How are you Jun-te on
October 2023
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62 days till the new year 👀
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On September 30th, 2023, I made a conscience decision to game less.
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Gaming unlike alcohol is a much more difficult balance for me. This is because I have a belief that gaming is actually good for me.
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Gaming gave me the ability to focus again after my manic episode and also was crucial to keeping social interactions up during/after COVID-19.
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If we go back to the alcohol analogy, where I've said,
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"What would happen if I don't play video games for 10 years?"
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"What would happen if I do play video games for 10 years?"
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This one is more challenging than alcohol as both lives seem appealing to me.
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I currently game with my fiancee, my brothers, and very close friends. Especially due to our workload and different locations sometimes the only time we get to spend time together is with these gaming sessions.
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When at uni and A-levels, the simple formula for me was: Provided I finished all my work, then I could game.
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This worked very well for exams and tight deadlines. I literally made it an event where I packed my computer away and taped the boxes as if it was moving day to make it hard for me to open the box. This allowed me to focus on my exams.
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Cheekily, I then chose a field that required a computer for my degree which made it a little bit more difficult to balance using this strategy. However, due to the timings of exams and deadlines, I was able to use this strategy again. Funnily enough, looking back the years I always did poorly in my exams were also years I didn't do this ritual of 'packing my computer away'.
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You can imagine, when all my exams were finished I gamed my heart full amount.
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Once I started in the workplace, the balance of doing work at 9 to 5 but only gaming after work was also a good balance. This worked as all my responsibilities could be done in the office and game time could be done at home.
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Now that I'm working from home and starting my own business, the gaming and work boundary has blurred as both agendas are done on the same computer and location!
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Contrary to popular belief, doing something 0% or 100% is actually easier than doing 98%.
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This is 98% problem as I believe gaming will always be a part of my life. Heck, I've even gamified my budgeting, time management, and business. I love games! I don't want to stop playing games in my life.
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I spoke about this struggle with some of my gaming friends, who have also had this problem. They have, however, gone for a 'quit 100%' strategy or 'binge game' at a certain period of time. Very similar to binge eating disorder.
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Then I realised that this gaming problem is very similar to diet.
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Food is going to happen. We need to eat food to survive.
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Gaming is going to happen. I need gaming to keep my sanity. ( for the sake of argument ).
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So how do I manage my diet at the moment?
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Well for the keen-eyed individuals. You guys have noticed that I book into my calendar 'eat steak'. Where my calendar tells me when to eat steak.
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So I can manage, 'online gaming' if I put it in the calendar.
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So why isn't it on the calendar in the first place?
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I mean if I want to play a poker game with the boys or a board game, I make an active effort to book it into my calendar. Why am I not doing that for league?
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Simple, my brother/gaming friends calls me to play league.
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The calling adds the urgency and the need to want to play.
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Thus I cancel things on my calendar that are important but not urgent and replace them with the most urgent and not important tasks. Gaming.
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How do I reduce this so I do more important things than urgent things?
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Simple. Ask all my gaming friends to not call me for games anymore. Instead actively and consciencely ask me to game via a Google calender invite so that I can do all my important tasks first.
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This has resulted in no one calling me and no one booking time with me 😂. However, gaming is going to happen! Thus, when I get an itch, I will make time far in advance to game with all the people I know who want to game via a Google calendar invite. ( I did this for poker and board games as well. Why not for online games too? )
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This has now allowed me to work on the things that are important to me more effectively and balance the need/want to game as well.
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My gaming diet, if you will.
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The second problem gaming solved for me was the social aspect.
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However, due to my budgeting consultations, I keep up to date with my friends/clients more than gaming ever could.
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Thus, the need for gaming because of social interactions has decreased dramatically.
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The solution is so simple but difficult to see when you are in it. Hope this helps anyone else who also wants to game but do important things in their lives.
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As a lover of games, there is one game that I don't get to share enough with the Western audience.
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The game technically is called 'Go Stop'. However, I translate it to 'Korean Poker'.
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Essentially it is a glorified game of snap that involves gambling as well. The more you 'snap' cards in the same family the more points you gather and the more money you can win.
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After a certain number of points, you then have the option to say 'Go' or 'Stop'. If you say 'go' it is risky but you have a chance to theoretically double your money. If you say 'stop'. You play it safe and stop for the round and the other players owe you money.
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Here is a beautiful deck of 'go stop' that I have found on the internet
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What I love about this deck in particular is that you can see 'which family' they are from from the top left of each card.
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Thus, westerners don't have to get confused as much!
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The 'family' actually each represents a month on the calendar and the flower associated with that month.
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Some call this game the Battle of the Flowers.
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You can be sure to find me in South Korea with a pack of decks in my bag because I don't get to play this game often enough. It is actually the game my grandma taught me how to play when I was 9 😂.
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This game has very strong ties with me as each province in Korea and each family has different rules. Similar to how Monopoly has house rules. Depending on who you play with there are different rules at night and day as well! 😂
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You can imagine the chaos that ensues when each family has different rules and I'm literally traveling to different areas of South Korea playing this game. I literally eat and play my way through South Korea every time I go.
