Being Thankful (Not Just for The Good, But The Hard Times)

Recording this in Thailand on Thanksgiving day. Normal work day here, kids in school, do plan to stop by my co-founder’s house of Hamza for some turkey with his family so that is nice.

Life is totally different from when I was a child. And most of you that listen to this are not living the normal life you were set out of.

We have escaped the matrix.

Stopped being the fleas of life.

What do I mean by fleas?

For those listening and didn’t see the video there – the idea is scientists have put fleas in a jar with a cover, for a certain amount of time and then even removing the cover, the fleas no longer try to jump out of the jar / don’t try to jump higher than they were programmed.

Most of us are programmed as a child. And need to be reprogrammed now.

Here’s another clip I refer to often:

This is the story of Esatto and how it kicked off. It was 2019 and I was looking to start a new ecommerce brand after exiting. Met a factory owner who I had been buying from for New York Bar Store and pitched the idea of making a private label brand together. He said no at first and I was working on it solo in the early brainstorming age. 

Then as we know, 2020 kicked off the covid nightmare. He replies to the email thread we had saying times have changed and he is open to the private label brand and we kicked it off mid 2020. 

Of course shipping containers at that time was sky high, but we felt the world we get back to normal soon enough and developed the branding, packaging, listings, and production. But rates on containers still just didn’t come down, for years!

Product just sat at the factory, even some was re-used for other shipments. 

It was painful discussion to have every few months checking shipping rates.

Finally in mid 2022, rates to ship the container were still really high, but we went ahead and shipped it. Found a friend who had a new 3pl and used a friend’s shipping service. Preparing to launch 2 containers, 40 sku, and finally , after years, get this rolling. 

Goods arrived to port and then to the LA 3pl September/October 2022 but communication got quiet. Never really understood the full story and don’t want to get into it here – but the receiving process was a nightmare I think the friend really just didn’t have his operations setup fully. Somehow was able to get another logistics company to come and take half (1 container of 2) and put to their warehouse and get a shipping plan into Amazon. 

Long story short, we lost 1 of the 2 containers and a ton of money and opportunity cost. 

Very hard for me to face my business partner on this.

Some very, very, hard conversations.

But we persisted. Negative tons of cashflow, another container was shipped (new logistics, new 3pl partner – to the one who saved our butts) and we forged ahead.

Sure, we could have called it quits. Blamed others. Blamed even ourselves for making various decisions of who to work with. 

But we persisted.

I’m not one to show off, but the brand is doing better than ever. Our team here is operating it well, we are adding new products, and optimizing the business. 

What I have learned is you need to work with people who respect you and are willing to take hard hits if needed and still persist.

The team is key. I will be investing a week in the Philippines at what we call the Ninja Retreat this coming week (first week of December 2024) and investing in our team. 

What are you thankful for? We should even be thankful enough to be alive, to have food, to have internet and electricity to listen to this show. 

Hope this solo show has been helpful and the little short story too. 

Never have I been so excited for a new year as 2025 – the foundation, the team, the businesses, the startup Hamza – all coming together. 

And thanks for listening. If you came to Cross Border Summit- thank you for that too. 

√ Hamza – The World’s First Decom Marketplace
√ Esatto

√ Visit our GFA partner – Mercury – for US banking solutons for your ecommerce businesss
√ Visit our GFA partner – Loadpipe – to leverage the power of web3 and the Loadpipe protocol and community to bring ecommerce on-chain.

Thank you everybody for listening in.

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[00:00:00] Episode 449 of Global from Asia. Being grateful, being thankful. It is holiday seasons and Thanksgiving. Let’s tune in today. Welcome to the Global from Asia Podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice. And now your host, Michael Micheli, 4 49 shows of global from [00:00:30] Asia, 11 or 12 years now.

And we are just pushing ahead here in the. New Year is the end of 2024. Thank you for those that came to the Cross-Border Summit, our sixth annual last month. I truly appreciate you and this is a great way to support the show. And the community is attending our event every year. We’re gonna do the same one next year, November 3, 4, 5, again in 2025 here in Chiang Mai.

So today’s show is just me on a microphone. [00:01:00] And I have some fun little clips to share with you and a little story, probably be a little bit of a shorter episode today. Let’s, let’s first just be grateful. Take a second, like maybe I’ll even just leave some silence here to be thankful. We are alive.

We’ve been through a lot. I mean, unless you’re like five years old or watching this, you survive coronavirus, nightmare and lockdowns wherever you are in the world. I. It feels like we’re finally past that nightmare, [00:01:30] truly. So let’s just give a couple 15 seconds of silence.

