Sunday, May 15, 2005
Taking Stock - The Last Few Months
So every few months I take stock of what's been happening, where
I stand now and where I am going. You probably know by now that
www.travelandtransitions.com is a project that has grown out
of some of my true passions and I work on it part-time, in addition
to running a full-time translation and language services business
by the name of Textronics Communications
Ltd.
This process of taking stock has actually worked very well for
my full-time business, where I meet with my strategic consultants
every few months to lay out detailed strategies and double-check
where we stand now in comparison to the plans we had laid out.
I find sometimes the hardest thing as an independent entrepreneur
is to develop strategies and new ideas by yourself, and even more
so, to consistently implement them. Particularly when you are a
sole entrepreneur and you don't have business partners or a network
of other entrepreneurs to bounce ideas off of.
So following my pivotal
trip to Cuba I have refocussed my efforts on my full-time business
since in my fervor to get my new website off the ground during the
first 4 months of the year, I had admittedly been neglecting my
main business to some degree. The effects of that were beginning
to show and I realized that I must dedicate the proper amount of
attention to my business, considering it is my sole source of revenue
at this stage and I also feel a great sense of responsibility to
the people that work with me.
Later on (and a realistic timeframe still needs to be developed)
I am planning to make Travel and Transitions a revenue-generating
venture, but I realize that will take time, to build traffic, to
make it a truly valuable resource on the net, to publicize the website.
Considering that we only uploaded the new version of the site at
the new URL www.travelandtransitions.com
on March 20, 2005, I think we are doing reasonably well. In less
than a month we had achieved a Google Page Rank 2/10, without even
having submitted the site to the search engines yet!
Building this website is a multi-step, long-term venture, and I
am pretty happy with the progress. So far we have over 110 pages
of unique content and there are many things in the works. At present
I've got 3 or 4 interesting interviews in the pipeline and in the
near future I will dedicate more time to researching and writing
useful travel advice articles. I am working on creating a newsletter
and over the next few months we'll create a travel story contest
where you, the readers, will finally have an opportunity to submit
your stories while having a chance to win some awesome travel prizes.
At the moment, we are approaching other webmasters to exchange links
and it's very gratifying to receive positive feedback for all the
work that's been done so far.
Last Sunday, on our way back from
our trip to New York City, I picked up a book at La Guardia
Airport, it is called "The
Bitch in The House" - "26 Women Tell the Truth About
Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood and Marriage" and I have
finished about three quarters of the book and I really enjoyed the
frankness of the articles. A common theme that runs through it is
the difficulty and frustrations among today's generation of women
of trying to balance the multiple simultaneous demands of work and
home life. Some of the women write very candidly about their built-up
anger arising from the challenge of trying to have it all, to manage
it all, to get everything done without too much guilt that one area
or another got short-changed.
It's funny, but this book fits in so well with my insights that
I arrived at during and after my
trip to Cuba, where I realized balance
and appreciation are key things I need
to focus on. I myself had been running myself ragged, trying to
manage a full-time business with several staff members, while getting
a new web-based business off the ground (without any background
in web design or e-marketing), all the while trying to remain a
decent partner to my husband, a good friend to my buddies, and supposedly
looking after my health by eating, sleeping and exercising properly.
Well, I am happy to report that during the last 4 weeks I have
managed to make some meaningful changes in my life to restore much-needed
balance. I have rededicated appropriate
efforts to my full-time business, I continue to take courses, read
books, and educate myself on issues such as search engine optimization,
and e-marketing, and all areas of business management. I am happy
to say I have also been spending more meaningful time with my husband,
I have reconnected with friends, and I have been able to get on
my bike at least a couple of times a week before work, play some
tennis and try to get back into shape.
As far as appreciation is concerned,
I indeed feel very blessed. For 20 years of my life I dedicated
myself solely to completing 2 business degrees in evening studies
and simultaneously building a business for the last 15 years, efforts
that often stretched me to the limits of my capabilities.
This web site, I feel, is truly my calling, my opportunity to redevelop
and rekindle the sides of me that I had been neglecting for 2 decades:
my creative side, my adventurous side, the language learning side,
the hobby sociologist/ anthropologist/ photographer in me. And I
am grateful for having had some sort of divine flash of insight
to start this venture, my true chance to pursue the passions in
my life. Indeed, one day this web site will be my full-time endeavour,
but all in good time, since balance and a reasonably stress-free
life are essential to me.
I now realize patience is an important virtue.......
Here's the book I've been reading:
Related Articles:
My rather pivotal Post-Cuban
reflections
So where is this website going?
A reflection on some of my dilemmas as
an entrepreneur
My travel stories from
New York
My travel stories from
Cuba
|