Butthole Hairs

I went to sleep last night with an agenda of today:

Saturday’s are usually a day I try and spend somewhere outside of the house so it was my plan to leave as early as possible and enjoy what London has to offer, even if that means enjoying it off scraps of money and alone.

As I’m currently sleeping in the bedroom that’s seen in the pics on our airbnb listing, I started off today by cleaning up the room and getting it prepared for our new last minute guests. Because I live out of my clothes stored in DRÖNA IKEA boxes and a duffel bag, it should be as simple as pick up, drop into another room, vacuum and wipe however, that 20 minute job turned into 2 hours. There’s always something that delays the process usually out of my own definition of “cleanliness”.

A spot on the floor turns into an all-out micro cleaning fest grabbing random hairs out of the corners of the carpets and wiping off those pee stains under the toilet seat (can’t have that mess in what is their private bathroom!) and getting the weird oil stain out of the bed sheets (I really hope its just oil). The place has gotta be clean, they are PAYING to stay there!

I never thought I’d be writing about this kind of shit on my blog, but yeah, this is just apart of daily/weekend life. Its part of the 24/7 grind that comes with being the owner of this house and company HQ. Not only must I be a CEO (aka occasional asshole), marketer, video editor, sales guy, friend, not friend, soccer coach, guidance counsellor; but I also at times play hotel manager. Hosting guests on Airbnb usually makes a couple of % difference in our profits or in the case of this month.. our losses.

And all that time cleaning makes me ponder about the losses, about the week, about next week, how much longer until the guest arrives, then questioning why we even do airbnb because actually, I could’ve signed someone up for two weeks hosting someone in our in-residence program and made much more. Had I spent more time DM’ing people rather than fucking cleaning up these butthole hairs off the toilet floor.

But even if I got that in-residence guest, would it be enough dosh to go back down to Australia for Mum’s 70th next month? But shouldn’t I be here for the guests that do come? What will they think if I’m not there? What will the staff think? They all deserve to get paid more, so I’ll be cheating them won’t I? But its my mum! Family comes first!? But we need the cash first. Wait, fucks sake.. how will I even pay the staff this month as it stands?

So after the cleanings done and instead of not waiting an extra half hour for the guest who said they were in an uber at 12:17 (the dick said he was supposed to be here at 12:30). Wait, where did this guy get an uber from anyway? I handed off the keys to Mo and headed off groggily to the gym.

After training 20 hours a week back in the early part of this decade (wow that sounds so weird saying that), these days I still religiously keep up a minimum of 5 days a week of training. I don’t have to do it, sometimes it makes no sense to do it (like when its 1am and you worked all day, you wanna sleep.. but you gotta get that 5 days a week in!) but whatever, lets go.

So although I was groggy and cbf’ed, off we went with the 5th workout of the week (congrats Nick!) with a quick 6 cycles of full-body tabata’s at the gym.

The grogginess wore off by the 3rd cycle,  I felt that post workout muscle soreness satisfaction, showered and now I could get into the best part of my Saturday: Actual work!!

Any weekday I take the tube into the city, the 1km to the station is a time of working while walking. Head down in the zone of my phone replying to snapchats, DM’s, slack messages and emails. But todays walk was a slower one. Time to think. Time to be alone and time to get some perspective on everything.

I try not to read the bait on my phone, but a 4G/underground wifi connection everywhere in London makes it easy to get caught up at a starting into space kind of hour. Whats on BBC, techcrunch, IG, whose been whatsapping me?

I get off at Tottenham Court and walk over to grab the cheap Japanese food I’ve been craving for. Food in the house has been mostly Mo’s chicken and rice for the past 12-months. My tastebuds are on life support. Now I can finally eat some resturant bento.

With my order placed and a book in my hand, I make it a task to focus and get the inspiration juices flowing. Gotta finish off the product development roadmap so Lucas know if he’s gonna build a native app first or build the pathway to pro feature in Train Effective. The book I’m reading should help trigger some thoughts but, very quickly I realise I’ve been sat to where the orders come in and out. Reading the complex, analytical nature of Peter Thiel’s Zero to One while these waiters are speaking cantonese is like trying to memorise words for a spelling test while Busta Rhymes spits a verse.

