Happily Busy In Bangkok

“Disciplined Hedonism” is one of my favorite phrases– one I first heard from my friend Chris.

In fact, I do think we need a healthy dose of both self-discipline AND hedonism in our life.

This month, the first month of the “Portable Empire” experiment in Bangkok, has mostly been about discipline.  I have been working steadily and successfully on the “empire” since arriving here.

In fact, as I noted previously, I’ve had an explosion of productivity since arriving.  The new environment has stimulated and energized me.  In the last two weeks, I’ve launched a new (and quite effective) marketing campaign for the business…  created several new videos for our upcoming video site…  wrote several articles and press releases… and have planned and scheduled our first seminar in Bangkok (Sunday, January 25th).

I have also kicked ass with running.  Despite the heat and pollution, I’m running like a fool.  My weekly long run is now up to 90 minutes (two days ago).  Each week, I add another 10 minutes to the long run.  My regular “maintainence runs” are also going very well– I’m doing them 3-4 times a week at 40 to 60 minutes each.

All in all, I’m feeling super-energized!

And I’ve been disciplined with singing too– practing (almost) every morning.  And today, I had my first singing lesson by phone– with my teacher in San Francisco.  Too cool!

All of this made possible by a laptop, the internet, and a cheap Thai cell phone!

This discipline phase will continue for another two weeks.   Next week, I’m off to Singapore for a few days.  I’ll be meeting one of our members there (hopefully)– and doing my 100 minute long run.  Should be nice to run in clean air for a change!

Then I’m back to Bangkok for our seminar– a 5 hour seminar to introduce more Thai people to my teaching system and English lessons.

After that,.. it’ll finally be time for some hedonism!  My wife Tomoe arrives on the 26th of January.  Then my friends Wat and Lewis arrive on the 28th.  We’ll be heading down to the south (Koh Payam Island) for a big party, followed by a few days of snorkeling, diving, running on the beach, etc…   Then Tomoe and I plan to visit Cambodia,…  then dive some more…  then Laos…  then Fiji…  etc…….

So the Portable Empire has thus far been ideal at fostering both self-Discipline and Hedonistic opportunities!