Visionary. Value focused.

New normal – are we fked? – Part 3

Last 2 blogs are about my observations, and this one will be about my assumptions and actions to deal with this “new normal”

Tl; dr;

Assumptions

• The pandemic is here to stay, maybe downgrade to a seasonal flu.
• People will be working remotely more.
• There will be financial/economic consequences after we get out of the pandemic status.

Actions

• (Try to) ignore the news that is not related to my goal(s).
• Keep a consistent daily schedule.
• Research and prepare for future real estate investments.
• Improve Digital Envision and VA For Everyone businesses.

Assumption – COVID-19 is here to stay

Since September 2020, when we just got out of the longest lockdown in Melbourne, I started to expect that the pandemic will not be gone any time soon. We have made great progress on vaccinations, but as long as there are still a significant population who are not immune, we still face the chance of mutation and therefore, outbreaks. Not to mention people are irrational and there is always a thirst for physical connections. Which is why I was not surprised when there were other lockdowns and outbreaks afterwards, as they are all expected in my mind.

With that being said, we are living in the best time in history. All previous pandemic experienced a lot more cases and a lot more death. Black Death plague in the 1300s, it killed over 30% of Europe’s populations. Spanish Flu in the 1900s, which infected 500 millions people and 100 millions people died. We should be grateful that we are in a much better place now.

Assumption – Working remote will be more common

With social distancing rules applied, offices cannot put as many people like they could before. There is a chance that some of the workforce will be working remotely as a norm. This will change a lot in the professional services industries. I am still unsure if blue-collar industries will be affected or not.

I have been working from home since March 2020 and my personal experience is that sometimes I get distracted of certain issues in the house, therefore reducing my performance. Moreover, the line between work and life fades when I work from home. Long term it may lead to work-life unbalance, which is not what anyone wants.

Therefore my thought is that we will come back to the office part-time instead of full-time. How many days? I don’t know. People are still trying to figure out the balance.

Assumption – There will be an economy consequences

Since the government has to publish a lot of fiscal as well as monetary policies to support businesses as well as citizens during this time. There will be a time when we need to pay back what we spend today. Will it come any time soon? I don’t know. For now everyone is happy because their asset values are climbing up day by day, week by week. Who cares about the downturn, right?

I am no economist, and surely everyone has their own judgement about the future. I only want to ensure that my future is somewhat predictable in financial term.

Action – focus on what matters

We have too much distractions today. Our attention has become a currency that every business out there try to buy. This is why advertising businesses are so successful. They broker those deals.

We all know that to be good at something, we need to spend a lot of attention to it. Therefore, I decided to block out all news and information that are not relevant to my goals and my interests. This started when we started going into lockdown last year (March 2020).

I realized that if there was something really, really bad, I would know it from my friend and business circle. So I don’t need to read the news to know about it first hand. People have the need to share disastrous news anyway. We had a tiny earthquake a few days ago for like 20 seconds and the whole social media is already flooded with it for a few days. As a result, I unfollowed all news site, drop my email subscriptions to minimum, and only check social media during my breaks throughout the day.

This frees up time for me to do things that I deem more important to me. I started to spend more time cooking, do some exercising (not much but I keep it consistent), improving important relationships and working on my business. I also started to research the spirituality topic and find it very useful to keep me stay in my track. Through my spiritual journey, I feel at peace with Death, when the time comes, I will welcome it and walk along side with Death like an old friend. But I know that I can still contribute to Life, so I have a strong faith that until I cease to prove my usefulness, I’m not going anywhere. This helps me stay calm during life and death situations.

Action – research

During this time, I read a lot of books related to real estate investments and do researches on them. All to prepare for the case when there is an economy down turn. My patience is somewhat higher than average, so I believe that I will be able to wait for a good deal to strike.

Researching is not an easy thing to do. I need to keep an open mind, as well as managing my risk level to figure out which assets can be comfortable for me to hold long term. To me, anything that is less than 5 years is considered short term, 5-15 years are medium term, and longer than 15 years are long term holding. Obviously I would like most of my assets in the 15+ years. Therefore a thorough research is required before I jump into a new investment deal.

Action – work on my business

Lately I decided to quit a high paying job to fully work on my business, which is a big decision because now I only get paid for half of what I used to get. However I get to work for myself, and it is really a different world to me. I worked 2 jobs for the last 2 years and it was time to eliminate one thing in life and fully focus on the other one.

The businesses are flourishing, in both Digital Envision and VA For Everyone. I believe as a business we can hit 20 staff by the end of the year, probably more. We are still small but our growth has been great in the last Financial year. And there is a different world when it comes to business finance. I am looking forward to taking advantage of it. This financial way will help me purchase more and more real estate assets in the future. And who knows, I may dabble in other investment assets as well.

Summary

I believe that everyone must have a plan for the future. Sadly most of us walking around with no idea about tomorrow. Is it the lack of education? Is it just human nature? I don’t know. But the fact is that we are irrational creatures, and logical thinking is basically unnatural to us. It takes a lot of courage to actually follow the plan we set out for a better future.

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” ― Albert Einstein

By Tuan Nguyen