The brain is built to change in response to experience.
-Richard Davidson
Experience
I once defined experience as an occurrence that evokes emotions, leaves an impression, celebrates individuality and creates intimacy. This chapter is dedicated to examples, may they be events, encounters or learnings that illustrate this definition. It is also about taking and observing action, uncovering lessons and learning to incorporate findings. The evolution that comes from the union of parts of life into its whole.
Next Chapter: Travel
2020: My Review in 20 Hairstyles
This year is bound to be one that all of humanity looks back on as an unforgettable moment in time, in history. As December has progressed, I’ve already consumed some impressive year-end content across all of the media channels: people reflecting on what they learned, what they are leaving behind, what they accomplished, what they ...
2020: Wo-Men Automotive Summit
Last month, I participated and attended the Wo-Men Automotive Summit (WAS) virtually. This story is a reflection of my journey getting there, experiencing the conference digitally and a demonstration of the actions it inspires me to take. March 2020 I had so many apprehensions about the conference. Like everything else, and likely as for everyone ...
Healing: Begin, Again.
I’ll say it right away: I was scared. Shit, I am scared! As I age, I am beginning to recognize my fragility, my temporality. I knew this transformation was going to happen. This life stage I am now entering in my mid-40s was exactly why I threw myself a huge 39th birthday party (#the39 anyone?) ...
My Dry January: The Results
My last drink was a whole bottle of Veuve on New Year’s eve. If that was going to be my last drink, I wanted it to be fucking memorable. I had already decided that I wanted to experience my life, alcohol-free. I knew I could do it, because I had done it before: when I ...
Learning German: Finding Joy
Last week, I completed the first of what will be many levels in my journey to learning German. For now, its beginning is officially over. This fall, I’ll move on to the second level in the A series. Because I intend to continue. But not only because of how difficult learning another language, let alone ...
Learning German: Finding the Beginner In Me
Yesterday morning, I got confirmation that the intensive German class I had thought of signing up for upon my return to the US from Munich last month had reached an acceptable enrollment number and would indeed be taking place. A sense of panic took over my entire being. Shit was getting real. For months, I ...
Women Automotive Summit: A Global Event Like No Other
In May, I was invited to attend the inaugural Women Automotive Summit. Put on by a team of passionate professionals from Worldwide Partnerships, a British organization dedicated to the power of face-to-face business interactions, the Summit would take place in Stuttgart on June 14. Coincidentally, it would occur right in the middle of my ...
Lost in Translation: I Got a Facial in Munich
Prelude Several weeks ago, I saw an interesting job opportunity come through in one of my LinkedIn searches. It was at the Paris-born boutique skincare and luxury cosmetics maker, Maria Galland. Headquartered in Munich since its acquisition by the German healthcare group Klosterfrau in the 1980s, the role reported directly to its CEO and ...
Germany: One End to the Other, by Train
While in Munich for business this late January, I planned to conclude another German adventure with a pleasure trip to Hamburg. For my first time there, I would join my friend Laetitia and support her and her young business, mamis travelguide, at one of Germany’s largest travel fairs, Reisen Hamburg on Saturday. Travel to a ...
The House of Beautiful Business: A Poem
In Las Vegas, a meaningful conversation under the January sun. A book recommendation that should be for everyone. Voluminous research and following ensued. The commitment to an event I was sure would be soul food. Travel was less journey, more destination. Now in Lisbon, meeting a kindred-spirit, my first action. Recounting stories of what ...
Lisbon: Lively and Lovely
I’ll kill 2 birds with one stone with Lisbon: visit another city on that Condé Nast 20 best European cities list, the original source of travel inspiration for my 2018 gap year (that I now ironically can’t find online anymore), and attend a conference, the House of Beautiful Business, partially put on by a human ...
TMB: Listening to Language
I’ve just arrived Cascais, a small resort town some 30km west of Lisbon. Reflecting on a week of inspiration and mental stimulation at a conference in the lively Portuguese capital, I am enjoying this quaint and quiet town. As I stroll down its city center streets, I listen. At first, to silence. Then, I ...
Munich: My German Healthcare Experience
I woke up on Saturday morning with a poofy right eyelid. Surely, I thought, I’ve been overdoing it. After a long week of conference-going, networking, after-parties, staying up past my bedtime, and 2 visits to Oktoberfest, inclusive of that whole dancing on tables thing, my body was clearly telling me I needed a day off. ...
