Long time no see, friends!

Hi friends,

I’m writing this from Kyoto, Japan so it’s a special one. Also to let you know that I haven’t forget about you. How are you doing?

Writing this newsletter is impossible when I don’t give myself any pressure about it. I told myself things like: I need something “to write home about” instead of just blah blah, also why put pressure on myself for this little newsletter that I don’t plan to monetize? Well that lie kept me not writing for the past 3 months.

We’re habitual beings so anything we do or don’t do, it becomes a habit and we’ll just do more of that. So I’ll be more intentional about this Newsletter once again.

A bit Life Updates:

Health:

I’m now a fan of Whoop and we are a family of Whoop wearers now. My mom is a fan as well since she’s the one who’s winning the family health Olympics crushing all the strain goals!

I also got scared of being 44 years old and entering the zone on near 50 where a woman probably cannot have kids anymore. So I’m exploring the idea of freezing my eggs and having surrogacy later on in life if I really want more kids. If you have experience about that or have any thing to discuss, please email me back and share with me!

Wealth:

I’ve been buried my head to build a couple of small businesses and had some wins. I’m proud of myself working hard the past year.

The real estate market is not looking good though which made our net-worth dropped. It made my husband and I question our decision of investing in real estate the past five years instead of putting money in stock market which had a great run.

I know that the answer is no regret, we either earn or we learn. And I know that the struggles we fight will contribute to us in a bigger way that we would never imagine possible.

“Some storms come to wipe out things to clear out the land for growth.”

Being an entrepreneur is really nothing glorious, a lot of the time, I spent overcoming the resistance of doing exactly what I need to do, and tell the negative noise in my head to shut up. I do better when I meditate but then I beat myself up for not being hard working enough when I meditate or chill more - that same noise. That’s why I’m into Audible, replacing the noise in my head with better voice from my favorite author like Napopleon Hill, Jim Rohn or Tony Robbins.

One of my business partners playfully asked me one day when I mentioned that we need to work harder: “Not working hard enough? You and me?” It made me realize that we are actually the ones who work more than the employees we hire, like all the time.

Growth:

I’m in Japan wandering around a lot of Zen temples and Zen gardens, consuming a lot of sashimi and arts. And I am pondering about time and place, impermanence and whether AI is spiritual. I get connected to myself and my husband and kid more, have my hair cut, doing some shopping.

Japan made me really think about standards, the standards that we hold ourselves to and looking for in others. “You get what you tolerate.”

As I’m looking for quality people to meet and build with, long-term business partners who understand compound interest in everything we do, and willing to go a long way together.

All start with me, uplevel myself and my own standard: “The way you do one thing is the way you do everything.”

That’s it for today’s newsletter.

I wish you all peace of mind doing your normal busy day and week and have something wonderful as highlights of the days.

Cheers!

Sophie Nguyen