I have started working for about 6 years. Although I worked for the same employer and stayed in the same city, I can tell some of my changes in all these years.

First is hobbies. I used to be crazy about the cars. I can tell the most cars’ make and model on the street, except some classic models in 50s and 60s. I spent a lot of time on the web reading all the reviews, checking out cars in the dealers’ parking lot. And once I even bought and returned a car. We all know returning things to stores is relatively easy in the States, but returning cars is not, and I highly recommend readers not do that. This hobby faded away since I bought my condo, and I started looking more carefully about my personal finance situation. I think I still like the new car smell, but if I have to take a loan with interest to buy it, I won’t.

My perception about “start up my own business”. I have lots of plans and actually started doing something about it. But I realized I am not very good at execution and sometimes I felt it’s just too hard to build a successful business from ground up. One friend told me the success rate is 8% for small business. I am still hopeful about this, and right now I am focus on investment in the stock market, which I like and believe I have some edge.

My ”understanding about business and finance”. I don’t have any real business experience before I came out of graduate school in 2000. I still don’t in terms of sales and marketing exprience in established companies because I am in development. But from time to time, as I read the book, newspaper, magzine, compared to what I saw in the work place and daily life, I started to appreicate how business works in the States. The branding, logistics, scale, innovation and finance…all these pieces come together and in many ways defines how we work and live: computers, Wal-mart, Fedex, iPod, stocks, futures, options, gas prices, China, and the US…I think we can all learn a lot about business even if we don’t attend business school.  

I am sure I have changed a lot at personal level. Some good and some bad. One thing is I started to appreciate the kids. Ten years ago I won’t have much patience to play with my big bro’s daughter, today I will be more willing to play with my second niece.