In the end, we are our choices. Build yourself a great story.
The average age of death in the US is currently 78.93 (source).
Translated into days, that’s approximately 28,809.45 days to live (calculation).
In 2017 when I quit my corporate career, I deeply reflected and asked myself what I would be doing for the next 50 years.
Mindlessly crunching numbers in Excel at wee hours into the night for a cause I could careless?
Hell no.
It wasn’t until I quit my job in 2017 that I realized it was up to me to make my own choices, to pave my own path, and to take control of my decisions.
No one else was going to do that for me.
In the end, that’s all it is — choices.
Trust your gut, take a leap of faith, and push forward.
Finally, I’ve officially launched Kick Ass Letters, a crowdsourced weekly email challenge series to help people take action towards self-growth and personal development.
I decided to create this project for many reasons, but the main one was to ultimately help people who may be struggling to find motivation and purpose in life.
Why?
Because this was me.
It wasn’t until I made a choice back in 2017 to quit my job and backpack Southeast Asia that I felt alive again. I felt like I could do something that was beyond being a corporate drone.
I also decided to create this project because I understand what it’s like to be depressed and sad feeling unfulfilled.
I lived many, many years in depression and sadness after the loss of both parents and a younger sister. I never opened up about this to friends because I always felt like a burden.
That’s another reason I created this project.
Community.
I wanted to create something special for others to learn, grow and perhaps even make friends.
Life’s just too fucking short to live in anger, sadness and political bullshit.
So my hope and goal with Kick Ass Letters is to make people feel alive again and live with a sense of purpose.
But I’m also aware many won’t understand or come along with this journey.
And that’s okay.
I hope in time more and more people will join this movement.
The world has seen enough suffering, and I hope we can all fight together and embrace each other.
Seriously, I check every week (sometimes daily) for the latest and greatest tech deals to either optimize my business or to keep *in case* I need it the future.
And for a one time payment, it’s crazy not to buy a code or two.
That beats paying monthly any day of the week.
I bought Publer a couple months ago, and it’s been one of my favorite tools for automating my social media postings.
The best part? They’re constantly updating it, making it better and better. Recently, they added an image library so I don’t have to jump onto pexels to find stock images (thank you!).
I’m planning to do some reviews on the deals I’ve bought, so be on the lookout.
Oh, and also, their marketing of the deals are spot on with their webinars and email campaigns ?
Noah Kagan, founder of Appsumo, has created something special here.
Also, check out his youtube channel – it’s one of the best I’ve come across when it comes to business and entrepreneurship tips. He also has a weekly office hours series tht I highly recommend watching. More to share on this soon.
Anyways, just wanted to share my quick confession!
For the past few weeks, I’ve been struggling with my identity.
Social media has questioned me on what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. E.g. why do I get so damn bothered when someone unfollows me?
I’ve found myself on LinkedIn and Twitter posting things that were sometimes true to my heart and sometimes only to gain followers.
And it had me thinking…why?
Why does it matter?
In the end, we only have one life. It could be long, could be short. We could die tomorrow.
And should it be spent trying to mask ourselves to please others?
The answer is clearly no.
So I’ve decided to be myself, my true self.
Who am I?
I’m a proud father, husband, fighter, orphan, entrepreneur and brother.
I’ve dealt with my fair share of tragedies, fuck ups and regrets.
At my core, I’m a fighter who’s struggled with adversity and hardship all my life. That’s why I got into MMA in the first place.
Yet, I care and empathize deeply with others.
I loved this recent video made by Noah of OkDork/Appsumo on therapy as well as his recent podcast with Lori Gottlieb.
We need more of this, and I was sad to hear that this video didn’t do as well as his other videos. Noah – if you’re reading this by any chance, please continue putting these kinds of videos out.
Finally, if you ever want to chat via Zoom/Meet, hit me up. I’m always up to meet new people.
Thank you for making it this far. I hope you’re safe and doing well.
Till next time. ?
P.s. I’m launching a new project that actually excites me. It’s called Kick Ass Letters, and my mission with it is to empower everybody to learn and grow through weekly email challenges.
You can refer to the link to learn more about why I’m doing this. And if you’re interested in checking it out or even helping shape the project, check out the link above. Thanks!
For the longest time, I’ve been compelled to do things that made others happy.
For the longest time, I’ve felt that my goal was to mask who I am to make others accept me.
Weird and somewhat sad, I know.
