A Personal Reflection On 2016.
The View From Canada
A lot of people are writing 2016 off like it was some kind of bad joke played on them.
But it really wasn't all that bad, you know. We got a Prime Minister in Canada who, although he's got some learning to do, is a real human being.
The stock market didn't crash when the US elected a completely unqualified asshole as its president.
The Chicago Cubs won the World series and my sister Sharon Twidle predicted it in spring training.
The Olympics were pretty exciting for anyone who watched them. And my sports teams (Patriots, Raptors, Blue Jays) all did pretty well for themselves.
Yeah, a lot of people checked out early, but just today somebody asked if it was really all that abnormal. I don't think it was. I'll miss Prince and Bowie for sure. They were really interesting people. And true artists.
The View From St Catharines
Personally it was a very good year. My LinkedIn pal,. John White, who knew that myself and a bunch of other bloggers were really unhappy with LinkedIn, invited us to start posting on beBee. Shortly after I did that my readership literally skyrocketed. Shortly after that I was invited to be a brand Ambassador and you can bet your fur that I will be actively promoting beBee every chance I get.
My wife, Heather, retired from the education business. As we were contemplating that, we figured that, since most of my business happens in front of a computer, we could live anywhere. So we made the effort to get out of Toronto and move closer to where I came from down on the Niagara Peninsula.
We chose St Catharines, which is literally right across the lake from Toronto and about 70 miles on the highway. (About an hour on a good day, which, ironically about the same amount of time as it takes to get from one side of Toronto the the other at most times of day).
We found a gorgeous house (with a salt water pool), that really just needs a bit of cosmetic work and sold our house in TO in about 3 days.
I kept all my clients and even picked up a new one. So I don't even have to worry about breaking into the Niagara region market.
We're very close to my sisters and my brother, all of whom we like a lot. And despite the fact that I swore up and down I would never move in the winter again, we did it, because we had to jump on this house or lose it.
And despite all the trials and tribulations of moving in December, we still salvaged a pretty decent Christmas out of it. Although every time we go shopping we joke that we're buying each other the Christmas presents that we never had time to buy before Christmas.
So if you want to shout "Kiss My Ass, 2016" from the rooftops go right ahead.
All I can tell you is that it was a pretty decent year from my point of view, and I'm looking forward to 2017 being even better.
If your business has reached the point where talking to a communication professional would be the preferred option to banging your head against the wall or whatever, lets talk.
Download my free ebook,