On Friday, October 19th, 2012 my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our brand new baby girl, a first child for both of us. As we came at this later in life than most, and as we both have needs to make sure our child makes it into this world safe and sound, we took a number of precautions to maintain secrecy about the pregnancy right up until the very last minute. We just wanted to make sure that we kept all of our complications to an absolute minimum so we could focus on having the most wonderful experience we could with our first child.
One of the things that meant was that I would keep my head down and focus on other things than drawing attention through this particular blog... so I started a number of highly successful new media exposures in completely other venues and on other subjects as a way to expand my brand but also as a way to protect my family by not drawing attention on my security blog. (There ARE people that don't like us, after all. I'm even related to some of them.)
Today, my wife and daughter are safe, happy and healthy, and I am more grateful than I can say that they are. We have been able to appreciate the well-wishing and support of our friends and close family members while keeping those that wish us harm at arm's length, and this is a job that I will continue to happily perform for my family for the rest of my life.
My daughter has joined the world at one of the most opportune and oddly one of the most catastrophic times in human history. Global economic recession/depression combined with the ongoing violence of global terrorism and warfare is usually not an environment that one wishes to bring a child into, and my wife and I talked about that a lot before our daughter was born. We also looked at the phenomenal opportunities that our daughter will have that simply were not even possible during our own childhoods, and the future we see for her has unlimited potential.
Last year when our nephew stayed with us we made a point of sharing a philosophy we have about life in general. Knowing that there are some serious dangers in 'the big city' compared to the more town/country life he grew up in, we used the following expression to sum up our advice to him: Don't be afraid, just be aware. In Manhattan locals have often used a similar adage - they love Central Park, but only a complete moron went there after dark. (Usually a moron who soon learned what being mugged was all about.)
Our family practices that philosophy - nothing stops us from doing what we want to. Nothing. But we make sure we are very much aware of the circumstances in which we do it and we make sure we're ready to handle anything that might arise.
In business the same philosophy is critical. There really is nothing out there that can stop you from achieving your business goals, but there ARE dangers and risks in anything these days. That shouldn't stop you from doing it, but before you leap head first into that new project, make sure you are aware of what you are really getting into and develop some strategies for handling those risks if and when they come up, and you will find your road to success has a lot fewer potholes in it. And you may also find a bright, shining smiley-face looking up to you with the confidence that they know it will all work out in the end, no matter how chaotic it all may seem to you at the time.
As Red Green puts it, "Keep your stick on the ice. We're all in this together."
C./
