My Sister-In-Law Opened a Thai Massage in China (did we influence her?) Back on the hustle and travel in Shenzhen, China and my wife sent me a Wechat - go visit Nancy’s spa - she just opened it, do some video and visit her. It was also my mother in law’s birthday, so double checkbox for brownie points from the wife. Here’s a video of my experience, and if you’re in Coastal City district of Shenzhen, China - stop by and check it out! check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Check out this massive trampoline place in various locations in Thailand. #50flyclub https://50fly.club check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Mike’s Blog 212 In Asia, or in China? After almost 8 months I finally had the chance to come back to Mainland China With such an intense 4 days and some odd hours to visit and do business, meetups, workshops, and venue hunting for Cross Border Summit - may as well grab the v-log gear and record. In the video, you may not even keep up with the various cities - start off by saying goodbye to the family in Chiang Mai, Thailand. First stop Hong Kong, banking meetings with my business partner CPA Ray Ng at Unipro Consulting (really hoping we can get HSBC banking deal open - thanks Lucian!). After the bank, a nice little round table (thanks again Lorenzo and Lucian for hosting) for Global From Asia. Then rush off to the train station to head into Guangzhou. Guangzhou, our Cross Border Summit China partner Mark Ramos and Eve hosted me and we did a wild round trip day visiting various venues for the fourth annual conference. Ended up picking a more flexible location downtown near Canton Tower for Oct 22-23. Stay tuned for more info, really overloaded with people looking for speaking, sponsoring, early bird tickets - but will be focusing on members first then non-members. After less than 24 hours in Guangzhou, headed on the train down south again to my old home of Shenzhen. JEez, this city is still growing - new malls and buildings still popping up everywhere. Saw a Starbucks BAR (is this in USA yet?) where you literally sit at a bar and they pour a Starbucks beer from their tap for you. More workshops for the public as well as for corporate, and squeezed in some meetups w/ old friends like Chris Davey, Marshall, Gary from Shekou Daily, and the infamous on Facebook - PJ Entrepreneur (awesome name!!). Quality time with my buddy Dave and dug out a lot of my storage and tried to cram as much into my luggage to take to Thailand. I don't recommend doing Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen in 4 days, definitely a bit too rushed but was lucky to get most of the core things done - as well as some factory coordination sorted. How was your week ;) Oh, and I just was reminded it is Memorial Day in USA, enjoy! check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
TItle: A Birthday - so launching a Bootcamp in Thailand Ya, here is a vlog. Well - we are doing a video update, can we call it that. Don’t plan to get back to the grind of regular video blogs - this is a special one for a couple special reasons. It is my birthday! Not sure about you, but I always enjoy a birthday even though it is getting close to the big 4-0 - definitely not as cool as turning 18 or 21 years old but a birthday is still a birthday. And I enjoy an excuse to update everyone here and share a special announcement on a project that has been in the works - typing this out from a resort outside of Chiang Mai - the air pollution in the city has been really off the charts beating Beijing and other cities as a top polluted city. You can read a dedicated blog post about that I wrote a month or so ago on Mike’s Blog - we are hearing this all stops in a couple weeks just before a big Thai holiday and the rain starts again. So we took the kids out of the city and to a botanical garden. Our second time here now, and one we plan to come to more often. The Global From Asia podcast re-booted a couple weeks ago and has gotten great response, also a sponsor Go Remit HK (for cross border payments in Asia) has come onboard again to sponsor - thank you guys! Restarting Global From Asia means we need to have a more impactful, bigger “Thing” we do there. My amazing and strategic thinking wife Wendy said we should do a bootcamp (well I thought of the English word, but basically a longer, on-site intensive training program) to help business owners learn Amazon FBA, ecommerce, international business. If you’re on the newsletter you heard about it and we are collecting feedback on the length and format. So many amazing and knowledgeable people in our network who support us and want to share with the community - we are doing an intensive 3 day core program with potentially add on days (I originally saw this as a 7 day bootcamp but feedback was it was too long). Friday July 18 to Sunday July 20 here at this resort in the outskirts of Chiang Mai, Thailand I’d love to have some of you join us - or - as a small birthday gift request - share this to your friends or those who you think would benefit. Cheers to another year. May all of us live to 150 years and beyond! check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Happy holidays, Q4 here and it is always about turkeys, fat men in red suits and year end thinking. 2018 has been a fun time and now I have to put up a hold for these vlogs. I’m joining a new “secret project” and my partners and I decided we all need to fully focus on this new project. Can’t say what it is. Sorry dad, I know you like these vlogs, I’ll still send you updates as text on Mike’s Blog website. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
