Over the past two years I’ve attempted to return to regular blogging on KenCauley.com. I’ve always had the excuse that if I can’t fully commit to my blog I would not start at all. Fortunately, enough ‘life’ has happened over the last 730 days that I’ve found enough inspiration (and free time) to dive back in.

Any good blogger knows that one of the keys to success with blogging is to keep it short and sweet. Today’s average internet reader does not want to read a long novel but a short, well-paced and to the point blog. So despite by ability to ramble on for thousands of words, I’ll attempt to summarize the past two years of my life without breaking your attention span.

Like most everyone, my life is categorized through professional and personal developments. Personal includes, well, everything that doesn’t have to do with my professional life. Even though the two often blend together; the past two years have been a rapid blur of professional successes and disappointments, lots of dating, self-realizations, some new toys, new friends, family additions, finding the love of my life, and all the little day to day happenings that makes my life unique from every individual who has and whoever will read this post.

Professionally, I’ve experienced the biggest change in my young career since I became an online entrepreneur over 14 years ago. I’ve sold my media properties (websites) and have focused all of my efforts to online advertising. This was a huge, life-changing experience for me. The past decade has been spent working on my ‘media network’ which has evolved through various faces and sizes over that period of time. Truth be told, selling the websites was an emotional and financial double-edge sword that I’m sure I’ll think about and reflect upon for countless years to come. This story is better told in greater detail (which you can look forward to in another dedicated blog post), but the end result is it has brought me closer to financial responsibility and reward than I’ve ever been. I’ve been able to dedicate all of my time into growing Advanced Media and thus far, the results have been superb. 2010 has financially been a record breaking year for Advanced Media; trumping the previous record year of 2007. I’m quite proud of this considering I faced financial disappointment in 2008 and 2009.

Though I certainly didn’t accomplish my big lofty goals with the acquisition of my websites, I’ve gained enough positive and negative experiences that would impress even a seasoned entrepreneur. And given that I’ve got the best years of my working life ahead of me, I’m confident and optimistic of the future. Needless to say, 2011 should be a very interesting year for Advanced Media.

The Entrepreneurs Organization has been and continues to be a professional blessing. EO is a dynamic, global network of more than 7,500 business owners in 38 countries and a catalyst that enables entrepreneurs to learn and grow from each other. Over the past two years, I became more integrated into the Detroit chapter and even became a board member for the EO Accelerator program. I’ve also been fortunate enough to be highly regarded by my fellow entrepreneurs in my field of expertise to lead and facilitate presentations and discussions. In the past two years, I’ve also been a guest speaker and presenter at Oakland University and on Michigan Entrepreneur TV, where I’ve spoken about my positive and negative professional experiences.

While the last two years of my professional continuance has been a gradual uphill climb, my personal life has been much more of a roller coaster ride. Through all the highlights and lowlights, I still feel this is still the most under-developed half of my life. I invest a great deal of time and energy into positive thinking and personal development. Over the past two years I’ve attended various seminars, discussions with seasoned life mentors, read the books, sessions of self-reflections, goal-setting, healthy eating, exercise, etc. All of these and more have contributed to the growth of my emotional health and maturity. Despite all of these highlights I still face a steady stream of lowlights. Like anybody else, life gives me curve-balls that I don’t understand or knowingly deserve.

As the new generation is born the old must die. This realization has been best felt in the past two years as I’ve recently become an uncle. Many of my cousins and friends are also getting engaged, married and experiencing procreation of their own. This of course means the exact opposite; the last two years have resulted in more deaths and life-changing illnesses from loved ones than any other period of time in recent memory. Makes me think twice about how well I’m spending my time here on Earth. Luckily, I have amazing friends and family to enjoy all the blunders and treasures with.

Numerous questions of life, love and faith that continue to go unanswered. As the old saying goes; the more I learn them more I realize how little I actually know. All of my logical thinking and emotional maturity is sometimes a double-edge sword in a world gone crazy and full of nonsense. There are so many positive and negative distractions in life that it is not only difficult to (sometimes) differentiate from the two but figure out which you want more!

All in all, the struggles and rewards of my personal life can mirror those of most everybody else. The specifics might be different but the thoughts and emotions experienced and the lessons learned are quite the same. I am expecting that all of my efforts will have a cumulative effect and be best rewarded in another 20, 30, or forty years. The thought of spending my later years without as many of the unanswered questions and sailing on auto-pilot and enjoying the ride seems like a wonderful reward.

Time to get back to life! Enjoy the pictures from the past two years.