GlobalWealth
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From a business perspective, the last year has been incredible. Our domestic corporate services biz is bringing in new clients every month and the process is fairly smooth. The offshore corporate services biz is even better. The trust company is booming. The publishing/event biz is going well, but we are changing the format for '15. Very excited.
Lessons learned:
Hiring a PA was critical to the success. Without her freeing up time I was spending on menial tasks, I would not have been able to pursue bigger picture stuff.
Outsourcing some other critical tasks was also critical for the same reasons. Things like editing and publishing, website management, etc. I am not an expert here and have no business trying to do so.
Trust but verify (this seems to be a common them, right @MJ DeMarco?). Last year was an interesting year. I found out some people I had trusted were not very ethical business people. I also learned that some of the people I had done business with at a small scale, can be much, much better partners and highly ethical business people. Going forward I will do background checks on anyone I do business with. It may be a bit slow and more costly, but much more efficient in the long run.
You cannot make meaningful relationships and business deals sitting at your desk day after day. You need to get out and network. Go to local meetup events. Go to seminars and conferences.
Success will never chase you. You must chase success. And it rarely is found at your desk.
From a personal perspective, the last year has been one of the hardest in my life (maybe THE hardest). I was separated from my wife of 18 years in the fall of '13 and initially it was pretty amicable (there were bumps but overall ok). We were living a 5 minute walk away from each other so I could easily see the kids every day.
A few months later she kidnapped our children and moved to the US (yes, kidnapped because when both parents don't agree it is called kidnapping). We bought round trip tickets for her and the kids to visit family in the US and she never got on the return flight. As of this writing, I cannot even get her to sign a reasonable custody agreement and my kids are having to endure her daily barrage of hate talk about their father. It has been an emotional roller coaster.
Just before Thanksgiving my father passed away. He was suffering from cancer for many years and finally cancer won. He was a good man and mentor.
Lessons learned:
No matter how good a long term relationship is, the potential for it to blow up exists. If you would have asked me even 9 months ago 'would she vanish with kids' I would have thought you were crazy for even suggesting it.
Protect yourself - whatever that means in your personal situation.
If you have kids, make sure your relationship with them is a personal one and not dependent on your spouse. Even if your marriage never blows up, it is good for that relationship to be strong with them personally and not reliant on the other person. This is difficult to explain, but it is the difference between "we (your mother and I) love you" and "I love you".
Surround yourself with people you love and those that love you. This past year has shown me who are my real friends and who are the superficial ones. This includes family relationships. Originating from the bible belt south, you quickly learn which family members are not supportive in hard times like divorce.
Not only surround yourself with those closest to you, but focus your time and energy on those relationships. The important relationships rise to the top in times of need. Those are the good ones. Those are the relationships that need cultivating and maintaining.
The superficial ones become clear and should remain that - superficial or even non-existent.
Lessons learned:
Hiring a PA was critical to the success. Without her freeing up time I was spending on menial tasks, I would not have been able to pursue bigger picture stuff.
Outsourcing some other critical tasks was also critical for the same reasons. Things like editing and publishing, website management, etc. I am not an expert here and have no business trying to do so.
Trust but verify (this seems to be a common them, right @MJ DeMarco?). Last year was an interesting year. I found out some people I had trusted were not very ethical business people. I also learned that some of the people I had done business with at a small scale, can be much, much better partners and highly ethical business people. Going forward I will do background checks on anyone I do business with. It may be a bit slow and more costly, but much more efficient in the long run.
You cannot make meaningful relationships and business deals sitting at your desk day after day. You need to get out and network. Go to local meetup events. Go to seminars and conferences.
Success will never chase you. You must chase success. And it rarely is found at your desk.
From a personal perspective, the last year has been one of the hardest in my life (maybe THE hardest). I was separated from my wife of 18 years in the fall of '13 and initially it was pretty amicable (there were bumps but overall ok). We were living a 5 minute walk away from each other so I could easily see the kids every day.
A few months later she kidnapped our children and moved to the US (yes, kidnapped because when both parents don't agree it is called kidnapping). We bought round trip tickets for her and the kids to visit family in the US and she never got on the return flight. As of this writing, I cannot even get her to sign a reasonable custody agreement and my kids are having to endure her daily barrage of hate talk about their father. It has been an emotional roller coaster.
Just before Thanksgiving my father passed away. He was suffering from cancer for many years and finally cancer won. He was a good man and mentor.
Lessons learned:
No matter how good a long term relationship is, the potential for it to blow up exists. If you would have asked me even 9 months ago 'would she vanish with kids' I would have thought you were crazy for even suggesting it.
Protect yourself - whatever that means in your personal situation.
If you have kids, make sure your relationship with them is a personal one and not dependent on your spouse. Even if your marriage never blows up, it is good for that relationship to be strong with them personally and not reliant on the other person. This is difficult to explain, but it is the difference between "we (your mother and I) love you" and "I love you".
Surround yourself with people you love and those that love you. This past year has shown me who are my real friends and who are the superficial ones. This includes family relationships. Originating from the bible belt south, you quickly learn which family members are not supportive in hard times like divorce.
Not only surround yourself with those closest to you, but focus your time and energy on those relationships. The important relationships rise to the top in times of need. Those are the good ones. Those are the relationships that need cultivating and maintaining.
The superficial ones become clear and should remain that - superficial or even non-existent.
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