The Week Of The Vietnamese Kids On The Beach

This Week:

Why these Vietnamese kids kept coming up to me at the beach
These new fitness studio classes that I went to
The types of other nomads I’ve been meeting here in Da Nang

April 2025

Su	M	T	W	Th	F	S
30	31	4/1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	5/1	2	3

Where In The World Was I?

🇻🇳 Da Nang, Vietnam

Metrics From The Week

I’ll speak more about the dip in sleep later in the post.

Business Update

2 more reports delivered! I did zero outreach this week because I’ve been so backlogged, which, honestly, is a good problem to have.

I’d say things are coming along quite well. Feedback has been generally positive, but at the end of the day I’m looking for either of these:

“wow this is insane here take my money and do this more”
They implement something from the report (video idea, CTA, etc.) and it ACTUALLY makes a difference in getting more leads.

I’ve got a good handful of creators that are all in-motion that told me they’d be implementing things and so there’s sort of this waiting game that I’m balancing.

This content is not ready to be made public yet.

Snaps From The Week

The Vietnamese Kids

So last Sunday I tried to actually take a break from being behind my laptop in the afternoon. I got my weekly review and last week’s Life Update post crushed in the morning then decided to do something different for the afternoon.

I grabbed my swimsuit, kindle, and went to the beach.

I sat under this palm tree for a while, just watching the waves, people-watching, and taking it in.

After some time I started to hear a bunch of voices behind me and looked back to see what looked like a big school group of kids in yellow shirts mixed with a handful of adults (ages ~7 to ~12)

I watched them pair up and start walking onto the beach.

Two of them came up to me and said something like “excuse me, I’m learning English, do you have a moment to speak to me?”

And I said “sure!”

We proceeded to have a little back and forth as she asked me some questions.

Where are you from?
What’s your name?
What do you like to eat?
What do you like to drink?
How long have you been in Da Nang?
What do you think about the weather in Da Nang?
What do you think of Hoi An?
What are your hobbies?
How many people in your family?
How many seasons in your country?

It felt mostly like an interview at first, but about halfway through I started to put the pieces together and expand on my answers and ask her similar questions.

Eventually she said “my teacher is calling, thank you!” and ran off.

I sat back against the palm tree with a smile on my face.

It wasn’t 5 minutes before another pair of kids came up to me.

“Excuse me, I’m learning English, do you have a moment to speak with me?”

And almost like clockwork he asked basically the same questions.

Except this time when he asked me “what do you like to eat?” rather than say “I like smoothie bowls and sushi,” (to which the previous kids looked at me confused) this time I said “I like chicken and rice and noodles” 😂 I’m learning.

They asked me to write my name and where I’m from down on a little piece of paper that looked like

1/ Peter from the United States
2/

At this point I looked up to see all these kids walking around the beach and going up to other tourists also walking along the beach or sitting on their beach towels.

Over the course of the next maybe hour and a half, I swear I talked to 8 groups of Vietnamese kids. They just kept coming over 😂 … and I kept talking to them 😂

I wasn’t the only one they went up to, there were plenty of other conversations I saw, but I also did catch a couple other tourists talk to them and then shake their heads “no” when another group came up to them.

And every once in a while I’d see one of the “chaperones” taking a photo or video of me talking with the kids.

It was such a wholesome experience.

I sat there with a big smile on my face.

I think part of why I liked this was because they put you in such a different perspective and frame of life to the usual day-to-day. It’s like a little puzzle to simplify your life and language down to the level of a 2nd to 7th grader.

And as the group started to come back together and group up to take a picture, one of the chaperones came over and said “you spoke to a lot of kids, you could teach English!” and then went “come get in our picture!”

So I got up and stood in the middle of this group of Vietnamese English-learning kids and took a picture with them.

Man I WISH I had asked for the photo to paste in right here.

But as we dispersed, this other older Vietnamese girl came up to me and said she’s also learning English and asked to speak to me. We sat and chatted for 15 minutes.

She asked if I could teach her English. Though my heart wanted to say yes, I declined haha. I did however ask in some nomad group chats and ended up getting her connected with someone who does teach! So win win.

Anyways, such a wholesome experience. I find people (the locals) are so friendly here.

The Social Events

Fitness Studio

I saw this fitness studio that holds events and heard it recommended by some people so checked it out this week.

I went to a “foundational movement” class that built back up movement from the ground up in a way that combats how so many of us just sit for hours and hours each day.

And another calisthenics class. I’ve been trying to figure out how I can balance my strength training with mobility so I don’t end up with zero range of motion in my future 😅

Pickleball

Then went to pickleball again with the co-working space group. We went to a Mexican place after.

And then a smaller group of us went to this local Vietnamese dessert place after that.

I literally ChatGPT’d what to get 😂 and ended up with the Chè Bưởi (not pictured on that menu).

I have no idea what it is 😂 but apparently it’s popular.

And I also have no idea how to describe it. This is wrong but it’s something like:

Soft peanut-like crunch things in some sauce
White marshmallow-like gelatin
Ice
A hint of sweetness

Social Events as a Strategy?

I was working at a cafe this week and one of the people I met at the group coaching event came over to say hi. She said she saw my Instagram and basically said “pitch me” and asked what exactly I do.

We chatted, and she said she wants to get better at YouTube but is struggling a bit.

I shared a bunch of things I’ve been learning, offered to take a look at her channel/videos, and asked if she wanted a report, to which she said yes.

I thought that was way-cool, but then it sort of happened again.

I was at one of the fitness studio classes and asked the guy next to me where he’s from and what his name is. We chat for a bit and he asked me what I do. I gave my one sentence pitch of building a service to help YouTube creators get more conversions from their videos.

He went oh! and explained that he’s a music producer, makes content, and said that he’s been wanting to get into YouTube as well.

And then today (Sunday) I went to another event (you’ll have to read next week’s post to find out 😈) and met a guy that used to do a lot of gaming livestreams and has been wanting to get into YouTube as well.

So I look at this and go, “Huh! Interesting… 😏😏😏”

The Sleep Dip

I’ve been struggling a bit with my bedtime routine lately and I’m not quite sure why.

Well, I guess when I say “routine,” maybe it’s more like “lack of routine” and “lack of routine” IS the reason why 😂

I typically go to the gym ~5pm and then eat dinner ~7pm. After dinner is where ideally I have a routine here in place, but I’ve been going back to the hostel and sitting on my phone a bit.

I usually have 2 things I “need” to do: Duolingo and post to Instagram stories. But I also watch YouTube and see what people are up to on Instagram.

And then just *waves hands* at some point I decide “ah, I should go to bed now”

… which is not a very great strategy.

So my sleep has slipped a bit unfortunately.

My hypothesis is that my brain is just so “on” for so much of the day that I don’t really have any downtime or “decompression” time and so I dip too far instead of using that time intentionally to wind down. Being tired/exhausted from the day doesn’t really help.

I’ll figure it out at some point 🤷‍♂️ At the very least I know it’s possible for me because I’ve done it before, so it’s just a matter of what’s changed compared to the other times?

This content is not ready to be made public yet.