Hey friends,

 

In this post, I will give a snapshot of where I am today and where I hope to be going tomorrow. This is so that I can hold myself accountable and because writing is fun!

 

Moving forward, I will write a monthly post to keep track of my progress. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to partner up on any of the projects I am working on 🙂

 

 

📊 C3Fs Framework

What a strange name. C3Fs sounds like R2D2’s younger brother.

 

Jokes aside, I got the idea from Patrick Grove’s 5Fs Framework.

 

Patrick is the co-founder and CEO of Catcha Group. In this video, Patrick explains his journaling technique and how it helped him become a millionaire. Though wealth is not my goal in life, I found his 5Fs framework insightful. I didn’t take all 5 F’s but took 3: Finance, Family, Fitness. I removed the remaining 2 F’s which were Figure-head and Friends because they kind of blend in my ‘C’.

 

The ‘C’ I added stands for Contribution as I try to frame everything I do in terms of the contribution I am making, the value I am adding to those around me.

 

 

🚀 Contribution

The goal I hope to achieve in my 20s is to learn and experience as much as possible by adding value to the various organizations that I made or am affiliated with.

 

I would eventually like to leverage the skills that I accumulate to build my own start-up and generate sustainable income through which I can invest in initiatives aligned with my values.

 

My dream is to create a more understanding and tolerant world—one in which people are encouraged to think and feel from the other person’s perspective before asserting their own view.

 

To this end, I am involved in 4 different activities: Rakuten, MakeValue, FireSide, and Korean Peninsula Policy Consensus. Below I give you an overview of where I am with each activity today.

 

👨‍💼 Rakuten

• It has been a little over 2 years since I am working in Rakuten. I first joined the company as a Project Manager for the IoT Department. I was lucky and fell on Tareq’s good side which allowed me to transition to Mickey’s CEO Office end of last year. Tareq is Rakuten Group’s CTO. Around 6 months into my new role, I was promoted to manager.

 

• One of my key roles is to ensure that Mickey, Rakuten’s CEO, is aware of the latest developments across the business, product, hiring, and financials of Rakuten Communication Platform (RCP). RCP is Rakuten’s most ambitious project. The market size for our service will grow to 130bn USD by 2030 and our ambition is to capture 20% of it. You can find more information on this here and here.

 

• Recently we closed a contract to sell RCP to a German client for 2.5bn USD across 10 years. Things are still in the air but most likely I will be going to Germany around November this year to oversee delivery. I will be working directly with the head delivery PMO Ahmad mostly involved in building governance structure and operating procedures.

 

• Before I commit to a big career change, I ask myself the following 2 questions: how much will this experience contribute to my growth? will the skills and the network I build be transferrable?

 

• My answer to both questions is positive. It is not every day that somebody gets to be involved in the front line of a 2.5bn USD project. As part of the initial group being sent to Germany, I will be building up the governance and operations upon which delivery will continue for the next 10 years. The skills I build will be transferrable because all organizations need a strong governance backbone to sustain their business. In summary, this opportunity is unique not only in terms of project size but also in that I get to be involved in its earliest phase where I will be developing valuable skills to set up a governance structure. Therefore, unless something ridiculously better than this opportunity comes my way, I will be going to Germany in November for +6 months.

 

🌐 MakeValue

• I made this website for 2 reasons: (1) to help people accelerate and future-proof their careers by sharing lessons I learned on how to consistently create high-quality output under any circumstance and to build a serendipity vehicle—a network of high potential people that funnel endless opportunities to you, and (2) to build a repository to keep my thoughts in order.

 

•  I have also carved out time to build a 1on1 online coaching program for 1 person every month.

 

• The content I create, therefore, comes in 2 forms: weekly writings that I send out to my subscribers and social media channels, and online 1on1 video.

 

• Writing is scalable but I feel like more people are used to consuming content through video than text. On the other hand, 1on1 zoom sessions are definitely not scalable and time-consuming for me. Therefore, I would like to condense all essential lessons into a pre-recorded course that I can distribute online. I am not sure of the timeline but definitely should make plans. I discussed this idea with a friend and he suggested that I work with taling.com or class101.net who can help me edit the videos and serve an already existing audience. I will have to think this through in the coming months.

