There’s a very good chance that I’ll be in Christchurch when you read this. For the last week I’ve been in Auckland, as part of my second attempt to tame some inner monkeys. If you don’t know what I mean by this, you can learn more about why and how I ditched my New Years resolutions and also how I partially failed at taming my first monkey.
Back to my New Zealand trip. Some of you may already know that I intend to live in this country, at least partially. In the process of moving to New Zealand, a couple of years ago, I set up a company here. But I never got it to get my full focus. Sometimes I had some personal issues that I had to focus on, sometimes there were other real problems that I have to deal with and sometimes I admit I simply let it slip away. Fact is this company was never developed to its full potential. And that’s what I call a monkey.
Taming Complete
So, here I am, in Auckland CBD, trying to get a hold of what I have to do in order to move things in the right direction. For the last week I’ve been swamping myself in meetings, projections, scenarios and other funny things you do when you want to make a company move forward. And, to my real joy, almost all of these were successful.
Right now I am ready to file my first annual tax report. I also have all the financial tools required to manage the company remotely. There is one more thing needed, and that would be getting a International Tax Number, because there will be an increasing flow of business coming from US this year. That I hope to solve it somehow by the end of the month, because it doesn’t really require my presence here in New Zealand.
Not to mention that, as little as it was, this company already received a little bit of a cash, mainly from my iPhone apps business channel. It’s not like I’m going to get instantly rich from it, but it will be enough to support at least two more visits to New Zealand this year. Each visit being at least one month long. For the record, this visit has half financed by the money I already have it here. It’s the first time I’m spending money made in New Zealand for New Zealand.
Anyway, if I look at this company now, I don’t have any feelings of “monkeyness” whatsoever. The taming is complete.
It May Be Simpler Than It Seems
And that brings me back to what is to be done when you want to tame a monkey. Sometimes, all you have to do is to get up, take a plane, fly to the end of the world, solve what is to be solved and call this a tamed monkey. In other words, get up and do what you have to do.
Every “monkey” is different. The first one was pertaining to things I never lived up to. Unfulfilled promises (to my self, in this case). Incomplete commitments. The second one was not as much about lack of fulfillment, but about finishing up. Tidying up things a little. Shutting up and do stuff. As a matter of fact, during the last week, I was extremely quiet. My Twitter timeline was extremely sparse and my Facebook updates were consisting mainly on two-three pictures. Sometimes all you have to do is to step out from your natural environment and fix stuff by yourself.
I wish I had more things to write about this second monkey, but fact this this one was much simpler than it looked. Of course, I had to fly 28 hours, book a hotel, set up meetings and attend to them. But I didn’t find it complicated. Or hard. It was actually fun and relaxing.
A Little Bit Of Life In Between
Having my job done for the whole month, it’s time to think at the fun part too. As I already mentioned, this whole downshifting / downsizing thing I’m embarking into has a “compulsory” part. And that part is to still have a life while getting things done. Which, by the way, is the main goal of my productivity framework.
In fact, today starts the second part of the trip, the “pleasure” one. I’ll be heading to Christchurch in a few hours, stay there for three days, and then fly to Rotorua. After one night there I’ll be heading back to Auckland and from there I’ll fly to Hong Kong. I always wanted to visit Hong Kong and I admit I’m really eager to get there. After three more days in Hong Kong, I’ll finally head back to Bucharest.
Where, from what I read in my email messages, there’s plenty of work to be done. 😉
Wow, that feels so much fun, isn’t it? Wish all of us could even find our inner monkeys. We know they exist, yet instead of letting them go, we lock them inside and hide them. Wrong. Good work Sir!