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The Big Spring Clean!
April 2008

Spring is a natural time to start shaking out the comforters and pillows and hanging the bed linens on the line for some fresh sun. It is a great time to go through the house, one room at a time and do the big yearly clean, wash the walls, windows, get the dust out of all those awkward nooks and crannies until the room is spotless and just the way you want it. Spring is the time to clear out the dust bunnies from under the bed, as well as any items in the house you no longer want or need. Now is the time take any broken items to be fixed and to toss those that are beyond repair. Donate items you no longer use that are “too good” to give to a charity shop or sell them in a garage sale, car boot sale or consignment shop. If you are too busy or not inclined to give the house a spring clean yourself, hire a professional cleaner and/or a professional organizer to come for the day and give your house or apartment a top to bottom clean or clear out. You’ll be glad you did it as it will give you a big boost of energy! And, this is the ultimate way to attract new and better things and opportunities into your life as nature abhors a vacuum.

Many people naturally feel like doing a cleansing diet in the spring to shed any excess that might have built up over the winter. If this feels right to you, seek a nutritionist for a plan that would suit your body.

In addition to doing a physical clear-out of stuff, if you find you are always running late or feel too busy, you may want to clear out your schedule as well. Here are a few of the best tips for giving yourself a clean slate for the rest of the year:

Use the Joy Filter for All Commitments, Business and Personal
Review all organizations, associations, memberships, committees and social obligations. Evaluate each commitment. Does it still give you joy? If you dread going to a certain meeting and wish you didn’t have to, give notice and politely resign. If you’ve made promises, scout around for someone to take your place so that you won’t be letting anyone down. Do not renew any obligations out of duty. Only do what you genuinely enjoy. It helps if you learn to say “no” gracefully. Have a few handy excuses in your back pocket to use whenever asked to do something or attend something that you don’t really want to do. A simple one that works well is, “Thanks for thinking of me, but I already have plans for that day.” Do NOT add, “maybe next time.” Or, if you aren’t sure, simply say, “Let me check my calendar and I’ll get back to you.” This will give time to evaluate whether the activity or event is something that you want to do.
Sign up for Online Banking
If you haven’t already done so, take the time to sign up for online banking and set up all bills to be paid online. This saves time, energy and postage. And remember to set up 10% of your income to go into automatic savings as well!
Order Your Groceries Online
If your grocery store delivers, sign up for online shopping and get groceries delivered to your door. This saves about 45 minutes to an hour a week as well as gasoline costs so well worth doing.
Never Check Email or Voicemail First
Instead, do the one thing that is most important about the day first. Opening emails can be like opening Pandora’s box. You never know what will leap out and claim your attention. Get your important project or task done for the day first, then attend to your email. If it could wait overnight, another hour or two won’t matter. If you do it the other way around, you may discover the day gets consumed by responding to emails and you never have time for the bigger and more important projects and goals. You’ll get loads more accomplished this way.
Eliminate or Minimize Your Commute
A study revealed that a commute of 45 minutes or more to work is damaging to your health because of the stress that it adds to your life. It makes sense to work where you live or live where you work. Now that I own my own business, I have a 15-second commute from my home to an office built into the back of the garage. Working from home is a huge time saver because it eliminates the time, energy and cost of commuting. And I’m on hand in case there is an emergency with the kids which gives me peace of mind. With rising costs of fuel, now is a great time to either move closer to the office or find a job closer to home. And if that isn’t immediately possible, start by asking your company if you can work a few days a week at home. Even one day a week at home will make a huge difference to your productivity and you will get so much accomplished without all the interruptions at the office. Savvy employers realize this and as more companies are concerned about corporate responsibility, now is a good time to be cutting down on fuel consumption. When I worked at Chase in Manhattan, I had to be on the bank floor so working from home wasn’t an option. I was in the habit of taking the subway, but found getting squashed in with every other commuter wasn’t a joy and if there were problems on the line I’d be stuck and late. So I decided to walk. It turns out it only took an hour to walk to work so in exchange for a 30-45 minute unpleasant subway experience, I enjoyed two hours of excellent exercise and a walk through Central Park every day. Took a bit more time, but then I got a good workout in so it was well worth it! As a bonus, I was never late.
Unplug the TV
This is potentially the biggest time saver of all as the average American has the TV on seven hours a day. Unplug the TV and hide it in the closet for one month. You’ll be amazed at how much time you’ll free up in the evenings. Use this newfound time to clear clutter, catch up on calls and correspondence, sign up for online banking and otherwise simplify and organize your life. By the end of the month you’ll be in great shape for the rest of the year!

