The Week I Got Back To Denver Urban Van Life

This Week

How many new views and followers I got from my Instagram trial reels that popped off
The thing that’s been taking up a lot of time this week
How it feels to socialize in the U.S.

November 2025

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
26	27	28	29	30	31	11/1
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	12/1	2	3	4	5	6

Where In The World Was I?

🚐 Denver, Colorado, U.S.

Metrics From The Week

Snaps From The Week

Locking In

Last week I talked about locking in.

Well, this week we more or less got to it. I’ll explain why I say “more or less” in a minute.

Instagram

I posted 30 Posts/Reels this week: 1 Post, 7 Reels, and 22 trial reels.

My main source clips were one 30 minute ramble morning video from Crete and one 20 minute ramble in the van. As I was going through and editing the videos, I realized I could pull out more than just one clip from each. I pulled out 6 from the Crete one and 4 from the van decision forks one.

Then blasted out a bunch of trial reels using different on-screen text hooks.

And then woke up to see a LOT of them absolutely popping off.

Kinda wild coming from like 200 to max 1k views per reel. And got a BUNCH of new followers from them.

The ONLY reservation I would say behind “hell yeah!” is I think the decision forks trial reels I didn’t really target my ideal avatar as well as some of the POV videos, so it’s possible the new followers aren’t super “high quality” (i.e. fit my exact avatar), but I figure more followers (for now) helps with social proof.

Besides that, everything has largely felt “on brand” for the types of problems and pains I’m targeting, which is good.

Gonna work on keeping up this momentum this week!

Deliberate Skill Learning

One of my ideas from a podcast I recorded last week along the “intentionality chapter” context was to do more deliberate skill acquisition.

Now that I largely know the direction I’m headed in life/business, I broke down the most useful and valuable skills I could develop/improve that would actually make a big difference in my progress and results.

I wanted this to be more than just “oh I’ll pick out a book and read it!” I wanted 15-30 minutes of focused deliberate skill acquisition – learning, applying, exercises. Think “homework” from school, except this work actually makes a difference in your life (ohhhhhhh shots fired 😳 😈).

With some GPT help, these were the skills we identified:

Storytelling for influence
Embodied presence & voice
Sales / Enrollment conversations
Intuitive action & risk reps

So I created a 14-day storytelling “course” that I could go through day-by-day and spend ~30 minutes intentionally learning and developing my storytelling skills. Alongside this, I immediately bought and started reading Stories That Stick by Kendra Hall.

And today (Sunday) I’m 7 days in and I can tell you this is WAY better than only reading. Can’t believe I waited this long to do this. The whole advice of having a project or real world application to apply your learnings (from software engineering) makes a big difference.

I already feel way better. And one day this week I was doing some writing for Instagram Story ideas and ended up putting together this little story that used some of the concepts from the book and course I’m going through (zero AI in this one).

(Hook) The day my life turned into a trap I couldn't get out of...

---

(Setup, dream, conflict, sensory moment) What once was a dream to make a impact in the lives of others, turned into hours of wasting away my own potential scrolling until my arms turned numb.

I knew it too. I'm not stupid.

Just because I knew what I should and shouldn't do didn't mean I could actually do it.

Each night there was ALWAYS an excuse "I can't tonight because..."

I became sedated by the comfortable life I thought I wanted. Salary, apartment, car, couch (f*ck that couch).

(Micro-hook for next slide) Until I reached a breaking point.

---

"I can't keep living like this."

I quit everything to travel, which fixed a lot, (micro-hook) but there's something I realized looking back.

(Internal realization) What I was REALLY doing was avoiding the inner work I was too scared to face.

(Belief shift) That work can happen anywhere, anytime, as long as you have some courage and curiosity.

---

(Bottomline meaning) You don't need to quit everything to find meaning and purpose in your life.

I’m not gonna claim I’m a master storyteller (yet), but I can already see the difference the more that I’m actually practicing and applying.

Other Intentionality

Been doing a lot more reading at points in my day and doing productive things while eating.

