I have not been blogging for the last couple of months, and I feel freed from it. My coaching practice is focused on busy executives that either need to get out of their current gig and start their own venture – or look at their current gig and change their “stinking thinking” about it. I came to realize that most of these people at not searching the Internet for advice on where to go to find that. Very freeing – that thought. No need to write to them. They are not there.
I have also become every busy with my own practice, and find that I find people, the old fashioned way – by meeting them.
But, on the way back from a client site on Saturday morning, I dropped my iPhone 4s which was still running iOS6. I do not use a case, because I like the ease of using clean glass for my interaction with the phone and the cases have always hindered that. The two year old phone has been dropped so many times, I was actually surpassed when it cracked – but still worked. It did reboot. But I figured that eventually I would be affected again by a hanging chad or chard.
So, I had to upgrade. Off to the ATT store and back with two new iPhones – my spouse came into 2013 with me and we retired the three year old iPhone 4 as well. Net net, both phones were fully operational from backups in less than two hours. Only because I had to do them sequentially. I was, frankly amazed by the improvement. I still miss, Steve Jobs, one more thing showmanship, but I gotta admit, I am becoming a fan of the results of refining the already superior products that are in play.
I figured, since I had upgraded the phones faster then I thought I would, why not get the new MacBook Pro and try out Mavericks. Yes I could have upgraded one of our existing machines, but I wanted to try something – a pure Mac environment – no Windows – no Microsoft Office and its constant stream of problems and slow update processes and slow performance – no Chrome and its memory hogging – no Parallels. Just iWork, the OS and native Mac apps.
Mavericks blows me away. The changes are small – tabbed finder windows – a form factor and resolution that forced me into full screen mode, which easily allows me to move from clean app to clean app. 16 GB of memory and a solid state drive and blazing speed. I have not used iWork extensively yet, but I use a word processor to type text into a document. I use a spreadsheet to create simple models and I use presentation software to create simple presentations that I project from my iPad. And for those people stuck in Windows trying to figure out how to use Windows 8 – they can open anything I share with them.
So I am going to blog going forward on one thing – a love from my past of technology and my reclamation of my photography avocation in a simplified way. I am culling down all of my unused camera gear, and I am getting rid of extra apps on my devices that I do not need and excess computing power that sits idle. And I am going to do so whenever I feel moved to do so – blog that it is.
For the few readers that were riveted by my postings over the summer on wellness, I looked at what I was writing and realized that I was working on my own issues and not aware of it – which is why I stopped writing when I realized what I was doing and fixed the underlying inflammation issue. I sought out three caregivers and they all told me the same thing – I was angry. This has lead me to get rid of the things that make me angry – both in my attitude and in my life. Ultimately that is leading to getting rid of excess stuff and relationships and ventures that do not work for me – sort of following my own branding.
There is a line from French Kiss spoken by Meg Ryans character Kate – “Happy – smile. Sad – frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion.” Words to live by. The new MacBook Pro, Mavericks, iOS7 and the iPhone 5s, a simplified environment – Happy Face. It is not a vineyard in the south of France, but it is not South Bronx in the seventies.
I am also not paying someone to edit my posts. So if you find a typo – enjoy the experience. What is the point of this post? That we need to be authentic, We need to simplify and we need to say yes when we mean yes and no when we mean no. I think that Meg was actually paraphrasing that line, which I believe is attributed to Jesus. In fact the next part of it – anything else comes from the evil one – in my theology that means the crazy voice inside of my head my ego.