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The fun part of this is that I learn more about the game every time I play it.
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There is one rule I like in particular which is from the family of 'May'.
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Can you see the one on the far left? Do you see how it has yellow borders? Now it depends on where you are. If you are playing this with Seoul rules. This is classed as an animal group. However, if you play in Busan it can be classed as an animal group or double junk points.
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Why am I telling you all this?
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The person who taught this rule was my uncle who lived in Busan.
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I have a very strong memory of him getting passionately annoyed because I didn't know this rule which resulted in me winning and him losing.
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A memory that will last a lifetime for the laughter and joy that it will bring me.
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A memory that is suddenly very important and sad to me.
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I'm gonna miss you, uncle. Cancer is a bitch. You were far too young at the age of 66.
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Thank you for playing and sorry you had to stop. I know you wanted to keep playing.
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Around mid-September, I applied for my old job.
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This came about as I promised Eden that I would look for something in September.
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Funnily enough, there was a DevOps Engineer role at Garrison Technologies. The position was open to the market and I happily applied as I have a firm grasp of balancing my time, money, and energy within my day-to-day life.
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Unfortunately, I was not able to make the cut. 😢
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My old line manager gave me a call sending his apologies but honestly compared to the other news above. This didn't really compare.😅
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Old manager: "I'm sorry Jun-te..."
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Jun-te: "Honestly, I'm so excited for you and DevOps"
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Old manager: "What do you mean?"
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Jun-te: "My return was potentially an exciting hire for DevOps. So the new hire must be even more exciting."
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Old manager: "Actually, I hope I can learn a lot from her too."
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Jun-te: "Amazing, that's all we can ask for."
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As a business owner now, bringing on a new hire comes with a lot of trade-offs. Even my company not being able to pay capital, which doesn't do great for hygiene factors 😅, has trade-offs.
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There is always an inherent risk in bringing someone new, in my case, a lot of my energy and time ( and later money ) will go into a potential hire, and the least we can be is excited. If we aren't excited about a new hire, why would we risk it at all?
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This 'excitable-ability' measure was from a podcast called (Beginning Balance | Podcast on Spotify). I can't quite remember which episode but honestly I recommend this podcast to anyone who wants to start a business and also knows how to budget using YNAB.
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It was literally my guiding light, while I started the first months of my business.
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I was obviously disappointed by the fact that I didn't get accepted to my old workplace but I quoted what I said in my interview and to my old manager.
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"Garrison saying no might be the best thing that happens to me"
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I have once again entered uncertainty. Uncertainty about my future, uncertainty about what I'm going to do, and uncertainty about what I should be doing.
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Sounds like I'm future-proofing. *checks notes from last month's newsletter*
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Ah, am I financially fine for the next 3 months? - Yes.
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Am I reaching all my goals for the next 3 months? - Yes.
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Live for 3 months and reassess.
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Uncertainty and the fear of the unknown come to everyone. Especially after a rejection. I'm grateful that my systems, my notes, my letters, and my relationships all keep my confidence up.
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I was literally sick for two days and the amount of messages I got from people asking about my weight, showing me their progress on their website, and telling me what they thought about a certain chapter of a book. Was absolutely awesome.
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"Today it's a lonely journey but tomorrow it won't be."
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Hello to you all for making this journey less lonely, way more accountable, and more fun <3>
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Heck some of you, I didn't even know a year ago and we talk once a week now. 🤣
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I'll keep going, as long as I'm having fun, being kind, and staying healthy. I think I'm doing good.
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I had a blocker for MealCraft this month where fundamentally the thing I was assuming, made an ass out of u and me.
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I made an assumption and unfortunately, that assumption was wrong.
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For context, this 'API' was needed to make the MealCraft shopping list work. It allowed you to make an order from a shopping list to any of your local stores such as Sainsbury, Ocado, or Tescos.
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For some reason, I had a paradigm that made me think this was a crucial feature for MealCraft needed to ensure customers would be happy with my product and even pay.
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Obviously, it'll be game-changing to have this feature but I have to adapt for now as the API owners are no longer sharing their API.
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I then looked at what my metrics of success were today.
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Success could be wealth, fame, or power (Any One Piece watchers? 👀) but for me, it is to serve my purpose daily.
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Purpose: "Help people balance their emotional and logical needs."
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Am I helping more people with my purpose than yesterday? - Yes.
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Can MealCraft without this crucial feature still help people balance their emotional and logical needs with food? - Yes.
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Sorry to be a broken record but keep doing what I am doing and reassess in 3 months. 🤣
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Whether it's my business plan, my exercise program, my time management, or my budget. The community in my consultation calls has asked how I'm so disciplined.
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Clearly, not all my consultation clients read my newsletter about how I think discipline is BS but that's life. People have different preferences on how they consume content.
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Client: "How did you start exercising?"
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Jun-te: "I just started skipping for 5 minutes as that is all I could do in January."
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Client: "No, I'm asking how you started 5 minutes in the first place?"
