Next Challenge!

Supporting Uncle Chan's event, giving the expensive Ironman franchise a miss this year.
4 months to train for this!

Thoughts from Germany/UK Trip

It has been a hectic trip. 

Hastily pieced together with no clear plan in mind (as usual) on where to go, what to do, when to visit. 

Even without much preparations, I'd say that this trip has been rewarding. 

Having visited Prague for a good number of days 2 years ago, Frankfurt was underwhelming in comparison. Nothing much more than a financial and transport hub, Frankfurt couldn't hold a candle to Prague in terms of history, architecture or culture. 

Unexpected visit to the world famous Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau, which was the inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty castle, that eventually came up characterise Disney's signature Castle logo. The enchanting but tragic story of King Ludwig II, the beautiful Bavarian lands and Alps, were really beyond what I had seen so far on my travels. (having caught Beauty and the Beast just 2 weeks ago helps too). This really sparked my interest in castles, which Germany and France have plenty of. It will be nice to bring Dear to do castle hopping together in the future. 

Bought the Londonpass before landing @ London. Looking back at the schedule that I eventually took, I'd say it wasn't the wisest choice. The fact that one had to visit a good number of attractions everyday to breakeven on the cost, wasn't exactly the best way to enjoy a holiday. By the end of the second day, I was getting tired and took it easy on the 3rd (last day) of the pass. 

Growing up with the image of Tower Bridge as London Bridge, this trip serves to clearly separate the two. HMS Belfast and Churchill war rooms was impressively and steeped on WW2 history, a good visit. 

Parliament house and Big Ben are always picturesque. Westminster Abbey is by far the most elaborately decorated religious landmark that I had visited, with immense history that dates back about one millennium. Victoria and Albert museum was a surprise find, nice to find a free attraction that offered so much. Picadilly circus, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Changing of Guards, St James Park, Harrods were all straight out of the postcard intriguing. 

Though I couldn't make Old Trafford as my first destination visit to an EPL stadium, visiting Emirates stadium only serves to make me more interested to visit OT one day. Red Devils' long illustrious history simply dwarves the Gunners

Figured out how to make the most out of the local bike sharing system, the cycles really allowed me to travel longer distances in a shorter time, and at the same time, see a lot more of the non glitzy side of London, all at the low cost of £2 for 24 hours. One of the best discoveries, and made up for my refusal to buy the oyster card. This system really fits big cities like London. I hope that the SG version will take off, but the weather and people's behaviour is suspect. 

As I write this at Trafalgar Square on my last night here, my reflections on how my travels affect the family is also well established. Ryan is starting to know and miss daddy on long trips, which makes me less inclined to do much more biz trip extensions in the future. 

Gotta spend more time with the boy

Targets for 2017

Physical 
One more Asian 70.3 race
Achieve and maintain target weight at 68kg (2kg to go from now)
IPPT Gold
Break 28 minutes for 1500m (pool) swim.
Stanchart Marathon 42km (as usual)

Emotional
Impart the joy of hand-making handicraft to Ryan
Teach Ryan how to cycle confidently 
Teach Rainie to speak in complete sentences
Toilet-train Rainie
Bring the family for a vacation to either Japan or Korea.
Get Dear to take up a recreational course of her choice

Professional
Complete an Executive learning course
Conduct a motivational training talk to large audience (>30pax)
Guide the Swim school to a more professional setup - with a regular and accurate sales forecast + clearly defined expansion plans. Target to beat 2.5x Revenue made in 2016

Spiritual

Attending training classes

Attended a 2 day training class together with my business partners last week, and I'm truly impressed with the amount of new knowledge that I had learned over the 2 days.

The training is primarily focused on business owners and gave lots of practical knowledge and examples that can be applied in reality. And for myself, the benefit is doubled as it is applicable to both my full time job and the swim business.

During the course itself, there was one particular exercise which validated a concept which I had previously written a paper (not published yet), on the various different methods of effective communications, which I subsequently coached my business partners about as well. I'll probably polish up the paper a little more and post it on my LinkedIn profile at a later time.

I'll probably spend more time poring through the training materials during the upcoming ICT.

Still lots of stuff that I have yet to follow up with.
Really have to start carving out some time to quickly list down my 2017 objectives - almost half the month has past by in a flash...


