Happy New Year! Lessons Learned…

New Year  marks a new beginning. New people to meet, new adventures to enjoy and new memories to create.

But first let me take some time and be grateful. Be grateful for all of the people that I was able to serve this year, be grateful to my family, be grateful that you are still alive and can walk and talk. Be grateful that that I have my health, and for life itself.

Now, as the New Year approaches, it’s time to look back, appreciate life, and also search for lessons we have learnt this year. It is impossible to go through a year and not learn something new about yourself and about the world around us.

Here’s my list of 15. As per previous years, I pass this list on to you with the simple hope that it may make you think!

1. Enjoy life. This moment is my life and it is between now and your next breath. Spend it in full, in kindness and in peace, with your loved ones. I have seen and gone to too many funerals this year. Every day above ground is a good day, so let’s enjoy very minute of our lives.
2. Life is not a roller coaster but a set of railroad tracks….at any given moment there are negative, discouraging, upsetting things that are passing through our lives; at the same time there is a ‘track’ going through our lives of positive, exciting, rewarding things. The choice we have every day when we wake up is which track are we going to focus on. Rick Warren (author of Purpose Driven Life)
3. The purpose of your life is to truly live before you die, and the purpose of business is to fund that perfect life. Always find “me time” and family time.
4. What I focus on shows up more in my life.
5. Be kind. Small acts of kindness can make the world a better place. Kindness is the only investment that never fails. Be the change you wish to see in the world (Gandhi), as hard as it may seem.
6. Don’t procrastinate. When you procrastinate, you become a slave to yesterday. Be proactive. Have a purpose.
7. Learn to let go. People who are controlling have a hard time moving through the world. Let go. It’s simple.
8. No one succeeds alone … be open to, and grateful for the wisdom, learning and assistance of others
9. You become like the 5 people you hang out with, so hang out with people who are worth it.
10. Check your emotions between the lines. When you’re dealing with a crappy situation, it’s very easy to let emotions get the best of you.
11. Check your ego. Don’t fall in love with being famous, fall in love with the work.
12. It’s my opinion. Put you opinions out there, haters and all. When you put yourself out there, you’re going to get judged and people are going to try and put you down. But you have to put yourself out there anyway. Only God can judge you. There was once a time when I walked into a room and I wondered if people liked me, now I walk into that room and I wonder if I like them. 
13. Learn to say “no”. Saying no does not make you selfish. When I used to say no to people when they requested pretty much anything they requested of me, I would feel like the worst person in the world. I’ve done some serious internal work this year to let go of that and look at my time as being one of the most precious things in life.
14. We play by my rules. If you want to play with me, in my courtyard, then you play by my rules, or we don’t play out all.
15. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. Always upgrade and live large.