Traci opens up raw, unedited and solo about how her reflections on last year led her to realize how joy matters. YOUR joy matters. 

You'll hear true confessions, requests for accountability and how she plans to stay focused on her joy this year. 

: [00:00:23] I guess I've been doing a lot of thinking. It's that time of year of course with the whole New Year's kicking off a new year often means reflection and sometimes even big commitments to change. I am not a fan so much of the resolutions but I do find that it is a great time to just take a look at what I can celebrate as accomplishments for the past year and also where I could tweak here and there for improvement. But you know this can be a slippery slope for me I need to be mindful that it's not all about what I can do better but more about recognizing what I did do well and recognizing also some areas where I can open up for more learning more play for sure and most importantly more joy. I think the message that I hear resonating with me in these last end of the year last year and first two weeks of this year so far is that joy matters because really Joy does matter.

: [00:01:37] And this is an awareness which hasn't always come easy for me for several reasons.

: [00:01:41] I think the primary one is I'm almost always focused on thinking about how much YOUR joy matters and it does... it really, really does in fact as you know I've built my business around working with people to help them find sustain and maintain joy in their lives and in their work. But I've also compromised areas of my life in regrettable ways by putting joy of others before my own. Ok… but here's the thing. This was not an act of martyrdom. Oh no. It usually occurred because I was never 100 percent sure where the source of my happiness and fulfillment was actually originating. I would confuse my happiness with feeling successful and most definitely derived fulfillment from the accomplishment that drove the successes. Of course I've had things in my life I've enjoyed. I mean, don't get me wrong but I could never remember exactly what those things were when it came time to actually go out and really enjoy them. The times I did take, as we've talked about a lot on the show, to do something joyful or fun were often tainted by my mind being located somewhere other than where my body was at the moment. But never fear… because my hands were always adept at knowing exactly where my phone was. Russ has often taunted me that if he wants to see a full meltdown then all he needs to do is just have my phone and I guess (True Confessions) he's right.

: [00:03:25] I want to proclaim that most of these challenges are behind me and I feel truthful, sincere and authentic in saying that today as I have reflected on 2017 I recognized real progress. In the past, it was more about the struggle than appreciating the experiences and thank goodness this year was definitely more about the experiences than the struggle to appreciate them. For me this is something to celebrate. It began by finally being able to identify what I liked to do for play. I always talk about, “You have to have awareness before you can have change. In order to have sustainable change you have to have action.” I had to really begin by identifying what it is I even really liked to do, how I like to create and most definitely identify the people I want to play with in creative ways. This meant I needed to show up in personal relationships and the key to that is they needed to be relationships that were not founded on work. That's hard for me because I love my work so much and I love the people I work with and we end up spending so much time together that friendships evolve.

: [00:04:55] In life we need to have friends outside of our jobs and our business. I had to put down the phone to check the e-mail. Then I had to pick it up to reach out which is a little bit of an oxymoron. But if you think about it …you...