Alright. So let’s do a little clip for the advertising. Thank you for the [00:02:00] advertisers. Are you looking for USA banking solutions for your e-commerce business? I am proud to say mercury.com is supporting the podcast here, third year in a row at Global from Asia. And we’re proud to say it ’cause we use ’em ourselves for many of our own Amazon brands, e-commerce brands and joint ventures with our US structures.

And they’re super easy to do online application, no fees, and they have great customer support. Have helped us with trouble with Amazon Seller Central over the years about some receipts and [00:02:30] statements and everything. Like that. So we’re so happy to say thank you, mercury, for supporting our show, being a great service and supporting other e-commerce sellers.

We’re really proud to say they’re a sponsor here, and we also have a video tutorial as well as an overview and a special link with a little bonus for you as well for us under certain conditions. Check it out@globalfromasia.com slash mercury for that information. Thank you for listening and thank you Mercury.

, I am in Thailand. It’s Thanksgiving day. My kids are [00:03:00] in school. Some of my American friends take ’em outta school. But I think Wendy, my wife and I, decide to let ’em go to school on this Thanksgiving. Probably have more fun there than home anyway. But I just realizing how far outside of the matrix that I am , it was a little sad.

I’m not like in my normal matrix world, , like. Rushing home, rushing to some family events in traffic and in the grind. [00:03:30] So it is a little bit of a mindset shift. So I just wanna show this little clip. I call it fleas.

The fleas are placed inside the jar.

They’re left undisturbed for three days. Then when the jar is opened, the fleas will not jump out. In fact, the fleas will never jump higher than the level set by the lid. Their behavior is now [00:04:00] set for the rest of their lives.

So, I don’t know, I, I keep these saved on my computer phone. Maybe I’m a conspiracy theory crazy person, but I, I think this one, I watch this regularly. It’s just a one minute video. So if you were just listening, I know a lot of you are on audio and of iTunes. If you’re just listening, it’s a video showing like scientists in the lab putting fleas and putting a jar and a cover on top.

And the idea is the fleas originally are when they may be [00:04:30] born or tried to jump higher. They can jump higher. Then the jars lid. But they keep hitting that. They keep hitting that lid, right? They keep hitting the lid, so they just stop trying to go higher than the lid, and then the scientist takes off the lid and they don’t even try anymore to jump above that lid height, even though maybe they’re even able to, but they’ve been programmed by this lid of a jar.

So the idea, I guess, is. [00:05:00] That is not just fleas, that is maybe animals, humans, plants, organisms, they give up, right? They’re, they’re hitting this, this ceiling, and they stop trying. They stop trying to go above that. That ceiling. And so I guess the conspiracy theories thought is maybe high school, school, society, media teaches you over time to just not try to break out of the [00:05:30] wall, not try to go outside of that ceiling.

It’s a class ceiling, so that’s the first one. And and the second clip, I watch this even more often. It’s called re, I call it reprogram on my phone. Let’s play that one. Elvin Reprogram. The beliefs and behaviors you were programmed with as a child weren’t your choice, but addressing and changing them as an adult is entirely up to you.

It was others who installed your [00:06:00] beliefs, habits, and fears. These were given to you by Parents, teachers, society, but now you are the administrator of your own mind. Those old programs might be running in the background influencing your. Thoughts and actions, they might be limiting your potential, keeping you stuck in patterns that no longer serve you.

It’s not your fault. These programs exist, but it is your responsibility to update them, to [00:06:30] debug the system, to install new, healthier software. You have the power to rewrite your mental code. You can’t change your past, but you can change how it affects your present and. The choice to heal, to grow, to reprogram, that’s all yours.

So this was a powerful one. I hope, , maybe you didn’t, I don’t think you even need to watch that. You can just listen to the [00:07:00] audio, but , it, it, it chokes me up still. It gets me thinking a lot when I see that reprogram one and. A lot of us just accept a life that we are given. Right? I think of the Steve Jobs quotes and Steve Jobs a lot, right?

Most people accept the life that they’re given, right? Of course it is hard to break out of that mold where we’re born, right? I love a lot of my hometown friends. I love ’em and I, I’ve worked with them in business. [00:07:30] I’ve, at least lately less, but, a lot of people just stay in that system. Right? Maybe they’re, they’re, maybe it’s ’cause they’re fa, , I miss my family, but they’re born somewhere and they wanna stick with their family and their friends and their work and their commitments.

