EPT
*Extremely long introspective post about my life, Just a story that I wanted to write for my sons when they are old enough to read**I'm currently in Manila right now, I've flew in on Friday and am at the New World Hotel in Makati (don't know if I spelt that right, but it is the commercial wealth district of Manila). I don't mean to say that as a brag whatsoever, just giving you the location and context of where I am, in fact, I'm kinda of sad that I'm here.
A LACK OF STRENGTH?
On Wednesday I went to my first MMA class in over a year and it was the first major bit of exercise that I've done in a while. Having played rugby or done judo for most of my life, the last 6 years or so has been difficult because I've basically stopped doing the level of physical exertion that I use to and I've always been happiest when I'm just on the pitch or throwing people around; not because of violence or anything, it just feels like where I'm supposed to be and I enjoy the company of my team and the competition.
That night I got a call by a firm to fly over for Friday and look into some projects. It didn't get confirmed until late Thursday night and I was on the 8 am flight from Seoul to Manila. That Thursday night I went to MMA class again. The master, Master Yuk, said to me that I looked old, that I had lost my aura of strength and that he felt bad for me. I said to him, 2011 had been a rough year, and he said, 'even though, if you lose that aura, then it won't come back, you'll end up being an 'ajushi' ' Ajushi meaning in Korea a term for 'uncle/mister/middle aged'. He said that even though I've been overweight that I had that aura, but no longer. I agreed with him just because I didn't want to talk to much about about it, but at 37, I'm no spring chicken any more.
So I stood around during the free period then I asked one of the young guys, who was my same height, but likely around 75kg to 'roll with me' meaning do some jujitsu sparing. At 110kg, it's unfair, but it is hard to find someone my weight in Korea and plus we never spar with ill intent, at least not in Korea, its always at 70% or so. Using my unfair weight advantage, I easily got him to tap out with an arm triangle (where I lay on top of him and have one of his arms and his neck in my grasp), so the next round he simply didn't allow me to get on the top position. Rather, he ended up on my back and I turtled (simply tucked my head into my arms and kept my knees in) and that lasted 10 mins. I didn't give up, he didn't give until I tapped because it simply was enough.
We hugged afterward and he enjoyed the experience of trying to submit a guy who had 35kgs on him and I felt good that I had gone the distance and while I was exhausted, I felt as though, I still had the 'aura of strength' even though I had agreed with Master Yuk that I didn't.
CRAMPING UP
Fast forward 10 hours later and I'm on this 4 hour flight and then both my calves start to seize up and by the time I land in Manila, I can barely walk. My shoulders hurt a bit, but my legs are totally screwed. As I force myself to walk properly, I pop a few aspirins and go directly into a few meetings with my clients who had paid for my flight and hotel.
I've pretty much been working non-stop for the last 48 hours, I go to a 3 hour meeting, then go back to my hotel work and work like a motherfucker so I can make good on all the points that need to be followed up on. I took a 1.5 hour massage in my hotel room, but other than that, I had eaten breakfast yesterday and then by 1am gone out to get some food at a 24hr Macdonalds, then worked a bit more, then went to bed. Today, same thing, but went out at 10pm to get Wendys instead.
I'm not the typical hotel guest here, there are Koreans, Japanese and Foreigners here and it is the weekend so they are all out partying. There is this massive mall complex call 'Green Belt' here, right across the hotel and it has 5 sections. Needless to say, there is a lot of excitement here, but I'm not here for any of that, I'm here to work. I'm here to impress my clients as well as put a bit more bacon on the table for my family.
I'd say I make a lot of money, more than most doctors do, but I work like a motherfucker. The only breaks I take are to sleep, shower, eat a bit, and I do play a couple of games to just ease my mind a bit, but I do all those things so I can work better.
WORKING FOR THE BACON?
People don't understand how hard I work, or more to it, how hard you can or should work. I may come across that my life is an exciting role of jet setting with mad cash falling out of the sky, but I'm sure if I calculated my hourly, it would around the $10-$20 range per hour. But I'm not saying this as a brag or that my life is hard, I fucking love working because I get to do something which I'm good at and that is rare.
