SOTB 2019 (State of the Blog 2019….what else?)

Provided we are in SOTU period here it is my SOTB.

POSTS

19 Posts
15 in 2018 (from end of april when Freedom was born)
4 in 2019

I know I know…too few…
I need to be disciplined here…2019 target is to publish every Saturday and dropping here an there some additional posts.

STATISTICS

Last 30 days:
2334 Visitors
4220 Visits

Mostly from the USA, Germany, Holland, France and China.

TOP BLOG POSTS

  1. The Blogger Dilemma: The Difficult Art to Exist (on the Internet)
  2. Why this BLOG? To (Easily) Conquer the 5 Goals of Your LIFE
  3. Where do YOU want to live? Living in the BEST place in the World (Hint: it’s not the U.S.A.)

COMMENTS
Not very active but I am not very surprised since:
1) Traffic is still too limited
2) Most of My blog posts doesn’t really leave a lot of room to comments, questions
3) I think people prefer to comment on twitter, facebook etc instead of directly on the blog

I am not surprised the Blogger Dilemma reached the top spot since with the proliferation of the blogs more and more people are somehow disappointed and disillusioned from the lower than expected traffic in their blogs.
The post brings back on the basics: i.e. creating value.
The post in second place very likely had several visitors trying to understand what the blog was about.
I have to say I was not surprised of the post in third position since most of my readers seems attracted by topics such retirement, where to live and they are from the U.S.A.

MONETIZING

As of today my blog is entirely ads or affiliate links free meaning that my annual revenues in 2018 were (drum rolls please …$0$)
As I wrote in the past: Filling my website pages with Random computer generated Google Ads suggesting you some Shrimp Antonia Bag Pink Size One it is simply not for me.
In 2019 I will start some experiments suggesting you to use great tools like Personal Capital to keep tracking your finances is something I really believe into it like in other products I do really use and enjoy on a regular basis.
Keep you updated!

SOCIAL NETWORKS


In late November I started the Twitter account linked to this blog and I am having a blast to read all the interesting comments and post of my fellow bloggers out there.
In few weeks I was able to reach over 100 followers (20% in my opinion are only real followers).
I also opened a Facebook account linked to this blog but I do really think blog + Twitter is enough so far as main communication channel.

WHAT IN 2019

1) Publish every Saturday no matter what
2) Start some experiments in monetizing the blog
3) Extend to other social channel (e.g. Instagram, Reddit, Pinterest)
4) Being published by some media
5) Reach 10K Visitors/mo 20K Visits/mo

While always (trying to) create some value for you.

Talk to you at SOTB 2020!

Five Steps to Love and be Loved by Everyone

Could you be loved?

If I love one aspect of the social media world is how it made clear that the priority of most of the people is to have friends (followers) rather than being a friend.

Let’s try with why:

The only  think people want is recognition.

Very few people want to be a real friend… to establish sincere friendships in the online and offline world.

Thus there are billions of people thinking they have thousands of friends while nobody is friend of nobody.

Empathy is what can save the world, seriously.

We have to restart building our relationships, creating real time for real actions for real interactions.

Because we don’t have time anymore.

How can we start?

1) Reduce screen time

We already talked about it no much more to discuss about it: stolen by the screen time.

2) Give honest appreciation to people.

Think deeply about people around you. think about their actions, how many good things they do at work, as parents, in the aspects of sports, arts , volunteering.

Don’t just give a fake like on their post in the social media.

People understand how fake you are.

Write instead a real message where you express your appreciation.

3) Be interested in what they do.

Stop being self centered.

Stop your arrogance.

Stop talking about you all day long.

The bad news?

People are not s interested in you.

People are interested in them…like you are interested in you.

Try to be instead sincerely interested in what other people do, in their interests, passion, love.

You will find a different and fantastic world.

The real world.

The world of people.

Of passions, stories, emotions.

And you will grow with it instead to remain your small me, confined in your micro world made of selfishness.

In the blogosphere there are 90%+ people absolutely self-centered, interested only that you read them and click on their ads, arrogantly thinking they, and only they, have something to tell you and you have to just listen because they think they are cool.

Be gentle and sincere.

Don’t be like them, you are better than them.

4) Stop complaining or criticizing.

The last think we want is someone popping in our lives telling us how badly we are doing our role of employee, son, father, friend etc.

Why so many people criticize then?

Because they think they are superior.

They want to control and humiliate other people to change them or just to validate their points of view because they feel insecure.

Great mistake.

Be humble instead, never criticize, even thought you might have a valid point during an argument with somebody.

5) Listen.

People don’t listen and if they do without empathy.
I don’t.
Very likely you don’t neither.
We are too busy to think exclusively about ourselves that we don’t simply care about what other people have to say.

Simply because we don’t care about people.

Nobody don’t care about anybody.

