Listen to Traci

 Has this ever happened to you?  You’re at the gym, working hard, getting pumped.  You finish your sets, climb off the machine, and bend down to grab your water bottle.  Then bam – your head is jerked back, there’s a sharp pain in your ear, and you see something swinging back and forth in your peripheral vision.   The wires to your earbuds caught on the edge of the machine, meaning you kept going, but your headset didn’t.   And while you attempt to affect a cat-like “I meant to do that,” vibe, it hurts, and it’s embarrassing.  Or you’ve found your cardio groove, you’re in the zone, and then you feel, little by little, the bud slipping out of your ear.  It’s frustrating, annoying, and breaks your focus.  Or the sound that comes through your headset is just plain bad. Or, my personal favorite, you take your earbuds out of your pocket (where they’ve been for less than a minute), and they’re hopelessly tangled. Now th...

Is it crowded in your office?  Maybe not: you have a nice roomy cubicle, as do your fellow coworkers.  You’ve tacked up some family photos and put a little potted plant off to the side so you can commune with nature in your home-away-from-home.  But how many of those cubes are on that floor?  Or in the building for that matter? See, you and technology might not agree on what “crowded” means. If you like your wireless gadgets, and goodness knows I like mine, you’re talking on a headset that lets you wander the room, or even the building.  You can get a cup of coffee, stretch your legs, or walk to the window to look outside, all while seamlessly continuing your phone call.  This brings us back, however, to all those other cubes and their residents – Bluetooth frequency can only support so many calls at once, especially when roaming, before you get static or even dropped calls.  Furthermore, while Bluetooth and Wi-Fi have different protocols, they sh...

 For years, I thought I would lose it on this day.  That I would crawl under a rock, curl up in a ball, and sob pathetically while contemplating my imminent mortality and current irrelevance.  It’s an option.  But I chose a different one. Today I turn 50, and I’ve spent the last year thinking about how I can be a better person, what it would take to achieve those goals, and working hard to get there. One year after I made that decision, I am so proud of myself and can honestly say I’m a happier person than I was a year ago. I joined a gym, got strong (relatively), changed my diet, and lost weight. I visited my family on the other side of the country (an expensive trip that I didn’t think I could afford). I found a new job that is rewarding, challenging, makes me feel like I make a valuable contribution, and gives me back an important piece of my life that I haven’t had in a long time.  Most importantly, I opened myself up to new experiences....

The cliché is that nothing is more frightening than public speaking.  But I contend that change scares us even more.  Don’t get me wrong, public speaking is palms-sweating, heart-thumping scary, but we can plan, practice and prepare for it.  Change is all about The Great Unknown – and what’s scarier than that? Of course, the cliché that most reasonably follows is: "the only constant is change."  Here’s the thing – it’s not just that change is inevitable, it’s also that it’s accelerating, and thanks to big-brained, opposable-thumb-wielding, upright-walking humans, probably always has been.  I’m not physically agile:  gravity and I have never been friends and I’ve learned not to tempt it.  I’m also not particularly intellectually agile:  give me a minute (or 10) to figure out what’s going on around me.  If I can’t get there on my own, I can always spend some quality time with my best friend, Google, and hitch a ride.  What does ha...

I like to say that I can fix anything with a roll of duct tape, thumbtacks, and a sturdy shoe.  It’s not exactly true, but I like to say it anyway.  And in fact, I can fix a great deal with those three things – car mufflers, cracked door frames, fallen pictures.  Throw in some vegetable oil and a pair of scissors and I’m practically unstoppable.  But just think what I might actually be capable of if I had the right tools for the job.  A hammer, a screwdriver, a wrench, a tape measure, maybe even some nails!  Then think how important it is for your business to have the right tools – computing systems, headsets, software. There are a lot of super technical people out there who can help you find great software to manage your business.  It’s probably already pretty clear that I’m just a teeny-tiny bit technical – I don’t think the word “miniscule” would be out of place here.  With that caveat out in the open, I can still tell you that I...