My upbringing was difficult, and when both of my parents passed away tragically, a (very large) piece of me died inside forever.
The reality is, time does not heal all wounds.
Instead, with passing time comes the ability to see hope and promise. You just tend to see a little more light day by day, maybe drink a little less day by day, and maybe see some hope day by day.
But you never forget.
This was the case for me.
It took me many years before I came out of the dark, where I realized I could still live a full life and be happy.
It’s now been close to 3 years since I quit my corporate finance career. Sure, perhaps I could have been a Director, VP, perhaps even a CFO at this point.
But it wouldn’t have changed the fact that the politics, bureaucracy and back-stabbing would always be there.
And that’s what I hated most.
These past 3 years has been such a refreshing experience being out on my own and becoming a Founder.
It’s allowed me to see a bigger world out there, meet some incredibly inspiring people and achieve new realizations about myself (I know what SEO is…what?)
This is where I feel like I’ve succeeded.
I’ve taken a giant leap towards the unknown and have made an honest attempt to realize my dreams without compromising my value (key one being, don’t be an asshole to people).
Because of this, I’m realizing that failure is just that – a term.
We can only fail if we deem it as such.
It can be tempting to feel like a failure, especially given the widespread use of social media these days. Every day it seems like millionaires and successful people are popping out of nowhere.
But the reality is this – the average person can still succeed in their own ways.
And we should celebrate that.
Finally, I wanted to share I’m working on an exciting project that may be one of the most important projects I’ve ever worked on.
I’m working on a community-based newsletter to celebrate every day people. I hate the way society has shaped the world into thinking that unless you’re making it “rain” (money), you haven’t made it.
This sucks.
So I plan to change that. I hope to see a world where we truly can help each other out, make each other happy, not manipulate others for our own self-benefit and can celebrate our (big or small) wins.
That’s the world I want to live in.
Be on the lookout as I’ll announce it in the next few weeks (or even days).
Anyways, before I forget, I hope you’re doing well. These are scary times with Covid, and it’s completely changed the landscape of the world.
Nevertheless, stay safe, stay healthy, and most importantly, stay happy.
When I quit my job in 2017, I was really lost and unsure where I wanted to go or who I wanted to become.
But one thing was sure – I wanted to do something that I loved and that was going to be on my own terms.
You can read the full story here on why I left my job and turned down an offer with Amazon.
Since then, I’ve launched two businesses; in the process of writing a memoir; joined many amazing communities like Indie Hackers, CollabX, and No Code Founders to name a few; and currently launching a newsletter with a twist (more to come on this).
However, in order to manage all of this I leverage a set of tools and systems that I love.
Below are my top 5 favorite tools I use to manage my businesses and my life in no particular order.
ClickUp
ClickUp is by far the best tool I’ve ever used. It’s transformed the way I keep track of everything that goes on in my crazy life. That + the GTD framework is a godsend.
Seriously, no other app has come close when it comes to keeping me on track with my tasks, due dates, projects and anniversaries (for the wife ?).
ClickUp has essentially everything you could ask for in a task management / project management tool. Tasks, projects, folders, reporting, goals, docs, you name it and they got it.
Oh, and best of all, it’s free!
If you’re interested in a more detailed post on how to use and set up ClickUp, you can check out my post here.
Before ClickUp, I tried Trello and despite loving it at the time, it was just too limited (I’m a list view kind of guy). Here’s a sample of my dashboard below:
So thank you ClickUp! Highly recommend this tool to manage your business and your life.
Notion
Notion is another awesome tool that I’m getting a better grasp of every day that I use it. And so far, I love it!
It’s similar to ClickUp, but it manages more like a document manager/note taker/database tracker.
Think of it as your second brain.
Have bookmarks you want to save? Maybe books you want to reference quotes from? Want to build a Sales CRM?
You can do all of that and more in Notion. Plus, with their unlimited free plan there’s no excuse to not try it out.
Here’s an example database I created to track my readings and articles:
There’s so much you can do in Notion. Definitely recommend checking it out. At worst, you hate it and cancel.
Coming up in Corporate Finance, workflows and processes were everything. So naturally, my brain works as such.
Entering the world of entrepreneurship as a first-time founder, I needed a simple tool to help me map out workflows and processes to:
track sales pipelines
manage email marketing funnels
determine any possible bottlenecks in service delivery
understand my business systems as a whole
organizational structure
Here’s an example sales workflow we have for our business, A4E:
Draw.io has come through time and time again. For a free tool (yes, free ?), it’s incredibly powerful what it can do.