Rainie turned 2 on Sunday!
1 small celebration in school on Friday, and another mini celebration with the immediate family on Sunday. Time really flies.
I can still vividly remember the day that she was born, how I held her in my arms, and how Ryan was introduced to meimei.
High time to print new photos to hang up at home

2016 Review

Jan - Conducted first L1 solo class in Malaysia
Feb -
Mar - First Partner conference in Greater China. Conducted my first sales training in Mandarin
Apr - Port Dickson Swimathon. First time getting stung by Jellyfish. Perth holiday with the kids
May - Busselton 703 + Taiwan family retreat
Jun -
Jul - First Business trip to Seoul. Conducted 1st FMB in Penang.
Aug - Inaugural Partner Training in Japan
Sep - First business trip to Manila
Oct - Conducted first L1 class in Penang
Nov - Completed Swim Expo Asia 8.35km for the 2nd time. Conducted first internal sales training to the swim coach team. 2nd business trip to Seoul
Dec - Completed 15th StanChart Marathon

Low Lights of 2016

• MIL having a mild stroke in Nov
• Called off the Osaka holiday which was supposed to be a well deserved break for Lishan
• Scored Silver for IPPT instead of Gold - dumb decision in losing my cool against the arsehole PTI that kept writing off my push-ups. 
• Getting stung by Jellyfish during the Port Dickson Swimathon, and not recovering properly from the injury

High Lights for 2016

• Managed to break the combo and celebrated my birthday at home with Lishan and the kids
• Personal Best at Busselton 703 and numerous break throughs
• Completing the 15th StanChart Marathon and crossing the finish line together with Weicheng
• Memorable but super tiring Perth holiday with Lishan and kids
• Fun Taiwan family retreat - though I could have planned it better
• 1st & 2nd business trip to Seoul - I love the Gigantic LINE shops there!
• Getting my first direct report - finally becoming a real manager that manages people instead of just managing accounts or partners

Key Events for 2017

• House hunting - Ryan will be going to Pri school in another 2 years time. And with MIL not in good health, it will be ideal to move nearer to MIL by end of 2017
• Busan 703 - targeted next race for 2017. Registration not open yet. Time to repair the bike! Don't think I'll be tackling the full IM any time soon. Simply don't have the time to commit to a full IM training schedule. Maybe ticking off all Asian 703 will be possible...
• Another family retreat before Bro moves back to the US
• Career development for promotion to the next level
• Expansion of the Malaysian swimming business - target at 4x growth of 2016 revenue

StanChart 42km Race Report
Another new break through - not on the high side but the low.

Overslept for the race and woke up just 1 hour before the supposed start time for the race - luckily weicheng's calls woke me up.
Drove to WC's office and parked the car there (instead of the usual Raffles City) and had a long hard time trying to hail a cab off the streets, when throngs of party-goers were vying for taxis at the same time.
Ended up taking a Grab and while we were enroute to the starting point, we saw runners passing through the 2km mark, and I was mentally prepared to see an empty Orchard road start line, and start at the very rear of the entire race pack (just like what happened at Sundown many years ago)
To my surprise, my pen was still waiting for flag off even though I was late for 1 hour. And we waited for another 45min to start.
Originally thought that the event organization was going to be better this year since the event was bought over by Ironman, but it proved to be otherwise - with the insanely long wait for the flag off, as well as the non-operation of SMRT on race day. Well, given that this is their first time organizing SCMS, I should have lowered expectations as Ironman had overlooked multiple intricate logistical arrangements which were taken for granted.

Nothing much to yell about on my performance for this race.
Extremely bad preparations in terms of training, sleep, and I didn't even manage to take any breakfast this time. Couldn't find my usual salt stick container and had to use Rainie's cough syrup bottle to double up as a last minute solution.

Managed to jog till 21km, where both of us just agreed to walk for the rest of the race - even though we could have continued jogging. Minor cramps and aches came in, but nothing unexpected after 14x experience in this event. I had some chest pains from time to time, so we chose not to push ourselves either, since we were no longer concerned about the race time.

Finished the race probably around the 5h 50min mark.
Not too shabby for walking half the race at relaxed pace (not my usual insane race walking pace)
All these with no breakfast & 2 power gels only - I avoided bananas on empty stomach, and no point taking power gels as I had more than enough energy to last the walk.

