I think my biggest accomplishment from being an expat for the past 3 years is to think a little bit bigger. Even now I still do not feel at ease associating myself with the word expat. In my mind, I still for some reason see expat as only orang putih.
That is not correct of course. My small-thinking mind is at err with such stereotyping, to my own disadvantage.
Back in 2007, I knew a few individuals (Malaysians in Malaysia) who were earning USD1k a day. If you do the math, that’s a staggering RM1.3m a year of pre-tax income, using 2007′s average exchange rate. These were wage-earners, not businessmen, mind you (although they used business entities for tax benefits).
But despite having the front seat view on how they did it, I never believed I could do it too one day. At that time, I thought I’d be ecstatic to be making just RM1k per working day (off days not paid).
Now, I believe USD1k per day is possible for me too. In fact, I think this is not a real challenge anymore. USD2k a day, now that’s a challenge!
Other than money-making aspect of things, I now think a little bigger in other parts of life too. For example, I feel I could be a much better father to my children and a much better son to my parents.
If you figure out how to do USD2K a day, please do let me know also.
I will be very interested. :-)