Another tool I highly recommend checking out.
Xmind
If you’re into mind mapping like me where thoughts and ideas can easily get scattered, check out Xmind.
This tool is incredibly easy to use for mind mapping and is, you guess it, free!
Mind maps are, in a nutshell, a way to visually organize information. Rather than writing information down, you draw it.
Here’s an example mind map I created on why I want to pursue entrepreneurship:
I highly recommend checking out Xmind for mind mapping. Amazing tool, simple to use, and a great way to structure yourself.
FutureMe
This is not business related, but I love FutureMe!
When I quit my job in 2017, to be completely honest I was scared. I had no idea if I made the right choice, if I had screwed myself and more.
But when I came across FutureMe – a free tool to write yourself a letter into the future – I knew I needed it.
Fast forward almost 3 years later, I still write letters. I write every quarter and forward it to at least a year later to be received.
It has been incredibly powerful as a tool. I get to be brutally honest with myself, what I’m proud of, my failures, my family and more.
Here’s a letter I wrote to myself one year before my son was born:
It’s powerful to see these letters when they arrive, and it reminds me why I do what I do everyday.
Give it a try – maybe it’ll help you too.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it – my top 5 favorite tools.
These are the 5 tools I use every day or as frequently as possible (FutureMe is every quarter).
These tools help me improve my well-being, develop my business skills, be a better parent/husband, and so much more.
I honestly don’t know if I would have even made it this far without these tools. I’m really thankful tools like these exist and can only hope more people see them.
If you have the time and are willing to share, let me know what your favorite tools are. Agree or disagree with my list? Let me know!
While driving to buy groceries, my wife and I were having conversation about how people change their careers. Some either move into an adjacent career, or some move into completely new ones.
Then my wife said to me, “You managed to reinvent yourself though.”
It had me thinking, what does it mean to reinvent yourself. So I looked it up.
The meaning of reinvent
Merriam Webster dictionary defines reinvent as the following:
to make as if for the first time something already invented
to remake or redo completely
to bring into use again
The second definition resonated.
To remake or redo completely….
It had me thinking about my career and what I had done up to this point.
For nearly a decade, I was working in corporate finance, managed multiple promotions in a short time span, collected bonuses and praise, and received options.
But I was never happy.
After working from 7am to 7pm, I would often come home and ask myself, “What am I doing?”.
I was having an existential moment every day I came home.
Then in 2017, I was laid off.
Yes, admittedly I was angry and upset. But a part of me was also relieved and happy. For nearly a decade, I wanted out of this career. And then it happened.
How entrepreneurship enabled me to reinvent myself
After backpacking in 2017 with my wife throughout Southeast Asia, we were having deep conversations about the direction of our lives.
Do we go back to corporate? Do we take another comfy job? Do we do something completely different?
These are hard choices to think about.
But after reading the book “The Everything Store”, a biography on Jeff Bezos and Amazon and one of my favorite books, it gave me the realization that we only have one life–this life.
We have this one life to live and make it our own.
So I decided that entrepreneurship was going to be my path.
Since taking this path, I’ve learned and gained the following skills:
How to close deals with prospects
How to build a website
How to build sales and marketing funnels
How to create engaging social posts
How to set up analytics to analyze web performance
How to project manage using scrum and agile frameworks
How to manage remote teams and build team culture
How to create automated workflows using no code
How to leverage my time for maximum efficiency (i.e. no more 40 hour work weeks)
I save every website I read and learn from. This is just a few of them here.
These are just a few of the things I’ve learned over the past couple of years. But I’ve been so happy. Words can’t describe how much better I feel since taking this path.
I feel like I’m in college all over again.
You can reinvent yourself too
I strongly believe that at some point we become accustom to our lifestyles.
We take that corporate career path, we work our 9-5 shift, we collect our paycheck, then we rinse and repeat.
We don’t think about the possibility that there could be something else.
Fear has overridden us. We take the path of least resistance.
I thought this way for so long. And it wasn’t until being laid off that I realized how big this world is and the opportunities that are out there.
It’s vast.
You can reinvent yourself too. Ask yourself the following:
Am I happy in this career path I’m in?
Do I actually like this work that I do?
Does it align with my values in life?
What are my values in life?
If I died in the next 5 years, would I do something different?
These simple questions can help determine if you’re truly happy in the path you’re in.