As you know I have made some drastic life changes - probably the biggest is marriage and kids! But the ones you are seeing is moving to Thailand and being more “remote” - the way I see it is - these are the years I need to spend with my kids. I see it as they are soon going to not want to hang out with me - they will want to be with their friends, go to school activities, birthday parties. Soon they won’t want me to hold their hand in public, they won’t want me to help them - they will be their own person. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Writing on the road in Hong Kong today. Strange feeling to go to a place you lived for over ten years and feel like a visitor - but it is what it is. We had our Cross Border Matchmaker event on Friday Oct 26 and it was an event we had been planning before I even thought I would move to Thailand (these events take 6 months or so of preparation). So - we had to do what we had to do. We are building out a local organizing team and hope to have them continue to run these events while we live abroad. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
We are rocking and rolling in October with so many things happening. In this video, I am in Bangkok for dcbkk conference where I always get pushed to work harder and do more. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
We are rocking and rolling - the transition to Thailand is mostly complete. Puii is here, we have also hired a bunch of amazing people in our team and really getting more organized. Did a meet the team podcast on Global From Asia if you want to hear it GFA235 of Global From Asia podcast. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Thank you all for enjoying our “pain” lately. Seems everyone is seeing my video blogs as challenging - and yes I mean we are talking a lot about the immigration and the multiple moves. Yet there are a lot of good things (seems we are the opposite here than most on Facebook, talking about the challenges instead of only showing the good side of things). check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
We are settling in nicely at the new house, the daily flow is going well - but just as things are getting smoother - I remember (luckily!) that my visa entry is expiring! As a US passport holder I get 30 days tourist visa on entry into the Kingdom of Thailand. check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
So - basically - we have to find a new place to live and we are leveraging Wendy’s Chinese WeChat groups of mommies. A whole bunch of rent direct from owner hookups came from it. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
So in today’s video blog I am just relaxing a bit on the weekend with the family. Doing my morning work as always - and then a nice afternoon with the wife and kids. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
I’m sitting on the floor - pavement - here in Promenada mall in Chiang Mai - hoping that I make it to get a queue (number) for my daughter to convert her tourist visa into an education visa. This has been about the fourth or fifth day of this saga - depending on how you count it (some days we didn’t count as we couldn’t get a number). Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
A nice way to enter into our two hundredth video blog here at Mike’s Blog - getting kicked (if you call it that) in the private parts by an elephant. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Have only been in Thailand for about a month and have been back to Hong Kong and various cities in China a couple times already! I think it is just the transition and there have been some close events that have been hard to move. After this Yiwu trip the back and forth should slow down. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
These kids will have such a rich and diverse upbringing. It is one thing I won’t regret - having Miles and Maggie exposed to so many cultures and personalities. Not even five years old and have traveled to America, China, Thailand, with exposure to English, Mandarin Chinese, Thai, and even my wife’s local hometown dialect Dongbei Hua. check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
How do you make a change in your life? Or are you just taking the changes others give you? Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
Spending Thursday going through my belongings - deciding what to give away and what to throw away - and see if anyone would actually buy anything - I’m trying to have less stuff. If I haven’t missed it for a couple months - then it can’t be that important, right? Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com
I do apologize about the last video’s lack of seat belts - we are doing it going forward. Also we are sending the kids with the private driver to and from school on their own now. We have a WeChat group of Wendy’s family and they are all so nervous about this - but for how long can me or my father in law drive with the kids, sit in the coffee shop all day, and drive back? Or drive there for 20 min and drive back and forth. Check out this video blog and more http://mikesblog.com