Happy New Year. We spend New Years Eve with friends in a Mexican restaurant before returning to our 15th floor apartment to watch the torrent of fireworks together from the balcony.

I love being able to reflect on how life’s changed every year-end and 2005 has been the best year of my life, without doubt. I find it fascinating reading back on my original diaries to see what I’d wanted and expected to be doing, and in all honesty I never anticipated achieving so much here so quickly.

January 2002:
I made a new years resolution years ago never to wait for the new year to change my behaviour, however – having studied my Tony Robbins Course, and having spent a lot of time on my own, free from peer-pressure, and with time to think, I know exactly where I am heading… I am going to get myself in fantastic shape physically with my Muay Thai, my swimming, jogging and perhaps weight training. I will be earning 80,000 baht a month (1,300 pounds) – 8 times the average graduate wage here. The average full-time English teacher’s salary is 30,000 baht. I intend to earn that much part-time, whilst enjoying my weekends to the full, whilst doing Muay Thai every morning and whilst maintaining a wonderful social life. I want to learn Thai. I will only be doing things I enjoy, and I stubbornly refuse to do anything which I don’t. I also intend to establish a charity project here to feed the homeless beggars on the streets. This I want to accomplish by the end of March. I’ll upgrade my goals then. And I don’t care what people say; I want to prove to myself that I can arrive in a different country and make a success of myself here. Just watch me succeed.

January 2003:
My finance had been shattered since early December as my schools had taken holidays and my hospital bill was much higher than I expected. I guess I should have been wary at seeing the valet parking, the doorman at the hospital, the restaurants etc. but I just assumed my 200 pound a year insurance would see me right! To be unemployed here is not quite as desperate as in the UK. As an effort to save as much money as possible I was resigned to live by the swimming pool with a number of books to read. I did this for around 3 weeks. The rest of my time I began building my first business of potential here. I spent some time building a new website: “The True Potential Group” at http://www. truepot.com. I have many plans for the site.

My truepot.com business was fuelled by a rush of enthusiasm and then a significant dip, due to unforeseen commitments. I worked through a large number of website design courses, including: Web marketing and Search-Engine Optimisation strategies. I was inspired to read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”, by Robert Kyosaki. Having studied Business and business-related subjects for six years I couldn’t believe how much I gained from it. One of the fundamentals is that I should try to avoid being self-employed – whereby I BECOME the business. In contrast, I should develop a business which can be run without me, with the ultimate objective of having the opportunity of employing a manager to run it. Not one course at Brunel University prepared me to write a business system from scratch so it has been an enjoyable challenge. Whatever happens I’m learning a lot. I think just jumping in at the deep end will develop my skills much faster than if I worked in a company and got training. Last week I accidentally sent 1056 emails out to people with the wrong name on it! I then sent another 1056 emails out to apologise and made my entire database crash!

January 2004:
I took a year off updating my diary during this time which in many respects I regret, although 2004 wasn’t an especially memorable year, centred mainly about building up my websites and business interests. My new years decisions then were to sort out my mountain of debt in the UK and to work on automating my website businesses to provide me free time to look at new opportunities. I managed to acheive these goals however it took me about 6 months longer than I’d anticipated.

January 2005:
Oops, I realize now that 12 months ago I returned from New Zealand and failed to add my diary to my site. It was in January that Ying and I split up, although we did (and still do) remain good friends. Potentially 2005 could well have been the most turbulant year, moving into it with a business crushed by price competition, new technologies and the prospect of living in a Thai village without speaking Thai and taking a huge gamble on ending a good relationship of over 2 years, on the chance that I might find something better.

Anything could have happened this year. In December 2004 I’d make the highest monthly income ever, and proceeded to lose it all over the 3 months afterwards from a bad client. Had I not met Tik then I’d most likely be in Australia now doing god knows what. Instead only the most positive things happened for the entire 12 months.

I met Tik on February 26th and within just a few weeks we were deep into a serious relationship. We’ve been together 10 months now without one fight, and have traveled a phenomenal amount throughout Thailand, to the UK and to Taiwan. We are a great team.

I’ve gone from my stock Thai phrase of “My friend likes pain” to a whole book’s worth of Thai insults and jokes in merely 9 months, whereby I’m speaking exclusively in Thai with Tik and my Thai friends.

I have increased my passive income significantly in just the last 7 months whereby I am actually unable to spend the money I am receiving.

I’m now living in a beautiful new apartment with the nicest swimming pools I’ve ever seen. I have every amenity I might want within a few minutes walk and I eat from good restaurants at least four times a week.

I’ve been studying Aikido, and although I’ve got a long way to go with it, I’m proud to have stuck with it.

What makes my life so fantastic is that I know that 2006 will be even better now that I have freed up nine hours a day from having to make money to survive. The opportunities are unlimited.

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