You may be, you might not be. But it’ll manifest if you take the time to ask. Feel free to use a free tool like XMind to create a mind map, which I found to be extremely valuable.
I did this, and it was the best thing for me personally.
Final thoughts
In the end, this is our only life.
Time is the only commodity we can’t make more of. When the time passes, it’s gone. This alone should make us think about what we truly value with our time.
If there’s this burning desire inside of you that’s begging for a change, consider it. Seriously consider it.
It will be scary, it will be daunting.
But remember this — this is our life. We have a choice.
Reinvent yourself. Become the person you want to be.
Above all else, be happy. Because that’s what matters.
Why you might ask? Because it’s constantly in the back (or front) of our minds.
Smartphone vibrates. Immediately, you reach for your phone and wonder, “Hmm who emailed me?”
That happens to me constantly.
Rather than have email control me, I decided a couple years ago I would control it.
How I used to approach email
In my previous life before operating and founding A4E, I was a Corporate Finance leader. I managed a team, and I was supporting a number of business partners that relied on my financial expertise.
Because of the nature of my role, I was “on call” 24-7 via email.
Least that’s what I told myself.
For almost a decade, I would respond to 100s of emails everyday so that I could make my business partners happy.
It was exhausting, and I would spend upwards of 2-3 hours per day just emailing. That didn’t include the deliverables I still had on my plate to compolete.
It felt endless.
How taking a sabbatical changed my views on email
After reading “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” during my backpacking trip to Southeast Asia, I decided no more.
No more wasting away my time, my freedom, my life.
I decided I would control the situation with email, and not allow it to control me. Here is how I approach emailing today:
Check email twice per day at set intervals
Tag important emails as high priority to follow-up
If an email is important that requires a detailed response, create a task in Clickup with a reminder
Any junk or spam gets blocked immediately (out of sight, out of mind)
All other irrelevant emails goes to trash
Since changing my habits, I’ve found myself much happier and with more time to spend with my family.
I’m not constantly on my phone or laptop checking for new emails. Don’t get me wrong though, email is important. But it shouldn’t be something we’re glued to.
My favorite tools when it comes to email and being productive
I’m a huge fan of leveraging systems to build structure and good habits. Everything from email, my calendar down to my daily cleaning has a structure that keeps me productive and happy.
Here are just some of the few tools I use to keep my emails structured and in order:
Inbox Pause: free email pause tool that lets people know you’re only checking email at specific intervals (life saver)
Clickup: free tool to push emails into tasks, time tracking, and much more
FutureMe: not so much a tool for email, but a great way to email yourself in the future with positive messages (absolutely love this tool and free too)
With these tools, I can free up my time to do other things such as go to the gym, spend time with my family and work on my personal projects.
Leverage Gmail to your advantage
When it comes to Gmail and email systems, I highly recommend creating automatic filters for incoming email and assigning labels.
For example: When a QuickBooks reporting email is sent to me, immediately create a filter for all incoming emails as “Accounting”. This exercise takes no more than 1 minute and is forever categorized.
It doesn’t have to be complex, but it should be structured enough so that when you have questions you can quickly leverage your labels in the Gmail search function.
Here’s an example below that I use for labeling:
Another thing I leverage heavily is saving emails as pdf documents into a stored drive (shown below). Really helpful for when you need to save receipts, documents and more for future reference.
Final thoughts
As much as I love email, it’s a tool that should be leveraged to make your life easier and happier, not more stressful.
Hate those pesky coupon emails but still want them? Create a separate email handle for just those emails, and leave your personal email to friends and family.
Then leverage a tool like Windows Mail, an email aggregator, to see all your accounts in one place.
I’ve found these systems to be really helpful and has made my life much easier.
Journaling is one of the most powerful tools I’ve come across.
Prior to 2010, I did barely any journaling. Truth be told, I didn’t quite understand it.
How wrong I was…. ?
Fast forward 10 years later, I journal almost daily. Why? Because it calms me down, relieves my stress and allows me to dive deep into certain topics I have in mind.
I journal not only in blog format, but also through voice recordings. And it’s super easy to do so.
Voice recordings are really convenient for journaling
As much as I love to blog and write, there are times where just recording my thoughts using the voice recorder on my phone is much more convenient.
All I have to do is hit record and start speaking. Here’s a screenshot below:
My recordings using my Note 10 phone
I love using the voice recorder because I can record my thoughts anywhere I go. They also have a voice to text feature, which can come in handy too.
