My 2010 started on the right note.   Had my first Chinese lesson today.   2 hours.  Expected it to be not very much fun but as it turned out it was great.   I now can count 1-10!   After 6 years in China its a bit of a shame that it has taken me that long to get started but nevertheless, I have gotten started so that counts.

My personal training sessions will start 2 days a week, Wed and Friday.  Overall, looking at my schedule it is a very full week with personal commitments.   Looking outwards and given the work ahead for this year,   I’m looking how to get more time into my day.    The good news is that my new home housekeeper started – and she speaks English – so running the house and managing my personal affairs will be now be much faster and easier.

Nevertheless, more so now than ever I need to really push anything non-strategic outwards and put my energy onto long term strategic things.

Two things on the go for this week is:

1. Plan the corporate retreat and planning session

2. Get mossy started on working financials for 2009

3. Opening up the new entities – corporate plan

4. Budget setting for 2010

These would be my 3 rocks for this month – and if I can put those forward – I would call January a success.

My schedule for this week (and that is without any time slots for work looks like this).   Regardless of how I push things I know I will be short of the time I need to move things forward.  Now I have my days starting at 9AM, so my real option now is to push my days to start at 7AM and get extra 10 hours in a week.   I’m not keen on pushing work into nights as from the past I have seen that its easy to work till 3 or 4AM – and then be non-productive next day.  So, will now be working on switching my sleep schedule to start getting into the office earlier.

Business wise, all things are working well – peak is over now and everyone is taking a well deserved slower pace.

I had though about a Theme for 2010 – and the theme I came up with is “Launch RedStores to the moon.”   Visually, I see a ‘restores’ ball at the bottom of a stick, with a moon on top, and as we open up more stores the ball will rise.    With some preliminary work on 2010 planning, my core theme for this year will be growth and speed.   I need to develop these ideas a bit more and understand the tradeoffs (quality and cost) – but the timing now feels right for rapid sprint to get ‘lift’ momentum – much like a rocket ship.    Future looks good and exciting and I think the thing that drives me now is the fact that I will be able to offer so much opportunities to the team.    The other day the owner of ‘Belagio’ shared with me how his goal is for key players to “have a car in 5 years, and a house in 10’ – maybe the # are not quoted 100% right – but that is one thing I would love to do for the people that are with me now.  Given the the opportunity and create a place where they can buy a car and own their own apartment in 5 years.    Dream?  Don’t think so.  With the right growth, right profit sharing plan, right profits and right energy, there is absolutely no reason, no reason at all, why everyone  that is part of the growth and contributing to ‘launching the rocket’ should not rise with it – and the higher the rocker so the higher the people that are in the cockpit.    So, my VC (Vested Contributors) plan is on foremost in my mind now as it will server as the vehicle to share the wealth as this wealth is attained.   

From investors point of view, also, those coming in early will share in the risk of the rocket going ‘boom’ BUT at the same time,those that come in early will have a great opportunity to ride this rocket way, way into the sky and to the moon.

On another note, I had a discussion today about why it is that I feel that “I’m special’ compared to other people.  It was a challenge from a friend who posed that other people are just as special as me.  At the risk of sounding neurotic, I had to disagree with him, and by that very thinking helped me recognize the unique skills and talents that I do have and offer.

In particular my ability to focus, to get things done, to overcome obstacles, not to give up in face of a ‘blunt’ challenge – I think unique to myself.    Ability to be able to look at big picture but also to zoom in on the detail and also the wisdom to know when to do that.   I’m not working to ‘pump me up’ but looking outwards those are definitely my unique strengths – and I believe these skills position me in a unique place to achieve great, cool, fun things – and to actually be able to make a world a better place.

There is another deeper insight I will share later in this blog that came out of a session I had in Ko Samui while fasting – something that I think had a great deal of impact on me and the way it had shaped me to become what I am.   But today, its already late (11:40PM) and I still want to get some emails caught up so will write more on that later in the week.

Basically, I had a fantastic start to a New Year – and I feel the energy and drive to do cool things this year!   Just like a rocket,  the count down sequence to launch is now down to just 1 or 2 seconds.     To a great 2010 and to ignition.