2021 Report

Wow. Another year went by, and we are still in the COVID world. Does not that pretty much summarizes the situation? 😊 So what happened in my world for 2021?

Remember the last year’s report? Of course not, but long story short, I had all my weight loss rolled back, weighting around 150Kgs / 330lbs. Beginning of April 2021, I decided to get things back on track. I have started dieting, cutting junk food that we all know makes us fat. That started the weight loss pretty nicely. Once I was down to 125Kgs / 275lbs, around October 2021, I started adding some cardio. So far, I’m still following the same pattern. I’m doing 40 minutes of indoor cycling every other day targeting 75% of max HR bpm range. Today I weight 112Kgs / 246lbs with a total loss of 38Kgs / 84lbs in 9 months. Not bad 😊. My plan is to keep doing what I do and eventually switch to outdoor running around 100-90kgs / 220-200lbs. There goes a win for 2021.

On the business side of 2021, I joined Microsoft. It happened. Throughout the years as an MVP and RD I have always fought against the perception that I was a Microsoft employee where I simply was an independent influencer and subject matter expert. Now, I don’t have to do that anymore 😊 I have joined Microsoft to lead the Azure Application Development efforts in the Middle East and Africa across Corporate, Medium, and Small Business segments. We are building a new team, and I love the challenge so far. With that said, after about 10+ years in global startups, it is a significant shift that is still pushing me to think outside my box.

When it comes to studies 😊 unfortunately, I did not finish my Master’s in Organizational Leadership yet. This past summer, I went through a gallbladder removal operation, which slowed down things. Thankfully I’m on my last course and will finish the program end of January 2022. So, this win goes for 2022 next year 😊. Overall, going through a second Master’s was definitely worth my time. I loved every course and topic I studied. It gave me a throughout understanding of the function of people in organizations; organizational behavior has been my favorite topic.

In contrast to all the progress, my community contributions and blogging did suffer a bit. I did not blog much, and my community contributions were only 18 sessions delivered online in various conferences, local and global. From a speaking engagement perspective, I did pretty well, but the rest did not hold up. Same with the number of books I could read, only seven books 😢. I wish I did count the number of research papers I had to read 😂. Jokes aside, I’m not very worried about the number of books read for now, as I was pretty buried into my Master’s. I will see If I want to change directions in 2022.

As you can tell, I don’t really have rigid plans at the beginning of the year. I don’t make resolutions either. However, there are a couple of things where I would enjoy seeing more progress. First, I want to keep up the amount and the diversity of the content I digest to learn and grow. So far, my master’s degree has helped with this, but I have to keep it up with some other ways in 2022. Second, I want to keep the momentum on my healthy living habits and hopefully finish a half marathon. Third… I don’t know 😊 We will see. Aren’t those all the unknowns that make a new year exciting anyways?

Here is my tradition new year’s gift for you 😊. A wallpaper I shot at home 😉

I wish you all a happy 2022! See you soon!