And this behavior got worst and worst with the advent of the screen.

Before kids were playing in the streets and in the fields.
They were climbing the trees and creating real relationships and friendship scratching their knees playing football or soccer.

Today the only thing they do is playing on their phones.
You see them sitting, without talking, immersed in their screens, isolated from everything.’
They don’t care to have friends.
All they want is the pixels on the screens.
They have no interest to listen to you, they have no interested to listen to anybody.

Stop this craziness right now

Put the phone down and start talking and listening to the hearth of other people.

They will do the same with you

Rebuild relationships.

That’s what you need, not another fake like on an horrible picture you posted on your social

Nobody cares about it.
In the same way you didn’t care about the last like you gave to somebody.

Let’s get all real, the world need us, right now.
Be a linchpin not a cog. (thanks Seth)

Happy New Year! : How to be the happiest person in the world instead of wasting time setting hallucinations


Here we are…2019…it really seems yesterday when 2018 started…

Exactly…time goes by too fast…and too fast we committed goals only to faster forget them…


Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is
https://youtu.be/JwYX52BP2Sk over,
Thought I’d something more to say.

(Thanks Pink Floyd..)

Thus don’t set again useless goals (I would rather say Hallucinations) this year but define your lifestyle for good.

  1. Save money

Aim to save at least 60% of your income and invest it.

No matter what. The rest will take care of itself.

2. Health

  • Sleep 8h per day.
  • Hit your ideal weight.
  • If you smoke stop right now.
  • If you drink too much alcohol, reduce to the max allowed.
  • Walk at least 15,000 steps/day
  • Exercise 6 times a day
  • Log your calories and weight everyday (try MyFitnessPal app)
  • Meditate everyday
  • Stop any kind of screen watching after 930pm
  • Complete physical check every year
  • Deep floss everyday
  • 3-4l of water daily
  • Eliminate sugar
  • Stretch everyday

Use gratifications to be sure that tasks are done (e.g. you can browse social only after you log all the calories of the day and done your stretch)

No goals needed…just do it.

3. Personal Development

You know what you really want and like but you are also lazy, shy or a procrastinator.

We all are.

Now it’s time to take actions.

Same ideas?

  • Start a blog
  • Write 10 new ideas day
  • Speaking with stranger every day
  • Finish and Publish your book
  • Golf below 100
  • Run 10Km below 1h
  • Make a TED talk
  • Sing in Public
  • Open a bar
  • Be on Wikipedia

That’s all folks

If we ACT on these points (not dream on a piece of paper) we will win..be free…richer…heathier…and happier…

Otherwise we will meet next year.. same time… in the same place…losers…slaver…poorer…sicker…more miserable…

…and one year closer to death…

(Same ol’ Pink Floyd song arranged for the post…:-) )

Are You Happy? Increase Your Happiness of 91% with 4 Simple Goals and 1 Solution

 

Are you still in a place that you hate or did you buy a one-way  ticket to Costa Rica ? (ok let’s say Lisbon…)

So we have to move somewhere else to break the chain and be happy?

Firstly:

What is happiness ?

 

The old cliché Caribbean beach?

 

The mansion?

 

 

The Lamborghini?

 

All of three…or none?

How can we define it?

Searching for happiness has been what always pushed the men to improve their conditions.

It is the progress, the man on the moon, the airplanes, the internet, you, reading me thousand of miles away.
But this is no true for everyone, there are many people whose life is “ok”: they are satisfied for what they have.
The progress doesn’t originate from them but from those who are disruptive.
So what’s the target to be happy?
The middle? “In media stat virtus” ? Or the continuous searching for improvement?
There is no universal answer; it’s up to you; on what you feel and motivate you through the day.

Once a friend of mine told me: “When I was a kid I was poor, spending my time going to the beach and I was happy. When I grew up I went to America, saw what’s behind the wall and I was screwed”(mean he got the shopping, consuming bug, ended up in debit, big house, car…you know how it works).
Now that kid would like to go back to that beach he tried to to leave…and he’s not alone.

Everything boil down to Four Steps and One Solution

Do you remember WMJHH?

WHERE: Living in the place of your dream
MONEY: Be financially independent
JOB: Escape the 9-5 life of cubicle slavery for…well…nothing…
HEALTH: Be healthy, eat better…exercise more…lose weight
HAPPY: Think outside your box and stretching that comfort zone that keep you stuck in your city, state, country, sad life etc

Thus you and me are happy if we reach this Four Goals:

  1. Do what we love
  2. In a place that we love
  3. With people we love
  4. In good health

The solution? Financial Independence!

Money buys happiness?

Well…YES!

YES

YES

Enough Money buys FREEDOM

 

Enough money…the so-called the F-you money by JL Collins

 

 

FREEDOM from a 9am-5pm-65y you hate so…yes MONEY can buy FREEDOM so happiness

 

Please carve this in your brain…MONEY DON’T BUY HAPPINESS per se.

