I got this email (below) from a mentor yesterday. There was a time in my life when it would have pissed me off.

A couple of years ago, I would have been the smug guy in the group.

"Yeah, Fletcher, must be REAL NICE. . .(you f'n asshole)."

These days, I see it way different…

Three years ago

On this very day

I thought up a poem

Because I wanted to say

I thought it was silly

That folks were upset

That people were angry

At a family's request

To stop printing some books…

Years ago, when I lived in Chapel Hill, the Harris Teeter put me in a self-checkout lane.

I hated it.

Raised hell about it.

I had every reason under the sun for why it sucked:

-->People didn't know how to use it, so they were slow.

-->The software ran too slow

-->Job elimination

-->I DON'T WANT IT TO CHANGE!!!!!

At the time, I predicted that self-checkouts wouldn't last…

My regular weekday supper with Sam has turned into a business meeting.

It's cool watching a 12-year-old figure things out.

He wants to work and make money, but he's got a problem.

Baseball…

Y'all seen the Kellogg's thing yet?

Gary Pilnick, the CEO, says if your cash is tight, eat cereal for dinner.

And as to what consumers might think of the message, he had this to say:

"It's landing really well right now. Cereal for dinner is something that is probably more on trend now, and we would expect [it] to continue as that consumer is under pressure."

If you had any lingering thoughts that Kellogg's produces real food or that companies like Kellogg's give two shits about your health, think again…

Who do I know that's been to Baja?

Yesterday, in my RE investing group, the location for our next meeting was announced.

Cabo San Lucas, baby!

For as long as I've been "overlanding" (that's the fancy word for traveling and sleeping in the back of my truck), I have wanted to do the Baja Peninsula.

I mean, sure, I could just fly there…

Y'all, I can't get away from the flat Earth people.

Is it just the easiest way to make sense of the world?

Maybe.

Let me explain…

I get this question all the time.

Last week, I met with the GC on one of our projects.

"I wish I could take ten days off every month," he said.

"Me too!" I said.

He looked confused.

"What do you mean? Don't you?"

Umm, no…

Let's start with Fat Julia.

Last week, when I chose the adjective "fat" to modify the proper noun "Julia," I was admonished.

Not by Julia, mind you.

By others…

A few weeks back, a buddy of mine called and said he wanted to get the hell out of what he was doing and get into something else.

Here's what the conversation looked like, starting with me:

"Get into real estate investing, it's great."

"I don't know anything about it."

"You can learn, and you can make good money. I made $X my first year; you can do the same and then quit your current job."

"Yeah, but you've been in real estate for years, so you knew about it already."

"So what, you can learn. Go take this class."…

When we left off yesterday, Fat Julia was in the back of a pickup truck in Big Bend National Park.

How'd she get there?

How did my thin, athletic, flexible fiancé become an overweight couch potato who struggled with stairs?

One bite [of ultra-processed food] at a time, that's how…

Jason Isbell has a pretty great song about his recovery from alcohol addiction.

Amid dreams of drinking and wishing that cops would pull him over now that he's sober, the chorus admits that not drinking "gets easier, but it never gets easy."

A couple of my friends are getting off processed food now; they're finding that it's not so easy, either.

Processed and ultra-processed food, about 75% of what's for sale in a typical American grocery store, has a dirty little secret.

It's addictive…

I have a litmus test for anyone who wants to partner with me.

Are they Be-Right or Seek-Right?

Like most, my younger kids tend towards Be-Rights.

"Yeah, I know" is a typical response when I tell someone how to do something they've never done before.

Most kids grow out of it.

Some never do…

I don't know how this happened.

And, to be honest, I wish it hadn't.

Because it's taken an excessive amount of my time, and I've been obsessed with it since the week before we went to Jackson Hole. I even watched a documentary about it, which is rare because I hardly ever watch TV.

But I'm fascinated by the people who think. . .

The Earth is flat…

When I wrote about earning my NC General Contractor's License last week, some folks reached out to see what I was up to.

Thanks, y'all!

Here's the deal. Last year, I laid out the components of my Ten-Ten-Ten plan, which, with a shitpile of work and a whole lot of luck, will:

--> Give me the option of retiring in Ten years

--> With a passive income of $10,000 per week

--> While I travel ten days per month between now and then.

It's a big, audacious, and [maybe] preposterous goal…

In a discussion about a good friend's son last week, I was struck by the similarities of our upbringings.

The son - now in his late-twenties - struggles to find his place in the world.

He's drifting.

No direction.

No purpose.

No ambition.

Unsure of what, if anything, he hopes to achieve and painfully unaware of how quickly our days on this earth pass…

Facebook Memories is the best feature.

It keeps me honest.

Like a good friend or mentor, it calls me on my bullshit and helps keep me from repeating mistakes.

One example - every spring for about a week, the leading photo in my memories is one of several where I'm half naked and flexing. From the strained-not-strained smile, I'm trying to look as if I'm just casually standing there…

I know a lot of happy people.

But I also know a lot of miserable people.

You probably do, too. As I mentioned last week, in a recent survey, 67% of those asked reported being generally dissatisfied with their lives.

I've been thinking a lot about what the dissatisfied people I know have in common…