Last week proved to quite busy.  Xmas is in full swing and everyone is just humming.   I have been focusing on many of the outstanding issues with BRJH – and continue to work through the optimal in-china structure.  Much of the structure seems to tie back to accounting – and so as we dive deeper into the Chinese Accounting systems – and become more familiar with the Chinese corporate laws (which are changing it seems every week) – we are being able to become smarter and smarter.

Looking at hiring a corporate oversight accounting firm out of Shanghai to act as our advisor – flew in one of their senior accountants to help us understand what the option space.   Will see how this develops.

PearlsOnly Germany is starting to get small traction and we are continuing to refine the translation.PearlsOnly.jp (Japan) is around the corner – looks pretty cook with Japanese on the site.

Overall  I have been doing quite a bit of research into stress, impact of stress and prolonged exposure to stress.  Quite interesting, but one thing I didn’t know is that stress actually depletes various minerals, amino acids, etc. – whereby future tolerance to stress is ‘worn out’.   So, in this way – I can see that this year has been stressful for me and in many ways my body and mind are showing the effects of prolonged stress exposure.   Last few months, I have felt quite run down, low energy and generally quite tired – text book. 

But in a few weeks I’m off to Thailand for a quite retreat – so looking forward to having Xmas behind us, and having few weeks to recharge and to start of 2011 with a fresh outlook, solid footing in PearlsOnly and a strong plan for RedStores.

Also in order to simplify my life, I have finally decided to resign from the EO Board – something I have been considering for some time now. 

One of the reasons was that much of the work I ended up doing was clerical in nature with little satisfaction.   Beyond that, being on the board, started to feel like being part of a corporation.   In that way, being on a board, I was more like an employee – and I have to say that I don’t make a good employee.   There was a few things that also have gone against my grain that I would much rather not be part off.  One of the issues I have with EO at its core is a memes and it behaves as such – trying to grow,expand, etc.    The cultish behavior of EO then translates into high-pressure sales pitches to get new members on board, strange global events that serve few,  and other things that I just have a hard time buying into.   I have always been counter meme and counter ‘big brother’ thing.

So, I have struggled with this for some time – but today I finally decided that I need to get things out of my life and schedule that I don’t enjoy and that I don’t find rewarding nor productive.   So, getting of the EO Board is my first step in getting out of a situation that frustrated and annoyed me for some time.

Having said that, I enjoy the membership in EO and am planning to remain a member, although in some ways I am also considering that also – as it would seem the value for me lately has not been there.   Interesting, because only couple years ago, Mina had predicted  that a short bit, I would be outgrowing EO and needing more higher level stimulation.   She was right.  

So, in that way, I’m planning to expand my network outside of EO – and expand it into a more broad direction.

Another interesting thought I had is that I really miss my days of coding – the days where I could write code.  I forgot how satisfying, creative and rewarding programming was.   In a way, that was my hobby – and with the rise into the CEO realm I had given up something that I liked.   So, as I move forward, I will look into getting back into my ‘core’ things – and that is coding.  We like what we like – no matter what it is – and writing cool code, and having coding weekends is something I miss.

Beyond this, I have started looking at separate office for staging Restores as its own startup.  The more I have though about it, the more certain I am that moving RedStores into an incubation area – and giving it its own life is the right thing to do.   Some of this of course will depend on cash input required and onboarding capital – but what is important for me is that I have a vision of how this would be executed, how it would be staged and what EXACTLY we would do.   I call it, Making it REAL – and that will be the core of my push with RedStores.