This Week:
- Soft-launching the SaaS website I’ve been working on the past month.
- First impressions flying to George Town with zero expectations.
- Catching more and more eyes from women.
March 2024
| Su | M | T | W | Th | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 3/1 | 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 | 4/1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
Where In The World Was I?
Metrics From The Week
February Whoop Rankings (Men 20-30; 92.1k members):
- 13.6 Day Strain: 11,509th (top 12.5%)
- 67% Recovery: 8,142nd (top 8.8%)
- 96% Sleep: 799th (top 0.87%)
Business Progress Update: We’re Live!
We. Are. Live! 👉 https://commentcompass.co/
This week I fixed the memory issues I was running into last week and did some optimizations so that it’s ready to handle multiple users. I’m running into some YouTube API quota limits, but more on that in a sec. In the meantime, I think I’m ready for my first public soft-launch.
Tweaked the UI, added Google Analytics, Hotjar, and a Google Form for feedback in the lower right this week.
I also finally got to reading Chapter 3 of the Indie Maker Handbook (lol) because I finally actually did the homework step and built something. I’ve already started on some of the pre-launch steps but this next chapter is about getting it ready to handle more traffic, capture emails, then get it in the hands of real YouTube creators.
My next bottleneck has been hitting the YouTube API quota limits. The base/default is 10,000 units per day. Depending on the creators submitted, I can probably handle plus or minus 20 requests per day. This is definitely not enough for a real launch, so I submitted an application to increase my quota.
Within a couple days I got an email back explaining how my API Client/site violated a bunch of the YouTube API terms of service 😅 It’s mostly straightforward stuff like having a privacy policy, explaining what you do with user data, having a contact point, stuff like that. Frankly I didn’t think about this, so I’m glad I figured out BEFORE publicly launching.
The hope is that I can just fix up all the violations and then fingers crossed they bump up my quota 🤞
My First Users
I will say, seeing the logs of requests from REAL people (the YouTube API people) using my software, even just for testing it, has been really fulfilling. To have created a real thing, that solves a problem, does a unique thing, and have it actually work publicly and not just on my local machine, ahhh it’s just so cool.
I said at the very end of this video First impressions of Penang! (And getting in trouble with YouTube) how this life (and business) is pretty much exactly what I’m looking for, just minus the actual income coming in from the business (which is the hard part 😅).
To have a software running 24/7, completely divorced from my active time, that real people can use, is exactly what I’m looking for. I know I’m still very far from actual money, but in terms of life setup, I think I’ve found it.
It wasn’t a “work” day, but I spent a morning doing some journaling in a coffee shop, pushed up a couple quick bug fixes, redeployed my site, ate a delicious lunch, then spent the rest of the day exploring George Town.
That morning made me think, yep, this is it. I’m in SE Asia eating unbelievable food at affordable prices, traveling, exploring, creating assets all from my laptop. I’m so freakin’ close. I really feel like I just need to keep pushing and iterating on this process (creating SaaS sites, solving problems, systematizing) and eventually one will hit the right combination of value and luck.
I feel (and continue to feel) incredibly grateful to be here, and for this opportunity I’ve been lucky enough to get.
Final Days In Kuala Lumpur
It was much of the same as the past 2 months… (can’t believe I was there for 2 months!)
Losing My Discipline
I started noticing a feeling of losing my discipline for prioritizing eating healthy. On my runs back from Anytime Fitness I would pass by The Pavilion mall and just feel the pull to eat at the Thai Cuisine food court place. I think it was a combination of delicious+cheap thai food, a nice sugary thai iced tea (although I didn’t order that this week), but also people watching and catching eyes from women walking around the mall (which I’ll talk about more later in the post).
I did eat at Agrain, but it felt much harder to pass up The Pavilion…
And last Sunday, I decided to spice things up after lunch and got a Toast sandwich from this other shop and some sweets from a bakery.
Then I noticed about an hour later back at the hostel, I just felt so sluggish and tired. I thought it might be “overworking” but remembering the sugary baked goods I ate, one of the few things that changed, it felt clear that the sugar+carbs were the culprit.
Lesson learned… (again 😅)
Reflecting on these feelings of lost discipline, I wonder if I lost some of my social accountability from being around other high-level people (I’m thinking of Tribal in Bali). There were no consequences for being “seen” with a sugary bubble tea here in KL. I think I may have traded price (cheaper hostel) for less accountability. Still have to think about this, but it was a thought that came up this week.
The Social Compliment Struggle
Last week in a video A social failure yesterday. How do you fix this? I shared how I wanted to share this compliment to the head manager at Anytime Fitness for how clean the gym was, but I ended up not taking advantage of the opportunity and ended up walking away saying nothing.
The next time I went (this week), a similar thing happened I let myself down (again). I had a opportunity, I didn’t take it, then the window for sharing it closed, and I again walked away having said nothing.