Save those precious memories
We live in a world where everything is fast: fast cars, fast businesses, fast promotions, etc.
Everything is fast. ?
But it’s also detrimental. Why you may ask? Because we never spend the time to take a step back and think.
What am I grateful for?
How was I today vs. yesterday?
Is this what I want?
Why am I still alive?
Using voice recordings, I can recollect past thoughts and feelings.
What triggered me on a specific day? Why did I feel that way?
Because I tag each recording based on their category (e.g. family vs. business), I can always return to the ones that were most impactful.
Life is a journey and process
I’ve experienced enough heartache and trauma in one lifetime, and I wish nothing more than to see people smile.
Journaling can be a powerful tool to bring about a smile.
Angry about something? Journal. ?
Love that your partner did something special for you? Journal. ?
Amazed to see your child growing up before your eyes? Journal. ?
Leverage voice recordings and videos (free unlimited storage via Google) to capture those memories.
I lost both parents, and the only things I have of them are a handful of pictures. I’m slowly losing the memories of their voices, which scares me.
But now being a parent myself, I want to ensure my son has many memories, all happy ones.
Embrace the memories, journal your thoughts, leverage voice recordings and most importantly, stay happy.
It was February 2017, a fair day with the sun out shining bright like any other normal day. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I drove into work in my 2012 Honda Civic with its few bumps and bruises and parked in my normal spot (2nd floor to get a nice early workout in).
For the past few weeks, we’d been told of the news that the hyper-growth company I worked for would be going through a potential restructuring due to platform strategy failures. It was certainly tough news as many of us were gung-ho on its platform potential to change the company into a Amazon-like juggernaut. I certainly was.
For months, this platform business unit was humming along and teams were realigned to push the priorities in building out the platform. Our team in Corporate Finance were tasked with a variety of functions, most notably on “product economics”. Simply, we wanted to ensure what was being produced made financial sense, i.e. do we make a profit.
As months went on, we went from a team driving new changes to support the platform to reconciling data. Said another way, we were glorified accountants–again.
As few more weeks went on, the writing was on the wall. Our roles and responsibilities were changing, and we were hearing less from leadership.
Being self-aware, I could sense another restructuring.
And sure enough. ?
The restructuring and what follows
On February 2017, the restructuring happens.
The night before I had a great conversation with my former Finance VP and learned that I would be part of this exercise. I also learned he would be included as well.
“Amazing…” is what I thought to myself. After nearly 5 years, more than 10,000 hours invested and various promotions throughout the company, and being told of job security in a number of conversations, there I was, in a boxed room with HR and my former manager.
“I’m so sorry, but today is your last day with the company.”
It was really difficult to hear this from a company that I devoted so much to and believed in truly. Nonetheless, I respectfully understood the decision and wished the team well.
And then there I was, standing outside the building with one box with my things and staring back. “Well that was fun” as I walked back towards my car.
In less than 20 minutes, I was back home. ?♂️
You make a choice and you move forward
I spent that week taking a step back to relax my mind and to cool off. After all, I was away from the work I didn’t enjoy doing and this would be a great opportunity to focus on other things.
But what other things? ?
After one week, I whipped out my OneNote (free note-taking tool) and started jotting ideas and thoughts that included:
What do I want next?
What job do I want to do?
What company would I want to work for?
How can I leverage this time to do something more meaningful?
What next?
After spending a few hours writing my thoughts out, I realized a few things I never thought about. For example, I really wanted to try my hand at personal training. For anyone who knows me well knows that I’m extremely passionate about MMA (mixed martial arts) and sports.
So one week after being laid off, I randomly applied to be a boxing personal trainer at a local gym. After some discussions I was hired and off I went. It was exciting! I was training adults who were looking to get in shape and to let off steam. I was finally doing something I actually enjoyed. ?
Next, I decided that I needed to read more and expand myself. Admittedly, I did little to no reading prior to this–not unless you include Medium articles and blogs.
Similar to my thought note-taking, I wrote down a list of books I wanted to read, went to the library and rented a few. It was an easy decision, but one I had pushed back for so many years. ?
It was also at this time I asked myself, “What do I want to do before I die?” Yes, it’s grim. But it’s a real, honest question that most never ask themselves.
After some thinking, I decided it would be backpacking. I’d always longed for it, so I spoke with my wife and we decided we would do it. Not in 10 years, not in 5 years…this year. Yup, it was going to happen.
