I'm writing this post on my birthday (May 2), but by the time you all read it in your inboxes or online, it will be May 3. This is how I write my daily posts, which means when I'm trying to write about something very timely, I sometimes have to adjust my headspace by a day or be off by a day.

I have always loved my birthday. I woke up this morning to freshly baked croissants from Bianca. That's hard to beat! This year is also a special birthday for me because I'm going to be this old when our first child (a girl) is born in the coming weeks. Maybe she'll be a stubborn Taurus like her dad, or maybe she'll stay cooking for the recommended amount of time.

I often think of my life in terms of decades. My twenties were all about school, gaining experiences abroad (I spent summers in Taipei and Dublin, and went to grad school in Philadelphia), and, quite frankly, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I finished my MBA, which was my second master's, when I was exactly 30, and I started writing this daily blog that same year.

My thirties were then about establishing myself in a career. I started working full-time in real estate development when I was 26, right after my first master's in architecture and real estate, but things take time, and it wasn't until my thirties that I started hitting my stride. I spent most of this decade working at Slate, and I look back on this time as being both highly productive and a hell of a lot of fun.

Shortly after I turned 40, I decided to get married and leave Slate at exactly the same time for maximum life change. The love part is not something I thought I could ever plan for, though. I just knew it when I met Bianca. But when it came to my career, the next decade had arrived, and it was time to focus full-time on my own thing (Globizen).

It's certainly a tough real estate market in Toronto right now — the toughest since the early '90s — but I don't doubt this decision for a second. We're creating the opportunities that we can, and I'll never give up. (See stubborn Taurus.)

I'm now firmly a quadragenarian, working each and every day on things I feel passionate about (making money in this market is an entirely separate matter), and about to add a little human to the mix. I feel fortunate. I've also had three croissants today, and I am in no way opposed to having a fourth before the day is done.

I recently heard David Brooks, whom I appreciate very much, say that we should try and aim for at least three big life adventures each decade. I think this is a fantastic plan. We tend to think back on our lives in terms of punctuations created by milestones, so I'll be sure to keep aiming for this. Here's to more adventure!