Roppongi Hills Tower
The guy in front and the one on the far right I met that night. The remaining four are me and three friends with me being the 2nd from the left.
Awesome picture that was taken after a friend did an awesome, superinspirational presentation on the importance of learning English for Japanese people.
Besides these 2 events, I've mostly spent time with friends, met a few cool new people and I recently got a chance to play futsal. I was the only person spending 10+ hours per week in the gym, so it was a little onesided, but I had a ton of fun nonetheless!
Business is still going smooth. The application is being made and should be done in about 5-6 weeks. The accompanying website is nearing completion aswell and will probably be done in about a week or maybe 2 tops. So pretty soon it's time to get the marketing strategy together. It's about time things would get a little busier, because I've been relatively bored as of late.
The gym's still going great aswell except for a week I had to take full rest, because of a shoulder injury. It seems to have fully recovered though so I'm back at it now. Even though I'm doing a very intense 6 days/week 2 hours/workout program, it's pretty relaxing for me. I've noticed that it takes very little mental effort on my part to complete the training, because I've become completely numb to the pain it takes to push my muscles to failure. The only moment that's actually hard is the cardio, where I can push really hard, which is probably why cardio has become my favorite part of my workouts.
I'm also toying with the idea of doing the Sea to Summit challenge in 2014. It's a yearly event where participants go from the Sea in Japan to the top of Mount Fuji in 24 hours. They start at dawn and reach the peak 24 hours later so they can see the sun rise. It's a 48KM hike with an average incline of 5% and at the end you have to climb Fuji to the peak.
The only issue for me is that I don't deal well with not sleeping. On top of that I kind of like a physical challenge so I'm thinking of doing it MUCH faster in like 13-14 hours, so I can get back down and quickly get to a bed and get a good night's sleep. It seems doable... somewhat, but INSANELY hard. Which sounds like fun to me, so I may decide to go for this.
The event is in July so after I finish my gym program in sometime March I may start training like a madman and try to do this. Should allow me to cross of another thing off of my bucket list while I'm at it which is running a marathon. But I'd want to run it in a good time, like sub 3 hours 15 minutes or something sounds like a nice target to aim for. Exciting stuff!
I also spent a lot more time thinking about life and happiness. I've come to understand parts of myself better and learned a few valuable lessons. On top of that I seem to have somehow fixed something that had been bothering me for a long time(maybe too early to tell for certain), although I'm not sure how I did it. However, thinking all of it over... none of the thoughts really seem significant/interesting enough in retrospect to share. I'm sure I'll blog about this subject again at some point in the future though.
Last but not least, I recently ate this delicious Unagi:
Best Unagi I've ever had
Last but not least, I recently ate this delicious Unagi:
Best Unagi I've ever had
hey frank
ReplyDeleteits john carter from cardrunners. havent spoke 2 u a minute but was just catching up on some of ur recent blogs.
good 2 c ur keeping ok. ive recently been thinking about my future. i dont know whether to focus on my film writing, poker or look to get a job in 'business'.
im not looking for advice as such but i just wanted to let you know that a field (business) that i have shown absolutely ZERO interest in for 30 years of my life is possibly an avenue for me in the future due to possibly being richer (not in monetary terms but in terms of interest and complexity) than writing commercial films and NLHE and PLO. (Not that I'm anywhere near mastering either poker or achieving my writing goals)
So wrt your career, have you mentioned anywhere what Language Link actually is/does? I'm no expert in apps or languages but like im saying wrt my new interest in business, I feel like I have a much more open mind today than I did a month ago.
EDIT: Any tips for books, blogs, podcasts, websites that I may find interesting related to Business? (you know I dont have a plan when it comes to that. But if I'm ever going to make any money in this life it would seem I have to go down this route)
ReplyDeleteMy plan for the next few months was to go through the 2p2 Business sub-forum and just broaden my knowledge in topics I literally had no interest in until this week. Would you recommend this or is there a more efficient use of my time in your opinion?
I think I'm going to give it until ~Oct 2014 or Mar 2015 and then decide where my future lies (as to whether I should concentrate all my energies into either poker, business or writing)
Hey John! Good to hear from you! I hope you're doing well!
