A strange thing happened last Thursday, December 6th. I missed my two year anniversary. My wife didn’t notice either. And now that I realize it… I feel great.
Yes, two years ago I quit my job at IBM to venture out to “become an entrepreneur”. I still remember how crazy (and crazy short) that first year was on my own. There was a tremendous amount of pressure, confusion, and insecurity. Despite all of that, my goal in that first year was to establish some sort of direction. I wanted to lay a path forward to prove that leaving my day job was not just a temporary experiment; it was a fundamental change in the way I would lead my life.
The fact that December 6th passed by this year without hardly a notice is a fantastic sign. It means that I was successful in my 2011 goal. I am no longer counting the days “without a real job”. Instead, what once seemed crazy is now my normal; I absolutely can’t imagine having spent 2012 doing anything else. My company, ArchiveSocial, has made tremendous progress over the course of this past year. I made my first hire and brought the product to the market, and we now have a significant number of customers who enthusiastically believe in our solution. There is, of course, a lot more that I can share about my business experiences this year, but I’ll leave that for another set of blog posts (and yes, I’m serious about keeping up with my blog this time!).
Beyond the business, 2012 was also significant in another major way. I am now the proud father of a two-month old boy. I can’t even begin to express how that feels. Yep, you can imagine that this was an especially crazy year with both a startup and a baby 🙂 Again, since my goal is to post a lot more frequently to this blog, I’ll save the details for another time.
So yes, what happened last Thursday was significant. December 6th, 2012, was not a day that I spent reflecting on the past. Rather, it was a day in which I was intently focused on the present, and the future.