Happy Chinese New Year 2020! (#235)

Happy Chinese New Year 2020! – powered by Happy Scribe

Hey, what’s up, guys? This is Fei, and I’m back for a new episode. This one is not prerecorded. I’m literally doing this on the day before. This episode is supposed to go live.

And first of all, I want to say that by the time you’re hearing this episode, it’s going to be January 24, 2020. And by the way, that is the Chinese new year. So happy New Year to you all. I gotta say that since I’ve been living in the US for the past 20 years, it’s always a struggle every year to figure out when the Chinese New Year is. So I think that’s what parents are for.

In particular, my mom in this case is reminding me pretty much two weeks leading up to Chinese New Year, and she’s here with me right now in Boston. Which makes me feel so lucky because guess what? After she arrived on the 28 December 2019, I realized that that was the first time for us to celebrate, like the American New Year. And then following the Chinese New Year a month later together for the first time in more than ten years. So it really reminded me of sort of the true story, the happiness and the struggles and the sorrows of being an immigrant because there’s nothing like home.

Even though I absolutely very much consider Boston to be my second home, like a solid home home for me, there’s something that’s always missing, which is, since my dad passed away, my mom plays such an important role in my life. And you guys probably realize this, the older you get, the more important your parents role seemed to be, at least for some of us. So I’ve been thinking about that a lot. I’m also recording this episode, thinking that I won’t be editing too much, so I apologize in advance if there are any hiccups and things that I’m obviously not fixing. I started to really enjoy this format a lot more because I feel like there’s something about the audio format that just is so intimate.

And I want to continue using this medium to express myself in a different way than any other way. Like the way I am in person probably is pretty close to this. By the way I am on YouTube is going to be different, which I do try to edit down the video a little bit. People’s attention span when they’re watching something is quite different. So if you haven’t checked us out, I would really love to have you there because I do share quite different types of content.

Some overlapping themes. Creative entrepreneurship, content creation, freelancing, but also share some of the tools I use. As some of you know that I am the kind of productivity nerd project manager for over a decade, working in consulting and digital marketing. That’s kind of my prior identity before becoming a fulltime entrepreneur in 2016. I couldn’t believe it’s been five years now.

It’s nuts. So if you’re thinking about becoming a full time freelancer entrepreneur, I hope you will continue to listen to the show because there’s so much I want to share in the upcoming year in 2020. So without further ado, I want to just dive into the topics I have set up today, which is, number one, some news with my family, not my own personal health, but with my mom’s health. That really awakened me to reprioritise some of the things I set forward this year. And then I want to share sort of a friend message without revealing her name.

But it’s very, again, very eye opening. And I want to talk about how we transform our show in 2020, some of the plans we have. I feel like I’ve been talking about this for a little bit now, and it’s interesting that if you are an experienced podcaster who’s been doing this for like, us, five plus years, you’re probably thinking and living in the same situation, which is to rethink and reinvent yourself, your show. Or, I don’t know, maybe you continue to love the particular subject you’ve been focusing on and you’re drawing in a lot of audience. So, first off, so let’s talk briefly about what I learned.

So after my mum arrived in the US, we’re just getting her through her regular primary checkup and what ended up happening was they founded a mass in her pelvis. So I’m not using this episode to kind of delve into the nitty gritty or trying to sound like I’m a doctor. But long story short, I’m going through this phase right now of many sleepless nights, rethinking about our relationship and how I want to be involved in her life, what I want to be focusing on doing in 2020, because I know for sure that Q One is going to be changed forever. It’s very daunting. So that triggered me to think about the one project I’ve been putting on hold for about a year, perhaps for good reasons, which is to write a book almost like a field guide for immigrants.

Because somehow I feel like it’s not that we haven’t or didn’t want to write a whole lot about immigrant stories or help each other out. It’s just the fact that it sometimes gets to be really tough to be an immigrant and you go through these moments and waiting for them to pass and it’s a whole lot of struggles that’s challenging to describe. It doesn’t have to be medical related, but once you get past that, perhaps that’s getting your green car. Finally, after waiting for 1015 years, you are so utterly exhausted and you don’t want to put yourself back into that mindset again. You don’t want to talk about it.

In fact, you want to avoid it and look the other way. So I feel like I’ve accumulated I’ve accumulated a lot of ideas and I’ve put them into different sections. And I’m looking at my scrivener right now while talking to you guys to talk about my manuscript and the chapters I have laid out put forward, including school, job, entrepreneurship, family and selfcare. So I know I felt a little awkward leading with the school part because I myself came to this country because of education first as a senior in high school. However, that is not the case, for example, with my friend Jorge who came here first to work.