You don’t believe me right…? It’s OK, nobody does…

So….make this simple test…be realistic and sincere…list down the 10 best memories of your life…don’t read any further before moving forward..ready? …go…

(Did you cheat or really got the ten points…?)

I bet a diet soda (well we try to save some money here, correct?) that  none of them were money related.

I bet they were instead memories of time spent with people you love and not the moment you bought some expensive toys.
I bet you were happy when you were mentally free to enjoy those moments.
Free from the heavy worries about a job, a deadline, a mortgage, a bill, a jerky boss.

So the equation is pretty simple

HAPPINESS=FREEDOM

And FREEDOM is reached through FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE  that is reached either increasing our income or reducing our expenses until we can  live off from our saving.

So…

FREEDOM=FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE=MAKING MORE MONEY & SPENDING LESS MONEY (until reaching a point to live off from our saving)

So part of the equation is FREEDOM=SPENDING LESS MONEY (to reach financial independence)

HAPPINESS=SPENDING LESS MONEY

as simple as that

instead we think the opposite…we think

HAPPINESS=SPENDING MORE MONEY @@@!!!

…ending up broke…

But let’s see the second part of the equation

HAPPINESS=MAKING MORE MONEY

We can do that

  1. Increasing our hourly wage or working more…
    It can be more fun (do what you love) or less fun (do what you hate)

If you reach it doing what you love congratulations! no need to read any further (or you can just to see how we are doing) otherwise keep grinding…

Look it’s a simple as that:

 

 

If you are in the intersection of the three circles…bingo! The WORLD IS YOURS!
in this categories typically fall top athletes, famous doctors, actors, super nerdy tech guy and many other people maybe not so famous.

From my experience the 1% of the population

You love something, you are talented to do it, that activity pays good money…

 

THIS IS YOUR GOAL!

 

Let’s do some real case examples

1) Teacher – Administrative
you might love it and be talented but unless you are teaching in some very top university around the world chances are slim that you make a good money.
Poor but happy…can be a good compromise…but watch out that you have only one bullet left…if one day you will hate your job you will be in big troubles..poor and sad!

And watch out next dentist bill…or if your car breaks down…or if you have to change your roof.
You don’t wanna be there…believe me

2) Engineers
you likely make good money and you must be skilled (because being an engineer require to be skilled) but unless you are a super nerdy tech guy (I would say 50% of engineer population) you cant love such dry and boring job.
We are in the Dilbert zone here…white collars good money job where some people are happy and some are miserable
In my view if you are in the intersections the happiness is still limited by the lifestyle of the engineers but maybe I am wrong…

3) Marketing or Sales  Engineer
Better than 3…you might actually doing cool stuff here detached to the technical boring aspect of the job
but you have still to show up at the job even thought you will surely have some flexibility in terms of work hours (we want to pamper our brilliant guys right?)

You might be in the magic intersection here…

4) Doctors
Depending on the country they operate they might have a nice salary and directly proportional to their stress and responsibility.
Many might love this job that has a big degree of empathy and human connections with the patient.

It can indeed be the ideal situation as well

5) Low/minimum wage jobs
Yes…the adage says you can be poor and happy…but not at this extent especially if you are in the USA or in most part of Asia where being at low/minimum wage means starving and not even access basic health care coverage. If you are in this category I hope you are in some European country with universal health care, ideally far from the big expensive metropolis.

In this category you are in the perifery of every circle
No money, no passions, no talents.
You might be ok to be here if you expenses are really low, if you have other interest and if the time schedule is very short and flexible (and again if you are not in the USA) but generally speaking you are barely surviving here, poor and sad.

6) Fashion, luxury business
people at the top of this categories are in the ideal spot but also the lower level one might make good money, in a nice and cool environment.

 

7) Entrepreneur
The good think is that you don’t have a nasty boss
The bad is that you might have hundreds of those nasty bosses (your customers) and work hundreds of hours per week.

The solution? do what you love for a super high hourly wage
Easy? no
Feasible ? Yes
If you get the solution, congratulations! you get the ideal job
Otherwise keep pushing…but miserably

So what’s the point ?

should we  all be talented, passionate and rich and 100% happy ?
Well yes

First step first…let’s reach the first 91% f happiness getting back 8-10 hours a day of freedom through FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. 

Head down please …keep working in your boring job, save and earn how much as you can to reach the FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE, gain freedom from something you don’t like…and make  a giant first step toward happiness.

In next post I will talk how  to reach this financial independence and what to do with this new freedom….

PS
if you cannot wait for my next post, there are EXCELLENT blogs on financial independence you can check out in Freedom recommends…enjoy the reading!

