Dear friends,

It is a long standing tradition that we send holiday cards to our loved ones. With social media taking over a lot of the communication with our loved ones, the amount of holiday cards is also decreasing. Although sad in one way, it does make me appreciate the ones I do get.

Instead of sending you a holiday card ahead of Christmas and the shift to a new year, I have thought for a long time if there could be another way to give you… food for thought. I ended up with a small compilation of my own thoughts, that will hopefully make you stop and think for a moment about your life and the lives of the ones you care deeply about. It is based on a principle that became very important to me over the past year, especially since I had the privilege of publishing my first book titled How To Live Wow!?, after starting a blog under the similar name just two years ago. I want to share it with you, because I believe its impact can be beyond what expectations:

There is only one thing greater than doing something great yourself. It is empowering someone else to do something great. 

People do great things all the time. Over the past year, I’ve seen people taking courageous decisions to reach for goals they considered unreachable, or achieving things they never thought possible of themselves. I have seen the energy it releases in people, I’ve experienced it myself and I am sure that if you look back at the past year, you have experienced it yourself as well. But the biggest thrill to me has been the privilege to pass on knowledge and skills to others, so that they could take decisions and action towards their desired goals. I have received messages from people who started companies, shifted jobs, started improving their health and even started ánd ended relationships, for the sake of a better life, all because of some knowledge I passed on. It was knowledge wrapped in my own unique story, but the core message was anything but new…

Yet, despite the fact that the core message of my book has been told over and over again, there are a lot of people out there who still live their lives on auto-pilot. They live life as if it is something done to them by the outside world, rather than something they have control over most of the time. They live the plan someone else created, instead of the plan they created for themselves. For the new year, I am asking you to join me on the journey to encourage people to invest in their personal growth, to take control ánd responsibility over their lives, to look for their dreams and live them. Tell a friend who wants to give up that he or she might just be one step away from reaching that goal. Tell someone you care about that failure is also a step closer towards success. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It’s the people who don’t quit when they lose, who eventually win.

Some say that 2012 will see the end of the world. I rather believe the new year will be a beginning. When I look around, I see how the economic downturn makes more and more people think about what they really care about. I hope that for you, 2012 will most of all be a beginning of many new things. New friendships, a new business, new dreams and – most of all! – I wish you many opportunities to empower others to do something great. Because that, my friend, is not only the most powerful gift you can give, but also the most rewarding feeling you can get.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, and an amazing new year.

Love,
Sietse