Received an offer from Amazon and why I turned it down
Around June 2017, I received a LinkedIn message with a potential opportunity to join Amazon. Funny enough, it was going to be a role managing their Promotional Products line, the same group I supported in my prior role.
I decided to jump at the opportunity because it was, well, Amazon. Who wouldn’t want to work for Amazon, right?
So I moved forward with the process, submitted my resume, and thankfully received an interview. The first round was a screening with the hiring manager. After passing that stage, I received an invite to come onsite to meet the team and go through a rigorous interview process. I was just glad they were going to pay for my flight and hotel costs.
On the day of the interview, I went through 5 very long and intense interviews with various leaders of the group. I did the typical behavioral questions such as “Why me, what would you do in XXX scenario, etc.”, but the part of the interview I really enjoyed was the case study. They had me whiteboard what my process would be for launching and validating a new product idea for Amazon. (Answer: test small location, validate, then expand ?).
About a week after the interview process and submitted references, I received an email with the header “Congratulations!”
My Amazon offer email letter
Most would feel excited and just glad to have a job. It is the normal reaction after all.
But for some reason, I felt empty and a bit dead inside. I felt dread and anxiety. I kept wondering why I was feeling this way.
And then I remembered.
It was because I was about to enter the corporate world again. I was about to enter the world of politics, bickering, back-stabbing and restructurings. I also wondered, “What if I invest thousands of hours again only to receive the same fate as I did at my previous company?”
So I made a decision, albeit a hard one. I rejected their offer. And surprisingly, I didn’t feel bad. It felt good.
For once, I trusted my gut. ?
What the journey has been like since being a corporate employee
In short, amazing.
No longer do I wake up with dread, anxiety and a sense of emptiness.
No longer do I count the hours till when I can really start living (it’s the weekends).
No longer do I feel like I have to put up a mask and say yes to everything (I had a hard time saying no).
Instead, I feel so alive now. I wake up with a sense of purpose and fulfillment. I wake up wanting to work, wanting to move forward, wanting to learn.
I wake up knowing I control my destiny.
Ultimately, what I never realized until I was laid off, I wake up knowing I own my time.
Time.
Because in the end, time is what matters. We can’t make more of it. It’s the ultimate commodity that can’t be replaced.
Today, I run my own business with my wife called A4E. We are a 100% fully remote accounting practice that offers a complete done-for-you bookkeeping, tax preparation and guidance, and CFO service solutions for small businesses.
I feel an incredible sense of control and happiness knowing every day my wife and I control our future, our own time, and that we can make a real difference for our customers and founders. We could also give back to the community, something that I’m passionate about.
In addition to my business, I’m also a board member for Level Ground MMA, an amazing non-profit managed by Ali Fuller. Ali is one of the very few people I’m amazed and inspired by and was the main reason I wanted to support her mission. That mission being: supporting and helping our Boston youth who are disadvantaged by offering career advancement opportunities, mentorship and guidance, martial arts classes and so much more.
Finally, I forgot to include. We did manage to complete that backpacking trip! ?
I’ll save for another detailed post, but in a nutshell, for a couple months in late 2017 we traveled throughout Southeast Asia. It was such an incredible experience and one that I will be experiencing again very soon. We ate so much delicious food, met amazing people, were touched by heartfelt stories and even almost got run down by rabid dogs.
Yeah…that was scary. ?
So where do we go from here?
Honestly, I can’t say.
But what I can say is I’m infinitely happier than I ever was prior to that point in my life.
I had faced a number of tragedies and painful work experiences throughout the past decade.
In 2009, I painfully lost my sister. When I opened up to my Fortune 500 company talent manager about the experience, I was told to “think about the starving kids in Africa”.
Imagine that. In a world where we are told to empathize with others, I was told this. I was broken; I thought to myself no one cared.
Nonetheless, I was glad to experience that. It made me who I am today. I realized that day that I would never be like her. That if anyone came to me with a story, I would be all ears. That’s what true empathy is.
Thank you for reading up this point ?
In closing, for anyone on the fence about their corporate careers and doubting where they want to go, do this one simple exercise: journal.
Write down your thoughts, wishes, dreams, goals. Be honest, be brutally honest with yourself. Are you happy? Are you doing what you love? What do you value?
When you do, you’ll realize what’s most important to you. Then it just comes down to actions.
Thank you so much for reading. It’s really tough for me to open up, but as a new parent, I know I need to. I don’t want to become bitter and angry as I get older–no one does.
