2020 Year in Review. Beijing to Bali to Beijing and Back - or- Hindsight is 2020 ;-)

15 min read

While looking ahead is certainly important, I think that there’s a lot be learned from reflecting on what’s transpired over the last year. I like to do a yearly KISS (Keep, Improve, Stop, Start) so here a yearly retrospective review rather than resolutions for the coming year inspired by Tim Ferriss: Forget New Year's Resolutions and Conduct a 'Past Year Review' Instead

Flashback to 2019

In order to look back at 2020 comprehensively, let me take you, dear reader, to yesteryear - literally. Sherman, please set the Way Back Machine back to nearly 24 months ago to the early weeks of 2019. 

A full year before the pandemic, my lovely wife, Em Roblin, and our little daughter, Glady, then 3 years-old, came to Bali for some mother-daughter bonding and an adventure while neutralizing the brutal Beijing winters where the winds whip down from Siberia.

During their first two-month trip on the Island of the Gods in early 2019, I had a business trip in the region, so I swung by Bali to surprise them. I stayed for two weeks while working remotely in the process. I then surprised myself after realizing how productive and seamless working remotely was these days. In Bali there’s (relatively) high-speed internet access and, as a bonus, no need to leap over/through/around the Great Firewall of China with a VPN. 

In the process of working remotely, our lifestyle was taken up five or a bazillion or so notches simply through the lovely weather and accessing the beach, mountains and exercising daily. With zero commute and vastly reduced hassles all with great prices, terrific food and super friendly locals, it was all very compelling. Plus the best non-urban airport hub in Asia Pacific with direct flights internationally to just about anywhere.

Ka BOOM town!

Over the past few decades being based in China, I’d built up quite a wide and deep mini-shampoo collection across Asia and planet earth (if I do say so myself ??) along with some decent frequent flyer miles. 

What I’m trying to say is that I’m no stranger to travel for business or pleasure and have worked remotely while on trips since the mid-90’s. But what set this apart was that I was neither technically on vacation nor was I on a business trip. I was just transplanted to the flip side of the equator (8° South instead of 39° North). I was still in the same exact time zone as China but I could have been at home or at our WeWork office or in a coffee shop in Beijing because working remotely felt like talking to my mom on a long distance call for most of the 90’s : (“Oh my Gawd, the connection's so cleah it feels like yowah just around the connah!” Bostonian translation: "My goodness, your long distance connection is so clear it feels like you are just around the corner." ??)

Em and I did the math and figured out that, for both of us _maybe_ 10% of our time was spent really engaging with Beijing (meaning that we had to be there in person). Then, say another 5-8% of our time on the road in Shanghai or another Chinese city, plus another 8-10% somewhere in Asia, Europe or N. America on business trips in a typical year. For work we estimated another 25% just working in the office/home/wherever in Beijing. The rest of our time, the remaining fifty or so percent? Well, that was just. Well. Life. Commuting, sleeping, working out, spending time with fam and friends, the mundane, etc. Rinse. Repeat. 

So, nearly 10 months before the pandemic we looked at each other and said:

”Hey, wait a minute, can we do this? Just. Move here. To Bali?”

Deep, bright and wide eye contact.

Mischievous smiles.

More thought.

Then.

“Naaaaaaaaaaaaah……

…..come ON. That would irresponsible. Even reckless. Who’re we kiddin’?!? I mean, even if we could, what if we came down here and loved the life, but our careers and earnings just withered on the vine. What if we became too disconnected? Too soft? Irrelevant, even?

Most likely the world isn’t ready for us to be remote. Just not feasible.  Maaaaybe it was. But also, what if it wasn’t? We could work remotely for a few weeks, but eventually people would figure out that those palm trees in the background are not fake backdrops. Would the rest of planet earth really agree?”

Back then, in early 2019, it was a firm and strong: ‘Nope, no way.’ (Even though we know now - for a number of reasons - that moving down to Bali was, in fact, more than feasible.)

We knew that it was a pipedream and the only way we could truly know if we could pull it off would be to just come down here and to try it on for size. We were both highly adventurous and had been risk takers our whole lives. Indeed, we both had bonded around that quality in each other. But it wasn’t just us two anymore. We had two teenage boys plus the little girl. Careers that we loved. And, Em’s 38 and even though I’m 53, I feel like we were both just getting started (I hope I never retire - no joke). We wanted to engage in our very people-centric careers/practices that we’d built up and in the most intense way possible which is why we’d chosen China.

