Firstly, Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a great holiday season enjoying time spent with family, exchanging gifts, or just enjoying a deserved rest. It is that time of year where we all review what we did last year, some of us moan at the realization that we have another year doing the same thing again, others start new jobs, others begin and/or end their working career. It is a pivotal time for each of us as we determine what we want to future to look like. For me, this year should be a fun, but busy one.

I am excited to have multiple courses scheduled for completion this year. The next ones will be:

  • Practical Threat Modeling (should be soon)
  • Complete Guide to PowerShell 7 (should be soon)

I am then working on multiple courses that will include some updates to existing courses, as well as new ones that cover Azure Basics and Infrastructure, CMMC, CCSK, Project+, Microsoft 365 Device and Security Management, and Network Security. I will of course probably work on a few other ones. I am excited about completing these courses and branching out a bit more from the standard Microsoft 365 and SharePoint content. An example of this was my last few course releases:

Outside of courses, I am working with some great clients on all kinds of different things, which of course keeps me on my toes and busy. My goal this year is to be better at planning and managing my time. The joys of working for yourself is that, if you don’t encourage yourself, no-one else does. It is often very easy to choose running, mountain biking or something else instead of working. I often find myself running things up to the wire because of this. So new goal: Plan better and manage time better. I am also structuring what I do better and making the company offerings easier and better to understand.

I am of course also going to be speaking at a few conferences. I am really excited to be giving my full day Security workshop at the Microsoft conference in Las Vegas in May.

Outside of work, I am also still working with Berryville FC and North Stars Berryville Soccer Clubs, which takes a lot of time outside of work, just making sure the teams are happy, we are in the right leagues and have what we need. On top of that I will also be coaching boys U15 Soccer again in the spring and fall, which I really enjoy.

The most important piece of course is my family. With two of my kids married, and having grandkids now, family time is more important than ever. We just had everyone back here for Christmas which was amazing. The goal for this year is to make more quality time for all the family, taking trips to see my son and daughters’ families, as well as making sure to attend everything here for my other two boys. Family comes first, everything else is secondary, so that will always be my main choice, when it comes to for example speaking at conferences.

Lastly, I am currently learning Arabic. Not the easiest language and really have no reason to learn it. However, I am not great at learning to speak other languages, I have tried Spanish, French, and German. I am way better learning coding languages for sure. Anyway, I set my self a complicate task and thought, why not try it, if I can learn Arabic, I should be able to learn other languages. We shall see how this goes 🤣

I want to end by just saying a massive THANK YOU to you all. For those of you I work with, those of you who read the content I write, watch and/or attend my training courses, attend my conference workshops and sessions, and those that just stay in contact. It is because of you that I continue to do what I do. Thank you again and I wish the most fantastic year ahead.