 

🔥 FireSide

• I am writing a separate blog post on FireSide’s vision and its development. In summary, FireSide is a playground for exceptional people who aim to positively influence Korean society. I have defined ‘exceptional’ as somebody who has a big vision, the ability, and grit to materialize it and is humble. We are currently 100 members and include Forbes 30 Under 30 leaders, World Economic Forum Global Shapers, successful start-up founders.

 

• I made FireSide so that our talented members can reach further and faster by contributing to each other’s growth, and to eventually become a powerhouse to accelerate technological trends and fight together for a positive cause. I wanted to create a trusted community of friends who live for a bigger cause until our last breath.

 

• I have set 2 KPIs for our community: (1) build an automated onboarding system where high-potential people can smoothly join our community, and (2) build an automated platform where our members can easily connect with one another on an intimate and regular basis through online video.

 

• Currently, our team is composed of 2 back-end engineers and 1 UI/UX designer. I am looking for a front-end designer to help bridge the gap between our designer and back-end engineer. We are focusing on the first KPI “build an automated onboarding system” and hope to launch the beta version later this month. In the meantime, I need to build a FireSide committee that will be responsible for filtering the best candidates.

 

• On the side, I am also spearheading Haemil project. Haemil School is a small middle school of no more than 50 children in Gangown-do prefecture. The school is unique because all its students are Korean but one of their parents is of another nationality. Unfortunately, when it comes to race, Korea is one of the least tolerant countries from all OECD nations—they are not very accepting and easily discriminate. Having been brought up abroad, I knew what it feels like to be looked down on by others, which is why I wanted to help Haemil school and its students in whatever way I could. The school is being run by In Soon-I, the famous half-black Korean singer. The school burns 50k USD per month in operation cost, half of which is paid by In Soon-I in cash. To help her overcome this problem, I have connected her Chief of Staff to MCSA, the best prep organization for aspiring management consultants in Korea. Hopefully, MCSA will take on the pro-bono work to build an investor deck to draw in 3mn USD which is the bare minimum needed to sustainability run Haemil school without In Soon-I’s direct contribution. Separately, I am gathering a group of our FireSide members to go to Haemil school sometime in late October or early November this year. Our mission is to share our stories of overcoming racism and life’s other cruel punches, and how they can do so as well. 8~10 of our FireSide members will share our stories which will then be recorded and shared in Haemil school’s online youtube channel. I am organizing this with 5 of our FireSide members who have kindly volunteered. We meet every Monday evening for an hour to orchestrate this activity.

 

🇰🇷🇰🇵 Korean Peninsula Policy Consensus (KPPC)

• KPPC is a student body I founded during my Sophomore year of university. I made this organization right after being discharged from military service back in 2015 because I thought there should be a student-driven body that helps educate the realities of South and North Korean relationship.

 

• A lot of my foreign friends are surprised to discover that in South Korea we don’t learn about North Korea during our history lessons. This is strange because, like it or not, North Korean affairs deeply affect South Korea’s economy, politics, and society overall. There are many entities in South Korea that aim to ‘educate’ its people on North Korea; however, I discovered that most were biased—for example, some entities aimed for unification at all cost, and others were against it. Knowing how fragmented our country was regarding this issue, I wanted to create an organization that prioritized facts over feelings, and also put Korean youth at the center.

 

• I’ve not been directly involved in KPPC activities since 2017; however, my successors did an amazing job. Under the new leadership, KPPC was registered as an official NGO in Seoul and established an official partnership with the Ministry of Korean Unification. They even made this cool website this year! You can check out our activities in this neat video here and here.

 

• I am trying to support the organization on the side however I can. Thankfully, beginning of this year I was recommended by a close friend to join the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community (GSC) in Seoul. With this new title, I was able to connect KPPC with Global Shapers and led the ‘Doran Doran’ project. We gathered GSC members, North Korean students, and South Korean students to discuss and find practical solutions to problems North Korean defectors face in Korea. We organized an intensive 1-month session in July and presented our findings. I will upload our work here once I get the final version.

 

• Right now KPPC is struggling to secure additional funding because funds for NGOs are mostly frozen under the Corona situation. I asked the current head, Hyewon, to make an investor deck so that I can try pitching KPPC to some of my business acquaintances.

