What Mike is Up to Dec 22- 28, 2019
Quick highlights:
* Arrived in Shenyang, China – Typing this up from my aunt-in-law’s kitchen table in deep north China. Luckily has heating so don’t need to type with gloves! Will be here for the “Western” holidays.
* May go to Harbin for Ice Festival (even colder) but doing it for the video blog and photo 😉
* Preparing to go to Manila, Philippines Jan 10 – Marc helped me find a condo for 6 months, look forward to working closely with the Alpha Rock Capital partners for the first half of 2020
* Year end analysis, recap – restructuring USA companies, USA banking service (via First Priority Financial a new division of Global From Asia), and just reflecting and planning next year.
* Love the content game – realize that is me, and making / growing / optimizing content is what I love to do.
Longer talk (I’ll add this since it is become an individual blog post for the “Now” page)
So this week, staying in my in-laws house and with my entire life in suitcases as we transition (video blog coming soon) – appreciative the flight was smooth, Chinese customs was hassle free, and my son is getting over his flu. Been just telling my kids over and over, I am going away for a few months while you guys take care of grandma and grandpa. I simply cannot work in deep north China. While I work online and can work from anywhere, in a place that is ice cold and heavily filtered internet (need to spend money on tools to get this blog to go online for example) – I cannot do my online business well here.
I’ll take the 6 months as a work like a “madman” stage to provide even more for my family. I’ll stay in a small condo in BGC, Manila and work my butt off day and night.
Then in July/August bring the family back together again, let’s pray my wife’s mom and dad are in a much better health condition, and we all live happily ever after again in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Kids will be in a new school we like better, we’ll move to a house as close as possible to the school, and I can have my home office again with fast internet and walk my kids to school (well I prefer to pick them up, as morning is when I am in my deep work pomodoro – but you get the idea)
Everyone I talk to is so confused why the family is going to China and I’m going to Manila.
1) My wife’s mom and dad are very sick and she feels she has to care for them. For example, Monday morning she’s taking them to the hospital.
2) Sure, I can stay w/ my wife and kids here in Shenyang, China – but realistically my business would suffer as the internet is extremely slow/filtered. Plus really nothing relevant for business here. So I chose to spend more time with the partners at Alpha Rock Capital where I’m a partner and really grind with them for half a year.
3) Hopefully in 6 months my wife’s parents are better, and she is comfortable leaving them and coming back to Chiang Mai where the kids were accepted into a new school (has a waiting list). In the meantime the kids will go to a kindergarten in Shenyang walking distance from my wife’s family’s place. Wendy also feels they should learn more Chinese characters anyway as they weren’t in Chiang Mai.
So that is really it. I do feel guilty being away from my kids 6 months at such a young age. Considering flying back but it is something I need to decide as there aren’t direct flights and, well let’s see.