There were times in my life when I noticed the computer would blow up or the car would break down or my cell phone would go funky. When we launched Strategic Living, Inc. two years ago, I was feeling rather vulnerable. I went to see an astrologer on the advice of a good friend who had great success with this woman. She was great. I’ve actually listened to my tape recording of that session a few times since and she was right on target.

One of the things she mentioned was that you should never sign a contract or start something new when Mercury is in retrograde. So I came home and did some online searches about “Mercury in Retrograde” and learned that most anything technological can and usually does easily fail. Then I started hearing other Entrepreneurs joking about it on group coaching calls or at seminars and so I began to take it a lot more seriously.

This time it is almost comical… I was smart and covered the bases. I backed up my computer and encouraged everyone else I knew to do the same. So what is happening this time around?

1. Our voicemail call notes died one day. Just plain dead. Sounded like we didn’t exist anymore. Turns out it happened over a large area here in San Diego and ATT was on it to get it fixed within 24 hours. It was a pretty huge outage. That has NEVER happened before.

2. My business partner and mom, Katherine Cibula, called me to notify me that her email disappeared completely. I download mine from the server into MAC MAIL, but she checks hers on the web. She lost EVERYTHING and called me in a panic saying she lost her flight information, client contacts, etc. and I gently reminded her that I did say to everyone to PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE back up their hard drives this last week before she left to go out of town. Luckily, GoDaddy had a back-up server with the emails on it. Whew…

3. They fixed the glitch at GoDaddy. But now I’ve had emails streaming into my email account over the last two days. I have about 18,000 emails that have continued to reload from 2005-2007. Not once, not twice, but three times… It turns out it takes a long time for the mail program to upload 18,000 emails from the server, so at some key moments I’ve turned my computer to sleep so that it can cool off. Of course, I turn it back on it and starts reloading from email NUMBER ONE… Ugh… I’ve even gone into my online email account and saved my 18,000 emails as “Mark As Read” but still no dice. Time to call GoDaddy in the morning.

MY MAC DIED???
In previous “Mercury In Retrograde” cycles, I’ve had my computer hard drive completely die. Luckily, I bought an external hard drive and backed up right before the computer died, so it was a great lesson without horrible repurcussions. Talk about being grateful… Now I have several external hard drives and back up regularly… When my hard drive died, it wasn’t pretty… Not once, but twice, so I do BACK UP, BACK UP, BACK UP… Hint: If you are reading this, BACK UP…

MY BLACKBERRY IS GETTING HOW MANY EMAILS INCOMING???
Year one I had just bought my Blackberry and was learning how to use it. It has something like 8 days of power to it, except when calling on it all the time. So at one point the battery died (during Mercury Retrograde). I recharged, turned it back on, and every single email from my OLD Yahoo account (much of it junk, junk, junk) uploaded into my Blackberry. It was a MESS… Thousands of emails… Slow uploads… Attachments… Ugh…

THE BANK COMPUTER & GROCERY STORE ATM TERMINALS BOTH WENT DOWN?
Yup. These are the days where you can’t make a deposit or take out funds because the bank’s computer system is down. This is the time where the computer places a hold on out of state checks when you’ve never had a problem depositing them before. This is the time when the sweet girl in the department store tells you that she can’t figure out what happened to the computer, but it looks like it is happening in several departments and of course it only happens after you’ve found the perfect ensemble. This is the time when the line at the grocery store is 10 people long and the automatic debit terminal takes a nap while the line keeps getting longer and the cashier starts to visibly panic. The same goes for ATM machines that are on the fritz…

I read a great post on what we should do during this time… It said anything having to do with “RE:” as the prefix… Review… Regenerate… Revise… Reorganize… Renew… Repair… Restore…

So on that note, I’m off to bed. I’ll make the GoDaddy call tomorrow to find out what the heck is going on with the email spool and how to handle it. Then I’m going to turn off the computer and focus first on my client coaching calls and then shift gears and focus on organizing my corporate papers and tie up any loose ends. After all, that is what this time is supposed to be about, so why not go with the flow?

Sometimes we need to regenerate to live into the life we’ve imagined… “Mercury In Retrograde” is a natural time to do that. Take advantage of the reflective opportunity provided and leave the technology for another day.

Live Into It… :)CC

Christine N. Cibula, M.S.
The Live Into It Coach
www.LiveIntoIt.com

P.S. If you’re up for it, please take a moment to share your MERCURY IN RETROGRADE story… We’d love to hear about it…