 

 

💰 Finance

 

💸 Rakuten Salary

• This is my main source of income. Thankfully, I’ve consistently received A or S grade during my time in this company so I saw a healthy boost in salary over the past 2 years. It’s not eye-popping but decent. According to some of my senior business owner acquaintances in Japan, my salary is on par with an average 40 year-old.

 

• Regardless, I still think it is pretty low because I know that my performance is equivalent or higher to MBA hires and they get paid way more. Why do I have to be paid less than people who make less of an impact in our organization? I’ve actually confronted my manager about this and he escalated this to his manager. A week later, I had an evaluation meeting with the General Manager and said that it would be difficult to challenge the system to give me a 30~50% raise but he would give me an S-grade for this term’s evaluation and give me more opportunities for growth by involving me in more important projects. Still, I think I should be earning much more.

 

💲 Investment

• I don’t like spending money so I invest almost 80% of my earnings.

 

• I started investing a little over 2 years ago and have a diverse portfolio: 20% in cash, 15% in funds, 20% in stock, 10% in ETF, 25% in Crypto, and 10% in Alternative Investments.

 

• I was lucky and recently exited 20k USD worth of stock that nearly doubled in value. Overall my delta is 30~40% which is nice.

 

• There isn’t anything special I am planning to do with my current investment portfolio.

 

• While I was in Korea, I had the idea to open a small automatic picture studio in Harajuku Tokyo. I estimated that it would cost less than 50k USD to open and operate for 1 year. However, after talking to an architect friend of mine, I realized how silly this idea was. It would be fun and meaningful to own my own offline venue.

 

• One of my friends suggested that I begin investing in real estate. I’ll have to think about that. I’m far away from having the kind of money to buy apartments like my friend…

 

👩‍🏫 101 classes

• I do 101 classes when I have free time. Unfortunately, time is a precious commodity for me so I don’t have much of it to spend teaching others on a 101 basis. However, I am trying to make time to teach 1 to 2 people per month.

 

• I am charging what I think is a fair fee for a 2-month course. I think I should increase the price moving forward because of the amount of time and effort I need to spend per student. Perhaps I will raise the fee 50% by year-end.

 

• Regardless, this will be a very small part of my income. The purpose of conducting these 101 lessons would be to build enough material so that I can make a solid curriculum for online classes that I can later sell on taling.com or class101.net. Let’s not lose focus on this!

 

 

👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Family

• I lived with my parents up until high school but have lived apart from them ever since. This year marks my 10th year living away from them. I started living alone when I got accepted to a university in Korea. I was so useless back then. I didn’t know how to throw away food, go to hospitals for check-ups, etc. I wasn’t a functional human being. I missed my parents every day for the first year.

 

• The dynamics have completely changed now. I love my independence and can’t imagine living with my parents again. When my mother asked me to live with her if I ever decided to get a job in Korea, I straight-out said no. I told her that it would be much better if I got my own place and I visited her house occasionally. I could see how my response disappointed her. But I’m a big boy now. How can I ever go back to living with my parent!

 

• However, being so far apart from my parents and being hyper-focused on my career has created some distance between my family and I. I know I need to put more importance on our relationship. It’s not only the relationship between my parents and I but also keeping a warm relationship with my brother who is in Korea and my grandmother who is ill.

 

• What I can do is call to check in regularly. That can be the first step.

 

 

💪 Fitness

• I was sick in bed for 2 days after each Covid vaccination shot. I realized how scary being sick was. I knew I would recover so it wasn’t the actual ‘getting sick’ part that I was afraid of. What scared me was how I was paralyzed and couldn’t do anything productive if I feel ill.

 

• I’m not getting any younger, which means that if I don’t take care of my body well I will easily fall ill. The best medicine to prevent sickness is regular exercise, sleeping well, and eating healthy. I try to sleep around 7 to 8 hours every day and my diet is healthy enough. But I don’t put a lot of effort into exercising regularly. I know I can make time in my schedule to visit the gym, but that would mean taking out other activities which I don’t want to do.

 

• What I compromised on is to cycle to work every weekday, and do 50 push-ups + 60-second plank every day. I’ve been doing this quite consistently for the past 1 month. I really need to hold myself accountable. Does anybody want to do this with me? lol