Well on literally my last workout in KL, I went into the staff office to do my weight analysis thing and thought I was yet again not gonna get an opportunity to share this. I was alone in the office, the main manager was talking with someone in the gym and the other staff were out and about.
But I finished my weight analysis and whoever was controlling the simulation that day apparently felt bad for me because they gave me literally the perfect opportunity. I step off the scale and the main manager comes back into the office and sits down. I put on my shoes and hat and say thank you, then share that I’m leaving, how I’ve loved the gym, and have been impressed with how clean it is.
Mission accomplished.
I’m not really sure what I learned from that moment because that was too easy… 🤷♂️
✈️ Off to Penang!
After 2 months in Kuala Lumpur, I finally left. Shocking, I know.
Shoutout to my parents for the idea and recommendation. Frankly I knew zero about George Town or Penang. I mean to be completely honest I hadn’t heard of Kuala Lumpur and couldn’t point to Malaysia on a map before I came to Bali, so there’s that 😂
But what I do know is that my flight cost me $17. Yes. 17.00 USD. It’s like getting an Uber… Except you’re flying to another part of the country.
Side note for this week’s geography lesson (and TIL): Malaysia has 13 states (like U.S. states) and 3 federal territories (like Washington D.C.). Kuala Lumpur is a federal territory. Penang is a state. George Town is a city in (and the capital of) Penang.
Hard to see with my phone’s photos but oof at that air quality leaving KL, holy sh*t 😬. The clouds literally look dirty, like those piles of dirty snow in parking lots in the spring.
^ left: clean line between the farms and a MASSIVE untouched forest.
This is everything I have with me, all in one picture. 8 months still going strong.
Welcome to George Town, Penang
I will again reiterate the context that I knew just about zero (like literally) about George Town before getting here. I think I had the idea that this was some super small local fishing village type of place with zero tourists. It’s very much NOT that.
The Food… The Foooooood
The 3 times I heard someone say something about Penang they said something about the food being a big thing, and oh my lord….
Oh, my, lord is the food good.
Look, sometimes the food or drinks come out early and I just can’t wait any longer to sip or take a slice of pizza 🤷♂️😄
Another side note: I am absolutely a bingsu convert, it’s so light and flakey, melts in your mouth, isn’t overly sweet. Where has this been all my life.
Prices are definitely more expensive compared to Kuala Lumpur.
- Mexican tacos, quesadilla, churros: $19.27
- Cafe veggie sandwich, sweet potatoes, smoothie, espresso: $12.92
- 2 cups of premium gelato: $4.22
- Indian chicken tikka masala, garlic cheese naan, rice, lassi: $11.35
- Korean bingsu dessert: $5.25
- Cafe espresso: $2.11
- Cafe egg and salmon toast, smoothie: $9.41
- Banana chocolate bread: $3.47
- Italian pizza, pasta, kombucha: $24.28
- Cafe cold brew: $3.23
Exploring
I took a long walk exploring the streets, taking photos. I like it a lot here. It almost feels a bit like Europe – tight streets, street-level shops, cafes, restaurants, lively, bustling with people.
Geography lesson (and TIL) #2: “The British colonized Penang in 1786, when the Sultanate of Kedah ceded the island to the British East India Company.” Apparently it was and has been a big trading hub, which has influenced the melting pot of food, art, and cultures.
Back to mornings journaling in a coffee shop.
I was sitting at an 8 person/large table at The Mugshot Cafe (^ right) and this grandma with her 2 grandkids (maybe 3yo and 6yo?) came over and asked if they could also sit down. I said of course and asked where they were from (Switzerland!). The parents came over a couple minutes later and we ended up chatting for a good 45 minutes about travel.
They were on a 3 month trip around SE Asia as a family!
It was such a unexpectedly positive moment connecting with this seemingly family from Switzerland about travel all around the world!
The neighborhood backstreets in Air Itam:
The Kek Lok Si temple, the largest buddhist temple in Malaysia!
And up to the top of Penang Hill.
I can’t remember the last time I asked someone to take my photo (that I initiated)… Maybe at least 5 years ago or something. I actually can’t remember. Maybe I’ve never asked? At the very least it’s been too long, so I put it as a step in my skill tree under social skills.
+10XP or something 🤪
Side note about Penang Hill: My personalized ChatGPT itinerary recommended going to Penang Hill early in the morning. Well, the next 2 mornings I had things to do, so I went one afternoon instead. I did zero planning. When I say zero, I mean: I saw it on my itinerary, I looked up the location on Google Maps, plugged in the location, and then left. So I show up to the ticket counter (Saturday at 3pm) and the lady goes “hi sir, uh, the wait is currently over 2 hours. I recommend you come back between 6:15am and 8am.” 😅 I feel like that moment was a pretty solid representation of my travel style 😂 I walked over to the Kek Lok Si temple instead for a couple hours then came back and the wait was maybe ~30 min. Easy peasy.