And I accept that and I understand that. But, , I, I, I think those are sometimes maybe excuses in a way that we can’t do things. Sorry, my timer. I’m a Pomodoro. I love Pomodoro. If you’re not doing Pomodoro, I highly [00:08:00] recommend it. I’m going past my Pomodoro for today’s video. Lemme turn it off. I love this timer.

I kind of clip it on so we have to hopefully that little video’s helpful to you. And I will I don’t wanna like try to change other people’s thoughts, but we should. We should be open-minded. We shouldn’t be trapped in the society and the education systems that we are born into and raised in. Of course, it becomes [00:08:30] our culture, our soul in a way.

But , I’m here on Thanksgiving on a normal workday here in my studio working, and we need to realize that we can break out of that. Reprogram it, and it’s really up to us as an individual of course, maybe we’ll get resistance from our friends, our family, our colleagues, but it’s really up to us.

There’s no other excuse or reason really, in my opinion. Of course, I know a lot of us have [00:09:00] commitments for our families and friends, but it’s still a choice and there’s always creative solutions, I believe. So that was some parts about being thankful and maybe some mindset things to reflect on at the end of the year.

I’m gonna go into my story of one story. There’s always stories where I’m thankful not just for the good things, but the bad things. , a lot of times in life we, we let obstacles get in our way and be excuses that I, one of our more successful e-commerce [00:09:30] brands, Asato is doing pretty well now. I really appreciate our team and our, my business partners there and the patience.

But I wanna go through that story of why I’m thankful for even the hard times. So the story PTO starts in 2019. I sold a brand and I was looking to do another, another brand, and I thought about the bar products industry I had been involved with. And I went to the factory that I work with and I pitched them on the idea to partner with a, make a private label brand of the [00:10:00] factory products.

The feedback was not interested, focused on B2B. Maybe you do it yourself, I’ll support you. And I did. I was working on it myself. In 2019, didn’t get to the launch phase. Had a trademark, got things set up. Of course, covid slowed things down on there, right? And a lot of things in life changed. That was a little bit on pause, and then maybe Q2, [00:10:30] 2020, maybe even earlier, I get an email reply on that thread.

Hey, things are definitely changing. I am open now to this business partnership. Are you still interested? Something like this? And I replied, sure. Of course, COVID right now makes it very difficult. But the idea of the story, the, the thought process of this was let’s build it. , there’s lots of the branding and the listings and the product research that we need to do anyway, and then [00:11:00] hopefully this covid will be over soon enough.

That when it’s over and the shipping rates drops, we can then start to launch the brand. Of course, COVID lasted a lot longer than we had thought, and the container prices stayed high a lot longer, so we had delayed it for 2020. 2021. 2022 comes and basically every few months we would talk about shipping this product that’s already packaged and ready to ship.

Our Amazon account was already opened. [00:11:30] The business was opened. We don’t wanna spend like $30,000 on a container. So we kept waiting, but around early 2022 we were like, okay, we just gotta do this. So I think we still spent a 20,000 ish us to send a container at that point, and work with the friends logistics and worked with the, i hard for me to say friend now, but somebody I knew in their three PL to launch this.

And and sent it to an LA three pl ’cause it was [00:12:00] two containers. The biggest one I’ve done with 40 different listings, tons of different products, but basically send it in and bite the bullet on this, , upfront investment of logistics and getting this brand started into we were hoping Covid was going away.

So that was around summer 2022. I think the shipment left and I think around September arrived. To LA and really sure the exact story, but basically the [00:12:30] shipments got into some issue or there was some misunderstanding about the prices of receiving two containers and the ability to send them into the Amazon warehouse to to sell from Amazon.

And it was very painful. Couple of months. Finally we found a logistics company that was able to fulfill to Amazon and take it, some of it about half or one container load approximately out of that three pl to their three [00:13:00] pl to then fulfill really nightmare. I, I, unfortunately, I’m still not speaking to this person, but I don’t want to get into it too much in a way, it was very stressful and we almost, , I.

Went bankrupt in that venture. I mean, you send two containers and you can’t even sell it. You can imagine what a nightmare that could be. Luckily, I really appreciate my business partner, the factory, and [00:13:30] we were able to at least get one container ish of goods selling. And of course there was some good ones that were in the other container or in the other shipment lot that we didn’t get to.

Basically we, we wrote off that it was a loss. It was a massive loss, massive loss. But we, we persisted and I’m really appreciative of my team at Chadstone. I’ll be seeing them in the Philippines next week. A lot of ’em, of course, there’s others in other parts of the world that have helped, but a lot of ’em will see in Philippines still with us [00:14:00] years later.