21 Minutes to Learn How to be Happy Doing What You Love

99% of the people I know have no idea what to do with their life

They live somehow…they hope to be rich without working on it, they hope to be healthy eating crap and not exercising, they hope to be happy and famous someday.

The someday never arrived and they die fat, poor and in solitude.

Do you want to end up like that?

Living without knowing our targets is like to ride a boat (our life) with nobody governing it…sooner or later will crash on the rocks…or best case will go nowhere…

A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder right?

Anyhow almost the totality of people live like that…

Do you?

Yes…

What about you?

Do you know what you want to do of your life?

I give you 20 second…

Done?

Is it difficult right?

I bet you just kept reading after 5 seconds just because you grew impatient…and you know why?

Because I asked you a question you want to avoid or that you consider useless because you think you are immortal, that a life made of browsing your cell phone, wasting time in the social networks and getting some charity from your boss is the BEST life you can get and this ephemeral happiness (BTW happiness. Are you sure?) will last forever…right?

Wrong  & Wrong

If you don’t know what you want you cannot be happy.
And your life won’t last forever…

Don’t you agree?

Fair enough…close this browser now and go back to live other people live on the social or watching stupid videos on Youtube all day.

Still here?

Good…

Let’ s move forward and quickly…you and me just have a couple of minutes to live less since you start reading this post…(never thought in this terms right…is it scary…isn’t it…?)

Why we avoid this question

Generally speaking we don’t want someone to ask us what we want to do with our lives (or what we like)
typically because:

  • We still don’t know what we are looking for
  • We somehow know it but we live in a state of denial that we are not putting effort in reaching our goals

So we prefer to avoid the big question, we wake up, take the car, bus, train, maybe for several hours day in day out…doing a job that best case is exciting like eating paper, worst case is a freaking hell with the only goal of surviving or wasting money in useless expensive toys (smartphone, cars, vacations).

Don’t get me wrong
There is nothing outrageous with buying toys once in a while but the impact on your net worth must be negligible (less that 0.5%))

In a nutshell, before throwing that $50,000 in a new car you must have $10M as net worth…yes you understand me correctly…you must have at least 10M$ to allow your self that car that in the best case will give you only 10 minutes of joy when you drive it out from the dealer and years of pain (car loan, insurance, accidents, scratches, gas, cost of cleaning it, fear of parking it in a dangerous area, fears of somebody stealing it…etc.)

Same for jewelry, luxury watches etc.

You want to buy that $50,000 car? Or that $10,000 Rolex? Or spending $10,000 per year in Restaurant?

How long will take you to earn that money?

How much life you need to burn?

If you live in the USA and make $25-30K/y before tax and save 10% of your income (higher than national average!) it will take MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS TO BUT THAT FREAKING CAR and FIVE YEARS FOR THE WATCH!

Make yourself a favor… read now the great book Your Money or Your Life for  some “wow” moments on this subject.

Some exception with clothes that indeed are staples objects but as staples you need to use those shoes or suit until erosion before throwing them away.

So what’s the point?

the point is that our society is build in order to make us avoiding questions such as “What do I want to do?” “What makes me really happy” because they to keep us in the rat race 9-5 (actually more and more 8am-10pm weekend and vacation included) in order to….(drum roll please) CONSUME

CONSUME: buying tons of cheap or expensive crap
CONSUME: spending $300-700 every month for cars we use just to being stuck in the traffic
CONSUME: spending $300-500 every month eating unhealthy food
CONSUME: spending thousands of dollars in medicine to cure our stress of work, sedentary life and unhealthy eating habits

Can’t you see that our society eliminated talking about death?

They are scared that if we think  about that we all will start taking care more about ourselves, working less and, you can bet, consume less crap.

Think for a while the impact of two small things like biking or walking to your job and avoid eating outside (i.e. you bring your own food to work).
How much are you going to save and improve your health?

Well…I am already earing you guys…oh you cannot understand… it is impossible…my job is very far….,  I have no time to make my own lunch,  I promised my kids to go in that restaurant since a long time

Sorry folks…those are pure and crystalline BS

But you are here reading this blog so you are different from that 9-5pm obese poor sheeps stuck in the traffic eating their double cheesburger and sweet soda 50K$ in debts.

Are you? I know you are…

Back to the questions and the solution

Do you know what you want to do of your life? What is your purpose in life?

Here we go…the 21 minutes that will change your life

  • List all the things you love or you truly want…spend 19 minutes on it
  • Review the list….2 minutes are enough…pick the one that YOU know is the one

Read it aloud, write it again hundreds of time everywhere, be sure you have it in front of your eyes all day long.

That’s the one thing you have to aim for with all your time and energy.

Forget about everything else.

That’s where your happiness is and now you know how to reach it.

PS

There is a different version of this post called How to Discover Your Life Purpose in About 20 Minutes  written several years ago from an incredible man called Steve Pavlina. If you have to read only one post from Steve this is definitively the one.