What has been going on recently

Been traveling pretty extensively over the last few months, and plenty of them back-to-back.
The cities that I had covered in July & Aug so far:
Taipei, Seoul, Delhi, Phuket, Melbourne for work (and Penang for swim coaching)
Next week will be Tokyo again

Glad that things are now slowly getting back to normal, with my trips getting interspersed with longer stays at home rather than constantly on the road.

Well, things have been going on pretty well.
Notable events:

• Rainie started school on 1st August - she cried and rolled on the floor on the first day of school when she realized that it's no longer just sending big brother to school, but herself had to go in too. Progressed pretty well over the last couple of weeks, even though she still cries every morning at the school entrance just "for show", and would stop immediately after passing the gate
• Ryan being able to contribute more in his art and craft homework, and showing more interest in crafts and writing as well. I should spend more time teaching him how to write, and create more fun craft projects to do with him. Next up - 3D solar system model for Ryan
• First time doing swim coaching in Penang - new place new students. In using the open air pool, under the blazing hot Penang Sun, I was sunburnt in no time. However, it seems that the 3 basics classes were pretty well received, and we should expect to have a full sized Level 1 class to run in October.
• Paid in full on the VC investment with Bro. This had been bothering me for a good half of the year as it impacts my short term cash flow on full investment. However everything has been done and dusted so it's time to see my bank account start to get healthier again.
• On Swim coaching again - saw the newly released videos by the esteemed World Class Japanese Master Coach, which detailed the exact same materials that I had created on my own, and had been using in my classes in Malaysia since earlier this year. Finally vindicated my belief that the materials that I had created based on extremely strong fundamental understanding are 100% spot on. I'd have to say that having a Engineer mindset + Sales Professional Experience + A Grade in Physics really helps to grasp the swimming concepts very quickly and conceptualize them into logical work flow, processes and most importantly, in an easy to understand format. I should probably start writing a book on swimming...
• Just completed my work performance review with boss earlier today, and was glad to receive the highest compliments for the work that I had done in the year. Top performer in our group! And to hear from boss that "I know that you have plenty of career opportunities outside given your capabilities and brightness. I want you to know that I want to keep you in my team". That is good enough motivation for me to stay and get more experience. Still in Grow mode here.

Oh well, should really start to craft my training classes for both swimming and channel management training soon, otherwise i might just lose the structure of thought that I have came up with

1 full month on the road

Last month had been extremely exhausting with the back to back travels, which is still coupled with my regular Sunday swim classes whenever I was back in SG over the weekend

28/4 to 7/5 in Australia for 703 + Family holiday
9/5 to 13/5 in China for work
16/5 to 21/5 in Japan for work
22/5 to 28/5 in Taiwan for holiday
4/6 to 5/6 in Malaysia for swim coaching

Even though the holidays were very much enjoyable, placing them back to back with work trips and coaching duties without any rest, is really tiring. Especially when the kids are getting more n more difficult to control.

The Taiwan trip, in particular, was the most draining trip.
Even though I had planned for hugely streamlined travel itinerary (by my standards), it was still too taxing for the entire family.
Future family trips should go at a much slower pace so that everyone will get to enjoy the holiday better.

Looking back at the last 12 months of travel, it turns out that Ryan has become a frequent flyer kid.
5 trips in the span of 12 months. Pretty awesome for a 3.5 year old boy.

Aug 2015 - Cebu, Philippines
Oct 2015 - Sydney, Australia
Dec 2015 - Tokyo, Japan
April 2016 - Perth, Australia
May 2016 - Taiwan

True answers from Ryan when Dear asked these questions:

Dear: What is your favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane

Dear: What is Mummy's favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane with Ryan

Dear: What is Daddy's favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane with Ryan

I'm just glad that "playing with phone" and "working" did not pop up :)

Sweet Sweet Ryan

Happened on Sunday night.

Ryan wanted me to accompany him for his pre-sleep activities.
Asked me to read him his favourite book, and deliberately took his time and made me slow down the reading speed by asking a lot of questions so that we could spend more time together

After finishing the book, he requested for multiple piggy back rides, and didn't want to get off

When it was finally time for bed, he wanted me to promise to sleep next to him.

Can tell that he really miss spending quality time with me, that I had been spending too much time away from home, be it for business travels or swim coaching.

My sweet boy is growing up :)