Besides, we were proud and long-suffering Beijing expats. I like to say that with China *everything* is possible, but nothing is easy. It was challenging at times for sure, but we LOVE the city of Beijing.

And while we do truly love the city of Beijing, we often did not like it. (Maybe that’s the way that my wife feels about me as well. She loves me. Not sure I understand it, but I know she does. I also know that she often doesn’t like me. But I fully understand that.??)

But we did LOVE living in Beijing. Really, really. I mean, you had to love it. And just like only my wife could say she didn't like me, only WE could say that we sometimes didn’t like Beijing ?? (the pollution, the weather, the traffic, the rising costs). 

But also, to be fair, on the flip side, just wow. The dynamism. The history of place. The promise of the place. The Scale. The people – our friends and colleagues both local and laowai. The beautiful traditional courtyard home that we had lovingly built of our design.

Truth be told, it had been a good and long run in the Middle Kingdom (at that time 23 years for me and 14 for Em). We’d both had front row seats at the greatest show on earth. These past few decades in China have arguably been THE BIGGEST STORY OF OUR COLLECTIVE LIVES: the lifting of hundreds of millions of Chinese out of poverty (70% in poverty when I first visited to now less than 1% - nothing short of miraculous), the rural to urban migration and the rise in GDP per capita, etc., etc. 

All good, but those all came at a price which was paid in compromised quality of life. The world literally exported its pollution to China, the world's factory, for decades. So we still wanted it to be true that we could up and leave and be based in the *optimal* lifestyle place that is Bali but still have our careers and eat them too ??

So, we went back to Beijing from Bali in the spring of 2019. While our Bali tans and Bali dreams faded, we resumed our busy lives in the Big Smoke, as China is nicknamed. 

Hindsight is 2020 and Beyond

Fast forward to beginning of this year - Em and our lil’ girl Glady went on a longer and even more adventurous sabbatical. They went off the grid to the remote island of Flores 1.5 hour flight east of Bali. Truly off the grid: no running water, no electricity while up in the jungle so Em could write her book. After a number of weeks they landed back in Bali and I once again joined them during Chinese New Year for “a couple of weeks”.

Then, the world as we knew it collapsed. Our businesses were crushed. We couldn’t get back to China. Worst of all, we were separated from our two teenage boys who were back in Beijing with their mom. 

We were ‘in exile’ in Bali. OK, OK, I know, right? Poor us. Cry us a river. 

And a monkey forest. And a volcano. And a beautiful beach. 

Another day in paradise indeed, but we didn’t know how many other days or week or months we would be cast adrift as strangers in a strange land. I mean, who knows how long it really took Bill Murray to get enlightened and truly start enjoying Groundhog Day?

But we knew that we had to reinvent our businesses and truly figure out how to make it work in Bali while dealing with all the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) that we and the rest of humanity were also wrestling with. 

In short, what I’m trying to say is that we have to fess up. We admit it. It’s aaaalll our fault, this whole pandemic. Em and I are both overcome with paralyzing guilt because we manifested this whole mess based on our conclusions from early 2019. 

We wanted to be based here on this tropical paradise to work/teach/write/live remotely.

And well, now we are.

Relocation 2020

I guess you have to be careful what you wish for. So, after nearly 15 years in China for Em and 24 for me, we are now officially residents of Indonesia in the lovely two stoplight town of Sanur in Bali (nicknamed "S'nore" since it’s very sleepy on the east coast of Bali where we are vs. the west). 

We have a lovely villa and our kids go to the Bali Island School (same acronym as the International School of Beijing but different order; same mascot – Go Dragons!; same IB curriculum; same pool of wonderful international school teachers; same lovely campus environment…but around 1/3 of the price of Beijing which officially has the most expensive international schools in the multiverse, thank you very much).

So, in short, apologies to rest of humankind, but we have to admit, we really like being here on the Island of the Gods. ??

Some Learnings from 2020

Here are a couple of learnings from our experience over the past year of being stranded, changing our approaches to our businesses and shifting from Beijing to Bali:

Back to the Future -or- It’s now 2030

I’m a fan of Scott Galloway (also known as Prof G) and he describes how Covid-19 is not so much as a disruptor as it is an extreme accelerant. E-commerce had the equivalent of a decade’s growth in the US at the start of the pandemic and many other industries were sent like a slingshot into the future. 

