The week we’re on now (the week in between Christmas and New Year’s) is a week of reflection for me. It’s when I reflect at everything that happened in 2014. The truth is I don’t think anyone really has a perfectly stellar year. Each year we’re met with a lot of challenges in our personal, work and family lives. In that respect this year has been a challenging one for me.
But if we look hard enough there are the good things too and the purpose of this post of mine is to reflect on those good things. To be thankful that they happened.
So here’s what I’m thankful for in 2014.
1) I Discovered Cycling
If you follow me on Dayre you’d probably realize that cycling plays a huge part in my life. I make it a point to go out on a ride as often as I can. This time last year though I hadn’t even owned a bicycle. It all started in January 2014. I was making New Year’s Eve Resolutions when I decided that one of the resolutions I need to make was to exercise more.
Sure I played golf and I occasionally went to the gym but that wasn’t enough (and golf isn’t really cardio). So I decided to take up cycling, buying my first bicycle somewhere towards the end of January if I remember correctly. It’s been an insane ride. Since then I’ve actually influenced a number of my friends to start cycling and we all go on regular rides together now. Not only that I’ve also met a lot of people from cycling.
Almost one year into cycling, I feel healthier and much more fit.
2) I was nominated for some awards.
This year I was nominated for the Prestige 40 under 40, making it to the Top 10 along with some of my buddies like Bryan, Kenny, David, Chan and Chung Lynn. The award night was good fun with all of us having drinks and joking around until our names got called and we all went on to stage. To my surprise I ended up winning the RHB Excellence Award that night too.
I also got nominated for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award under the Emerging Category. I didn’t win though. The winner was the guy behind a curtain company called MK Curtain and I thought it was well deserved because he had one awesome rags to riches story. Being nominated was enough for me.
3) I got to watch Fighter grow
This year I got to see Fighter grow from a newborn to an almost toddler. Watching him grow, learning new tricks each day has been such a joy.
4) We got Bump
This year we were blessed with another gift. Shorty is now pregnant with our number two. A baby girl.
Shorty is really excited and shopping up a storm for cute baby girl clothes now in anticipation for Bump.
5) I Found Balance
When I first joined Entrepreneur Organization a few years ago, they taught me about finding balance. About how we need to find balance in our personal, family and work/business life. Most of the time we find it easy to spend a lot of time with work and family commitments but hard to fulfill our personal needs. Personal needs mean two things… doing things that make you happy and doing things that make you healthy.
This year I found it. I love cycling, it fulfills both my happy and healthy needs and I love badminton too. Every week I end up playing badminton twice a week and then cycling another twice. That makes it four days in a week of healthy and happy stuff.
The rest of my time is spent at work and with my family. Fighter and Shorty. I struggled to find this balance in the past few years but I’m glad I’ve finally found it at least for now. I just hope i’ll be able to keep it.
6) Some of the stories on my blog went viral
This is something I never really expected before and has never really happened until this year. This year I shared some of the stories that seemed to have gotten quite a number of shares and comments.
Here are some of the notable ones.
The Story of a Mercedes Salesman
The Sacrifice my Filipino Maid Makes
Why you must never ask a couple why they haven’t had kids yet
Unfortunately I switched sharing and comments tools on my blog just a few months ago so that messes up the number of shares that some of those articles got but in any case I was happy to see more interaction on my blog.
7) Netccentric had a great 2014
Netccentric did well in 2014 and where I’m really happy was that this year we saw a lot of the growth of the group coming from overseas. It means a lot to me because in the early years of Netccentric we had invested in starting companies in foreign countries and we had waited for a long time for it to bear fruit. So long that at times I even began to doubt and wonder if we had made the right decisions.
This year though that doubt had all been dispelled. Nuffnang China, Nuffnang Thailand, Nuffnang Australia and all posted great results.
So that’s my 2014 everyone. I hope everyone has had an overall great 2014 and I hope 2015 would be even more awesome for you guys.
Happy New Year!
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space