But I'm a bit sad because I see that a lot of people around me here in Manila don't have the same opportunity that I have and never will. You see, if I want to work more, I can work more, I have the option to do more projects and fill my time up to the max with work that will pay me. And when I do anything like sleep or even play games or read, I do it knowing that it will increase my work productivity, that I've worked without sleep, without eating without gaming and I end up producing sub-par work. Even myself writing these long ass blogs, it helps take the edge of my work, that as I articulate something on my mind here, my subconscious is figuring out a business issue that I haven't quite got a handle on.
TO KNOW MYSELF AS I'M FULLY KNOWN
At 37, I know myself fully. I am completely honest with myself and I completely accept who I am. I think it wasn't until I was about 30, that I did come to that level of understanding. We spend so much time bullshitting other and ourselves of what we like or don't like or are embarrassed about that it is so hard to find that time to really understand and know ourselves. What really annoys us, what really makes us happy and what really drives us.
Much of the lack of focus or procrastination that many of you experience will stem from this; but this is such a momentous view for such a mundane thing. Most of the time when we are not focused or not concentrating or procrastinating, we think it because we are sleepy, we need coffee or we don't understand the project enough or that we are lazy. But you get to a point in your age when all those things aren't really anything - I'm sleepy, get some sleep, I'm need a coffee, go out and buy one, If I don't understand something, I'll ask. We get to be responsible for ourselves, our own actions - but I'll tell you, when I need to work, eating and sleeping becomes a distraction at times- rather working has become instinctual- something I'm mean to be doing.
This wasn't always the case. For most of my life, exercise, rugby, was my existence, no matter how fucking hard the practice was, the games, whatever, I could endure it, accept it. But aside from that, nothing really seemed important enough to warrant me putting the effort into it.
DUSTIN AND MATHEW
When I was in grade 3, it was impossible for me to score less than perfect or any assignment; the answered seemed so obvious and whenever the teacher said, 'David are you listening' I would reply, 'Yes teacher I am,' 'Ok, then what did I just say,' and I would repeat it back to her word for word. But there were two other kids in my class, Dustin and Mathew, and I still remember them clearly. Dustin was a super super nice guy and Mathew a super cool guy. Dustin was really laid back and we never once got into a fight. Me and Mathew had fought maybe 3 times and then after that became friends. It is just how it is in grade school. But what intrigued me about them was that, when the teacher asked if they were paying attention, they really weren't. And it was shocking to me, I couldn't figure out why they weren't paying attention. And their test marks were brutal, 4/10, 6/10 and the teacher would always scold them.
But why I'm sharing this primary school story is because they changed my life at an early age. I spent half of grade 3 trying to understand them and tried to not get good grades. Ridiculous right? But I realized that 'marks' seemed to be the be all end all, but I liked Dustin and Mathew, and even though they got shit marks, they were my friends. So what were 'marks' anyway? It became meaningless.
SUCCESS IN FAILING AT SCHOOL
By the time I hit grade 8 I had succeeded in getting low 60's and failing a course. The year before in grade 7 there was a city wide standardize beginning of the year test. I ended up tying with the highest score in the entire city of grade 7 students. The principle and my teacher called my mom in and she thought that I had gotten in shit, but they surprised her and asked he why I wasn't in an advance class.
We had moved from Quebec the year before and basically the school board had recommended that I skip a grade because while my marks were in the gutter it was obvious that I was just bored or something (my only quest in my academic career up to even university was see if I could finish an exam the quickest by a huge margin - to me that was a mark of intelligence lol) but coming to Toronto (specifically North York), the board of education didn't recognize the recommendation and I was just put into regular class. so in grade 8 the put into the academically gifted class and I proceed to just barely pass anything.
It wasn't that I wanted to fail my parents or didn't want to work hard, but my motivations have always been different than what most people's are. I'm a fucking weirdo. But being in that class made me feel as though, now I didn't have to work at all, because if you're in those classes, it is only by IQ score and testing alone so marks really weren't worth anything, you were already designated as smart, so in my fucked up mind I thought, gee, then if they board of education already recognizes me as intelligent, does any of this really matter?
