It is Christmas morning, and I am spending it with my family. This happens seldom enough, and in between entertaining my little girls, I am taking a little time to write my thoughts. It is 6 days until 2010, so it is a good time for me to review how the past year went and what I would like to achieve in 2010.

A Year In Review
2009 has been a challenging year, both good and bad. If there is anything we can be sure of in life, it is this: Life does not stand still for anyone, and change happens.

1. Started work in a new retail chainstore in January 2009, we went from a standing start to 8 outlets inside 12 months.
2. My wife had an operation in January while I was setting up the first retail outlet, I would finish work at midnight and then spend the night at the hospital with my wife. Then get back to work at 6am, this went on for 3 nights until we were opened for business.
3. At the outlet I managed, we were the first to achieve a million dollars in sales.
4. Was appointed to oversee the installation of retail POS system for the group.
5. In the midst of installation and providing training, my wife gave birth to our second child.
6. Return to managing an outlet after project completion, and retained the number 1 sales position in the group.
7. In December, returned to Head Office to head our ISO9001 project.

2009 has been an eventful year, having to juggle the time spent at work with the time spent with my family. I am sorry to say that I had less time to spend with my family this year, and while my angelic girls accept this, it does tears me up to not be able to be there for them.

What’s In Store For 2010
For the foreseeable future, I will continue to be in retail. When all is said and done, it remains what I do best. Retail is serving your customers, taking care of the people who work with you, and building a business. It is interesting, challenging and you get to experience new things on a regular basis. We never stop learning. But it takes up a lot of your time, especially when you are in operations.

The options available are to continue with this company, or start a new retail chain as a partner. In either case, retail it is. With this company, I would be working with people I have known for years, and continuing to improve the business. At the expense of time with my family. On the other hand, creating a new business promises to be just as challenging. I have been in business before, both worlds have their own unique set of problems and rewards. Personally, it does matter whether I work for someone, or have a stake in the business. I tend to look for challenges and love doing new things. So we will see what 2010 brings.

As for the internet, I only started to build wordpress websites in June of 2008. By using wordpress and keywords, manage to land on Google page 1 for most of my websites. Except for this site, where I revamp everything and thus lost my page 1. My first site ended up on page 1, no.1. Not too bad, huh? This is my current passion, creating and publishing websites. I will continue to build wordpress websites, either for myself or for paying clients.

So, once again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

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