With the conversation often around resolutions this time of year, I am of 2 minds. Taking the opportunity to make some changes for the better, and not bothering to go through the motions if I am not prepared to stick with them.

How am I doing? Not bad on a few of them so far!

Let there Be Music

I remember this resolution from just last week. Who doesn't need more music in their life? It sure has been a strange few years for music with lockdowns, cancelled concerts and free time. This weekend was the finale of a festival of lights in our small town. So many fun things to do but the silent disco was on!

Friends of mine are popular DJs in town and went head to head in a soundclash. 2 DJs playing different music and the headsets had a switch that let you flip from one to the other. When it did, your headphones lit up either green of blue indicating who you were listening to.



On the left we have DJ Wigs and DJ Michael Fuego holding it down with a legit big house set littered with hits.

On the right it is none other than DJ Natocore and MC Mista D dropping a huge a huge set of original drum 'n bass.



Though it was an epic dance war between styles of the green and the blue, it was all in fun and a fantastic time was had by all.

Back to BJJ

Another of my resolutions was to get back to training Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I have trained over 10 years but settled into a year off because of an unfortunate cocktail of financial distractions and bad excuses. It was to be back to the mats with me feeling like I had no lungs and a mindful of forgotten technique. Absolutely no matter though when you consider the mental and physical health benefits that you start to realize immediately. Been too long and glad to be back.

Coincidentally, the same week I returned marked the 10th anniversary promotion ceremony at the academy. Stratford BJJ and I have been there since the first year. Amazing to see so many show up for the belt promotion of their training partners and celebrate the anniversary of the club.



A great group of new and old friends from every walk of life so varied I had little hope of getting to know any of them except for training here with them. Now we are fast friends for the trials we put each other and help one another through.



The value of training here with these people in my life is a blessing. Worth the monthly fee whatever it would be to stay active, challenged, learning, losing, pushing and striving. Stealing hours here and there to really feel alive while fighting for your life in the safest context possible. The confidence that comes with knowing how to handle yourself in a tough situation seems to make everything better. It has been too long and it is good to be back. There should be some good tales of me getting my ass kicked to entertain here too!

Business Blogging

When building your own business, there are so many things that you could be doing, should be doing and might not need to do but you do them anyway. I decreed that one thing I would be doing is leveraging Hive for the great SEO benefits it holds for my small town business clients. @town-crier was born in September of 2019 as was the company https://towncriermarketing.ca Before getting distracted by phase shifts in the company, I found great satisfaction and SEO benefit in blogging about finance and small business including our clients. Time to do that again.



Today, a spotlight on one of our clients CrossFit Stratford to highlight some of the things we enjoy about the business. You can enjoy that post here https://ecency.com/hive-167922/@town-crier/shoplocal-spotlight-crossfit-stratford if you would like to check it out.

Besides creating content for clients, the back links from the blockchain front ends are also gold when it comes to SEO and global exposure. We will get into it this year with occasional marketing tips we find useful for any business establishing its online presence, which is crucial these days. Besides the immediate benefits, we have a vision of building a #shoplocal community where people support their favourite businesses with interaction and attention and those businesses can sell goods on chain and reward engagement with valuable upvotes. Perhaps a bit ahead of its time for the early majority but we will work with the early adopters.

Not a bad start to 2024!

As far as resolutions go, there are 3 that have started just fine for me. Music for the joy of it. Martial arts for the challenge of it. Business for the opportunity of it all. All I have to do now is keep going and work on the other resolutions as well.

Gonna be a great 2024 I think!

I am honoured to curate for:

How you doing with your resolutions?