Updated on January 12th, 2026, from my apartment in Burleigh Heads, Australia.
I’ve now been running Remo Acquisition for over 10 months. We started re-launching our clients on January 7th, after a three-week break due to market conditions during the holidays.
I’m still handling ad creation, testing, media buying, and tracking while my business partner focuses on sales.
We’ve stopped charging the clients per lead after delivering the leads, and are now instead charging for weekly lead packages upfront.
Ex. Client pays 420 upfront for 3 leads, we use that cash to run the ads and deliver the leads. What we don’t spend is profit.
This seems to be more sustainable and predictable, and our clients like it better, too. My main focus now is on keeping the lead quality high while increasing margins. We’re below 40%for the month so far, and I want it to be above 50%.
The monotony of my business, how busy summer is on the Gold Coast, the disproportionately high rent I’m committed to for three more months, and spending time with my family in Italy for Christmas forced me to stop and reconsider the direction of my life.
I want to move towards a simpler life. I want to live more frugally. I want to have fewer new desires and instead adapt them to my current life. In short, I don’t want just money anymore, I want tranquility and purpose.
I circled back to Stoicism after four years, and I’m now in a great position to appreciate and apply those principles properly.
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I accidentally made a few big changes to my goals around that time.
After reading Anything You Want by Derek Sivers, I put a lot of thought into what I’m doing right now Vs what I want to be moving towards.
I realized that I don’t want a luxurious life, a fast car, a big house, a huge income/business, or any of those things that fall into the category of “wealth and fame”.
So, after removing all the monetary and status-related goals that I had, my vision got clearer:
Buying a piece of land in the country (20-30 minutes away from the city) with my best friends, and building my own house where I’ll live with my wife and kids.
I then waited a few days, and I used Derek’s advice to evaluate whether this goal is right for me right now or not, by asking myself this question: “How did having this goal change my actions?”.
And for me, it made a big difference… In less than a week, I put over 20 hours into studying carpentry on my own, I reached out to 15+ residential construction companies here in the Gold Coast, and I’m now in talks with 2 companies that are willing to give me a shot as a labourer/apprentice.
And let me tell you, I’m fucking excited.
So yes, I do feel like this goal is in the sweet spot for me.
One big piece of information that made me think is the idea of separating my income from my art.
So, for example, if I’m interested in learning Carpentry, instead of going all in on a full-time Carpentry job and depend on it, I should have a separate job/income that covers my living expenses, so I can keep my curiosity Carpentry natural and creative, instead of turning it into a dependency.
So that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Although right now I’m not nearly as excited about my business as I am about learning to build my own house, I decided that I’ll aim to cover my expenses solely through my business, and just keep my carpentry job fun and purposeful.
I’ll update you next time on how it goes, but it makes sense to me.
For the past year, I’ve been looking for the one perfect thing that first meets my goals, is purposeful, I enjoy, and makes me money with no success.
I think that’s because my neediness to cover life expenses overrides the rest, so until those are covered, I’ll never be able to unlock my highest creativity and purpose.
I’ll see how this goes, but I think that a combination of:
A - Boring work that pays the bills
B - Exciting, curiosity-driven creative activities
Might be the safest path to tranquility and satisfaction for me. We’ll see.
The best books I’ve read in the last 30 days (not ranked):