If you found this helpful or enjoyed it, it would mean so much to me if you could share it ?.
Thank you again, stay well and stay safe. Till next time.
“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.”
— Les Brown
I found this quote almost 3 years ago, and it has remained one of my favorites up until this day. Something about it is just so poignant and so deeply true.
When I read this quote, I wondered “Am I living the life I want? Is this all there is to it?”
What a scary, yet brutally honest question to ask yourself.
We’re probably more similar than you think
Your life may have been like mine. My parents were first-generation Koreans who immigrated to the US from South Korea. They had no money, no extended family and couldn’t speak the English language.
All these factors led to a recipe for disaster. We may not be aware of it, but everyday people out there are constantly in fear and doubt. Check out Reddit under the depression subreddit. I lurk often because I can relate.
How tragedies change you
When I was in high school, my mother passed away when I was 16. I was frustrated, angry and depressed. I felt that there was no hope.
Then in college, I lost my father in a tragic car accident. At this point, I doubted life was worth living. I had no extended family, no one to lean on, and suddenly found myself homeless.
But deep down, I didn’t want my father’s death to be in vain. I had this burning desire in me to make him and my mother proud. I set my sights on achieving that by shifting gears and studying my ass off.
Small steps and changes in habits that helped me refocus
After what had happened, I decided to take action. Although I was scared and unsure, I knew that doing nothing would lead to nothing. I just had to move.
So day by day, I wrote in my scheduler, created detailed gameplans of what I was going to study, mapped out steps I needed to take to get a job and so on. I repeated this week in and week out.
As I continued this process, I felt more confident. The results were showing: landed my first 4.0 semester in my 2nd semester of college, landed my first internship and met a handful of mentors to help me.
I also learned how to “learn”. What I mean is, I stopped memorizing stuff. This shift changed me, and I started to take interest in what I was learning. I was excited. I felt like for the first time I enjoyed what I was doing, that I became curious.
Fear will always be there. So what will you do?
All my life I lived in fear. It was the result of my upbringing, my parents, the bullies. All of it.
When I joined the wrestling team and started taking boxing lessons, I felt less fearful. I learned that the worst thing that can happen was I got beat up a bit.
I took those lessons from wrestling and boxing, and applied it to my studies, my business, my relationships.
I refused to let fear control me.
When I competed for the first time in MMA, I felt a level of calm I never felt before in that cage. I realized, fear is just a conception of our mind. We picture fear to be this giant, ugly, scary thing–but it’s not.
All these experiences have led me to live a life of enduring challenges, learning new things, and never saying no to opportunities. Admittedly, when I was working in corporate finance, I became complacent. And it was terrible.
What are you waiting for?
We all wait for the “right” opportunities. We hope that a million bucks lands in our lap, or our bosses will promote us out of nowhere. The reality is, it doesn’t work that way.
Fear and doubt will always be there. It will be there till the day we die.
We have to control our own destiny. We have to take action, and we need to execute. We need to chase our dreams and chase things we are passionate about.
It’s not until then we get to see the world of endless possibilities.
Before I end this post, I want to share a Les Brown motivation video that I still watch to this day because it is so powerful. I hope it impacts you as much as it has for me. Enjoy!
Today is May 28th, 2018, and it is wet, cold, and cloudy outside.
It will have been 14, 12, and 9 years ago respectively since you all passed away. We were left alone, abandoned, and hopeless. And when we thought we would have relatives or family to shoulder on, no one was there. No, instead we were told we were the reasons why they died, that we were the reasons our parents didn’t raise us well. I never forgot.
But here I am, after so many years, still alive and pushing forward. I’ve shed many tears, endured many hopeless nights, and anguished in so much pain. I thought about ending my life on more than a few occasions because the pain was too much.
And yet, here I am.
In the last decade, I’ve had friendships sour, learned new skills, got married, and took on mixed martial arts (and competed). I thought I had some good connections, made friends at work, and thought I was doing right by the company. Yet, I was still laid off.
And yet, here I am.
To FutureMe, life will suck. It will continue to beat you down, shove you into the corner, and wail at you till you break. But you won’t give in, just like in the gym, regardless of the pain, the blood, the broken bones. You need to see this through, no matter how much life throws at you.
You will cry, be sad, and feel alone. But you will come out of this. And you will try to be a better person for yourself and love the people you currently have in your life.
Remember, life will always suck. But stay happy, be strong, and fight forward. Enjoy the small moments, let it soak in.