When the bill came, I cut out the service charge of the bill and said “like bro come on this was the worst place to sit me in the restaurant, why’d you sit me here? I love your food and people are nice and all but come onnn.” In hindsight I should’ve just raised the issue at the start and been moved to the back where there was probably space. But it’s what my Mum taught me to do. If you never raise a problem, no one will learn. The waiters pissed and I’m out of there. Sorry? Speaking of Mum..

FOCUS on what I gotta do. FOCUS. Yes Nick, I know you’ve been working all week already but business is slow this month and its down to you to strategise and make shit happen.

But the suns out, bums are out and I get caught into the abyss of people watching. Hold up!! “Focus Nick, bro FOCUS!” I tell myself.

This afternoon I’ve been walking around soho. It took me 3 hours later than it should’ve to get to my initial destination. Now, I’m at the cafe and can finally focus on the shit that I gotta do, but I need some way to vent. I need to place this as a memory for when times are greater than today’s.

On my walk I stumbled across this ->

That owl you see is Drake’s trademark OVO symbol.

I always wanted one of those hoodies you see in the Started From the Bottom video. Never knew where to buy one but now I see October’s Very Own merch everywhere. Seeing it got me thinking about him…

I’ve always been a huge fan. My annual spotify top 100 playlist always got Drake songs plastered all over it. One of the few albums I actually legally bought was from Drake. But it got me thinking where Drake was when I begun listening to him in 2010. Back then he was 23 years old. Already a big-time artist in the hip-hop game. Already done features with Lil Wayne, Eminem, Kanye, etc. Guy was probably already a millionaire.

Look at me now, I’m 24 years old. Here I am wandering the streets looking like a lost hobo, having cleaned up butthole hairs to earn a measly 45 pounds for a nights stay (it costs 1000’s and 1000’s more to run Effective in London).

In 2010, I was in full-force writing in this blog talking about the dreams and goals I had. Working. Grinding and continuing that up until now, going harder and harder. Aiming for targets always got me close to my ultimate goal. The pursuit of being a professional footballer & wildly successful entrepreneur had me living a couple of dreams all over Europe: a banker in Switzerland, a football semi-pro, a YouTuber and now the CEO role of a proper startup that I’m extremely passionate about. Have even got recognised in the street a few times.. “Hey, I seen you on Youtube!”

But 13-days before my 25th birthday, I’m still not where I expected to be by now. I don’t have (at least what I’d consider as) glaring achievements yet. I am great. I deserve more. I follow my heart. I inspire. I aspire for more. I aspire for glory.

I sit here writing from a location where I always wanted to live but, knowing that I’m not exactly where I want to be yet and I question what more I need to do get a level higher.

That’s where it gets tricky because how do you define “a level higher”? Are you actually really satisfied with where you are right now or is social media defining where you think you should be? I just read that Kylie Jenner, 21 is about to become a “self-made billionaire” – but gets fake lips and makes a business selling her fake lips to the youth. Is her heart in that? Jake Paul is one of the most popular YouTubers but doing concerts to kids just looks cringy. Is his heart into that? I know really smart guys that get involved in cryptocurrencies and social media marketing agencies because thats whats hot and where the money is. Is their heart into that?

Maybe I think too much about where other great ones are or were at my age..

Maybe musicians, artists, content creators or athletes simply start stardom earlier because their audience is younger..

Maybe I should realise that these people riding trends are gonna vanish eventually..

Maybe I’m creating such a unique niche of person/brand/identity/company which I cannot even define properly yet that because there’s no real blueprint to follow, shits just gonna take longer..

What keeps me in check is knowing that I’ve always listened to myself, stayed patient, always followed where my heart really wanted me to go, so what more can I possibly do to reach my goals? That’s PERSPECTIVE.

I want the success, the fame, the money, the glory in a way thats true to myself and to keep inspiring others.

Now time for a quick check of my notifs and ..

hey.. this was sent to me a couple of hours ago…

Alright back to the ground. PERSPECTIVE NICK. PERSPECTIVE

jheeeezus