Appreciate, appreciate you.

And it was still very painful, right? Of course, there’s cost to these three pls. There’s cost of shipping. There’s some products that didn’t sell as well as we had thought, but some that sold better. , a couple years later, I’m thankful that I stuck with it. There was a couple of chances and discussions and thoughts to just give up, right?

There are thoughts. Nothing is as easy as they say. There’s all these stories and blogs about how successful some, [00:14:30] it made it look so easy or so perfect. I, , if anybody follows what I say or what I talk about, I, I don’t like to BS people. It’s not always so easy. It never goes as smoothly as you think.

You have to be mentally prepared and I’ve, I’ve really strengthened my mindset the last few years. I think Coronavirus, that brand launch, various other ventures, a lot of crypto Web3 has been very painful. [00:15:00] Very painful, huh? Very testing of my, what is it? I don’t know. Mindset, patience, endurance, stress.

There’s been nights I would wake up feeling like spiders were biting into my feet and my legs. I, I had so many nightmares, so much stress from this one story, but there’s many other stressful stories. I’m thankful for those hard times. I, I, I, I, I mean, as much [00:15:30] as it’s hard for me to even say that, it makes us stronger.

We grow in the hard times when you’re locked down in an apartment in China for years. , when you send Goose to somebody you feel like is on your same wavelength and there’s a massive miscommunication, that’s massive stress, right? Massive anger blame to yourself, right? Of course, to the, maybe other people, but [00:16:00] you can’t think like, how did I get to make the decision to do such a thing?

What was the misalignment here? So we have to be willing to

put yourself out there. I’m trying to teach my son that, right? Don’t be afraid to fail. Of course. You don’t want to jump into failure. Sometimes I feel like I’m going too fast sometimes in some of these decisions, it’s probably the biggest lesson for me.[00:16:30]

I like to think you take coal or a rock and you rub it, , you prove enough pressure, you make diamonds. That’s what I feel like as an investor. I guess, even if you’re not a money investor, you’re an investor in your knowledge and your time and your team, there’s another opportunity coming. There’s lots of opportunities, right?

It’s, but it’s how do you endure? How do you push through? How do you. [00:17:00] Make it to fruition. And that’s something I think I have personally gotten better the last few years. So I do think those are people that helped teach me that. I don’t know if that was intentional taught or not, but I’m thankful for where I am.

We should all be thankful. I’m gonna start to wrap this one up. Life is hard. Life is not easy, right? Of course, it’s easy if you just do whatever somebody else tells you to do. But I think we shouldn’t just do what somebody else tells us to [00:17:30] do. We have to pers persist when things get hard, and I’m very appreciative.

I can’t wait to meet a lot of team in the Philippines with Chadstone, our ninja retreat, there’ll be published a week. This goes online. I’ll have some nice Thanksgiving dinner with my co-founder, CTO, John, at his house, and Hamza our first dcom marketplace. So let’s just keep these things in mind. I appreciate you for listening or watching this, especially if you come to our events or supporting our various [00:18:00] programs, opportunities we do over the years here.

Some of those have also gotten rocky, so I appreciate you and I hope no matter what, if you don’t buy anything that I sell or offer, I appreciate you and I hope that today’s episode maybe inspires you. It’s not gonna be. As plan life does not go as plan, there’s gonna be bumps in the road. Challenges, tests.

What makes this [00:18:30] success is Perce persisting through it and then deciding when to give up, right? Because we have to give up on things, right? If we never give up on something, you have to be able to be able to adapt or pivot to find the right angle, and I hope this can help you. Find that too in your ventures.

So thanks for watching. I think that’s it for today. Gold region.com/thankful. So I’m thankful. I actually, I, I can’t [00:19:00] wait for next year. I think it’s gonna be one of the best years ever for a lot of us. , I can’t wait for our startup Hamsa, the decentralized e-commerce. , I believe crypto is gonna be globally adopted.

I believe you’re gonna all be studying it, whether you’re studying it now or in five years. So I I look forward to next year and I will see you in the next episode. Cheers. The future of e-commerce is waiting. Load pipe is back. It’s a protocol. We [00:19:30] are making the new way to do e-commerce with blockchain technology.

This is very early stage and have, Hamza is our first marketplace in this new ecosystem is very epic. If you wanna participate, we are on alpha stage in Q1 2024, where you can be a buyer or a a vendor. Application only. Check it out@hamza.biz for the marketplace or the overview of this protocol and subscribe for [00:20:00] updates@loadpipe.com.

See you there. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website@ww.global from asia.com. That’s ww.global from asia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.