Every year when this day comes I feel a mix of emotions. Those emotions can range on one end of happiness and excitement to the other of sadness, depression and loneliness.
You may ask, why’s that?
When I was fifteen-turning-sixteen, I witnessed the passing and death of my mother. I watched the very last second she was declared deceased by the doctor.
It was the most gut-wrenching pain I ever went through at that point in my life. She was struggling in the worst of ways, and there I was, a kid, and could do nothing to help save her.
Up to that point, she was never a happy person and struggled with her own bouts of depression. I had always thought as a kid, “Am I the reason?”
No kid or child should ever have to question that to themselves.
Fast forward more than 15 years later, I am now married to the most incredible woman with a son of our own. Never in my wildest dreams did I envision being a parent or father.
But here we are and I feel so incredibly lucky. My wife and son bring me so much joy to the world, and the thought of them suffering at all breaks my heart.
Although Mother’s Day is a day that opens up a mix of moments for me, it’s also a reminder to be thankful to those who have stayed close all these years. It’s meant so much, and people who struggle with depression will appreciate it.
Guessing you’ve probably said this at one point, right? I
have…for years. ?
But it’s human nature for us to push things back—some fault lies
on us, some because we have higher priorities. Either way, it happens and you
shouldn’t feel guilty and stop.
So, here are 5 simple steps on being more productive in life
and helping live a life that fulfills your goals.
Step #1: Prioritize your goals
First step, you’ll need to prioritize your goals. What makes
you happy, sad, excited, depressed, and so on.
Surprisingly, we don’t spend enough time on ourselves to ask
why we do what we do. Rather, we’ve been trained to do as we’re told.
In your job, you have a manager and that manager gives you
tasks. They pay you in exchange for your services.
Well, it’s really easy to prioritize this because we’re
getting paid. The hard thing is to do the stuff when no one is looking around,
while you’re at home and when there’s no immediate incentive.
So, prioritize your goals by taking the following actions:
List out a matrix in a word document with the columns:
What makes me happy
What makes me sad
What would I regret if I didn’t do this
You’ll need a system to track and measure your goals
I recommend Clickup—a free productivity tool to track your goals, tasks, and so much more
You can learn more about how to set up your board in my last post here.
Add your goals to Clickup using their Goals function to remind you of your goals.
Step #2: Create your productivity schedule
It’s not enough to write a bunch of goals and tasks; you’ll
need to also create your schedule to become more productive.
The way to achieve this is review your goals and prepare a plan (doesn’t have to be detailed) on how you want to achieve those goals for the year.
Most of us struggle to achieve goals because we’re either
exhausted, don’t see immediate results or things change. Whatever the reasons may
be, creating a schedule like that of on a calendar can remind you why you’re
doing what you’re doing.
In my case, it’s learning Mandarin Chinese. My wife and my
in-laws are Chinese, but I’m Korean. Rather saying I’m not going to learn, I made
it a priority to learn so that I can communicate effectively with my in-laws.
Because listing Mandarin Chinese as a priority, punching it
in in Clickup and creating a schedule, my Chinese has improved dramatically.
Now when I speak to my in-laws, the communications are much
more effective. 有意思!
Step #3: Track and measure your productivity
Now that we’ve covered steps #1 and #2, it’s time to track
and measure to ensure we’re being productive and achieving our goals.
Otherwise, we go back to bad habits, lose sight of what’s important
and fall back into our slump.
Well guess what, we ain’t letting that happen. ☺
To measure yourself, I recommend a tool called Toggl—a
simple time tracking app that has a beautiful interface with charts, tags and more.
Within Toggl, you can create clients and projects to
associate with your goals and projects. This could include things like reading,
working out, building a side hustle, etc.
Whatever it may be, you can create in Toggl. Here’s an
example from me tracking my reading below:
Create a new client
Create new project called “Reading”
Track your performance
March was a rough month given the whole coronavirus. ?
To recap everything
To recap, you’ll need 3 steps in order to achieving
productivity and living the life you want. Here it is below:
Prioritize your goals
Create your productivity calendar
Track and measure your productivity
That’s it.
By listing out everything and really questioning why you
want what you want, you’ll have a much better understanding of your goals and
priorities. It gives purpose and a reason to work on your goals.
But remember, goals are hard. Life is hard.
But if you set out to live a life you want to live, you’ll
be happier, more productive and more satisfied in the long run.
As always, feel free to reach out if you have questions.
Enjoy and stay safe!
