Morning all.
Day 18. Let’s go.
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Strawberry (my partner) returned from Turin (in the North of Italy) on the 23rd of February, just as the whole situation started to develop in Italy.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock then you’ll have heard of the Coronavirus – or Covid-19 – the disease this virus causes.
We (as a global populous) have known about it since December.
Since then it’s spread across the globe with over 110,000 infections – here’s a screenshot from the NYTimes right now:
And I want to take this opportunity to discuss how this is affecting things for me.
As it stands I’ve lost around $5,250 per month in recurring revenue.
I’ve got two clients whom both (separately) have had their businesses affected by the virus:
This was the first message I was sent out by our Chinese client who runs a sourcing company.
This was six weeks ago – and I’ve not heard back from them – nor even bothered following up.
The global crisis as we know now is much worse since Jan 31st.
The second client; 30 days later sent me this:
They were a client due to expand the nature of their remit just as this all happened.
Finally outside of this;
Another client who sources much of their helium from China is preparing its own stockpiles in case of not being able to fulfill orders in case the virus affects transport.
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These are the financial implications I’ve faced.
In my actual borough (Hammersmith and Fulham) and surrounding boroughs (Kensington) – these are the current number of confirmed cases:
And then it turns out that the wife of my partner’s brother-in-law’s colleague contracted it from a couple who lied about being inside a quarantined zone in Italy.
Unfortunately for my partner, it means her family needs to self-isolate. Luckily for Strawberry, she was already here with me in the UK when all of this happened this weekend.
It really upsets me to see how powerless and sad Strawberry feels with what is going on. Her planned trip to Italy in April will most likely not happen (but a month is a long time), what with Italy’s quarantine measures it’s now taken.
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The paranoia amongst Brits slowly grows, but if you wandered around the high-streets of Fulham you wouldn’t see anything that suggests anything is happening at all.
I’m still trying to work out whether that’s brave, sensible or stupid – as the number of UK cases is beginning to shoot up:
Given the number, it seems stupid.
There is this ‘feeling’ in the air that this disease will affect ‘someone else’ and not us, that remains prevalent.
My buddy Luc is worried about his father. Luc lives in Barcelona and his family live near Lausanne – and he is now unable to travel with his children to visit their grandparents:
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Outside of this – I’ve booked flights for a ‘lads holiday’ on the 19th March to go to Tallinn and this is the current banter happening in the whatsapp group:
All corona virus centered.
[convertful id=”197358″]
Having just googled this also:
I’ve now gone on to find this:
This could lead to an extended stay in Tallinn if you’re found to have a temperature basically.
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After this – in April I also have a flight booked for Madeira – which hopefully should be fine. As a small island it should offer more protection:
Furthermore, as a healthy male who spends most of his time alone (working with a remote team from home/local hotels and sat by myself) – my risk factors are low.
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Now as someone who doesn’t watch the news – I’ve now begun to notice it finally because it permeates every news report I do very occasionally notice via Amazon’s Alexa as well as the news playing in the background of the hotel I’m in right now:
So there seems – in every aspect of my life – business (client cancellations), personal (my partner Strawberry and my best friend Luc having their family affected), leisure (holidays abroad) that things are being affected.
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[Quick interlude – today I feel more tired for my 430am start than normal – I may head home and take a 30-60 minute nap. It’s odd as I woke up all by myself at 415am wide awake – but such is life – it’s important to listen to your body – and mine is saying ‘go back to sleep’.]
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Ah yes – it’s also affecting my investment with Forex.
Since the beginning of January, my investment with Forex has been in a difficult place with sometimes up to a 65% drawdown (i.e that would be how much money I would of stood to lose had I withdrawn then).
However, as global stock markets are in turmoil because of the virus – it seems my broker’s algorithms have helped make a massive recovery and we’re back on a path of success.
Over the last week, I’ve deposited around £14,250 as a sign that I’d like to continue my journey building up my account again (I’ve withdrawn around £90k in the last 2 months to put money into property – I’m due to withdraw another £25-30k for the same reasons soon)
As a consequence of this – Pearl Lemon Invest is underway so I can focus upon making further introductions to my broker given my track record with them.
And as of yesterday, I’ve now asked one of my sales team to switch full time to making these introductions instead of worrying about the SEO side:
So.
It seems the Corona Virus is actually having a significant impact upon my life and felt a post about it would be interesting.
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What’s been more interesting is having the room to produce content like this – it’s nice to take a ‘break’ from the focus upon business and success and to write about something more ‘human’ – even if there’s nothing ‘human’ about the coronavirus.
We live in absolutely testing times – and neither one of my parents in their 60s have seen a virus sweep the globe like this before.
There are no final thoughts today other than – take care, keep safe and make sure your loved ones take any necessary precautions.
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And this is my wrap up time – looks like I’m averaging around an hour for each day spent writing my blog.
I love it – and hope to hit day 100 – that’ll be a day I’ll celebrate!
