MERRY CHRISTMAS.

Another year. Another 12 months, 365 days or 8,760 hours of life. How lucky are we? Many people didn’t survive the past 12 months for whatever reasons. Steve Jobs of course comes first to my mind as he had a huge impact on me this year. Or Vaclav Havel who died just a week ago. I was lucky, no family member or close friend passed away.

But life is not about the ones that died but about what you experienced and what you learned and of course what you are going to make out of it. Positive outlooks, the now and the future. Let’s not be morbid but full of joy and look at what 2011 brought us…and ultimately what 2012 might have in stock for us.

January saw the last month of Jen’s pregnancy. A time, as everyone could imagine, that is full of emotions, tears, fun, and a toddler that can be annoying at times. Not only did I write my 100th Sunday Column, I also wrote about Cancer and Death in the same month. Are we back to the morbid topics? No, the post about that I may die today was a Buddhist thought on that you should live a great live and a compassionate life to the day of your death, reminding you that death could happen any day. And, that you shouldn’t worry about it but embrace the thought that it might be today. A comforting thought I think.

February was all about positive stuff and LIFE. Rohan was born. A few posts about happiness but also focusing on my work. We got a new member of staff and despite me being off I had to spend a lot of time working from home. I felt a lot of pressure at work that time and over the whole year. Lots of changes but overall this year was fantastic. For 2012 I can only see more and better growth. A stronger team. I cannot wait. But back to Rohan – he is now over 10 months and I can hardly imagine how he turned out to be the way he is. I was carrying him in the hospital: a fragile baby with a bony bump – a wee little tiny parcel. And now he has this cheeky smile, crawls around and cannot get enough attention, competing for it with his older brother. Life has been so good to us and seeing them both now, you wouldn’t think that Rohan had a very hard and dangerous time just after he was born. Thank who you need to thank for healthy children.

March was about coffee, no sleep and of course Iceland. I finally made it to Iceland on a trip where I spoke at a conference. Hopefully I go again next year but I haven’t heard, and March will be very busy with other conferences in other exciting countries. As with all “first baby month”, this one just passed. With probably around 7 hours sleep on average – per week

April saw me turning 34. My aim to become Managing Director before I was 35 had been fulfilled. How fantastic. Now I put my next challenge out: to be CEO or at least having one or two non-executive director positions before I am 40. We shall see what the future holds. Anyway, I got my netbook in April. I am still happy with it. A bit slow, and maybe I would prefer a tablet with keyboard now instead of a netbook but I wasn’t ready then. So still a good investment. The iPad is coming when version 3 comes out next year.

May - looking at the history of the blog and my notes: a very normal month. Nothing special happened. I had time to tell the world that it was me who invented Facebook. But I am still to receive Mr. Zuckerberg’s cheque

June came with more changes at work. Personally and privately this month was similar to May. I believe you get to this saturation point, particularly if you live of little sleep, where you just live. You are happy in your routine and you just do as you are told. Life is just normal. A few thoughts about life, some about dreams but nothing that will ever change the world.

Now, these were the first 6 months of 2011. I’ll post the next 6 months next week. I thought a marathon blog post on Christmas day might just be a little too much to read whilst you are sitting under the tree, stuffed with turkey, having a wee zip of wine or whisky.

Have a great Christmas holiday!
Volker & Family