My #2020Vision

When I look back at the last decade. I’m pretty pleased to see how it turned out. I got married, got 2 kids (a boy and a girl), built my own house, (co)founded 4 startups, one of which I became CEO when I moved from aspiring entrepreneur to full-time entrepreneur and grew that business from a bootstrap start up to a million (Surinamese, but still) dollar business with 12 employees in 3 years time.

If you look at this list, which is longer when you add Social work and volunteering, you could say that it was a perfect decade. However, it was far from it. It doesn’t show sacrifices I’ve made, disappointments, jealousy and envy, miscommunications, financial struggles, mental and physical damage, any form of battle scars that were included in this #Road235 (I turned 35 at the end of the decade, which I personally tried to use to end the decade on a specific timeline). It doesn’t tell relationship issues me and my wife went through, the drastic change in lifestyle 2 children bring and how many of my startups struggled and I stopped investing in.

I do want to share what I have learned these past 10 years, and while I started this proces with the ‘Future Leaders and Entrepreneurs’ program halfway through the previous decade, I haven’t shared as many personal insights because of my own doubts, fears and insecurities. However, I will use 2020-2025 to get the word out on how I perceive the world, with one simple goal:
‘Help people have a starting point to discus issues which both help them create their own view on the world and help them develop themselves to make the most out of their talents’

A little bit of personal background

In this point in my life I have a couple of personal inalienable truths:

• It pays to be good in something and it pays to invest in something you are good at. There are enough people that will focus on what you can’t, so it is best to focus on what you can do to bring change to your life and those around you.

• Your body doesn’t get younger, enjoy your body and take care of it. If you don’t it will decide for you what you can and can’t do.

• We are all different, but in all our differences we should never forget how much we have in common. There are people that like seeking differences. Don’t let them keep you away from those that seek for common ground.

• Make time for those that care about you and love you. You might not always have time now, but what use is time when you or they are gone?

• We live in the world of the spectacle. A world where economics are often valued more than health and peace. Where a mobile phone controles part of our life and effects how we perceive relationships. Where putting up a facade to manage a perception is sometimes valued more than showing true colors to create meaningful relationship. Where reaching a certain financial status is perceived more successful than bridging social and cultural gaps. Where short lived sensation is preferred as news above continuous structural improvement…. Or is it?

The last ‘truth’ has kept me pondering ever since I read Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord 11 years ago. While I believe it still is very subjective and I don’t believe that everyone is being controlled by technological developments and financial/economic trends, I myself have been struggling with staying in control, as even though I’m fully aware how Social Media and the Internet, it is controlling a major part of my life. Because of this, and the other aforementioned truths, I made myself four promises for 2020:

1. Focus on the things I have been doing annually for the past years, only do them better
2. Putting my own ambitions ahead of the need to please others
3. Finding acceptance to my procrastination
4. Spending more time with family and friends

Everything I do in 2020 will be with these four promises (which I will elaborate on in future blogs) in mind.

A little bit of Social Media background

I started taking personal branding more serious in 2014. While I became invested into Social Media in 2010 (a bit longer if you take personal use into account), it wasn’t until Social Media Marketing World 2014 that I became fully aware on the potential of Social Media to create an personal online brand. Coincidentally, 2014 was the year I launched my first website and started experimenting with new formats of content, including video formats and podcasts.

However, ever since there seems to be an reoccurring trend.

The year starts of with quality content and slowly cools down towards the midway of the year. And in the second part of the year, my online presence gets minimized to a bare minimum of a couple of Facebook page posts a month and mainly posts on my more personal, closed off channels. Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Steem. Every Social platform I used daily in the first half of the year starts getting an occasional visit in the second. Wether it is because of the many projects in the second part of the year, my lecture schedule, or any thing else I can’t currently think of, I seem to run out of Social Media fumes in the second half of the year. Where all challenges in May end up being completed successfully, every September challenge has been a total disappointment. In 2018 it was so bad, I ended up taking a Social Media break because I was both physically and emotionally drained from the first half of the year.

The goal for 2020 is not to have the fall off on Social Media in the second half of the year and making the commitment to not allow other obligations to take away the priority of consistently uploading content, but more importantly, doing something I love doing.

A little bit of Steem background

How I will stay focused on consistently creating and uploading content will be something that I’ll have to figure out. For the Steem blockchain, there were a couple of things that really helped me in 2019. The first being Freewriting, which I eventually stopped doing because of the pressure (of myself) to continue with a format which was really fun but ultimately to time-consuming for me to continue, leading me to stop doing freewrites because I couldn't convince myself to write them without wanting to stick to the format.

The second was the #Seven77 movement, which really kept me committed to uploading daily content and was probably one of the most successful projects to get to connect different people on the blockchain to a common goal. Unfortunately, the project changed direction and never got the same engagement and support after, leading me to go in the same mode with Steem as with other Social Platforms… disappear in the second part of the year. Even abandoning my own project #HumanizeSteem and the ambition to join the @steemitbloggers.

So, when I decided to pick up where I left off as always during the beginning of the year, I was pleasantly surprised by @pixiepost’s ambitious plan the somehow bring back a Seven77 like journey, this time through #2020Vision.

How I will approach my #2020Vision

For those who want to learn more about the #2020Vision challenge, please do check out @pixiepost’s original 2020 Vision post or watch the video explaining the challenge on dtube.

I’m hereby announcing that I will be joining this challenge, only with a couple of minor changes.

For me the main focus will be on posting 4 things I did every day instead of 4 creative pushups. Yes, being active every day is also a goal and I’ll be posting my #Actifit reports. But, the focus will be on doing 4 things every day that are important enough to mention and might inspire others to included these tasks as goals of their own. Listing 4 things I did will keep me competitive enough to fight off procrastination, drive me to do the things I love doing, keep my personal ambitions on top of mind and hopefully also give me the opportunity to have 1 family based activity every day.

Then there is one more twist to make this a real challenge. I’m not accepting the 44 days timeline, but making it 44 weeks. This commits me to the larger goal of not slipping of the second part of the year, without creating a burden at the end of the year went things get super hectic, allowing me time to evaluate and plan for 2021 as well. Also, I won’t kill myself, meaning if I miss a day, I will miss a day. But I am keeping to the Seinfeld Strategy popularized by James Clear to built up a routine.

This is my Vision 2020. I’ll be posting daily on Steem and my personal Facebook profile. Let the journey begin.

#lobi

@jeanlucsr

Special shoutout to @zord189 for this awesome signature

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