Moving into the end of Mar already and a quarter of the year is over soon. Sometimes it is good to just reflect on the last 7 days about what I have been doing and see if I could make it better, more productive from a personal growth angle. By recording it down in my blog, it also serves as a periodic diary reminder to me about my thoughts at that time and if I have done them.
I started the week with my monthly trip to Yangon as a financial consultant on the ALCO committee. The end of this week will be the company’s fiscal year-end. I am happy to see that much has happened for them over the last 15 months since I started in Jan 2018. Their loan portfolio has more than tripled in size. Their infrastructure is now more robust and in place to help them grow further. It is a constant work in progress where processes and policies have to be continuously refined as we encounter new milestones.
I was there with my fellow consultant and we had a number of dinners and meaningful discussions on what we want to do next with our lives. Both of us agree that we should aim to do something impactful, like starting a new business. He provided a structured approach to our brainstorming session and suggesting a 4 prong road map.
One, to continue to look for potential investments as passive investors. Two, to look for retail opportunities like F&B ideas to launch and to get our hands wet. Three, to continue to look for new one off deals which may take months to incubate till completion – eg. financing deals between financial institutional lenders and end users like microfinance or SMEs. Lastly, to play a more active role in seeking out more consultancy roles and projects. Given that we travel to Myanmar every month, there should be opportunities for both of us to explore and channel our past experience, to use our expertise as consultants.
We also shared about our past experiences working in Citi and had a good laugh over the crazy stuff we did then over our long careers there, while enjoying our Korean BBQ and alcohol. Those times are never ever coming back again in our current PC compliant world…
Had a nice morning flight back on Wed as it was a Myanmar holiday. Met an old ex-colleague in the plane on the way back. I originally wanted to take public transport back since I had the time and wanted to save some money. But I became lazy and took a cab back instead, as I bought a few bottles of duty-free wines which were heavy to carry around.
The AI in Finance MOCC online course I signed up last month has started this week. Looks promising and I aim to complete it within 3 months. It could be faster if I can, but the wife and I are having a vacation to China in mid-Apr. The more I read about AI, the more I am convinced we are approaching an Ah-Ha moment where the paradigm and seismic shift is going to happen. Those that are caught unprepared will feel lost. I wrote about this in my blog last week.
Thursday was spent on another 5 hours lunch catch up again with 3 other great friends. This was over lotsa good food and booze where a variety of topics were discussed. Politics, social, the meaning of life and thrash talking included.
Met up with another 2 other old friends on Friday. One was an entrepreneur whom I can learn from as he updated us on his China F&B business. He had done many things, like setting up an investment fund, bought Japan property, sold shampoo online and marketed yield enhancement structures that participated in German real estate.
For the next 2 weeks before my China vacation, I need to prepare for my quarterly half marathon run and catch up on my AI studies. There is also a potential business opportunity exploratory meeting set up. This was an intro from my wife. Just also received a letter notifying me of my graduation event for the 12 months Specialist Diploma of Business Analytics I completed last year. This will be held in early May.
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