Alex Blom invited me to be #8 in his new Fol­low Fri­day series. I have been vir­tu­ally con­nected with him since some­time in his teens. I really can’t answer the ques­tion he asks about how we met. But, the entire time I have remained rather in awe of this young inno­va­tor and professional’s approach to the world of oppor­tu­nity that awaits all of us if we choose to accept the chal­lenge. He started with a $200 invest­ment that grew by 9,000% in 12 months and by 19 had started and sold four businesses.

Alex, who is Aus­tralian, now resides in Toronto, a city I became quite fond of last year dur­ing my trip to Recruit­fest 2009. He is some­one you’ll def­i­nitely want to con­nect with and keep a pulse on… Where exactly he’s going is a good guess.. but he is clearly going some­where. I’m delighted he has become one of my long­time tried and true con­nec­tions and to fol­low his journey.

I really appre­ci­ate the oppor­tu­nity he gave me to be his Fol­low Fri­day fea­ture this week. In think­ing what the heck I should write about, it occurred to me to share the jour­ney I myself under­took this year.

Here’s the repost from Alex’s blog:

Karla and I have known each other for too long. In all hon­esty I can’t remem­ber where we met (Karla, can you?) but I do remem­ber it was around 7–8 years ago, on a social net­work every­body has since for­got­ten about, back when I was run­ning one of my ear­lier com­pa­nies. I’ve watched her tran­si­tion from a kick ass hr pro­fes­sional to a con­fer­ence goer, intern marker, busi­ness leader and now pub­lic servant. Karla has been per­haps one of the most sup­port­ive peo­ple out there, not just to me but to my net­work (in a prac­ti­cal way, she’s edited resumes for many friends), so let me hand her over and try to give her some payback:

It is so won­der­fully giv­ing of Alex to fea­ture con­tacts and friends on his blog. It’s a great way to opti­mize the use of blog space and help pro­mote oth­ers at the same time, a les­son we can all learn from.

In Novem­ber of last year, sit­ting around reflect­ing on the past, look­ing into the future and feel­ing for­tu­nate that my own career was in very good order, I decided I was going to make a whop­per of a goal for 2010 that would chal­lenge me to be a pub­lic ser­vant – with­out hav­ing to run for office. I mean a year of seri­ously self­less devo­tion to use my skills for the ben­e­fit of those who found them­selves unem­ployed for one year – no holds barred.

On Decem­ber 28, 2009 I pub­lished a post on my blog that laid it out there – 2010 is All About You! Most of the way through Q3 2010, I have to say it’s been a wild ride. I have met peo­ple I might not have, helped oth­ers I surely wouldn’t have known needed help, and tasked myself to accom­plish things I wouldn’t have oth­er­wise done. And, I am not done yet, I still have two-plus months to go.

My list of accom­plish­ments is con­fi­den­tial; I’m not look­ing for credit. This chal­lenge was a per­sonal one with mul­ti­ple tan­gi­ble and intan­gi­ble won­der­ful rewards that has been as good for me as it has been for any­one I have lent exper­tise or a hand to. I’m look­ing for­ward to the end of the year to reflect on what I want to achieve in 2011, how I’ll go about it and why I should do it (also to get back to sleep­ing more hours at night).

I’m rec­om­mend­ing that you too start to think of what you are made of, what your real core val­ues are, your weak­nesses and strengths, and put them to the test in chal­leng­ing waters in 2011 – not only for your own ben­e­fit but to help make the lives of oth­ers just a lit­tle better.

You will not regret this – trust me.

Have you ever chal­lenged your­self and stuck it out to the end? What did you learn about yourself?