NO GRADUATION LOVE FOR ME
Thing is, that line of logic does make sense in an abstract setting, but practically speaking, yes, the marks mattered and when nearly my entire class of 40 kids in the school of 300 all got special awards at graduation time and me and best friends Eric and Evan (we were the bad boys of the nerds) didn't get any, my parents were so fucking pissed off that they didn't let me go to the graduation student dance party and I didn't get to say good bye to my friends that were going to different high schools. But at the time, 'the fuck if I knew why I thought like that'...
By the time I graduated high school I was assistant captain of my rugby team, had been scouted by a prominent university to play for them and was president of my high school, my marks were still shitty, at 89% and I didn't bother to study for my SATs so my parents hopes of me going to an Ivy league were dashed (my uncle went to brown and my cousins to cornell) - not that I would have gotten in with 89% average, but to get the crappy score that I did (it was bad cause while the math part was easy, I never actually tried to do them in the allotted time so by the time I was half way through, there was only 5 mins left). On the Verbal/English part I did score near perfect, but still, not perfect and crap math part just stripped away any hope in my parent's eyes that I could be redeemed.
THEOLOGY AND ME
Eventually after graduating, I figured, ok, I'd like to be a university professor. So with my 3.5 GPA, which I had just managed to bring up in the last 2 years of my 4 year degree by getting nearly all As and +As (I bombed first year with 2.1 or so), it took a Herculean effort to change my cumulative to 3.5 and that for most grad schools was the bare minimum. So I went into theology, and stopped playing rugby for the first 2 years. I managed to get an 1 year academic suspension for failing a class twice (anything less than 70% is a fail and I had 68% and 57% ) and because I got 57% percent on the second retake, they took it as warning sign and had me ejected for a year.
THE NEW TESTAMENT PAWNS
Now here is the fucked up part, the fact is, New Testament 501, is a fucking easy ass course, it is so freaking easy and I'm taking it for a second time. But I fucking hate it, I can't stand studying this intro crap and I want to study what I like, like German Systematic Theology or Homiletics and so I just can't help but screw around in class. I never type out my work, I actually hand write my assignments and hand them in on paper that I rip out of my spiral bound notebook, and of course the TA gives me the marks for the content, but a lot of the work is incomplete cause I don't do all the readings and just can't be fucked. But there is group work involved and most of the students in the program hate my guts cause I am the most elitist arrogant asshole in all of Christendom. I hated looking at my fellow students who were there because they wanted to be ministers because it was a good job (seriously people talked like that) or if they were crazy conservatives who kept thinking everyone was going to hell and were shocked when they were told that 'sleeping at the foot of the bed' was a euphemism for Ruth got it on with Boaz (sorry to shock you if you didn't know that lol). And they were right, I was a judgmental asshole who though I was one with the great German theologians. But why I didn't pass it the second time was because even though I knew I had already fucked up the course a second time I didn't drop it before I had chance to, instead, I stayed in because...I was part of the Korean group.
So the college I went to, is a pretty prestigious theology college, so much so that we get a lot of foreign PHD candidates who dream about coming to our college to study and if you graduate here you can pretty much go to Cambridge or Harvard or Union or wherever you wanna go afterwards. But no one wants to work with the foreign students cause they were all selfish pricks (ok, maybe not all), but anyway it was a pain the ass because of language issues. But for me, obviously it wasn't that big of deal, so I had 2 foreign Korean old guys in my group. If I had dropped out of the course, there was a really really good chance they would fail it because the group mark was worth a lot. So I stayed in it just for them and got suspended because of it. Crazy right? Well, the one Korean student, he finds out afterwards and realizes that I didn't drop the course and failed it because I didn't want him to fail because of me, and he looks at me like I'm not really this fucked up bad student (cause in retrospect I think they didn't want me either! lol) but that I basically fucked myself just because. When he gets ordained a couple of years later, he still remembers and thanks me in his ordination address when he thanks the students that helped him at the college. lol. ( I was told cause it shocked some of the other students why in the hell would he thank a werido like me).
The rest nearly becomes history, in the year that I take off, I go to Korea to manage the Canadian team for the 1st WCG, I come back after a year of my suspension, go back to playing rugby, where the coach has a fit asking why the fuck did I not come out to the team for his university when I was attending for the last 3 years and am only coming out now in my last year of grad studies. And because of that I ended up getting to go to Korea and play rugby at the professional level there and get my Masters in Business etc.