So definitely the chapter is not really designed in a way for people to consume always in that linear order. But I hope it’s a guide where people can pick up either for themselves or for someone they know that they feel like they can be helpful. They can buy it as a gift to someone, they can read it to someone, they can sit on the a coffee shop somewhere and say, hey, I read this, maybe this could be helpful. I want to highlight a number of people’s stories, but I also want to talk to experts about some of these areas. Very excited.

I’m aiming for 1500 words a day, let’s see how it goes. And hopefully I’ll finish the first draft by the end of March. So that brings me back to a bit about, related to my mom’s diagnosis, which means in the next few weeks and possibly months, I might be I will likely be right there with her. Which actually makes me feel kind of excited that we can be together and I can be there and support her. As a result, my partner Adam and I did have to cancel our planned trip to Hamburg, Germany in the middle of February because we don’t be there for our friends, the African twins, Gaussia, I mean, basically the entire Atherton family for their performance in Hamburg.

And the show is called Paramour and it’s part of Serg du Soleil and we actually watched the show already many times in New York when it was first performed or released or opened. I just I was looking for the word. It was the first Cirque Broadway collaboration and we’re just so excited to be visiting Hamburg for the first time and be able to see the whole family. The kids are more grown up now, I mean, they’re five, seven or so, but we knew them when they were little babies, so we’re excited. But I think definitely mom’s condition needs to take priority.

And that same thing, same condition triggered me to rethink how I want to live my life, how I want to run my business. I immediately, first of all, slow down of that constant race of going after every potential clients, treating everybody the same way, trying to close as many projects as possible. Right now I’m kind of taking a back seat and just kind of watch some of the things flow and go through its course, sort of, so to speak, I guess. Well, today, earlier today, I think it’s interesting too, that it’s inspiring to the position I’m in, and it makes me think about what other types of valuable content can I share on this unique channel on Phase? Feisworld podcast has been around for more than five years now.

Oh, my God, it just blows my mind. So a friend dropped me a message on LinkedIn. It says my contract. Well, she’s an artist, so her contract ends in October. So she’s putting her feelers out there to see what is available.

It’s been an incredible journey for her and her husband, raising a very young baby while working together separately, each working 60 plus hours a week. So she would love to work less and be able to get paid more and be able to spend more quality time with the whole family. And she said, I guess that’s the dream. And I think that is so valuable and to be able to realize that what’s more important. And then two, when we say that we put feelers out there, when we’re testing the water, when we take that leap, it feels so daunting, as if we’re making a mistake already just by thinking and planning about it.

I know it’s 2020. A lot of people are doing this, but still the back of your head. Are you ditching a secure job? Are you giving up something I’ve been working towards for your entire life? My friend is a dancer.

This is something she’s been doing since she was like, ten years old, before she became a professional dancer at the age of must be 18 or 20 years old. She’s my age, in her mid 30s. So there you have it. And I’m just so proud of her. I’m so excited for her.

And my other friend, who’s a little bit younger, around 30, decided to apply, decided to go back to school to see another trajectory over a potential career, try something new. I’m really excited for her as well, and I just submitted a recommendation letter for her. So I feel like it’s interesting that the world starts to collide in a way. I hear I see these stories happening, and I see the same thing happening with my show and hearing myself thinking out loud of how I can be more helpful and resourceful to you guys. So what Phase One will bring forward in 2020?

Again, it’s about creative entrepreneurship. It’s about freelancing, it’s about content creation, it’s about running your business. And I want to share some of the tips and tricks and things that are still in progress, work in progress over the years, and inspiring interviews in the creative field and talking about transitions and transformations and uncertainties among this community. And so really, that’s what I want to do. I’m just so glad that you’re here and allowing me to share something that’s rather personal and allowing me to kind of put my voice out there for you, for me to be heard, really.

So I will keep you guys posted, and I can’t wait to share this at midnight tonight. And Happy New Year. So much love for this community. And I know you’re out there. I know you’re listening.

And it means the world to me to be able to connect with you one on one. And if you want to, if you would like to receive newsletters from me, I only send that out once a week. And I’ve been doing something lately called a video newsletter where I show my face and I talk about updates and my stories and my experiences. I want to share it with you that way. And in the upcoming weeks, I look forward to answering some of the questions from the listeners.

One of which that comes to mind is someone has a great question of fact. You talk about freelancing a lot. How did you work as a freelance project manager? Because that feels impossible. Because as you know, PMS, where project managers are hired by these big corporations and they always need to be sitting there.

They are being relied on by the entire team. How could you possibly freelance and work from home? So, since I did that, I wanted to share my two cent embarrassingly. That episode turned out to be a lot longer than expected, so I’ll be posting that next week. It’s only 28 minutes.

I hope you enjoy it, and please send me your questions through Feisworld [email protected]. I’m also phase world pretty much everywhere on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. So I will see you everywhere. Happy New Year, guys. Yeah, I will see you in 2020, even though it’s already 2020 in the US.

So much love. Please take care. Bye for now.