Hello from Mexico City,
I'm going to keep this fairly short and reasonably sweet.
I made a New Year's Resolution, actually a few months ago, to work a bit less. By "work a bit less" I mean about 14 hours per day, 6 days per week… and only for a few hours on Sunday whenever possible. And, also punctuated throughout the day with yoga/meditation and siestas.
After nearly five years of being on planes every other day, at conferences every few weeks and constantly writing, being interviewed and doing interviews I have been feeling a bit burned out. Plus, with two young children, a beautiful wife and five of the cutest dogs you've ever seen in your life I just felt like I owed it to myself and them to spend more time with all of them.
Also, I am sensing a massive change coming in 2015 and I want to focus more on our paying subscribers and giving them the best on-the-ground information possible as opposed to doing a myriad of other things. That commitment, subscribers will see, comes in our 40+ page January Issue just about to be released.
I've also been looking to simplify my life. It had become too complicated. I was trying to do too much and be everywhere at the same time. Simple things like unsubscribing from every email I had subscribed to over the years was a nice addition to my life. I was receiving 300-500 emails per day and at least 100-200 of those were not critical to my life. They were just a compilation of years (some even decades) of lists I had subscribed to because I was interested. But, a few months ago I decided to unsubscribe from ANYTHING that wasn't critical to my life today. With those things that I considered important but not critical I would look to add them to an RSS feed (which I read through Feedly) and then read at my leisure rather than having added to my daily avalanche of emails.
This, alone, enhanced my life as for the first time in a few years my email was manageable. I was getting to the point, at times, where even responding to fairly important emails would come a month late.
I then tried to find all the chaff I could cut from my life. As a serial entrepreneur I had accumulated dozens of businesses. But, after taking some time and serious consideration, it was clear that some were very profitable (both monetarily and for my own happiness) and some definitely weren't. So, I began chopping the ones that weren't adding tremendously to my life. Either shutting them down, partnering with someone to manage or selling them off.
That also was a really lightening experience.
I'm a minimalist when it comes to personal matters. I don't want big houses, cars, yachts or even any material items whatsoever. I've always found the more you own… the more those things own you. At any given time, aside from investments, businesses, precious metals, real estate and bitcoin, I really own a few pairs of clothes, a good laptop, phone and PC. The latter three are all fairly business related… that's where I transact. So, aside from business and investment related items I virtually own nothing and have no desire to own anything.
And so, lightening my load on extraneous business ventures I have been involved in and, even with this blog, stopping from writing everyday, has been very enjoyable to me personally.
That said, there are still some things I am very passionate about and I have ramped up those items.
Number one, as subscribers are about to find out, is that I am going to be much more active with our insights, alerts, dispatches, reports and more. The reason is: I think 2015 is going to be absolutely insane and not only do I want to be prepared but I want to make sure those who pay me for my insights receive those insights in a more timely manner. For this reason you'll probably see a further drop-off in the blog. Our dispatches will become shorter and more sporadic. I can only be in so many places at once.
I've also cancelled most conference appearances and will not go to the US or most other places outside of Latin America for the foreseeable future as I found it was too tiring and too stressful to go through places like the US.
That said, I've been very active in other areas.
I recently attended the Passport to Freedom conference in Cancun and interestingly was having drinks and converted Jim Rickards into an anarcho-capitalist when the news broke that the Swiss Franc had unpegged from the Euro causing massive monetary and financial repercussions. Jim, of course, is very well known for "Currency Wars" and I, of course, am The Dollar Vigilante, so it was fairly surreal to see a major currency event on the road to The End Of The Monetary System As We Know It (TEOTMSAWKI) happen at that time.
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Prior to that, Max Keiser visited Acapulco and I converted him into an anarcho-capitalist. Both him and Stacy Herbert were here and we had a wonderful time.
I then travelled to Mexico City to be on the Keiser Report on RT where I challenged Russell Brand to a debate on his anarcho-communist ideas.
On the program we talked a lot about another passion of mine, my upcoming Anarchapulco conference from February 27th to March 1st where many of the most amazing anarcho-capitalists from around the world will be ascending upon Acapulco for our own version of Davos. Except we aren't planning to violently and through extortion change the world. We are changing the world non-violently through ideas and technologies.
And, since then, I've been back to Acapulco and now back again in Mexico City on some high level talks that I can't discuss publicly yet.
So, I'm still doing things but I'm doing a lot more of the things that I want to do. I've removed a lot of clutter and a lot of stress from my life and focus more on my passions.
Isn't that what we should always be trying to do?
As I said, I'm keeping this short so I can spend more time with my family and focusing on my own passions including our subscriber newsletter.
Until next time!