And since I left my theology grad studies, I pretty much never read the bible again. Like really sat down and read it.
CHANGE THE WORLD? REALLY?
The reasons why I stopped trying to become a professor and stopped doing anything related to theology was because I thought that by learning theology I could do something for the world. And I'm sincere in that. I honestly believed when I was a young man that I could change the world for the better. When I read the bible, I didn't see all this crap about going to hell or some moralistic bullshit, but I saw social justice and a revolution, sacrifice and of course, love. And I wrongly assumed that studying theology and becoming a professor and an ordained minister would put me in a position to help change things.
Truth be told I was trying to kill 3 birds with one stone: please my parents, please societal expectations on looking respectable and please my own messianic self interests in thinking that I was something special because I walked to a different drummer and thought that really understood what the world was all about.
In many respects, studying theology and really understanding and spending 3 years just focused on it was the best thing for me because at the end of it all, I realized that I had tried the best I could to fit in and do what was expected of me, and even though I had tried, it was evident that I had self-sabotaged myself considerably as well as I went to place where I found little mercy and grace when it was supposed to be a place of study where love abounded.
So, i wasn't disillusioned or bitter, I just stopped to care or think about that part of life and again, when I played rugby, it just felt right.
REASONS WHY I LOVE BUSINESS
In the end, why I love doing business is that it exactly fits my personality and thought process. If you follow the same procedural process of competition with your competitors in business, you will be fucking yourself. You need to be contrarian, not for the sake of being contrarian, but rather because if you don't, you're not creating any value and you might as well burn the money instead of investing it.
I can be crass in business, I can tell my team to 'man the fuck up', I can piss around with clients and look them in the eyes and say, 'seriously Frank, if you make this call and do it, you're fucking yourself in the ass' and for clients to appreciate my directness. And the fact is, in business, the ones that can't handle what I have to say are missing the point that business is about what works and will continue to work better than what others have out there. Just working via a formula for success will lead no where cause every other motherfucker has the same MBA you do and read the same books and sees the same trends. But in this field, everything that made me a loser, made me procrastinate is what makes me great at my job.
But right before I went to Wendy's I went to the book store and saw the NIV bible there and I knew I had to buy it, to read it again. Why? Because I know myself, the angst I had as a theology grad student is long since buried and my life has been an orgy of doing business and I've lost a bit of the main thing that truly has driven me, and I can realize that about myself, namely caring about others. And for me, the bible was integral in my thinking/thought development.
I'M HAPPY FOR PEOPLE NOT TO UNDERSTAND WHAT I WRITE
Honestly, some things I write here, I shouldn't, not cause it is bad, but because if you get the significance of what I'm writing at times, I'm saving you a good 1 month off every related mistake. You'll still make the same mistakes, but you'll bounce back faster. If you get the significance in what I write, you get what I mean.
I don't hold much back and for those readers here who write comments that show that they don't get the significance of something things I write about business, you know what, I laugh. I'm not sharing my opinion, for me I'm sharing something as honestly and as sincerely as I can because I do care about this community and the members that it attracts and that is why I don't hold back. For some people who read this and think it is just another opinion have no clue what fucking hell and hours upon hours and real life sacrifice to come to these statements that are more than just applicable, but simply are true.
My clients pay me tens of thousands of dollars for what I do, I've made tens of millions of dollars from brand new projects from zero revenue for my companies. I tell my staff, do this, they do it, they learn, they produce and get results. But, that really is just a small thing that just reminds me why I did go full out into business.
OUR COUNTRY KOREA
I had a dream that one day, I'd make enough money so that I could build a huge library in Korea that would have a full sound, media and design studios in it so that those students who weren't competitive in school could have a chance to develop other skills, and still be respected in society for it.
I had a dream that I would make enough money to fund an organization whereby all Korean children when they were in grade 9 or 10 could live abroad for 6 months.
My talent is that I can see frameworks and structures for both business and social structures. I won't get much into that, but basically I have a very easy time seeing how things relate to one another and as single unit/framework move/progress. It isn't just seeing the forest, but seeing how the trees compose the forest and how does each tree create the totality of the forest and ultimately the true nature of the forest and seeing both simultaneously. Seeing the forest from the trees is like preschool strategic level of thinking. And I came to two conclusion back in 2002.
