Every year once November comes around I work towards getting ready for the new year and one of the first things I work on is my 3 words for the year. But this year was so packed with new experiences and priorities that I decided to make sure I could start working on things I needed to work on before the new year ended. 

I have a small notebook in which I have been writing some words that would come up and try to choose 3 words that would guide me in a New Decade and a New Year. 

The year 2019 was packed with many emotional events. I started the year losing my Grandma Lydia. Grandma was my other mom. She was always there supporting me and keeping me on track. I can say the first hard-working entrepreneur I met was my grandma. The first business I spent a lot of time was at Grandma’s Flower Shop. She evolved her business into many forms. At one point grandma to bring the bread to the table, she would drive kids to school, teach her florist skills, sell clothing, and focus on her main business as a florist. 

A Year Packed with Activism 

Once I left the U.S. Army in 2006, I started inclining myself to social and environmental activism. My years working for CPA Firms like KPMG and other consulting firms that were a department of Defense Contractors as an IT Security Consultant made me see the world from a different perspective. 

For quite some time I’ve been involved in many movements as a collaborator, liaison between the international press and activists, and a photographer capturing what I see from the front lines of those who are fighting for a better Puerto Rico. 

Puerto Rico’s Summer of 2019

I was pretty busy for the first 6 months of the year in between one of my big projects got canceled and it opened my schedule up just in time to join those protesting the Department of Education Corruption Scandal and then the Governor Rossello Scandal. 

As I closed off a project I hit the streets with my Camera on July 14th, 2019 to capture about a hundred protestors that arrived in front of Fortaleza. On that night I was pepper-sprayed because I attempted to document a few police officers hitting activists without the proper id. Apparently, the Captain of the Police Force was trying to intimidate me and another photographer from not capturing what they were doing wrong. 

That night I would have not thought in a matter of days we would have hundreds of thousands marching in Old San Juan, and about 1 million people protesting in the major highway. 

For 3 weeks I put everything aside like many others did and we manifested ourselves in a way to put enough pressure to have Ricardo Rossello resign as a Governor. 

Getting Back to the 3 Words Exercise

In 2010 when I was moving away from my IT Security Consulting Projects to more creative projects my good friend Chris Brogan wrote about how he prepares for the new year by choosing 3 words. Those 3 words are there to guide me throughout the new year. I usually take a few days to review what I committed myself to in the previous years and think of words that will help me become a better me for the next 12 months. 

In the Military, we would do after-action review which allowed us to reflect on what we did well, what we failed at, and what we can improve and continue doing. I do this continuously on every project or milestone and make sure I do one major one once a year. 

I make sure I choose action words that will help me correct my personal and business efforts. 

Those words will guide me and ideally, they can help me achieve my long term goals while aligning with my short term goals.