1. The decision to do the Xactly Incent Administrators Course in July of 2010. It led to a really terrific consulting gig, gig of all gigs, bringing me into contact with a wonderful entrepreneur at Solution Partners Inc, Los Gatos and taking my skills in Sales Compensation to a whole new level. It led to me transitioning from a number-crunching Commissions Analyst with Excel and Centive under my belt to a rule-writing Xactly Incent Implementations Architect. It catapulted me into the world of Salesforce.com and cloud computing. Indeed one of the highlights of my professional year was attending Dreamforce at the Moscone center in December of this year
2. The decision to give up watching TV. This was a hard one. I gave up a 6 year addiction to CNBC and Jim Cramer and Fast Money and with the free time that was released, this one-time Deccan Herald contributor and MAA Bozell & JWT copywriter began to write again. This led to me penning 25 very mediocre short stories over a month - I will share those on this blog at some point, but more importantly it led to the idea and momentum for this blog.
3. The decision to become a believer again. 2010 was transformational for me. Unlike author Christopher Hitchens who even on his deathbed has not renounced his atheism, I returned to my roots as a Christian this year after decades of pooh poohing God and all those who believed in him. My conversion was not as dramatic as C. S. Lewis's or Martin Luther's or St. Augustine's - more about those some other time if you are interested -- and happened at a mid-week church service at Cathedral of Faith. I was going through a difficult time both at work and in my personal life at that time - and Pastor Mike Garcia's sermon about Forgiveness spoke to me. I found myself drawn to continue to attend both the mid-week services and the Sunday services and within a few months the transformation was complete and I came to believe that the only 2 things that were sacred in life was life itself and my relationship with God. With my spiritual self stirring again, I wanted to become a better person and this then led to me learning how to meditate on the qualities I wanted to develop in myself. I owe the meditation technique to a book by 2 neuroscientists called "How God Changes Your Brain". Meditation has become a daily priority for me and I do it for an hour everyday first thing in the morning.
4. The decision to switch to Vonage for my home phone service. It may seem crass, but this was also life-changing for me. Switching to Vonage World from AT& T this year enabled me to rediscover old friends and keep in touch with existing ones through long phone chats between me and friends in the US, India, Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, UK, Germany and Poland. It feels so good to be able to talk for as long as I want for a flat monthly fee that works out to $33.00 per month with taxes. Thank you Vonage.
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