Month #45: Newest PR & Viper Challenge 2015

Posted on by Edmund

I’m now at 62.8 KG (138 lbs). Yes! Gained some weight since. For the longest time I was stuck at 59 to 60 kilos. I still have a bit more to beat my heaviest weight achieved back in June 2012 which was 63.1 KG – some of which I puked out later no thanks to stomach issues!

Also achieved 2 new PRs today:

  • Bench Press – 130 lbs x 3 reps, and
  • Bench Press – 140 lbs x 1

I’ve never been strong at bench presses and usually lift about 80% of my body weight at best – that is until today.

The best I did was April last year when I was on a 4 day-a-week intensive training regime. So to get to this level on just once a week training (and gaining weight to top that) is really good!

Most of my time is occupied with my new Musemancer venture and since I abandoned the ‘work from home’ lifestyle, my gym training fell from 3 times a week to once a week average now.

Which is why I signed on to the next Viper Challenge in March 2015, so I remain committed to training and give myself a solid purpose. It would really suck to slouch back into mediocrity and surrender my years of training. LOL

Agung Visits Malaysia

Posted on by Edmund

Starting Musemancer in the new direction is beginning to reveal its rewards. This month we have launched two products on JVZoo, one of which went on to become Pick Of The Day. I took on two speaking engagements at startup events in the short notice.

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The team is now at 4 permanent members with one more on the way in January 2015, and we are getting more done than I could had accomplished on my own all these years.

I am feeling as if all the traffic lights turned green this whole month – I don’t know if it’s just because November is my best month of the year, or the works I had been doing in the past few months are all falling into place nicely now… but hey, I am grateful!

At the same time, I am careful not to be over-excited and overconfident in the process. I have also been eavesdropping on how other seemingly successful companies that we look up to are having their own crisis and insider politics shielded away from public information.

As the leader of a still fledgling enterprise (in this new model), I am keeping my eyes peeled for any trouble and will be quick to nip them in the bud.

While we did great this month, December is going to be a very important month because this is going to set our pace for the next quarter.

That is why I got Agung to visit us in Malaysia this week, amidst my busy schedule. He is the main reason I visited Indonesia throughout the year. He had several amazing business opportunities for me which I was unable to seize due to my limited time and resources – now it is made possible with a team.

And I have gotten Elle involved as she is one of the very few business partners and friends I trust very much in my entire online marketing career.

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So the three of us had been at the Musemancer office this whole week planning our next steps and briefing the team on the new venture we are taking on (every other details kept under the wraps!)

And of course, we took Agung for some fun in the city since it’s been three to four years since he last visited here. 🙂

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This is going to be really exciting, I found myself sleeping less due to ‘being high’ LOL and if I play my cards correctly, next year is going to be a year we will all experience transcension in our business growth.

On another note, I want to say thanks to all my family members, friends, business associates, and colleagues for your birthday wishes – and the double celebration!

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At 28 years old now, I’ve got only two more years left in my ‘roaring twenties’ but for some reason, I don’t feel as old. I suppose being young at heart is the key!

Viper Challenge – DONE!

Posted on by Edmund

20 kilometers. 20 obstacle courses. And the unexpected rain half way through.

I didn’t accomplish all the obstacles successfully – screwed up 3 of them and paid the price with ‘minum teh tarik’, spoilt shoes by the finishing line and drenched in mud. Would have fared better for sure had I put in the same initiative I did in preparing for Mount KK hiking months earlier.

Still finished regardless! YEAAA

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BREAKDOWN ON EACH OBSTACLE COURSE I WENT TO

(This is written to the best of my memory; the order may not be correct especially around the middle part of the challenge)

#1 – Knee up – walking over tires. WARM UP

#2 – Dip in ice water. EASY

#3 – Climbing the grill while dipped in muddy water. EASY

#4 – Gripping on the plank to get from one side to another est. 2 to 3 meters distance. I got past here; feels like 50% people fail. HARD. Short people and people with poor grip won’t make it here.

