2013 year of the start

“Action begets action” ~Des Fowler

The year in general

I started a company in USA and had to shut it down a within a year. I tried to document everything on this blog, but eventually, the number of events that happened everyday just overwhelmed me. Actions that I took has a snow ball effect of causing more events that require my action.Â There was anÂ old saying I learned in university but never fully understood until now. It goes: “If you want things done, give the taskÂ to the busiest person.”

Being able to finally sit down and write this, is a reflection of how much things have slowed down.

Projects

Bodybuilding/6 packs abs (Continuing project)

This was originally just a desire to get 6 packs in 2010, but has transformed into something more. After 1 year of workout, starting from 3 times a week 30 minutes per workout to now 5 times a week and 1hr30 to 2hr00 per workout because I realized that even if I get my 6 packs, the proportion of my body doesn’t look right.

Ever since 2003, I’ve been working on gaining more muscle and becoming more fit. It was a slow buildup to this point coming from an extremely thin geek who mostly stayedÂ indoors and had no idea/money to join a gym and work out.

Here’s my body Jan 2014:

Here’s my body Jan 2007:

Callus on my hand from weights:

Some stats that I’ve been keeping since the end of 2011:

Weight: You can see that big stresses in life translates directly into weight gain. Culminating to my heaviest ever recorded weight near the end of my 6 months stay in USA to setup a corp. Staying in Canada generally causes a weight loss. As can be seen around Jan 2012 and Nov 2013. Either because the food in Canada is healthier, or because I don’t have the stress of a job to haunt me.

Fat ratio:

Remained pretty steady throughout between 15% to 20%. It is interesting to note that the fat ratio remained pretty low at my heaviest. A result of working out. I started going to the gym regularly in June of 2013. So I was gaining both muscle and fat. A really strict regiment of diet and exercise in Canada brought my fat ratio back to 15%. So I can now at tack the fabled 10%.

Fat mass:

Needs to go back down to 6%. I was very skinny in April 2012 and I only got to around 10%. Not sure how I can go about doing this. I suspect that most of my fat resides in my inner thigh and my stomach. Lots of abs exercise twice per week took cared of the stomach fat belt, but I don’t know what to do with the thigh fat.

Fat free mass

Is probably one of the most important stat. My goal is to be able to feel like a tiger who can lift my own weight and beat people up. Lost a lot of fat free mass once I started working out and reduce what I eat starting in August. Back then, I have no idea how important your diet is. Added a lot of chicken to my food composition so at least I have enough protein. You can see that Fat free mass is slowly back up. The general trend of a faster rising fat free mass vs a slowly falling fat mass is overall great.

Move to the US (Discarded project)

I’ve completed this project started in 2010 as part of my business. The grass is not greener on the other side. Just different.

World of Zania (Continuing project)

This one was frozen so I can tackle the USA project. I intend on thawing it and getting back to finishing it.

Complete financial independence (Previous project)

70% complete.

Fashion project (Continuing project)

Ever since 2005. I promised myself to spent $1000 at one point to upgrade my wardrobe so I am not wearing mismatched hand-me-downs all the time, I finally did something about it. I was originally planning on 7 pairs of business attire (dress shirts, ties, dress pants, suit jacket, leather dress shoes) since that is probably the only things that looks good on Asian, but since that project went down the drains, I’ve revamped that to fit who I am in Canada and the up coming backpacking trip. I wanted things that is sturdy and looks better as wear and tear sets in so I opted for: Danier leather bomber jacket, Red Wing Beckman, Naked and Famous Weird guy Elephant raw selvedge denim and some blue Korean hoodies that still hasn’t arrived yet. I don’t know if an asian can look good in this kind of gritty getup, but I am going to try.

There’s a back story to this. When I was still practicing Dancesport, I saw a man enter the dance studio once who completely dominated the whole room. I know because everyone is passing sidelong glances to him. Even the guys. The first thing that hit me is the realization that this man is a wild animal and unbound by the rules of the society, the second thing that dawned on me is the fact that he completely grabbed the attention away from a room full of professionally dressed dancers in high fashion gowns and tail suits. The third is that this man is gay, but I didn’t find this out until later when as he is the gay partner of one of the teacher.

Unfortunately, I haven’t completed the whole setup as the hoodie I ordered from Korea still hasn’t arrived yet. I will put it in a complete new post.

Backpacking (New project)

I am burnt out. So I am going to take 6 months off and just travel by myself. I only know that I will be in Taiwan for new year and somewhere along the line visit Germany to meet some TSLA investors I’ve been debating with online.

