I have three awesome kids. I genuinely love being a Dad. But, if I was to be honest, I have missed out on a few things. Kick-starting my career as a young professional, working several jobs to pay the rent, creating my own businesses, building those businesses… It takes its toll. However, all that is about to change.

When I started the beginning of 2010 I set myself a goal. I sat down and I made a big, long list of things I would need to do to achieve that goal. As I get closer and closer to accomplishing my mission of becoming a Virtual CEO (more on that journey coming up soon!), I am starting to make a different type of list. Today I thought I would share some of the things on that list.

I have written and even shot videos on the reasons as to Why I Want to be a Virtual CEO. So, I wont bother you with them again. However, the main two reasons behind this goal of mine was to a) spend more time with my family and b) get to spread my entrepreneurial wings and work on more projects.

My eldest Son, Chris Jr (affectionately known as ‘CJ’) is now 15 years old and my daughter, Chloe, who is 12 (going on 21!), both live in the UK with their Mum. There is a big gap between my daughter, and my youngest soon, Charlie, who is 2 years old. A lot has happened in my life in the last ten years. I’m in a completely different place – as a father, a husband and as a businessman.

You Want Success – Work for it!

Ultimately in life you can achieve as much, or as little, as you want. I’m a big believer in working hard. Sometimes that means you have to sacrifice certain things. In my case it was time with my children.

A failed first marriage, constant travel and a whole bunch of other headaches didn’t help that situation. However, over the last 5-6 years I have started to rebuild all that. Slowly, but surely, I’ve spent more time with my eldest two in the last 5 years than I have in the last 10 years, easy… I got married again, myself and my wife, Ercille, decided to have Charlie; we started our business, and have worked damn hard to get it to where it is today.

Plus a lot more…

Being Open

You might ask, after all these months of blogging, why I am opening up like this now. Well, its because I can taste that freedom. The freedom to be able to spend another hour playing and reading stories with my youngest Son, or shooting an extra few hoops with my eldest one. Or, walking around the mall being dragged into one girlie store after another, aimlessly, having fun with my daughter! 🙂

I can taste the freedom of being able to work from home for the majority of the week, popping into the office for just two, 3-hour meetings a week (that’s the initial plan, anyway), being able to grow and nurture relationships with existing clients, as well as to create more awesome business collaborations with additional clients and joint venture partners.

The entrepreneurial ‘itch’ of being able to devote more time to growing my core business overall, plus develop more business ideas and to creating more job opportunities for smart young Filipino professionals in the process, is just awesome!

I can feel all of this, and a whole lot more.

And… My New List

As I mentioned, at the top of this post, I am now starting to create a new type of list – actually, its two-fold. The first part is business related, which I’ll save for a future post (or the bits I can publish, anyway – I know for a FACT a lot of my ‘competitors’ read this blog – hi guys!).

The second part is the family related bit, and so far, it goes a little like this:

• Spend between 2-4 weeks of quality time, living and working in San Francisco, USA, with my entire family around me.
• Spend between 2-4 weeks of quality time, living and working in London, England, with my entire family around me.
• Spend between 2-4 weeks of quality time, living and working somewhere in Europe, with my entire family around me – anyone got any ideas (specific towns / cities – must have good internet connections), stick them below in the comment section. If I pick the place you suggest, I will send you a postcard when I am there! 🙂
• Put decent sized lump-sum payments into funds for all three of my children, which are already up and running.
• Vow to get super fit and healthy again – I’ve let myself ‘go’ a little in this area, although my diet is probably better than it ever has been before in my life – seriously.
• Travel to Bali for a 2-week full-blown vacation (okay, the iPad might come with me!) with my beautiful wife – gotta keep that spark alive, right!?!

The Awesome Shangri-la – Cebu, Philippines

This is basically what I have put together this past weekend, after spending an awesome 2-nights at the Shangri-la Resort and Spa here in Cebu, with my wife and Charlie. Whilst there, I was also lucky enough to meet face-to-face for the first time with VBL Community member Mike Stankavich – was a pleasure meeting you and your lovely family, Mike.

As you can see, I am looking at balancing the business part with the family stuff. This is, after all, the Virtual Business Lifestyle, we’re talking about.

But, the big thing is this… You don’t have to switch off completely from family life to achieve business success. I get that now. I’ve struggled with that fact before, for a long, long time – but, I don’t have to anymore.

Being a Virtual CEO is going to allow me more time with my kids, more time with my wife and ultimately more memories. And that, my VBL friends, is what life should be all about – creating memories that last forever.

Full Disclosure

I cried writing this post.

See you on Wednesday, where I have an awesome interview with ‘The Anywhere Office’ founder, Phil Montero on how to work in the cloud, set-up your virtual business and a whole lot more juicier stuff!