#5 – Climb up some barn to get to the other side. EASY

#6 – Commando crawling with low hanging wires. EASY

#7 – Jump over fire and into the muddy water pool. Looks intimidating but it is actually EASY

#8 – ‘Electric Fire’ it’s same as #6 except that the wire is higher so you can possibly ‘crawl like a dog’ but this time there’s a powerful water hose spraying at you. EASY

#9 – ‘Multi dug in trench’. Team work is needed. You slide into the trench; you need to get up the other side and usually a team mate will be there to help you; you also do this in turn until you clear the trenches. MEDIUM

#10 – Roping up a tall wall and get to the other side. MEDIUM

[This is around the time it started raining heavily… subsides later to the end of the course]

#11 – Inclined Wall Climbing. HARD. Definitely need team work to get this over with.

#12 – Inclined Wall Climbing part 2 but taller. HARD. Also need team work to get over.

[This is the 12KM mark… until the 16KM mark there was no obstacle so the adrenaline rush died down… shoes were getting ruined too. So it’s just walking uphill from here]

#13 – After a long hiatus, suddenly there is an obstacle course again. “Mini Walls”. EASY but repetitive and meaningless; a lot of people and myself got bored of it and started walking after halfway through.

#14 – “Wall Street” – a tall straight wall. Need team mates to help get your ass up, jumping down on road pavement on the other side is ill advised at this point since legs are more ruined than when starting out. HARD

#15 – ‘Climbing Loops’ – it’s like climbing the monkey bar but it’s those ‘gymnastic loops’ instead. HARD. I failed here and fell into the muddy waters. Higher failure rate than #3

#16 – Lake Crossing. It’s just crossing a shallow part of the lake, albeit the muddy part of it. EASY. Then again, it’s not for short people. If anyone is shorter than me, he or she is done for.

#17 & #18 – apparently there were two more obstacles about ‘floats’ and ‘water’ that I missed out. I was following majority of the group (didn’t realize they were taking a shortcut, and they were followed by many others) until someone said we missed two more. Didn’t bother to turn back cos near the finishing line already.

#19 – ‘Ninja Warrior’ slope. VERY HARD. Needed a rope cloth to get up. Highest failure rate here IMO, and the cause of ‘traffic jams’ to the finishing line too.

Don’t remember there being a 20th obstacle unless I forgot about it.

Musemancer: 3 Weeks Later

Posted on by Edmund

So far so good.

For the longest time I wasn’t sure how things will pan out and if I had what it takes to lead the team. 3 weeks later and I am beginning to feel most of my fears were unfounded. That’s the good news. The bad news: why I didn’t start this sooner?

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Shatish started off working part-time for 2 years. He is familiar with Internet Marketing and hangs out actively in the same kind of events that I frequent. So when Musemancer went from virtual and paper to physical, I asked Shatish to continue tagging along.

Yi Wen is our content writer. She could use some more improvement in both command of English and familiarizing herself with the nature of our business, but I like her attitude so far. She’s also a fast learner.

Joey is our graphic designer. Admittedly, I had some reservations but out of all the applicants for the job, he’s go the best skills. Elle had been guiding him through Skype and email on our next graphics product.

And I’ve got one more writer coming in next month, bringing the total headcount of the team to 6, including myself.

This week had been rather eventful – we’ve had guests from Singapore and New Zealand come in. (Thanks for swinging by Jeremy Wong, TK Chin and Mr. Chin!)

Right now I am the only marketer in the team, and being the sole person driving in sales for the company we are at a vulnerable point at the moment. I am irreplaceable – and that’s dangerous.

While I am training them most of the time for the next few months, in due time I will give them the ‘stress test’ to see how fast they are able to work, plan ideas creatively and eventually become independent.

I cannot wait to recruit the sales force but not until I crack the system first. Next week I am getting my Direct Mail campaigns done to be sent to SMEs and Businesses that can be our potential clients.

I am also investing a great deal of time learning higher skills on marketing so I can teach my team, especially Facebook Advertising.

We’ll see how we fare next week, before we up the notch next month!