Just a random spilling of things on this Wednesday morning of certain interest to the hundreds of members—a number approaching 1,000. That will be a nice milestone.

I’ve Changed My Email Subject

I’ve been using the basic blog-post title but the problem is, the “opens” are all over the map. When email is sent out, there’s a piece of “code” in all the gobbledigook in the header you don’t see unless you tell your email client to show it to you. It bounces back to my sending software to let it know that the email has been opened. It doesn’t tell me if it was read, just opened. It’s the equivalent of having opened an envelope in snail mail. Doesn’t say if you even took it out, just that you used a letter opener or index finger.

I’ve noticed that a lot of senders of lots of emails use the same title, like just the name of the business itself, or the name of the newsletter attached to the business.

So I’m going to try that for a while and see if it both boosts my open rate and makes it more consistent. My concern is that if I use my posts titles and because of the way I try to craft them, there’s any number of reasons they can get caught up in spam folders.

I’ve Burnt Out Slightly So Have Taken It Easy For a Few Days

From February 5th to 21st, I’ve put up 18 posts, about half-&-half public and Member (free and paid). So, 18 posts in 16 days.

What’s cool about it is that not since I kicked off the Membership thing last April—and for the first couple of months—have I sold so many new Paid Memberships—often several per day and 9-1 annual instead of monthly (that 30% discount for annual is a sweet spot, I think).

Needless to say, that’s encouraging. But it’s also been draining.

I’ve been taking a couple of recharge days and might take a couple more.

But my brain still buzzes.

What’s Cokin’ Right Now?

My first immediate interest is a post on Geoarbitrage. That’s a simple concept where you remain employed for whomever and can work remotely (via internet and phone); you do various forms of freelance work like writing, consulting, design, development, etc.—again via internet and phone; or, you build some sort of online business like selling something via FBA (fulfilled by Amazon), drop shipping, or myriad forms of content creation where you sell books, courses, or subscriptions.

But the key to it is that you’re earning in amounts suitable for living in modern developed Western nations like US, Canada, Western Europe, et al—with a basic decent lifestyle—but you physically live somewhere that the same lifestyle can be had for far less.

For example, here in Thailand, I enjoy the same lifestyle as most desirable places in the USA for 4-5 times less.

So look out for that post.

I have a few others in draft.

1. Part 5 of “Prosper Anyway”
2. The English Sunday Roast Dinners of Thailand
3. Euthanasia — Euphemism for Some Must Die Now
4. Part 3 of the Testosterone series

And of course, periodically another chapter from the Gut Bug Book.

Plus, one and perhaps two Super Top Secret Projects in the works, one a financial course specifically related to getting debt free and the other, a sort of documentary thing.

My Challenges

The biggest challenge is to increasingly avoid the news—especially as regards Covid, global demonstrations, the insanity to keep the panic sustained while at the same time, the pivot to declaring victory and ending it all before true and no-shit global unrest breaks out with bloodshed.

That’s a bit difficult since I blog a lot about current events and that’s all still in the news.

I’m trying to be focussed on value-add things.

Beyond that, challenges include drinking less booze, smoking fewer cigarettes, eating quality food—but less of it, less often—and being more serious about my bodyweight exercises.

The one thing that’s not a challenge is getting bare skin in sun exposure and in cool water almost every day.

And so with that, until the next time…