2011 is coming to a end and as it is a bit of a tradition in this blog, I usually do a wrap up of the year post. It has been a very hectic year for me, with many sleepless nights. In fact, more than I can count. On a personal level, it has been a bit of a roller-coaster but with a lot of learning and improvement: Learning to build products, brands, teams, relationships. It has been transformative.
Earlier, in the year, I used to have a way to break the boundaries: If something makes you nervous do it, push the boundaries in a way that enhances the internal experience. While hard and difficult initially, it has been a skill that I have developed and has led to more self awareness and confidence.
Protip: Surrounding yourself with people who work tremendously hard is a way to success. I have found myself doing that although serendipitously. Every night at 1, 2, 3 AM, you would find me working or in back and forth emails with people. That has been a breakthrough for me, when you surround yourself with driven, hard working people you work hard and honestly there is no other way in this path.
This year, I also started growing a beard and people say it suits me and make me look serious. I like that. This year, I am in area that plays on my strengths and I enjoy: creating products, teams. Creating something from nothing is tremendously hard but it is one of the most disproportionally rewarding activity. This year has been a great learning experience in both.
Things experienced:
- I was in three countries that I had never been before. And I had a great time. I went diving for the first time this year and it was incredible.
- Escape Velocity Podcast is flying. We built it from scratch into something that is exciting and long term. We conducted thirty interviews this year and had tremendous fun doing it and constantly improving the quality of the interviews and what our listeners get out of it. Do check it out and follow us on iTunes.
- Over the summer, Ben and I started a small meetup for people with projects and while that small project reached its end of life, in typical fashion, Ben has taken it at a new level with Startup Poker, Startup Digest and many others that are coming up.
- I am back to Table Tennis training and trying to do it seriously.
- While not in a way that is said below, one of the things I have learned to master is loneliness, when you are creating something, the journey is lonely and difficult but the rewards are disproportionate. This year, I have more friends, more contacts, better quality of relationships and more experiences. To do this however, I have had to master and be comfortable with my own presence and my work. In almost a Zen like meditation, I have had to go deep down and accept the way I am and be happy with it. Once you reach that state, the world opens up doors. It is by far the most difficult thing I have done and it means breaking off a lot of old baggage, meaningless relationships and stuff that just is not important but this transformation has been rewarding. People have this notion that once you are this way, it is dull and boring and in my experience it is by far the most fun thing I have expereinced.
(source)
Lessons learnt or reinforced:
- Timing is everything. As I look at things, I get the feeling that more than anything, timing matters, being at the right place at the right time is critical, but this has to be backed up by the other stuff: bringing something to the table, hard work, interests.
- Passion is important. If you are going to do something do it with a passion, honesty and integrity, that produces wins in the long term.
- Experiences over things, this comes up every time. I would highly recommend Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh. (link)
- The Complete guide to not giving a F*ck. While not 100% applicable, I think that this is a great read and this is for the 5% of the people who create products and things, it is more of a manifesto.
2012 promises to be exciting already and I have a couple of personal goals to accomplish in addition to goals around work and otherwise.
Finally, it is a bit of a tradition on this site to publish yearly stats of pageviews etc. In all the 14 years that I have had this site the pageviews etc. get old, so this year I am just going to show you the areas from where people came. I see a lot of people from the East Coast of the US, Europe and India.
Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays. Onwards!
. If you were out of Facebook, you would see a embedded YouTube video below. )
(me)