#1. My country, Korea is fucked for the long term. We don't see it, but it's not an issue of the halfs and have-nots, rather in our country, you either half or you don't exist.
#2. I can't figure out the end stabilizing point for the capitalist system, meaning, that for all the understanding that I have, I don't see our current financial system every getting to any point of real stability and sustainability. And more importantly I can't see any real alternatives either in light of modernity's expectations either.
Thing is, I'm not wrong. I have a supreme confidence and knowledge that I was breed to think and understand systems and I do it better than anyone, and in this context there are 2 things that I are clear to me. If I can't understand and see where this is going, then no one fucking can. And I do not believe the solution yet exists, it is still too early for something to be formulated yet.
What I mean by that, the real conditions for the something stable or different haven't manifested themselves in the framework yet, so right now, no one can really plan or anticipate what will happen next until the context has developed further. It is like all around the world people get the same idea at relatively the same time and it isn't coincidence rather it is because the environment has developed certain factors/triggers that make the new idea/innovation obvious. And so I know that those conditions have not yet manifested and I don't know when they will. But in the meantime, I think, we won't know when and if the system works now, then we should get as much as we can out of it now. And that is why I work like a mofo constantly, because later on, I may not have the same opportunity to exploit the revenues I can now.
It's like: If you were a record executive in the early 90's and you were able to see what was going to happen to your industry when the internet hit, wouldn't you just try to make as much as you could with the current system that did work, before the system broke down (pre napster, the recording agency were rolling in an insane amount of cash and there was a clear formula for cash). I see the same thing.
Thing is, if you're somewhere like Australia or Western Europe, there is already a stability in the society and infrastructure due to the long history of industrialization. Thus, while there are issues, relatively when there are global economic crisis, the effects, while dramatic, are relatively stable compared to Korea where it will have a massive immediate impact in just a couple of days- where our relatively weak currency gets fucked up by global speculators and with such a resource poor country, everything can change on a dime.
So based on that I also know 2 things:
#1. I need to make as much fucking money now when I'm in an applicable position to do so.
#2. If the children in Korea are educated with alternatives, there is enough genius in our gene pool for someone to figure it (making a stable financial structure that will work for Korea), but only if they their potential genius is given the chance to be contrarian. Which is really not possible to have in the Korean educational system due the high degree of competition and the fact that it is either 'you have' or you don't exist in our society.
A LETTER TO MY SONS
But why even think this way, why bother, why not just make cash, send my two boys to Le Rosey for 100k Euros a year and just keep my own place in Australia, France, Canada and Korea and just move accordingly. And for the last year, I have been asking myself that question because I forgot why I have been working so obsessively in the last 10 years in both my studies and work. And I guess that is reflected in why Master Yuk said that I had seemed to have lost the 'aura of strength' and that is why I felt that needed to buy and read the bible again, to remember what was lost..to really sincerely care and believe that, as ridiculous as it sounds, that I want to change and take care of my whole country that I'm just being honest with myself. Even when it is embarrassing or seems naive or impossible.
I know for some new readers, my sincerity doesn't shine through here, I know that this may appear to be some self centred rant on how great I really am, and likely things here kinda make sense but they don't and so it may seem like it is all speculative bullshit. And likely those reader will have skimmed through this and have no written some comment for the sake writing their first 'reaction'. Honestly- being honest. I could give two shits about them, full stop.
There are many many times I write here on TL, and I spend a hour writing then I don't post it, I just close the browser because at times, it does seem like a ramble or it's too personal or I just feel that it would be misunderstood so then what is the point. And about 4 or 5 times I have had the urge to just delete this all, and maybe I will, maybe you'll never see these words typed here;
but I just wanted to say, thank you TL for reading and the comments that say thank you, because if I did share something that really did help you a bit and you know that I do care. And even if it is doesn't equal to financial or gain in some tangible way, it does feed my soul that I feel that I can share things and know that I still have one.
*I just spent about 5 mins about to delete this, but if I think it is something that I would like my sons to one day read. If only to understand why their dad wasn't home as much as he should have been. Ethan, Mark, I love you guys, so much.
