I’ve always said that Filipinos are pretty friendly people, but to experience some love first hand is quite an experience.

It was a typical normal day and I was getting off the cab 30 minutes late for work. My regular pairs of slacks were a bit wrinkled, so I decided to go with an older set of nut huggers. Those of you who know about nut huggers, know that you have to sag a little to get that extra room for comfort.

note: There’s a downside to this though, sagging with butt tight jeans practically leaves your pockets wide open.

Well, wide open pockets and being in a hurry is just a recipe for either losing your wallet or your cell phone. In this situation, it was my wallet.

I ended up leaving my priceless wallet with my drivers license, atm, credit card, card key for my office and a bunch of business cards from several contacts that I was supposed to hit up months ago.

There wasn’t a lot of money, but having to replace these items would be a huge headache that I definitely do not want to deal with.

Well, after a day of canceling all of my credit cards and feeling sorry for myself for being so irresponsible, I wake up to around 3 texts in the morning from a few of my business card contacts. Apparently, the taxi driver that drove me to the office texted all of my business cards in my wallet and told them that he found my wallet.

To make a long story short, the taxi driver drove all the way to my office, parked and delivered it to me personally. I hooked him up with a fatty tip… but I felt he did a pretty honest deed.

Well, the past 6 months has been sort of a struggle for us. With the decreased US economy, less spending and the decline of the US Dollar, things could have been a bit better. It wasn’t even that we weren’t producing top notch quality work, companies were cutting their marketing budgets and just not spending as much any more (see, thats an excuse).

As we began to see the flaws within our business, the sooner we began to see the need to prepare ourselves for the unexpected (such as the US dollar tanking). In order to stay on top of the game, we knew that we had to change and that we had to diversify our portfolio and invest in starting up a few local Philippine companies.

John Carlton states that the biggest problem that you can have is that you are making money. When you are making money, you no longer have that hunger and drive and you fail to capitalize on market change in events.

Fortunately, we began to notice this at the begining of the first quarter and we have made some changes since.

Believe it or not, I originally didn’t take this career path for the money. I chose this route because I wanted to challenge myself and help prepare myself for whatever God has planned for my future.

However, it seems like lately, money has been my only measure of success. When I set goals for my company, I try to keep things simple. I say… in 3 months, I gotta be making this much. in 6 months, I gotta be making that much. Pretty logical right? If you aren’t hitting your numbers, then something must be wrong, right?

Throughout the past 6 months, I have increased my business knowledge tremendously, grown my company from a size of 2 to 20, met a few key individuals and networked like crazy….all this and i fell way short of my projected financial goals.

Ironically, I had a higher net profit during the first year of my auto smog business than what I am making now. Im not exactly going broke, and I am making enough to pay for all of my expenses, but sometimes its a little frustrating when your numbers fall a bit short.

According to one of my favorite authors Jim Collins, great companys dont get bound by whatever external factors get thrown your way (bad economy, real estate market crash, dollar is sucking). Instead of placing blame on why their numbers are down, they get off of their butts and figure out what they can do to change things around.

Recap of past 6 months

Nov-Jan: Went back home to San Francisco, ate a lot of turkey, hung out with the loved ones, played a lot of golf and went on a cruise. I’m not going to dwell too much into my personal life, but if you are really interested, just ask me.

Jan-Feb: Flew back to the Philippines. This time around was strictly business. No more messing around, partying, or jumping on skee ball machines. We decided to only keep 2 of our previous staff members and start off fresh. We also moved into a new office and condo building.

Feb-Mar: Launched our first local company, grew to a staff size of 8, got into a bit of affiliate marketing, and networked like crazy.

Apr-May: Launched our third local company, grew to a staff size of 20, broke the 100 mark in my first golf tourney, and moved into a way overpriced, but 4 times bigger office on the 28th floor of one of the top buildings in the Philippines.

May-Now: Became an official member of the Makati Rotary Club, Launched a mini call center, had one of our companies featured on a tv show and im now drinking up to 4 cappucino’s a day.

Alot has changed in the past 6 months, and I have grown immensely. Sometimes I wonder tho, when will i ever get out of the rat race?

So to combat the slumping economy, and to do my fair share of saving the mother Earth, ive decided to cut a few costs and find alternative solutions. Running an office is pretty expensive. 6 computers, lighting, A/C.. Last month alone, my electricity bill was around $250. Maybe its because I dont pay the bills back in SF, but I never recall the electricity bill being anything close to $250. So to mix things up and to save a bit on the utilities, I came up with an idea, Fridays At Bo’s.

