajillion pictures of already:

Not pictured: Ngam Ngam bowl, Agrain bowls, Thai Cuisine food court pad thai/pad see ew.

My kryptonite of this The Bed KLCC location is being close to the Food City food court, gosh their bubble teas are incredible, and incredibly NOT good for me (even with “less sugar”). But they changed the plastic drink containers to these opaque ones which has actually made them less appealing because you can’t see through them anymore… Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.

Oh and back at LaLaport, that Ben Gong’s Tea Kakigori was incredibly good – super light shaved ice type of thing, not too sweet.

What’s Next?

One of these days I’ll fly out of KL… Or maybe I’ll just move here lol 🤷‍♂️

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