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I pondered these questions for a moment and came to the realization that I was improving certain metrics.
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My morning routine, which I was religiously doing since October last year, at the time, had
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- Do bed
- Open blinds
- weigh yourself and save it on Renpho
- Shower
- blood pressure measure and save it on Google Fit
- measure yourself with a tape measure and save it on the body measurement app
I then used 'software' to store this information in some system (app). Because of someone's software, I could also see certain trends.
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I had no judgment of the numbers. I was simply measuring to increase awareness.
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Thus, by the time I went to Korea to see my family for Christmas, I had gathered 3 months of data and the trend with the holiday weight was increasing.
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Furthermore, my Asian family kindly reminded me that I looked to have gained some weight (a very popular/common thing to do in Asia).
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This increased awareness via social pressure and my body measurements showed I had to take action. Action that I had no motivation to do.
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I then added it to my morning routine to do once I'm back in the UK. ( It just happened to be January 1st as well ).
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Notice, that I did not action except add it to my to-do list because my to-do list was incorporated as my habit in my morning routine in the UK. I could incorporate it.
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I heard this concept is called habit stacking from Atomic Habits but honestly, who doesn't have a to-do list? It's either in your head or on pen and paper. I just happened to use Google Keep which allowed increased scalability and required less energy since I didn't have to use my limited brain power on memory.
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After adding in a jump rope for 30 seconds, I humbled myself by saying. It's better than nothing and also felt it was doable. I then increased the 'sets' by adding multiple 'to-do list' items.
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The sets were getting a little annoying and counting 30 seconds was getting really annoying. So I went on my phone and found an app called 'Hiitmi' which allowed me to do 30 seconds rest and 30 seconds skip. This in turn had a section for, work, rest, and intervals.
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Thus, to make it harder. I increase work by 1 second, decrease rest by 1 second, and/or increase my intervals.
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I decided on whichever felt easiest at the time. Some days I didn't even change it. Sometimes I didn't change it for weeks. 👀👀
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This app then had a 'score'. I since got a new phone from there but I'll show you a picture from this month to emphasize the point.
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Do you see the total time in October and September? I then used that to beat my total time monthly. As I had a problem of not exercising enough.
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Nowadays I try to finish my workout faster 🤣🤣 as it just means I'm skipping rests.
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If this seems easy to you and maybe even motivating you. I'll encourage you to use that energy to not do push-ups right now but to figure out how to remind yourself to do a workout even when you don't want to think of it.
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It could be added to your morning routine. It could be added to your calendar. It could be added to your journal. It doesn't matter where. Just somewhere where you reference. Heck, it can even be a post-it note stuck to your computer to work out at a certain time or an email you schedule to send to yourself to remind yourself to exercise.
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Here's Mike Tyson's squats workout in which he uses a deck of cards to count as he didn't like counting:
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The way I like to think of it is, that I 'programmed' myself to do something. Then an 'input' comes in from my systems. (Calender, exercise program) and then I execute. The less I can think about moving the more I do it. The more I think about moving the more I lose motivation to do it.
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The more you think about exercising, the less you want to do it. The more I program myself to move, the more I end up moving.
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My budgeting consultations fundamentally help you increase awareness and then I help you write a plan and then make it easier to execute.
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Apply this to time management, apply this to exercise, apply this to diet.
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What do I love about money?
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The banks make sure you can't lie.
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Time, exercise, and diet we lie to ourselves a lot. The bank doesn't lie which is why I love doing money consultations.
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The classic example of diet consultations is the myth that liquid calories don't count. As in alcohol and fizzy drinks don't count. The lie we tell ourselves. 🤣🤣🤣
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Just a small shoutout to my clients. Thank you all for my testimonials. It really means the world to me if you find my consultations valuable. I feel richer than money can ever give. These testimonials are literally my currency at the moment.
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"Increased awareness is all you need to be more proactive" - Jun-te Kim on one of his client calls.
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Truth be told. I personally don't think I do much. I just help increase awareness among my clients and facilitate a conversation with them about what they want to do. Then they do it. It's beautiful to see guys. 🥰
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As always thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter.
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This month has been a rollercoaster of emotions from the death of my family to a newfound focus on my business and community.
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My physical health is phenomenal. I have never been healthier than I am now. I am on track to hit my plan of 10 sets of 10 pull-ups with 20kg of additional weight by December 31st.
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My mental health has been a constant in my life and the added exercise + diet has only improved my health. Sleep, exercise, and diet ( HealthTrinity ) are all being measured and improved. Sprinkle in the meds as need be and I'm even more than superb.
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My relationships: My family + friends, The YNAB community, my Newsletter community, my dog-sitting community, and my entrepreneurship community are all growing. Thank you for always sharing your losses and wins. I am always grateful and feel heartfelt when people invite me to poker, hikes, and coffee. Thank you all for the love and the endless amount of 'good luck' you guys send my way wishing me all the best in my business.
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Am I helping people balance their emotional and logical needs? Yes.
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Am I reaching the numbers I want? No.
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Is the trend going in the direction you want? Yes.
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Health > Relationships > Mission.
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