👀 Eye Contact
One of the activities I liked doing in Kuala Lumpur was walking around malls people watching. Sometimes I’d throw in a podcast and just walk, other times it’d be after a workout to dinner (like to Thai Cuisine at The Pavilion mall).
Well, maybe with the context of listening to all these 1stMan videos on the Male Advantage, becoming above average, fitness, women, along with gaining confidence from seeing progress bulking, and just… being a guy, I would often (nah, always 😂) check out women as I walked around.
The past couple weeks I feel like I’ve been getting (and holding) more eye contact with women.
It’s like a mini-game. Who looks, who doesn’t, are they checking you out or just a normal/casual “look,” how long can you hold eyes with that attractive girl that you suddenly make eye contact with, who breaks first, etc. etc. The other thing I’ve been looking at is what do they guys look like (if they’re with women), do they look like high-level guys that really take care of themselves or do they look like average-looking guys.
I don’t really keep track of how many women I make eye contact with, but some days it gets to the point where it feels abnormal to what would be considered normal eye contact with people just strolling through a mall on a normal day. I have various moments documented here and there, but there were 2 moments just from this week that stood out.
Boarding The Flight
I was waiting to board my flight to Penang and was standing, looking around, people watching, just chillin’. I noticed this fairly attractive asian girl with a white/western guy. I’d say he was definitely above average looking, fairly well built.
Well I caught eyes with the girl and immediately looked away (sometimes I get scared looking at women WITH guys 😅). I casually looked over to the side, then crossed back over and the girl was still looking at me. About a minute later she looks back and we hold eye contact (like into the “longer than a quick glance” time frame) I was like “oh boy… 😂”
I’ll skip over some details for brevity… I walked away to stand by the door. They both got up a couple minutes later and walked over. Another long eye contact with the woman. She says something to the guy, he walks away, she started walking towards me (stomach immediately drops through the floor) but then stopped in the group of people and stood alone, it looked like the guy was looking towards me, etc. etc. At this point I was like “alright I don’t want any more of this 😅 I got my long peek eye contact, that’s all I want, I’m good”
The door opens to the boarding area, everyone goes in and sits down. She’s all over the guy now, hugging, kissing. At one point I looked up (they were in front of me) and looked kind of over them and I saw the girl look over at me.
Then our flight was delayed 30 min, I got up and left to go pee and capture this moment on my phone. I was kind of hiding in the corner to be away from anyone and I saw the girl also leave. Like come’on… I literally hid behind this big sign 😂 I was like “nope I’m good.”
I think I’m starting to understand what 1stMan is talking about…
Penang Hill
I was standing in line waiting for the funicular cable car ride up the hill, chillin’, looking around, as you do (ya know, like what people did before everyone started burying themselves in their phones?)
I noticed these 2 cute Malaysian girls a couple people back, very well dressed and proper. Turns out they were part of a family (parents, 2 daughters, 1 son). We caught some eyes (nothing super long, but repeated contact), as we zig zagged through the queue.
They were cute, I’ll be honest 😄 But I wasn’t being weird about it.
Anyways, we get to the top, and I kept running into these 2 girls throughout the ~1.5 hrs at the top. We kind of followed the same route around the top. It again got to that point of, “I got my sustained eye contact, I got my dopamine hit, I’m good.” Towards the end I started actively trying to avoid them because I worried it might be perceived as being weird 😬
So there was that, but I lost count how many other women I made eye contact with up there, some fairly sustained. One girl I walked past, saw her looking towards my torso, I looked away as I walked past, and she was still looking at me, clearly giving me the “up and down.” I literally couldn’t hold back a smile and laugh as I walked away 😂 Like “what is going on right now”
Anyways, the question that presented itself was, how much of this is a result of meaningful progress in my physical appearance and body language (how I carry myself) vs how much is this a result of looking different (i.e. a white foreigner in a sea of mostly asian people). For example at Penang hill, I could probably count just on 2 hands the number of white/western foreigners I saw. And there were a LOT of people there.
So back to the note earlier in the post about losing my discipline and going to The Pavilion after workouts… Maybe now you understand one of the other (main? 😄) driving factors for why I chose the mall over Agrain (not in a big popular mall…) 😅 It’s just so fun and exciting.
Journal Entries
About my direction and the last 2 months in Kuala Lumpur.
March 1st 2024 | Penang Day 1, KL Reflection
...
Goals?
...
I'm gonna put CommentCompass work in maintenance mode while I'm here, which reminds me, I'm grateful I can even do this, to put work on hold for a couple days.
I'm grateful I'm working towards something that allows for that. I really feel good about this SaaS platforms direction.
