October / November 2017 Goals & Moving Announcement!

Every month I review how I did during my last month and plan out my focus for the next month. This is a follow-up to my previous post, August / September 2017 Personal Goals & Review. Since I do these goal posts monthly, you might want to read them all by checking out the goals category.

Goal Review: October 2017

For October, I set the following goal:

By November 1, 2017, I will have finished the content of the Minimal Investor Course and the Interactive Guide PDF.

This goal was all about creating long-lasting content here at Minafi and not getting too caught up in the weeds about making myself hit an arbitrary number of posts during the month. I’d give myself about a C for the month. There were some things that finally happened in my life though! Which brings me to some rather big news:

We’re moving from Orlando to Salt Lake City!

This has been sooo long in the making. We’ve lived in our current house for 11 years. Mrs. Minafi and I moved in here our first year dating, and it’s been where we’ve had memory after memory. Now we’re in the process of selling it and moving into a much smaller apartment.

I’ll get to how that affects November later, but it definitely rocked my October planning. Rather than having quiet evenings at home working on my blog with a cocktail and some TV playing in the background; most of October was go-go-go to the hardware store, constant painting, cleaning, landscaping and more. Here’s how this affected my October Goals:

• <> Write all 10 emails of the Minimal Investor Course.
  • Really close on this one. Got 9 written, totaling about 30,000 words. That’s over 100 pages!
• – Create Interactive Guide PDF for users.
  • Didn’t do this one at all really, unless you count theorizing about how it’ll work with Rails, Drip and Firebase.
• + Start a quarterly “My Minafi Investments” series.
  • I ended up naming this the Minafi Quarterly Investment Report
• + Meet lots of people at FinCon!
  • Still on a bit of a high from FinCon. It will take a few more days to come down from it.
• + Try to spend 30 minutes each morning on content.
  • I’ve been doing Roosevelt Dashes in the mornings to write, which has been working out really well.

Seeing that list of tasks, it’s easy for me to think this was a pretty successful month – 3.5 out of 5 isn’t bad, right? I’m my own worst critic though. Missing both top goals hits me as a failure to accomplish what I set out to do. I’m more OK with that failure than I would have been in the past.

What changed? For one it’s an internal goal. No one is relying on me to do this and I haven’t made any agreements with other people to get this out. Expectations, for me, breed much more stress and guilt than goals. Stepping back and thinking about what’s an agreement with someone else vs what’s a personal goal can be a refreshing way to lift some of that weight off my shoulders.

Now, when something is an agreement, things are different. If these were that high, then something else in my life would’ve needed to slip to make them happen.

Sal Tlay Ka Siti

I am way too excited about moving to Salt Lake City. After living in Florida my entire life, the idea of being able to see mountains, seasons and just not hate life whenever I go outside in 90-degree humidity sounds amazing. When we finally made the decision to move out, Mrs. Minafi and I celebrated with a 40-year-old Madeira that we initially had for our wedding, but ended up being too tired to drink.

We tried this one at a dinner last year on a trip, then I surprised Mrs. Minafi with it for Christmas. We’re not much for expensive wines or spirits, but if ever there was a time this was it. It tasted more bold and vinegary than most I’d tried. Completely delicious, but able to enjoy in very small doses.

Why Salt Lake City?

SLC wouldn’t have been at the top of my list. I’ve always loved green areas where I can get away and enjoy nature. Salt Lake City has an abundance of nature, but less on the green side. I’ve been out there about five times for work, and it’s seriously started to grow on me. The fact that you can live downtown and hike from your apartment to a mountain just blows my mind. I can’t wait to hike, ski, snowshoe (is that a thing?) and explore all of the national parks out there.

In Orlando, the only nature we have are the same palm forest that’s been copy/pasted 4,642 times throughout the state. The beach is better, but it’s a drive from our landlocked location.

Mrs. Minafi and I are both going to be staying at our same employers, which makes this transition a lot easier. She’ll be changing roles, but I’ll be staying with the same team I’ve been with, and working on the same project. I’m excited to be able to work in person with people too (I’ve been largely remote here in Orlando).

We both visited in May to check out the city and see where we might want to live out there. We decided we’d go with temporary housing when we arrived, then move into an apartment after that. We’ll be downsizing from a 1700 square foot house and a 2 car garage to something under 1,000 with no garage. I can’t wait to see how many things we can get rid of.

Telling Friends

We’ve been telling friends and family about the move on and off for the last 2 weeks or so. If we weren’t aware of just how many people we had in our lives this was a warming reminder. This past weekend we were at a game night with some friends (for those wondering: I was playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, while Mrs. Minafi was playing Unspeakable Words) and we let a few more friends know.

My favorite/least favorite reaction was one friend who has seen quite a few others move away from Orlando. She smiled and said concisely:

Fuck You

Ok, sarcasm doesn’t translate well here, but I could connect with that sentiment. We’ve seen friend after friend move away over the years – usually to Seattle or Portland. Everyone took the news well. For many friends that have moved away, we do scheduled Skype calls with them. We’ll be adding a bunch more for our Orlando friends now.

So, that’s the big news!

November 2017 Goals

You might’ve guessed by now what my goal is for November.

By December 1, 2017, I will have my house listed for sale on the market (perhaps even sold) and will have moved to Salt Lake City.

As amped up as I am after leaving FinCon to try everything I learned, this is my priority for the month. Unlike most, this isn’t really a goal as much as an agreement with my company, Mrs. Minafi’s company and everyone we’re working with to sell and move. In other words, it’s happening.

For stretch goals, I’d like to spend some downtime just digging more into some of the tactics and techniques I learned at FinCon. I’m not going 100% in on any of them this month, but understanding things like the Google Keyword Planner and wrapping my head around affiliate marketing a little more. My second focus then is around learning these rather than executing.

What does that mean for Minafi in November?

I’ll be more of a ghost online in this next month working on things in my life. I’m sure that in pairing down my possessions and navigating the waters of moving I’ll have a lot of new topics to write about (well new for me).

If you’re ever out in Salt Lake City and want to meet up, feel free to contact me!

What are your goals for the month? How did you do on your goals from September? If you like in SLC and want to meet up sometime, I’d love to chat.