REBUILD THE
SECOND HALF.
Follow Brando is about rebuilding your life after the old version stops working. Southeast Asia is where I’m doing it.
I didn’t come here
to reinvent myself.
I’m Brandon David Cole. I started my career directing independent films and producing video content for Dr. Dre.
By the time I came to Southeast Asia, I had spent twenty years in film and video production — with editorial credits across Netflix, Bravo and MTV, and years producing and building media operations for major corporate brands. Today I run The VDO AIGency →
Then, almost as a sideline, I started pointing the camera at my own life.
That became Follow Brando.
Somewhere along the way, Southeast Asia stopped being something I was filming and became my actual life. I built a business here. I became a father. I started a family. And the questions changed.
Less “Where should I live?” More “What kind of life am I actually building?”
Follow Brando is where I work through that — money, family, work, health, aging, freedom, mistakes and what happens when the life you built the first time no longer fits.
This is the field journal of the second half.
THE BEGINNING.
MY FIRST YEAR IN SAIGON, VIETNAM.
This was my first year in Saigon. I thought I was documenting a place. I didn’t realize I was documenting the beginning of a completely different life.
Watch on YouTube →
You don’t need
another newsletter.
Neither do I.
I send something when I have something worth sending — new videos, ideas I’m working through, things I learned the expensive way, and occasional opportunities that don’t make it onto YouTube.
Join the list →How much does a new life actually cost?
The Expat Escape Kit + FU Money Calculator helps you work out the numbers before you blow up your life.
Get the kit →Want to talk?
I occasionally open a small number of one-on-one conversations with people trying to figure out what comes next — a move, retirement, business change, divorce, reinvention, or simply the realization that the old plan isn’t working anymore.
I don’t do relocation concierge work. I don’t have a course to sell you. And I probably can’t tell you which SIM card to buy.
Limited availabilitySee what’s open →