One of the things I mentioned wanting to not do last week was watching YouTube while eating. I’ve been either reading, editing reels, or going through my storytelling course while eating lately.

There was only one day I watched YouTube while eating and it was because I started to realize that reading while eating feels not as high ROI as I want because I keep having to shift my focus rather than being fully present reading. I recognized this and I’m gonna find some other “productive” activities I can try this week.

And this moment is a representative example of what I wanted and was talking about last week. Not just going with the flow, but actually repeatedly coming back to where I’m going and my current behaviors and coaching myself through this.

Rather than falling back into the habit of watching YouTube while eating, going “okay something happened here, what can we actually change to fix this slip up and continue to move towards my goals.”

Intentionality.

It feels good.

Habit Tracking

Also part of the intentionality chapter, I’ve set up a new daily habit tracker. It’s kind of a lot (even for me who documents everything in his life 😂) but I figured I’d run it for a bit and then iterate and see what I can cut later.

Included in this is:

Slept 8+ hours
Journaled
Visualization (2 min)
Meditated (5 min)
Power locking reps
Read (5 pages)
Weight trained
Zone 1-3 cardio
Stretched
Deliberate skill learning (30 min)
Shipped something small
Aliveness score (0-3)
Micro-edge (a 10% stretch)
Acted on gut (felt something, listened to it, acted on it/moved)

I’ve also added reflection questions to my daily and weekly notes, but I’ll spare you the details 😂

Admin

Aside from all that, this week was a LOT of life and van “administrative” stuff.

For “normal life” people it’s like the: taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, changing the lightbulb, getting your oil changed type of stuff.

I feel like a lot of this stuff doesn’t get much light. But I’ve found there’s quite a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes to run this nomadic lifestyle.

And unfortunately it’s another one of those times where I’m being plagued by administrative stuff. It’s not my favorite, but it’s useful.

My todo list grew quite long this week and was scattered amongst places, that one day I finally recognized this “todo list overwhelm” feeling and took everything, broke it down, and re-prioritized it.

Some of these things include:

Fixing a voltage drop in my electrical system which was causing my B2B charger to not fully charge my house battery enough
Troubleshooting and debugging why even after the voltage drop was fixed, why my B2B charger was still not fully charging
Investigating if I need to get my propane tank replaced and how to do so
Finding ski boots and ski rentals that actually fit my ability (most packages are too “intermediate” for what I was skiing)
End of year business and financial planning
Updating my travel wardrobe (to level up my style while still fitting in my two backpacks) – new shoes, jackets, shirts, etc.
Fixing my backpack zipper
Backing up all my media

Welcome to the behind-the-Instagram version of van life and traveling.

To be honest I wish I could just snap my fingers and have all these completed, but such is life. It’ll be over soon.

Socializing

WOW I miss the people and environment in Bali. I feel so alone here.

I’ve been trying to do more than the default chatbot script when I walk into a coffee shop…

“morning” “morning” “what can I get you” “a double espresso please” “will that be all?” “yep”

But it hasn’t been as easy or plentiful as I’ve wanted.

Finally had a fun interaction one morning when the payment machine was still turned off. Had a little back and forth “coffee is free today?” and a laugh.

And everyone is just locked in at the gym.

So we’re back to what feels like working from square 1 again. I’m now realizing how nice it was living in Bali to feel like you’re part of a community with everyone you come across.

Food From The Week

Thoughts From The Week

Living In The Contrast

I’ve been dressing up more lately – jeans/dress pants, polo/button down, etc. – and it feels good to not look like a hobo anymore (for anyone that was reading these posts 2 years ago, I’m sorry 😂 he didn’t know how to actually shave and dress well).

But last Sunday it hit me as I was leaving Frank & Roze, thinking about the image that I’m portraying of my life. Dressing well, working in a coffee shop from my laptop, but living in a van, sleeping on the side of residential streets. “Like what the fuck is this life bro haha it doesn’t make any sense.”

The gratitude has been hitting me hard this week.

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What’s Next?

⛷️ 👀