I just arrived back in SG after our exciting company kick-off. Here’s this week’s list.
Next Guest on Before We Get There podcast
Next week I’m joined by the founder and owner of Lion City Meadery, Sanjay Jagatheeson. Sanjay started the meadery with a partner after learning mead iss a real drink and not just something from books and movies. Over the past 6 years, he’s grown the business successfully while keeping his full time job. Sanjay is also an avid BJJ practitioner, home chef, father, and golfer. In this discussion, we talked about his busy life and how he keeps it all together, growing his business, and more more. Catch the full episode on Thursday on your favorite podcast platform.
What I learned from a living legend this weekend
Today I got to attend a BJJ seminar by Bernardo Faria. Bernardo is one of the most likable BJJ stars out there. He is a great example of a sports start who was able to build businesses off his expertise and have an empire to show for it. He also is a great example of someone reaching the peak of their sport while looking like a normal guy and not like a roided-up gorilla. Bernardo was a world-champion, but it is how he has built his instructional business and YouTube channel and podcast that is most impressive to me. He’s built the market leader for BJJ instructional, from what I understand he basically built it from the ground up, including things like marketing, website, editing, and everything else that’s gone into it. Overall, it was a very useful seminar, Bernardo was friendly and the techniques were some of his signatures.
What I listened to this weekend
I listened to Tactics and Strategies for a 2025 Reboot – Essentialism and Greg McKeown on the Tim Ferriss show. I’m not usually big on new years resolutions, I see every day as being the beginning of a new year. But this year has been pointing to me to do some reflection and planning for the upcoming year, so I thought this would be a good episode. It was a very helpful episode with lots of practical tips to go alongside more in-depth discussion. The biggest takeaways for me were the importance of speed over direction, and the quarterly offsite reviews. Coming back from our yearly kickoff, the idea of personal QBRs had already crossed my mind this week, and then it appeared here on a podcast. We spend so much time and effort in business to do reviews, it would probably be beneficial for us to put some of that effort into our personal lives.
Thoughts on Spain from this week
This was my second trip to Spain, last time I was in Seville in the south. It’s hard not to like Spain, it has a lot of good things going for it, the people are friendly, the food is delicious, there’s good music and dancing and much more. I’m not sure if it was just because they were the last 2 trips I took, but some things about Japan and Spain actually reminded me of each other, both have a rich culture and history that is celebrated, both have food that is simple but elegant, and both are seafaring cultures. I didn’t get to explore as much as during my other visit, but what I saw of Barcelona was beautiful. I’d really like to go to the countryside and explore more than just in the cities.
That’s all for this week, have a great week ahead!