A decade into the future to 2030. 

So, OF COURSE in 2030 we can all agree that the world looks like this:

Everyone is working remotely and the office paradigm and business travel insanity has morphed into something that more fully reflects what technology can do to provide alternatives.

We all have flying cars.

And Donald Trump's hair is president (just his hair... long story).

Even if only one of those came true (hopefully the first one) then we were golden.

For knowledge workers lucky enough to be able to truly ride that wave, there’s been a huge dispersion of talent around the globe as companies embrace remote. Pinterest paid $90 million to get out of their office lease to become a 'remote first company' along with companies like Shopify and even the nearly hundred year-old Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Partially remote companies include Facebook, Twitter, Google and even J.P. Morgan and Coke where staff have all gone to the mountains or to the coast or to their hometowns to optimize for lifestyle and not have to dock with the mothership daily but likely monthly, quarterly, annually or perhaps never again. Some friends took a 10% haircut on pay, but save 30, 50 even 65% just by relocating so this is a new normal indeed.

As an example, my wife Em is doing global work around Diversity & Inclusion with a Fortune 200 company and is busy around the clock. Partially because D&I has become much more fundamental to businesses’ strategy and success, but mainly because instead of travelling like a warrior princess around planet earth to deliver in-person training and coaching, Em’s able to deliver globally with cohorts from 6 different continents in the same few weeks. And. It. Works.

Is it better? In some ways, sure. The convenience, cost savings and efficiency are all very attractive and make a TON of sense.

Will business travel go away? Nope. I’m sure it will come roaring back in 2022 and beyond but not in the same way as I think more people will think twice/thrice before wanting to take their shoes and belts off while in the security conga line. (I for one, am *very* happy that this is my first year since 1991 with zero jetlag and I certainly hope to reduce that in the future).

I’ve been working well remotely and two of the companies I’ve been advising went 100% remote as in ditching their physical offices as of Jan 1st. 

But the most fun experimenting I’ve had is with teaching remotely and it has been hugely rewarding with many pleasant surprises and challenges. 

In-person experiences can of course be terrific, we all know that. But they can also suck.

In person does not simply equal awesome.

Maybe the problem isn't that online sucks, maybe the problem is that we need to rethink how sessions whether academic or business or otherwise are delivered to keep participants engaged.

If someone sucks delivering in person then they typically extra suck delivering it remotely.

Keep in mind that just because face-to-face *can* be better doesn't mean that it unequivocally *is* better. We've all had literally horrific experiences at events, trainings, in class, at meetings where our souls are slowly seeping out of our toenails. Secretly wondering if that window behind the coffee stand could open wide enough, quickly enough for us to climb or jump out of it before anyone noticed. We're there, but we're not really there. Minds elsewhere, nothing really getting accomplished in terms of true insights, knowledge transfer or productivity. Just generally painful, wasteful collective time wasting bleeding cash when accounting for the effective participant cost per minute either in lost wages or tuition fees.

The equation is not simply:

Offline > Online

I would contend that one needs to both subtract and add on both sides of the equation:

Subtract - travel time - accommodation time - cost - opportunity cost - distraction - X (would welcome other thoughts in the comments)

Add + relevance + energy + preparation + participation + Z (would also welcome other thoughts)

In my experience, with the right factoring, then:

Offline = Online

and even quite possibly:

Online > Offline

(Check out the jaw-droppingly awesome online course CS50: Introduction to Computer Science by Harvard Professor David Malan for FREE. Just *behold* how Prof Malan pushes the limits of how things can be taught online. P'raps the paradigm of a one-room schoolhouse with a teacher lecturing from in front of a chalkboard is a teensy weensy outdated?)

Since 2015 I’ve been a Clinical Professor of Entrepreneurship at Peking University with unbelievably sharp students (more than 10x harder to get into than Harvard). I truly love walking on to that campus, which I believe is the oldest campus in the Mainland and it has beautiful, timeless aspects to it. When I step past the guard gates, I feel like a vampire - I just get electrified and start inhaling all the energy from the students basically feeling rejuvenated like I had just gotten a blood transfusion.

Plus I’m a capital E when it comes to Meyer’s Briggs Type Indicator test which means I’m an extroverted extrovert so I’m an ENFJ (while the test is not perfect if you don't already know yours, you still should.) I’m simply wired in a way where I derive tons of energy from interacting with people (and I’ve been told that I’m also an energizer of others - it’s all a connected, virtuous cycle as I love to give energy as well). 

