[BLOG] Indefinite Postponement

Start up planning and BCP

Following my previous blogs (【ブログ】「やりたい事」を深堀りする(Deepdive on the things that I want to do) and 人生のプライオリティについて再考する (Rethink about the life priorities)), I've drafted a serious business planning document to start my own student education business. Business contents are perfectly organized and they are exactly what I've imagined. However, when it came to the financial planning part, it was obvious that this is not going to be successful because of the huge initial investment and interest expense. As a conclusion, my wife and I have decided to postpone the launch until we have enough cash to start this project, not worrying about mortgage and interests. BTW, writing a business planning doc was a really good way to organize my thoughts and re-clarified what my missions are. 

Life Goals and Happiness

As I wrote in the previous blog posts, my goals and personal interests are clear enough and well visualized.

• I want to return to the EDU industry to support the kids who need help. 

• I want to study the things that I'm interested in. 

• I want to live in a great house that everybody envies.

Just these 3 things. Of course I have several other stuff like, "watch movies", "read books", "travel to Swiss", etc., but they are just life, not the goals.

99% of people are basically not that obsessed with the thought of "I must achieve this before I die", which I am heavily obsessed… This thought has been driving me crazy and letting me think that I should start now to happily die on the deathbed. Why am I obsessed? I think it's because of my PTSD from my childhood which make me think that I must be doing the cool stuff to be superior than others (I know it sounds idiotic to you but it's a long story). 

6 hours intensive meeting with wife

So, last night, we sent kids to their grandparents place and had an intensive meeting for 6 hours to discuss our business planning. As written above, we decided that we'll postpone the plan until we have enough cash. 

The key takeaways of this meeting are:

1. I should stay in Google and find a way to achieve all these goals. For example, I can secure my time and block the schedule to study the things during the day. I'm SOOOO BAD at muti-tasking (in this case, work and study are multi-tasking to me) but it's time for me to learn how to do that. 

2. I should save more money and wife should make more money.

   1. To me, my position at Google right now is just the right fit and I'm not too ambitious about my promotion or salary raise. It's well balanced. To make it a little stretched, I perhaps want a promotion to middle management that I think it will boost my ability in terms people management (i.e. apparently learn middle management skills at Google is a precious experience). 

   2. About wife, she had quitted her work at bank and became a self-employed online-marketer. Now it's time for her to boost her sales and financially contribute to our family to achieve the goals together. 

3. Our rent and monthly expenses are too expensive. We need to find a way to cut some basic cost of living. 

After all these discussions, I was still obsessed with the thought of "I must do this before I die". Then, a funny thing happened. I had a dream last night and story was, "I am diagnosed with cancer and dying now. Wife, will you marry to another man if I die now? Wife says, hmm maybe. Then I begged her not to because I will be alone in the heaven." For Japanese people, the power of dream is strong. And surprisingly the first thing I thought in the dream is about my loneliness in heaven, not the achievements of my life. Isn't that funny? I'm so obsessed with my life missions when I'm awake but I first thought about after death loneliness when I was dreaming. 

Looking ahead of 2024

So 2024 will be an interesting year. A famous fortuneteller says that I'll start recovering from my illness by the end of 2024 and completely cured by March 31, 2025. I'm already feeling way better than before and I think I can even return to office if I was still living near the office (but I'm not). 

As these small steps are identified above, in 2024, I'll focus on saving more money to eventually achieve the goals (and wife will try to earn more). Until last night, I was really thinking to leave Google and start my own business but that's not going to happen anytime soon. That's really a long term project and I need to save a huge cash. Why cash? Because I know mortgage / loan will kill my mental from my previous experience when I bought a house in Tokyo. Ideal situation is, no rent, small business at home, but still impacts the world in a good way. 

Juuuuuust in case my role will be impacted by layoffs in 2024, then I'll rethink about the business planning again. But for sure I can say, I'll not work for someone's company, and rather, I'll start an Irish Pub.

Lastly, my deepest thanks to my mentors at Google and ex-Googlers who shared me your own stories. It turns out that everybody has different views of their lives but your stories are really encouraging and interesting. 

Happy Christmas!