ReplyDeleteI think I've mentioned what Language Link is/does, but I think it was quite a while ago and the overall vision has changed a little bit, so I'll write a new post about it today.
As far as business related resources go I enjoyed the following:
-The 4 hour workweek
It's not perfect, but it's a great start.
-The Art of the Hustler
There is a lot of awesome stuff in here, but a lot of it is not very applicable if you're not already an entrepreneur.
-Travis Steffen's podcast: How It's Done
Very cool podcasts that are mostly interviews with other entrepreneurs.
-Ted.com
Not all business related, but I find many of their videos inspirational and thought provoking.
I don't browse any forums and mostly learn by doing rather than reading/watching, just like I did as a poker player. I'm not familiar with the 2p2 business forum(I actually never read much of any of the 2p2 forum), so I can't comment on whether that's useful or not.
I don't think you have to choose between those 3. If those 3 are all things you're interested in, I think there's plenty of time to pursue all 3 of those. Poker especially is hard to do more than 20-30 hours a week, because you won't feel it certain days or feel like it's better to quit very early in a session sometimes after a bad start. The rest of the time you can work on a business idea or your writing!
Hope this answered your question and was able to help you. Feel free to ask me to expand on stuff if anything is unclear!
Good luck!
Frank
Thats more than helpful Frank.
DeleteHave already got through the Travis Steffen podcasts. He's definitely a successful and productive guy judging by his internet presence.
There's an interesting q he tended to ask on the podcast that I think about wrt my writing and poker (and is essential in both), he asks: How do you feel your mind has changed between now and when you began x project?
It's a very interesting q on many levels.
I havent read your latest blog yet so will check that out in a minute.
Recently I have bought a copy of the Financial Times (UK newspaper, economics based), I dont know if you're familiar with it but I feel once I get a handle on this, the sky's the limit. Whereas poker in comparison feels very much a smaller intellectual pursuit.
Did you feel the same way?
I suppose we could return to the q Travis asked. And paraphrase him: Wrt your mind and your understanding of the world, would you rather be a succesful poker player or a succesful investor/entrepreneur?
I don't know that UK newspaper, although it sounds interesting.
DeleteWell, business is certainly a much bigger, broader and for most people more interesting world than poker is and it is easier to be very successful than it is in poker. In poker, you have to an absolute MONSTER to become a millionaire, and to make tens of millions you just have to be inhuman(and mostly just blessed and lucky). I'm not saying that in business it is easy by any means, but it's more doable and less is decided by genes and luck(although still some).
However, most importantly I'd ask you where your passion lies and whether you think you will enjoy playing poker for the rest of your life or not. If not, you'll have to transition to something else at some point. Some people can play poker all their life, but most people will become quite unhappy doing that.
Let me pass on 1 piece of advice, Travis once told me when I still played poker. He told me that the only way to try out business and to learn would be to jump into the deep and get started. {Although I don't mean to say you should quit poker and move onto business per se. Situational dependant...}
I would definitely choose investor/entrepreneur as a response to your last question even though it does seem awesome to play the Macau big game and play million $ pots on a daily basis. The fact that part of it is luck, is both the beauty of the game and what makes it absolutely brutal at times. Furthermore, poker is a lot of the same, whereas business is more varied and interesting. Last, but not least, it takes a lot longer to reach the absolute top of the top in business than in poker and thus you can always grow and get to the next level and there'll always be challenges left.
You definitely seem more bold than me as a person. So i wish you all the best in your endeavours.
ReplyDeleteWrt poker, I dont feel I'm willing to commit enough of my life to be the best at it. And I'm sure you have a similar personality in that if I do something I strive to be really really good. I'm not giving it up, just expanding my interests
So learning business, I'm def at the v bottom. So that's bad. The positive, I love research, I love looking at sources and data in many different ways. So I feel fortunate I have now found an interest that possibly in a number of years (touch wood) could provide me with a decent living, but at the same time fulfils my intellectual needs.
And that's something I thought poker could. Before that, I thought film/literature could/was