Danny Choo
Desk Diary 20150823
The layout of things have changed quite a bit since the previous desk diary and there is now more to cover - my workspace at the office and home and now also our first ever retail store.
It's been rather hectic of late - since we last spoke, we attended and rolled out booths at Anime Festival Asia Thailand, Anime Expo in LA, SMASH in Sydney and I'm off again to Taipei this week for Fancy Frontier.
Apart from meeting our fans, event participation is also important marketing for Smart Doll but trying to do both production *and* events has furthermore engrained an unfortunate truth in my life - "living a life of passion means living a life of sacrifice."
Sharing my life through my writing and photos is something that I enjoy but the truth is that I need to choose between writing or growing the business.
For the many years that I spent writing, I felt that my life wasn't going anywhere. While I did have a large user base, a fairly popular mascot character called Mirai Suenaga and a few clients who I made websites for - I was barely making enough to pay the server costs and wages. I may have portrayed that I lived a glitzy life in the anime industry but in reality it was more grim which at one point nearly lead me down the road to depression.
I then made the decision to let go of my writing schedule and focus more time on the Smart Doll business which took me from working out of home with a couple of employees to the beginning of something that changed my and the lives of people around me.
Its not that I dont care about writing - its that I cant physically care about everything while trying to stay mentally sane.
For many moons I felt I was living the lives of my readers afraid that if I stopped writing that I would lose them. After making the decision to live my own life - while I did lose some readers, I created something that I had always dreamed of - a self sustainable growing business platform that now enables me to create the things that I want and change people's lives.
I always see sacrifice like being at a table full of good food - your stomach is only a certain size that can take so much - trying to eat everything will do damage - one has to sacrifice either the Penang Prawn Mee noodles or the Siew Yook Rice.
Anyway, I actually got a whole post about the importance of sacrifice in building a career and want to talk about how I pulled myself back up before I fell into depression - will post that soon as I feel it's an important message to share.
First photo - my desk snapped a couple of days ago after rearranging the lounge area.
View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27312/Desk+Diary+20150823.html
Desk Diary 20150823
The layout of things have changed quite a bit since the previous desk diary and there is now more to cover - my workspace at the office and home and now also our first ever retail store.
It's been rather hectic of late - since we last spoke, we attended and rolled out booths at Anime Festival Asia Thailand, Anime Expo in LA, SMASH in Sydney and I'm off again to Taipei this week for Fancy Frontier.
Apart from meeting our fans, event participation is also important marketing for Smart Doll but trying to do both production *and* events has furthermore engrained an unfortunate truth in my life - "living a life of passion means living a life of sacrifice."
Sharing my life through my writing and photos is something that I enjoy but the truth is that I need to choose between writing or growing the business.
For the many years that I spent writing, I felt that my life wasn't going anywhere. While I did have a large user base, a fairly popular mascot character called Mirai Suenaga and a few clients who I made websites for - I was barely making enough to pay the server costs and wages. I may have portrayed that I lived a glitzy life in the anime industry but in reality it was more grim which at one point nearly lead me down the road to depression.
I then made the decision to let go of my writing schedule and focus more time on the Smart Doll business which took me from working out of home with a couple of employees to the beginning of something that changed my and the lives of people around me.
Its not that I dont care about writing - its that I cant physically care about everything while trying to stay mentally sane.
For many moons I felt I was living the lives of my readers afraid that if I stopped writing that I would lose them. After making the decision to live my own life - while I did lose some readers, I created something that I had always dreamed of - a self sustainable growing business platform that now enables me to create the things that I want and change people's lives.
I always see sacrifice like being at a table full of good food - your stomach is only a certain size that can take so much - trying to eat everything will do damage - one has to sacrifice either the Penang Prawn Mee noodles or the Siew Yook Rice.
Anyway, I actually got a whole post about the importance of sacrifice in building a career and want to talk about how I pulled myself back up before I fell into depression - will post that soon as I feel it's an important message to share.
First photo - my desk snapped a couple of days ago after rearranging the lounge area.
View more at www.dannychoo.com/en/post/27312/Desk+Diary+20150823.html