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Tips and Blogs of the Week

Talane’s Tip for the Week of May 19, 2008
Play the Financial Independence Game
Tip #29 from Coach Yourself to Success

For this week's tip, I thought I'd include this wonderful success story I received from a reader of Coach Yourself to Success. So often, we think we need to have a million dollars or more in the bank before we can retire. If you sit down with a financial planner, you might get staggering numbers. But here is a great example of how you can "retire" early with a whole lot less than a million or even $250,000. It all depends on where and how you live! Many people could free themselves up by trading in their lifestyle for a real life.

"Thanks Talane, love these tips, love your book and love hearing your personal stories.

I first read your book many years ago and found that it really stood out from other coaching books. I got so excited and inspired about it that I couldn't sleep. I particularly liked the getting your needs met parts so that you don't need anything and then it comes to you anyway. Also I liked the money section on having $250,000 in the bank and then living off the interest. This idea had never struck me before and I was so inspired by it and I realised that this is so what I wanted. So, in my head I made it my goal straight away and I carried this thought around with me everywhere I went. Loved the freedom of the whole idea and was prepared to sacrifice an expensive lifestyle for a simple lifestyle to allow me the freedom that I was craving. I had been in an uninspiring job for 16 years and my energy was stagnant. I was trapped in there by the good salary that I was paid. It's not that I didn't want to work but I love the idea of not needing to work and being able to walk away from a job that I don't like because I have this nice little passive income coming in. I could work part time and also earn an extra few hundred dollars a week to add to this. I happy to say that I am on my way to my goal. Currently I am having a break from work as I have $160,000 in the bank I am living off the interest of 8% Australian dollars. But I am living in Singapore with my partner. Given the exchange rate this has given me a nice little income and allows me to travel around Asia. I plan on adding to this $160,000 eventually but right now I live a simple lifestyle and I don't need to work. I love this freedom and I love it that I am on my way to achieving my dream.

Thank you for inspiring me!"

Kind regards,
Becky

Talane’s Tip for the Week of May 5, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #22 – See How Perfect the Present Really Is

Just last week I had an “ah ha” moment in my life. I suddenly realized that I was having one of the best times of my life. My two girls are 3 years old and 16 months and it is very easy to get exhausted by them. I never seem to get enough sleep and they are, at times, incredibly difficult. The youngest, Sophia, threw a tantrum the other day and rolled around on the floor kicking and screaming and there was nothing I could do to calm her down so I just let her go for it. On the flip side they are also asking for cuddles and love to snuggle. They will soon grow up and need a lot less cuddling. These are times to cherish. They are so darn cute at this stage, tantrums and all. Although I don’t have as much time as I’d like to spend with my friends, we are surrounded by really great friends and they are there ready to help out at any time to lend a hand or an ear or to go out and have fun. We live in a fabulous house that we’ve just about finished doing the construction on, walking distance to the sea. I love my work, coaching people and it is a natural talent which makes it fun and easy. My dreams come true. Okay, so we are a bit strapped financially. The girls wear second hand clothes, we eat lots of beans and rice, the newly installed radiator has a leak, I still haven’t gotten my pre-pregnancy body back…it isn’t all perfect if you look too closely. But it is. It is all too easy to miss the good times in our lives and not recognize them for how great they really are. It is usually when we look back at those peak experiences, those particularly wonderful years or times in our lives that we then realize how great they were. The key is to start appreciating life now. When you can see the perfection in the imperfections, you’ve got it.

