Thank You for the lessons 2020. Hello, 2021.

Early in 2020, I decided to quit my corporate job and jump into running my own business. Whoa. What timing. Nobody could have predicted the perfect storm which was coming our way.

What a year we have had. 2020 has been called a lot of things. The year of the pandemic. The year of the global lockdown. The year of the economic meltdown.

2020 for me also was a roller coaster ride, definitely a year full of unprecedented excitement and amazing learning, a trial by fire. This will be the year I will never forget.

2020 made me grow, all of us grow, in more ways than one. It helped us flex muscles we didn’t even know we had and it made us more resilient. Way more resilient than we could have imagined, at least way more than I could have imagined.

As I look back, there are a few definite takeaways for me which I would like to share with you:

1.There is a lot to be grateful for:  We missed out a lot this year. A lot. A few acquaintances succumbed to the pandemic. We could not be with family on special occasions. Celebrating landmark birthdays virtually. Missing annual vacations somewhere abroad. A lot was pulling us down in 2020. Even with all of that, there was a lot I realized we need to be grateful for. EVERY SINGLE DAY. Family, friends, a job, a table full of food, being able to take care of family, having a team to rely on.

2. Family: In October end my whole family tested Covid-19 positive. My dad was in the hospital for a month, 22 of those days in the ICU. I was in the hospital myself for a week. My personal experience and struggle with Covid-19 were taxing. More importantly, the whole experience of the family, particularly my father struggling with Covid-19 made me realize how critically important family is and how crucial a role it plays in one’s wellbeing and continuous growth.

The lockdown also helped in being able to spend time with my 11-year-old daughter, my parents, and my wife Dipali. Actually connecting and spending long hours together opened a new perspective about people whom we are closest to. Stories of friend’s families, acquaintances who’ve always struggled with work-life balance only now realizing what they have been missing, further strengthened this belief.

3. The 5 by 5 Rule holds true more than ever: There is no more important time to prioritize and do what’s important and let go of what’s not a priority. If it won’t matter in five years, don’t spend more than five minutes being upset by it. We spend countless hours thinking, regretting, and fretting over things that are hardly important in the larger scheme of things. Prioritize.

4. We actually don’t need that much in life: The experience of the past 9 months tells us when it comes down to it all we need is very little. All we need is a roof over our heads, our family being well-fed and healthy, our societal interactions and friends on whom we can rely on. Rest all can be figured out.

5. Investing in your own health: being able to take out time for regular exercise used to be a chore. With the lockdown what started as a slow attempt at becoming fitter became much more than that. I never imagined one hour a day could lead to a 10kg weight loss and me being the fittest I have been in years.

6. Keep Investing in your own learning & Upskilling: Being able to get back to reading books. Completing the long-overdue online courses. Learning digital marketing and affiliate marketing practically by building a website and actually making things work. 2020 helped me fall back in love with books and learning intensively. I invested in myself. 60+ books after a gap of a few years was a rich self-reward. Keep doing what you love.

7. Take Charge: Even when nothing is going your way, you can still take charge and be in control of large parts of your lives. Even when nothing was going right, we still chose and took control of what we wanted to do. We chose whom we wanted to talk to, what we read, what we saw, what content we consumed. In an ever-changing chaotic year, we realized there are some things which we need to do, come what may. I did and We All Did.

8. There is no better time to take risks than NOW: It’s always tough to move away from your comfort zone but we all grow ONLY when we take large strides towards the mighty unknowns. Given a choice, if I knew 2020 would pan out the way it did, would I have taken the plunge? Of course YES. Would I make all the same decisions I did? Definitely NO. But start my entrepreneurial gig? Of course, I would.

Usually and most of the time things very seldom go as per our plans. In a black Swan year like 2020, we innovated; we changed plans mid-way and we survived. There is so much to take away from 2020 and a lot to look forward to in 2021.

Here’s looking forward to a rollicking, rocking, and hugely successful and fun 2021 for everyone.

Happy New Year. God Bless!!!