Bo’s is kind of like the Philippine version of starbucks. In fact, it has a similar look and feel to it inside. The coffee is just whatever, but the main selling point is that most other coffee shops do not have free wifi. The beauty of being involved in a web based business is that you can easily take your work with you, as long as there’s the internet.

What we did was we hogged a litte section of the cafe, brought our own power strip and got right to work. The Bo’s employees didnt mind that we stayed over 8 hrs, just as long as we kept the coffee coming. All in all, I think it ended up being a success because it not only saved me a couple of bucks, its got us out of the house and builts team comradre in the process.

Actually, the first few sightings of Christmas trees here was in late September. Now theyre flooded everywhere. Malls, restaurants, hotels.. even my condo lobby has been decorated with Christmas lights and ornaments. Not, that I have anything against it. I just find it kind of odd because its never like this back in the states. The states usually jumps from Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas, then to New Years. Basically, whatever the stores and malls can throw a sale and take advantage of.

It’s nice see the anticipation and excitement of the people here. From what I hear, Christmas is supposed to be one of the most lively and fun times of the year here. Family’s are all celebrating, people are lighting fireworks on the streets, the malls are jammed pack, kids run around drunk from the Christmas wine… My filipino american friends tell me it has at least 3 times the buzz of the celebrations in the US. I can already feel it brewing.

We ended up staying in the center of MongKok, a pretty popular area. There were market places, restaurants, several retail stores, boutiques, and anything else you would ever need or want.

This place is always crowded with people, and the city never sleeps. We’re lucky that Erik had a few good friends to show us around and take us to all the hot spots. I even had a chance to hit up the golf driving range for a hot sec.

Special shoutout to John for being such a great host this weekend.

After getting a bit settled and taking care of business, we ended up going to Lan Kwai Fong for the first night. This is where most of the clubs, tourists, and crackin areas are. After doing a bit of drinking and bar hopping, we ended up going home at 6am… the earliest of my 3 nights in hk. I dont know how people can get any business done out here. From the three nights that I was out in HK, I ended up coming home at 6am, 10am and 9am. Supposedly its common to stay out that late and people dont even leave their house to go out til 1am.

The second day, we ended up taking the train to ShenZhen, but we got stuck at the border. Apparently, China still had the olympics ban on giving out temporarily visa’s and we couldnt get in.

Things didnt go quite as planned, so we were forced to postpone our trip til a later date. We had a free day so we ended up going to Macau instead.

Macau is supposed to be the Las Vegas of Asia. It’s bigger, makes more money, but lacks the vibe of Vegas. We ended up kicking it at Wynn, MGM, and this Chinese Casino for most of the time. It was okay, but i’ll have to save this story for the mature audiences only. After all, I try to keep my blog PG for the general public.

The last night we ended up going to this one bar/lounge and played the dice game til about 6 in the morning. We then ate breakfast shortly after. If you’re a fob or are from hk, you know what im talking about. The dice game is pretty much the main game that everyone plays. Its a drinking game that keeps you entertained for hours. It can be fun every now and then, but I really dont enjoy staying up that late, night after night. I usually only do that when I am in Vegas or back in college, cramming before each midterm or final. I always end up waking to the sunset and feeling groggy the rest of the day. I didnt like that feeling, it brought back old memories.

Overall, the Hong Kong trip was a success. I had a lot of fun and got a lot accomplished in the process. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go to ShenZhen/Guangzho. That was a pretty big setback, but i guess its just an excuse for a 2nd trip next year. Hong Kong is a great place to live and has improved dramatically since the last time ive visited. I just need to learn a little Cantonese before the next time I go back. Highlight of the trip was the food. I havent had such good cheap Chinese food in a while (Philippines is a bit lacking). Negative part of the trip was that its hard to get around without knowing any Cantonese. Overall, it was worth it, I give it a 4 stars on yelp.

BTW, I managed to get myself a pretty player seat this time. Check out what row im in.

Friday night was a blast! We ended up going to this exclusive party, hosted by SM at the mall of Asia. The party was filled with a buncha models, had free food, an open bar all night, and was host to the Miss Earth 2008 international contestants (third biggest pageant internationally). Thanks for the bloggers that gave us the personal invite. It was great seeing you guys again.

Kickin it with the cousin

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In the VIP

Waddup Karla, Miss Philippines 2008 throwin up a GMC (greenmediaconcepts.com)

How bout them Open Bars

Good End to a Long Night