Edmond Chan

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Inspired by Gary Vee’s Crush It and Crushing It

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You guys have got to check out these books.

Following his formula for crushing it and building my personal brand, this blog is going to be about road-testing self-improvement and life hacks. Stuff like minimalism, getting up early, getting a six pack, learning new things, marketing and making more money.

At the moment, I’m trying to do 30 days of daily exercise. It’s currently day 4 and it’s 4 x 25 push-ups.

Join me in this challenge and let me know how you’re going!

This is what my perfect restaurant experience would look like

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Following from my last post and continuing my new series on Making Things Better, here is my perfect restaurant experience:

  • I’d come across it through a recommendation, from a trusted foodie friend or from a newspaper column by a food person that I liked such as Nicolas Lander in the FT.
  • I’d look up the restaurant + reviews and see what Tripadvisor says. If it’s above 4.5 stars out of 5, then I’m going to look closer.
  • Next, I’d go on the restaurant’s website. It should be clearly laid out and the menu would be easy to find.
  • The menu would be fairly short (one page) and clear and to the point. No words like ‘nestled on a bed of crushed new potatoes and crowned with a foamy jus’.
  • The wine list would be short as well (one page), with well selected red and whites and fortified wines. Good red and whites should be available by the glass and by carafe as well as by the bottle.
  • Next I look at its booking policy. I don’t mind no reservation as long as the queue on arrival is no more than 10 mins. If able to book, then I would like to use a hosted and embedded platform like Opentable so that I don’t have to call the restaurant.
  • If I have to call, then I would like the conversation to go:
    • Good morning, this is <restaurant>, this is <name> speaking. How can I help you?
    • I would like to make a booking please.
    • Yes of course. When would you like to book for?
    • Next Thursday at 7.30pm if possible?
    • How many in your party please?
    • 2 in total.
    • I’ve just checked and we are unfortunately fully booked at that time but would 8pm work for you instead?
    • Yes that would be good thank you.
    • Excellent. If I could please take your name, telephone number and email address, I will then send you a text and email confirmation of your booking for next Thursday. Is there anything else that I can help with you today?
    • No thank you.
    • Perfect, thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you next Thursday Mr Chan.
  • I receive a clear email notification within 10 seconds of ending the call as well as a text.
  • On the evening itself, I get there with my wife and the front door person greets me with a warm smile and asks if I have a reservation. I say I do and they say ‘Of course. Could I take your coat or bag please? Please follow my colleague to your table.’
  • The tables aren’t too close to each other.
  • There are white table cloths and nice cutlery with white linen napkins.
  • There is a nice hubbub from the other diners
  • There’s an excited atmosphere of what’s to come
  • The wait staff pulls out the chair for my wife and then for me.
  • They present my wife with the wine list and we have a menu each.
  • They ask if we’re hungry. If so, they recommend starters and their favourite main courses but of course they follow our lead on what we want
  • Then they suggest considered wines to accompany each dish or they follow our lead with our choice of wine. The wines are good value and not too much above what I would expect those wines to cost.
  • 5 minutes later, they return with a free drink, something like an interesting apertif
  • Our starters arrive with some complimentary fresh bread and proper butter at room temperature, as well as with our wines. They are equally delicious, with neither of us feeling like they missed out.
  • Our plates are cleared within 2 minutes of us finishing and our tables are wiped down discreetly of any mess and crumbs
  • Our main dishes arrive with their own wines.They are equally delicious, with neither of us feeling like they missed out.
  • And again our plates are cleared within 2 minutes of us finishing and our tables are wiped down discreetly of any mess and crumbs
  • The toilets are spacious and spotless and smells fresh. There are nice plants and flowers with good music playing but not too loudly. There are ample urinals which have detergent blocks inside them. There are huge mirrors and nice soaps with the choice of real hand towels or air dry.
  • We are offered the dessert menu and when we decline, we are offered complimentary teas and coffees.
  • When we leave, we are helped into our coats and the door is opened for us and they shake our hands goodbye and they say ‘Thank you very much for coming. We hope to see you very soon.’
  • The next day, they send a nice email to say thanks again for our visit and that on our next visit, we would have a complimentary glass of wine.

This is what my perfect bank would look like

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perfect bank
There’s a lot of buzz around challenger banks at the moment. You’ve got Monzo, Starling, Atom and Revolut. As part of a new series on my blog called Making Things Better or If Carlsberg Did (I haven’t decided yet), here is what my perfect bank would look like:
  • It would be free to have an account
  • The savings rate would be better than any competitor
  • The overdrawn rate would be lower than any other competitor
  • It would be online
  • It would have a physical branch in every town
  • It had a free customer phone line where my call would be answered in 10 seconds or less by a person who knew how to solve my problem
  • It would be free to withdraw money from ATMs
  • It would be free to withdraw money from overseas ATMs and when paying for stuff overseas
  • It would be demonstrably more financially secure than any competitor
    • Ideally no lending, but if it did lend, then it would never endanger the bank’s health and lend at friendly rates to small businesses and start ups
  • It would have name recognition so that it wasn’t viewed as a Mickey Mouse bank
  • It would invest in good causes
  • The app would:
    • Give me text notifications as to what I’m spending and where, and the timing of the notification would be customisable (daily, weekly, monthly etc)
    • List all my subscriptions/services that I pay for on my card without knowing it
    • Tell me when pay day is
    • Tell me when I’m spending more than the limit I wanted and told the app
  • I’d be able to hold multi currencies in my account
  • It would link to an integrated investment platform that guided me to make wise decisions

So that’s my perfect bank.