Munich: My Dirndl Shopping Experience
It’s was raining Friday night in Munich. I had planned on meeting up with one of the ladies from the Global Digital Women network but she had to reschedule due to sickness. I suddenly had a free evening. In 8 days, Oktoberfest would tap its first keg and open its doors for millions of ...
Munich: Without My Laptop
I came to Munich to interview, network and job hunt. I had a brilliant plan to meet with as many of the Munich women from the Global Digital Women network as possible, all documented in an impressive spreadsheet. I was also going to write, a lot. And keep up with the Gloss Over podcast ...
Washington, DC: A Mobility Experiment
The last time I commuted for work in Northern Virginia, I traveled 1.9 miles or 3 km one-way from my home in Reston, VA to the Reston Town Center. This was 2011, before the parking debacle was even a consideration at the Fairfax County business, shopping and entertainment center. I drove my Jeep Wrangler. And ...
Living Dharma: I Learn. I Teach.
Editor: Caroline Trudeau A Learning Journey I’ve always been motivated by learning… Declared Majors: Accounting, Biology, Dietetics, Home Economics Degree: Bachelor of Science in Education (Virginia Tech) Career Path: Public School Teaching — False Starts: Alternative Education, Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Curriculum Development ...
Traveling “Locally”: Asheville, NC
Vacation this summer was different than the previous 16 years. Normally, Labor Day weekend, I head to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for an adult beach week with usually about a dozen friends. But that group is switching it up this year – in a pool-side discussion during OBX 2017, the team decided to ...
Since The IBM Seduction: I’m Ready
“Caroline, what have you been up to?!” This question comes up more and more as time passes since I put my corporate career on pause. Lately, after several years on the road, as I have re-integrated in the Northern Virginia region I spent the last 18 years residing in, it shows up with every encounter ...
The World Cup: My Football Experience
I never paid attention to the World Cup before this year. While I had awareness of its existence, I didn’t really have any interest in it until 2018. Growing up in Canada, neither I nor my siblings played: we were a golf and swimming family in the summer and hockey, ski and volleyball in the ...
The Stanley Cup: What It Means to Me
“I am confused: she is wearing the wrong jersey”. Let me explain I’ve been watching and going to hockey games for as long as I can remember. In fact, when I think back as far I as I can recall, to the earliest of my childhood memories, I have vivid recollections of sitting as close ...
Arlington: Memorial Day 2018
One of the luxuries of being on sabbatical I’ve experienced since landing at home in Northern Virginia in early April is the opportunity to reconnect with friends. On several occasions, I’ve hung out with my girls from the lululemon alumni group. Here we are at Mara’s Cinco de Derby party in early May. Claudia Cavazza ...
Once Upon A Goal: To The LPGA Tour And Beyond
Editor: Caroline Trudeau Prologue to a Dream I grew up on the LPGA Tour. My mom, Myra was a professional golfer, my dad, Worth, a caddie. After the tour, my parents worked at golf courses in my native Kentucky: she taught golf, he was a club pro. They never put any pressure on me to ...
Persistence: To Create My Career
Co-Author: Caroline Trudeau Warm Up “I’ve been reading your blog. I’m inspired by your stories”, Cécile shares as our annual meeting to review of my finances. I’m flattered. She is my advisor for all things money related. I do (almost!) everything she tells me about assuring my financial security, managing my coin and planning for ...
Mexico: What I Really Found
When my sister Cat’s best friend Jodie Becker, a Toronto fitness professional and fellow triathlete, announced her inaugural fitness retreat in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, I immediately knew I was in. Scheduled for January 20-27, 10 weeks beyond my IBM life, its timing was perfect. By then, I had visited with family in Arizona (twice), spent the holidays with ...
Mexico: I Didn’t Go Down…
I’m not gonna lie: I was scared. Scuba diving was never a bucket list item. I just knew I would be intimidated by the vastness of the ocean; I would be afraid of feeling alone; and let’s be real: I don’t like fish. I found myself in Mexico with the opportunity to try it. As ...
From CES 2018: What’s in an Experience?
For nearly 40 years, the most wonderful time of the year has traditionally been followed by CES season in Las Vegas. Quickly after setting their resolutions, some 200,000 humans from all over the world head to Sin City to kick off the new year with a bang. They walk the more than 2.5 million square feet of exhibition floor and asphalt ...
