I took my new iPhone to yet another apple store on Tuesday because the gal who was charged with setting it up when I bought it, couldn’t get my contacts off of my ancient Samsung.

I ignored the suggestion that I just type them in and heeded her other one to try a Verizon store.  I did, but they told me (a brand spankin’ new client), it would cost me $19.95 to get them off.  After a mini hissy fit with customer service, where I threatened to sign up with AT&T (as if), I was told a “company store” wouldn’t rip me off (paraphrasing) and that affiliates have their own pricing in place.

But rather than drive to one or risk any more brouhaha, I decided to take my phone to the Mac store near my house and then, that if some Genius couldn’t get the contacts off of my old phone, my new phone was going back onto the shelf.

Here’s the thing, I’m a reluctant gadget girl.  I love and use technology but I can’t stand the way people are so attached to their portable electronic devices, especially when they’re in the company of real people.  Most of my friends know that unless it’s an emergency, when we’re hanging out, turn your phone off.  But after being stuck in one too many LA traffic jams without access to e-mail, which is how I conduct at least 70% of my business, and because I’ve decided 2012 is my year to thrive, I also decided to uplevel the communication tools I use to do it with.

If I’m going to be completely honest, although I’m willing to embrace big sweeping changes in my life — moving countries, changing jobs or traveling solo — it’s these little things that have my crabby, cancer claws digging into the cold hard ground.  I’m having a hard time giving up the winter coat I owned when I moved here almost six years ago (the one with the broken zipper) and I’ve spent more than three times the cost of a pair of boots I bought when I got my first job here; it’s crazy.  I’ve allowed myself to think that my things have rooted me, during a period in my life when change has been the constant.

So even though the iPhone is real pretty (and highly slippery), I’m going to miss my little red phone that I know how to answer when it rings, that I’m not afraid I’ll drop, that matches my wallet and is the only cell phone I’ve ever had long enough to actually like.

At any rate, after waiting 25 minutes longer than my scheduled appointment — meaning I was crabbier — a friendly, but bumbly looking guy comes over to take my phone.  I could hear him muttering something about not having done this before, or at least not in two years or something I decided I better not decipher because I was too exhausted for another hissy fit, and breaking the phone in half would mean I couldn’t return it.

So I watched and waited and then an interesting thing happened.

Bumbly looked nervous, at first, but then stopped resisting what was happening to him — in other words, me — and then his expression looked like he had nothing to lose.  Suddenly,  I could see his wheels start spinning and then several solutions to his (my) problem were pouring out of him.  He told me about a possible Plan A with a cable and then strategized a Plan B with a SIM card reader and then he was smiling as he started muttering the beginnings of Plans D, E and F.

Fortunately, Plan A worked and my contacts were loaded into the address book portion of my new…friend but more importantly, in that moment, I got how powerful it can be, not to know.

Bumbly didn’t have the answer to my phone problem but he went with it, stayed open to the solutions and suddenly, they came to him.  Innocence and intuition are a powerful combination when you don’t think you know it all, when you don’t have all the answers, when you’re not the expert.  You have to keep asking, how.  How can I do this?  How can I have this?  How can I be this?  How?

It’s like with my iPhone.  When I stopped resisting it and went with it, I figured out that the demure tinkling crap I was hearing was it’s version of a ring, and even though I missed the call, I did figure out how to check the voicemail.  It’s the little things.

What about you?  Is there an area of your life where you’re not getting the results you want, even though you KNOW you’re an expert, where you think you have all of the answers?  Why not find your innocence and ask, how?

P.S.  If you’re determined to thrive in 2012 but need a little help, we’re starting a group that will keep you focused.