It’s another question as to how to make this happen.

For example, how will this bank make money if it doesn’t lend or doesn’t lend aggressively?

One possibility is that it invests in bonds with different time horizons that are reasonably safe and pay okay coupons. Would this be enough to cover the cost base and expenses of this bank?

Let me know what your perfect bank would like in the comments below!

How I bought my very first bitcoins (for complete beginners)

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how to buy bitcoin

The recent cyberhacks got me thinking about bitcoin. I also saw an old article on the brilliant Sprezzaturian website by Mikael Syding where he outlines becoming expert in a hot topic and consulting on that newfound knowledge (in this example, Bitcoin and Blockchain).

I watched a few videos on what Bitcoin and Blockchain are:

I looked at the price and historic prices were for Bitcoin:

Bitcoin chart IG Index
Credit: IG Index

My usual self would have ploughed into this kind of hockey stick action.

Luckily for me, it’s not that easy to buy the underlying assets.

Let’s look at how to buy bitcoins.

Bitcoin Wallet

You need a Bitcoin wallet in which to store your Bitcoins.

I looked on Google for best Bitcoin wallet and came to articles by 99 Bitcoin. This is a good website which recommended Coinbase.

I checked out Coinbase and Xapo and leant towards Coinbase because it was an exchange (where I could buy Bitcoins) as well as being a wallet. A one stop shop which was attractive to me as I am naturally lazy.

However, I tried to open an account at Coinbase but had issues uploading ID documents, which meant I couldn’t open an account at that time.

Frustrated, I did some searches on ‘Coinbase reviews’. There were lots of bad reviews about how people’s accounts being closed with no reason and people losing their Bitcoins.

Not getting an account with Coinbase was actually a lucky escape, so I decided to go back to the source.

The official website is bitcoin.org

Here it offers a selection of wallets and rates them according to 5 criteria.

Coinbase didn’t come out of it well.

Check out the page and click on the icons for each provider to see the most up to date assessments by the official Bitcoin page.

I went with Electrum.

Install your chosen wallet according to the instructions from the provider.

Bitcoin Exchanges

Again, I went straight to the source at Bitcoin.org and found a list of reputable exchanges. (Important because Exchanges can go tits up – look at Mt. Gox)

I decided to test each.

The first listed for the UK was Bittylicious.

This was straightforward to get up and verification of ID took under 24 hrs.

Before given the all clear, you’re allowed to make a very small trade.

So go to your wallet (above) and find your Bitcoin address.

Plug that into the address bar on the trading page.

I bought 0.025 of a Bitcoin (BTC) first.

Then I bought 0.2 BTC.

After each trade settles, check your wallet that the bitcoins have been received.

Final tips on how to buy Bitcoins

Start with a small trade. Don’t go sticking thousands of pounds into your first trade. Get comfortable with small trades first.

Try different exchanges and find one that you’re comfortable and that you trust with your gut.

 

This article was first published on my personal blog https://edmondchan.co.uk/how-to-buy-bitcoins

What could you do today that would have the greatest impact on your happiness?

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I’ve been thinking a lot about diminishing marginal returns.
 
In a nutshell, diminishing marginal returns is the idea that we get less benefit the more we do something.
 
Imagine yourself at McDonald’s. That first Big Mac you’ve been craving is awesome. So is the second one, but less awesome than the first. The third is good but less good than the second one. And so on. By the time you get to the fifth, you feel sick. Each successive Big Mac had smaller benefits than the previous one. Diminishing marginal returns.
 
I had this thought on a recent Instagram uploading binge.
 
My Instagram is all about food and travel. I looked at other Instagrams I follow and they’re all about fitness or travel or food.
 
At what point are the returns on a passion or obsession diminished to pointlessness?
 
Is chasing the 55th photo of sea urchin really going to make your life better?
 
Or an example from my interests. Is going for fried chicken again for the umpteen time really going to improve my life?
 
Shouldn’t we use that time and money to do something that is going to move the needle? Something that gives us the return of that first Big Mac? That first cold beer? That first glug of decent wine?
 
What could you do today that would have the greatest impact on your happiness?
 
Would it be making more money?
 
Would it be making a nicer living space?
 
Would it be losing weight?
 
Would it be reading better and more?
 
Would it be improving the quality of your relationships?
 
Would it be creating art?
 
The common elements of the above for me are that they’re not always easy to achieve. Perhaps they require work that is uncomfortable. For example, earning more money means making yourself more valuable at work. It means an uncomfortable chat with your boss about a raise. It means looking at services you could offer as a freelancer. It means selling yourself and doing the work.
 
But this shouldn’t put you off. If making more money would have a significant impact on your happiness, then you should do it. (e.g. it makes you more secure, gives you greater confidence in your abilities and gives you freedom.)
 
What could you do today that would have the greatest impact on your happiness? Let me know in the comments below!