Growth

I learned a great deal of things about business negotiations. The kind that happens between CEOs of companies in a private setting, outside of board rooms. I also learned about the Game of Thrones. An inevitable game we all must play once you hold any semblance of power.

This year saw me giving up a lot of things as I realize that I will not have time for them in the future. Photography is the first hobby to go and I believe I have squashed the hope of ever going back to Dancesport again. I did pick up a new pass time; working out, because I have nothing to do after work in a strange place knowing nobody during the majority of the years.

Major Events

I moved between Canada, USA and Taiwan. Several times.
Talked distributors into selling our product
Quit my job as an C level executive
Persuaded many people into believing in our company’s story and vision
Failed to persuade our own management in our story and vision
Lost the first businessÂ suit I bought on my own power.
Handled/handling first lawsuit

Business

Several things I set in motion in 2007 are finally coming to fruition. They were supposed to start a slow climb from 2007 to now, but instead was a roller coaster ride that went down hard and had an explosive growth this year.

Business wise, I have achieved the primary goal that the company came to USA for while I have failed in the secondary goal of convincing management to stay the course. Tertiary goal is still unraveling. This has more of a revenge effect to my enemies while benefiting people I like.

Web Site

Completely ignored on the layout. Hopefully once everything in 2013 gets wrapped up and I settle back in to programmer mode, I will give it the revamp I’ve wanted to do since 2005. The website, will be my resume to the world.

Materials

This year sees the continued liquidation of furniture in the house and consolidation of my possessions into compact travel gear.

Acquired

MS surface pro: $1000
iPhone 5S: $700
Red Wing Beckman (#9016): $400
Danier Bomber Jacket (Joshua): $160
Zuca flyer pro: $360
Logitech K810 Bluetooth keyboard: $80
MS Arc mouse: $60
24″ LCD: $130
Ikea Markus chair: $80

Sold

Hardwood Mahogany executiveÂ desk: $150
Sony Xperia Acros S: $150
Canon EOS 5D: $650

Enlightenment

Money buys freedom

People focus too much on money and happiness. There’s a lot of saying out there that tells people money can’t buy happiness. It is only when you reach a certain point in life that you start to understand what money is. Money for me, buys freedom and that is good enough.

Stopped sharing ideas

I’ve also stopped talking to people about new ideas… Not because I am afraid that it’ll be stolen, but because of the backlash that usually follows. Defending your ideas is a very tiresome thing and the more controversial and successful the idea, the more revulsion it causes in the normal population which, in turn, causes the attack to be even more aggressive.

I’ve sparred so many time with the normal population and not once have I found anyone agreeing to me. Yet these ideas all ended up coming to fruition in a big way. If I am to execute on an idea, I can do without the attacks that verges on personal insults. Most people secretly wants you to fail and others just enjoys ridiculing you to feel superior while at the same time, you’ll be accused of a superiority complex if you come back and show them the result.

I just want to build and execute on the follow through. Forget the chit chats

Self limitation

I’ve been limiting myself from going all out in a lot of fronts. Purposefully. I’d play FPS with colleagues with my left hand as the mouse hand, I’d try to negotiate in a foreign language instead of my primary language.

The deepest reasoning I can find is probably because it shields my ego from being hurt. It shields me from knowing that I am a lesser man than another because if I go all out, the result of whatever comes out is black and white. I’d have no excuse to fall back on to say I can still win.

This is not a good habit to have. As only by going all out will I be able to improve what my maximum is.

Dream personality changed

There are a lot of times I’ll wake up and be ashamed of who I was in the dream. Of how I choose to act, how cowardice I seem to be and how timid I was in front of others. I’d compensate it in real life situation knowing what my dream self is like, but that is just what it is, a compensated response.

Recently, I’ve been having dreams where I made decisions and acted in the manners I’ve always wanted in difficult situations. Dreams that I wasn’t aware was fake where I am actually putting my own life and reputation on the line. I’ve become more aggressive, less accommodating and most of all more confident in knowing what I do is right. I also stopped caring about what my actions might appear to be like for others. I have my goals and my actions achieve them. As long as the goals stand by the golden rule.

Finances

I am fully financially independent now. It was the result ofÂ 7 out of 8Â ultra bullish strategies that played out exactly as I planned both in time and price. Something that has less than 1% chance of happening. My current holding ranked by weight:

TSLA
BAC
V
CCO
ATVI
BP
SAN
COS
SLF
IPL
AMD
RENN

Conclusions

I have reached the crossroad and picked a path. The rest is walking the path.