Greetings from snowy Hakodate, Japan!
We’re here in one of Japan’s food capitals to stuff our faces with cheap and fresh uni.
We spent the past month in Tokyo, where our lives cycled between working (often til 3am because of North American hours), sleeping (construction started at 8:20am sharp everyday so we’d squeeze in naps where we could), and eating (Owen gained 5 lbs), with some friendship sprinkled throughout.
At this point, we’ve accepted that we’re bad at sticking with a content schedule and sometimes we’ll fall months behind in our updates. In the upcoming weeks, we’ll try our best to catch up once again!
Since our last newsletter, we spent the remainder of October in New York and November in North Carolina.
In NYC and NC, we mostly worked, hung out with friends and family, and spent quality time with Kola. The most exciting part of this period was Ivy’s travels for community meetups, so Ivy’s writing the remainder of this newsletter about those.
As some of you might know, I’m a personal development course junkie. Ever since I invested $1000 in taking Vanessa Lau’s Bossgram Academy in 2019 and made $15,000 months in just 3 months of career coaching, I was sold on online learning. In 2021, I took a $7000 online writing program and through it connected with the person that later bought BETA Camp. Infinite returns there.
Owen and I have bought courses and hired coaches for weight loss and fitness, growing on social media, decision-making, having more meaningful conversations, spicing up our marriage, and more.
It just so happened that in Fall 2022, three of the programs I’m part of all had in-person events.
Retreat 1: Dubai for Mindvalley
I signed up for a life coaching program for CEOs through Mindvalley because I draw a lot of inspiration for Prequel from Mindvalley’s operations and business models. I look up to the CEO Vishen Lakhiani in his confidence when he speaks, his health, and his ability to build a 100M+ global company out of Kuala Lumpur.
CLO is one of their premium programs that gives leaders a life coach for 1 year and a specialty coach every quarter focused on health, business, spirituality, or relationships.
In November, everyone in the program was invited for a 3-day meetup in Dubai. There were sessions on meditation, masterminding groups, biohacking, and business guest speakers.
It was the most diverse group of people I have ever been around - all successful in their own ways and extremely “woo” in their personal development. For example, in my mastermind group, one woman wanted to launch a retreat and another woman told her that she needed to focus on manifesting it and unblocking the energy holding her back. Meanwhile, I gave her a business plan…
Diversity also came from the age range. I was one of the youngest with the average age of members at ~45 with some in their 60s. The 60-year-olds around my parent’s age showed no signs of stopping in their desire to launch new businesses, to party, to find love, and to learn more about the meaning of life. It was refreshing.
On the downside, ~80% of the group of ~100 were divorced, 10% were never married, and only 10% were still married. That was shocking. When I told them I was married, they asked for how long — “Only a year? Too early to tell!” 😳
When we explored it more in conversation, the divorcees claimed that this group is very focused on self-improvement, and sometimes partners just don’t keep up (one of Owen’s biggest fears) or aren’t supportive of the growth they want to undertake (not a problem with Owen).
Retreat 2: Sedona Mago Retreat with Cansbridge Fellowship
The older I get, the more I appreciate the Cansbridge Fellowship for continuously funnelling cohorts of ambitious, super-hungry, “I can change the world” 20-year-olds into my life. I also deeply appreciate the older fellows I have grown up with who continue to push the boundaries of what I think is possible in a career.
Cansbridge has some of the people I connect and relate most with in the world because everyone is so driven, ambitious, and unstoppable.
This trip was a bonding experience for the alumni who donate the most back to the fellowship. It was a “Finding your true self” retreat at Sedona Mago Retreat.
We aren’t supposed to talk about the curriculum of the weekend and what we did to “find ourselves”
But there was a lot of heart to hearts on our upbringings, deep fears of not being a good leader/person/friend/son/daughter, and overcoming the fixations and beliefs we have about society and the world.
Everyone was such a kind and pure soul, doing their best in the world.
Retreat 3: Los Angeles for Supercharged Mastermind
The final meetup was a 3-day, 14 hours/day boot camp for Creator CEOs who want to use Youtube to grow their businesses.
As I mentioned earlier, Vanessa Lau’s course was the first one I ever bought. It was so good that I still refer to its lessons today.
So when Vanessa came out with her second product, a $25,000 mastermind for creator CEOs, I was in. I’m not even a “creator” but I begged my way in.
~30 creator CEOs met up in LA the first weekend of December and we immediately clicked. There were creators that already had over 1M subs, those that started 8 months ago but were $1M revenue in, and ones that I even bought courses from before.
This was the most tactical and powerful event I have ever been to. Because everyone was running online education businesses and driving traffic via organic content machines, we were all constantly thinking about the same problems. We deep-dove into operational processes to produce videos each week, team setup, customer journeys, short and long-form video templates, and much more.
The best part of this group, and all 3 of these communities I’m part of, is that everyone shares their revenue numbers, their insecurities, and their experiences without any hesitation or restrictions. When I hear someone doing better than me, it shows me what’s possible for me. I’m also not afraid to share big numbers because I know that it shows others what’s possible for them.
At the end of the weekend, some members were moved to tears at finding their tribe.
One woman said: “I was always afraid that I was too intense for other people, but everyone here is just as fucking intense as me.”
Those words spoke to my soul.
I often feel that when I talk about my dreams, I am too much for others. Like I’m judged for thinking it or for saying it or for working towards it. This has made me more private over the years.
The older we get, the harder it is to find people like us. We used to make friends by proximity, consistency, and convenience. I was lucky to go to great schools and move to Silicon Valley where most peers were after the same things.
But as we grow up more and go further down the millions of different paths we can choose from, what we think about each day and what we want in life changes. We grow apart.
This is why I am taking another course, Relating Between the Lines, to help me have more connecting conversations and deepen existing relationships with old friends, my parents, and others that might not be on the exact same path as me.
So far, it’s been working. In RBTL, we learn a lot about heartbreak over harmony. Turns out there are a lot of old, brushed-over happenstances of the past that need unearthing in every relationship. Working through these has been deeply connecting. RBTL also teaches how to ask for what you need, whether that’s more questions to help think through a situation, how that made the listener feel, or affirmations. I learned that I can control whether I receive what I need to feel connected.
If you’re interested in self-development courses or share similar experiences of losing connection or finding connection, I’d be happy to chat.
We’re in Japan for another 2 weeks before heading to San Francisco. We’d love to connect deeply with all our old friends there again!
Love,
Ivy