It's leveraging my skills - coding, problem solving, systematizing, and ChatGPT has been filling in the gaps that I didn't like and were harder - server configs, fronted, etc. And it's inherently scalable and divorced from my time. My site is up and running while I write this.
My haven't launched yet, but users could be using it, eventually paying me money for the value I'm creating, all while I sit here journaling in Penang drinking my Ethiopia single origin espresso - this shit is delicious.
But point being, this is what I've been looking for... and it feels fucking good to be headed in this direction.
...
How was Kuala Lumpur? What did I learn? What went well? Not well?
- Work/Output/Productivity-wise: went from end of year productivity update, pivoting from travel blogging, exploring new opportunities, refining my criteria/direction, to landing on YouTube content ideas from comments, to fucking building a real live public SaaS that does it.
- Plus all the admin organization and documentation I added to my Obsidian workspace - the calendar and daily plans, building up the Knowledge hub, the Personal Growth Skill Tree, the Admin board, and all the connectivity. Pre-update it didn't feel cohesive. It feels and looks like it's designed with intention.
- And then all the Anytime Fitness workouts, the VO2 Max test, health screening test.
- Oh and learning to control my sexual energy. Huge.
- Then layer onto all that the most inexpensive yet high quality of life living I've EVER had - eating incredibly healthy and clean meals for $3-6/meal, staying at hostels for $14/night (The Bed), $7.50/night (Ohana), and all the exploring and wandering around shopping malls, people watching, catching eyes from women.
- Oh and maybe the cherry on top? Every. Single. Day. Documented on YouTube. And every single week captured in a Life Update. Fuck yeah.
...
And about the feeling of a morning in a coffee shop.
March 2nd 2024 | Coffee Shops, Family, Social Exchange
Hello from Mugshot Cafe.
I find myself back in a coffee shop first thing in the morning. It's almost like I forgot what it's like to NOT got to a coffee shop in the morning.
I would miss that beautiful moment of sipping that warm espresso, feeling the burst of flavor and complexity on my tongue,
of sitting in a new place looking around at the people, at the things on the wall, at the staff making food and drinks,
of feeling just present in the moment, clear minded, thinking about how I feel, ideating, of journaling,
or of just feeling the energy of the environment, the people, the music.
I love these moments, maybe that's clear to you.
I chose these places when I didn't have to (Denver coffee shop mornings) and so I feel as though it makes sense that I continue to choose them when I don't have to (George Town vacation).
I just don't quite know how to balance them with sacrificing this very experience for something better, like waking up early to beat the crowds to Penang Hill.
...Interesting Content From The Week
These clips might actually save peoples’ lives. (Here’s the full podcast: Dr. Peter Attia: Improve Vitality, Emotional & Physical Health & Lifespan | Huberman Lab Podcast)
- Why Knowing Your Blood Pressure Is Critical to Longevity | Dr. Peter Attia & Dr. Andrew Huberman (from Huberman Lab Clips)
- Tools for Avoiding Heart Attack & Heart Disease | Dr. Peter Attia & Dr. Andrew Huberman (from Huberman Lab Clips)
- How to Avoid Accidental Death | Dr. Peter Attia & Dr. Andrew Huberman (from Huberman Lab Clips) – auto incidents, accidental overexposure to drugs, falls. Type 1 muscle fibers (strength) are important for longevity.
The Slow-Carb Diet Explained | Tim Ferriss & Dr. Andrew Huberman (from Huberman Lab Clips) – really interesting diet. I’m surprised to hear it’s worked well for people.
“This Workout Makes Your Heart 20 Years Younger” – Dr Rhonda Patrick (from Chris Williamson) – nice to hear the VO2 max again! This is the same advice I got from the coach who did my VO2 max test results – zone 2 for endurance, then zone 5 every once in a while (4×4, HIIT) to keep your “ceiling” up.
Piers Morgan vs Chris Williamson | “I’m An Army Of One” | Full interview – interesting to see the tables turned and hear Chris Williamson’s perspectives as he’s often the one asking the questions. Great perspectives on today’s day and age.
This Problem Changes Your Perspective On Game Dev (from Jonas Tyroller) – fascinating how many overlaps there are between game dev, business, and just life in general. This was a really good video.
Why I Don’t Chase Women (from 1M) – really fascinating perspective. The one trap I don’t want to fall into is thinking I’m higher value that I actually am and thus using the “you should approach me” mentality as a scape goat for not approaching. I don’t think he has that problem.
Combat Vets from Ukraine Explain Drone Warfare, Trench Warfare and More (from Garand Thumb) – really interesting perspectives on tactics, insights, learnings from 2 guys who have been fighting on the front lines in Ukraine.
What’s Next?
I can’t decide whether to stay here longer this week or not so I have no idea 😂