In any case, I _LOVE_ being in that classroom in person, it just fills me with joy, energy and excitement. I have to admit, however, that I was very pleasantly surprised by how engaging remote teaching ultimately was and how intimate and authentic conversations became.  Plus, instead of commuting back and forth to the campus, I extended ‘office hours’ and spent many additional hours chatting with my students.

Was also pleasantly surprised by how I was able to expand the circle of potential guest lecturers geographically and otherwise. Much easier to get heavy hitters to the classroom when they don’t have to be in Beijing in person at that certain day and time and fight the traffic to get there.

Certainly, the biggest challenge was having to throw a LOT of energy and prep into that little pinhole on my laptop out to the students around the world. But my experience this last semester taught me that it really works if done with the proper effort.

Just think about how much emotional connection we've all had through a screen watching movies or shows or news. I would go so far as to say that our emotional range is EXTENDED through screen interactions. The fear, excitement, laughter, tension, surprise, delight that we all have felt through the screen is as wide ranging if not more so than real life, meat-space interaction. There, I said it.

So, in my experience, it's _definitely_ possible to have the right engagement, energy and connection online. It just takes much more effort. ;-)

I also guest lecture at Alibaba University on the Spirit of Entrepreneurship and did a live global business plan pitch training to thousands of participants in over 40 countries and 5 continents and the Q&A sesh after ran long and I loved every second.

In the future I’ll do a LOT more online teaching and likely make it a hybrid.

People not Things

Just like that old TV show from the mid-60's Gilligan’s Island, where they went on a three-hour tour and got stranded on a tropical island, I came down to Bali with a very small carry-on as I love to travel as light as a feather when I’m in road warrior beast mode. 

That old saw rings true with me that you don’t own things, things own you. Plus the aspirational idea that life is not about accumulation but contribution is something Em and I both endeavor to pursue. Em and I align as partners for a number of reasons, but one is that we love to focus on people and experiences and not things. That can have its challenges, but in practice it’s also insanely liberating. Stuck with limited ‘stuff’ I reverted back to my backpacking mode way of life when I worked and traveled my way around the world for over 3 years. What happened? Well mostly, Em and I wore the same stuff over and over. And over. And we made do with whatever we had. But it was all OK. All is well. 

In early October I finally got back to Beijing on a special visa to give a keynote on Entrepreneurial Mindset to a large investment bank. Back in Beijing we’d built a courtyard home, had a minivan, office and just….lots of life. While he had very aggressively “Marie Kondo’d” our home not once but twice in 2019, there was still a ton of flotsam and jetsam floating around. 

I took a couple of weeks to comb through it all and whittle it down to 16 boxes weighing 450 kg. My 24 years in China, Em’s 15 years. Three kids. Both entrepreneurs with all the stuff that goes along with that. We’re both children’s book authors so we have piles of those as well. 16 boxes. And that was probably even too much.

There were many other expat ‘refugees’ like Em and myself who left during Chinese New Year who we knew stuck in Italy, or Germany or the US couldn't come back. They didn’t even get the chance to come back to China with their families to pack up and say zai jian like I did. They had to pack up and sell all of their things remote control. One family told me that they’d shipped only 25% of their stuff back to Germany in 25 or so boxes, but when it arrived weeks later, they realized that they were not going to really unpack or use about half the boxes. 

Another family had recently moved to China but were forced out by Covid after recently buying a bunch nice stuff and thought, okay, we'll recover 80% of the price tag when we sell it. Then, they revised that to 50%. Then 10%. Then, well we'll have to give it away (nobody wanted it). Then, well we’ll just leave it. Then, damn, we’re going to lose our security deposit if we don’t pay to move it. Sure, that was mostly the pandemic putting the kibosh on second hand stuff. But the fact is that: your stuff ain’t worth all that much outside of sentimental and some functional value and the latter can be replaced.

So we’re embracing the remote work/teaching/writing lifestyle and we expect more and more people to do the same: to focus on lifestyle and people and experiences and less on stuff.

Thanks for reading my 2020 Reflection. I look forward to hearing your stories, welcome to comment or DM me with your stories.

All the best to you and yours in 2021 and beyond and sorry once again for manifesting this whole global plague thing. Now, if I can just use some of that manifestation mojo to manifest some tacos for the kids for New Year’s Eve.

Onwards and Upwards,

Rich