Enjoy your life now!

Best,
Talane

Talane’s Tip for the Week of April 28, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #21 – Strengthen Your Strengths

I’ve been working with one of my business coaching clients for several months now – a very successful entrepreneur and business owner in his mid fifties. He could easily retire but found that he couldn’t stand doing nothing. At the same time, he didn’t want the stresses of his regular work. We quickly eliminated one of the lines of business which he was running that caused the most stress and already he is much happier. This one change enabled him to cut his work week by about 20 hours so he has more time to enjoy his family. He was wondering if life coaching might be a good new career that would keep him mentally challenged without the headaches.

Whenever a client is considering a different career path I always recommend taking the Highlands Ability Battery™ Program. It is a three-hour, very comprehensive strengths assessment. And, what is amazing about this assessment is that it looks at your hard-wired strengths, not your learned skills or your IQ. And then it handily ranks your strengths from top to bottom so you can clearly see what you are naturally good at and what you aren’t. The truly fabulous thing about this assessment is that it can spot hidden strengths—things you might be able to do naturally and effortlessly but never had a chance to do.

The business coaching client above had a hidden strength—it turns out that he has all three of the abilities needed to be a very talented musician (rhythm memory, tonal memory and pitch discrimination) and he has these in spades. Somehow, he never tried playing an instrument even though he enjoys listening to music and has a very good ear. My guess is that he will, very quickly, be able to learn to play just about any instrument he chooses, given his natural abilities in this area. Most people who have such a strong untapped ability find that this discovery gives great joy and a deep satisfaction that may have eluded them all their lives.

And, the report also confirmed that yes, life coaching would also be a good career for him. Always nice to know up front before you invest thousands of dollars and years of training!

What does this have to do with the laws of attraction? Mastery of anything is very attractive. And, it is much easier to become a master of something if it is one of your hard-wired natural strengths. Waste no more time developing your weaknesses! Instead focus and invest in your strengths and watch the world come to you!

Warmest,
Talane

P.S. If you are changing careers or considering a new path in life or simply don’t want to waste your education dollars and would like to do the Highlands Ability Battery™ Program, please let me know as I’d love to work with you on this

Talane’s Tip for the Week of April 21, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #20 – Discover Your Unique Talent

We all have some special talent, skill, or gift—something we do or some way we see things different or better than anyone else. Very often what comes naturally to you is so much a part of you that you don’t even notice it. People tend to think that if it is easy for them, then it is easy for everyone else too. This just isn’t so. You might think that if it is easy or fun, and you don’t sweat and struggle then you shouldn’t get paid for it. In fact it is more often the opposite: the people who make the most money love what they do and have some natural ability that they have honed and developed. If you can’t figure out what your special talent is, interview your friends, family and colleagues. They will tell you. Here are five questions you can ask them:

What do you think is my greatest strength?
What is my biggest weakness? (Ask this only if you feel up to it, and ask them to tell you in a constructive way. Do not comment on anything they say, just write it down. You are simply gathering information, not entering into a debate or discussion.)
What do you see as my special talent or gift? What do I do naturally and effortlessly that is special?
If I were on the cover of a magazine, what magazine would it be and what would the story be about?
When am I most fully expressing this gift or talent?

After collecting this data, the next step is to begin to honor your gift. By that I mean that you fully express it. Share it with others. Do it. Be it. Live it. Create a project around it. Remember, that your own special skill comes so easily and naturally that you probably take it for granted! Those who take their special talent and master it, are attractive. We love mastery!

Enjoy!
Talane

Excerpted from Tip 54 Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner
Copyright © 2000 McGraw Hill

Talane’s Tip for the Week of April 14, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #19 – Do the Important Stuff First

This month’s April newsletter had a very simple tip that makes all the difference between being in control and on top of your work and feeling like you are always catching up and running behind. I’m highlighting it here because it is so effective it is worth expanding upon.

The natural, instinctive thing to do when you arrive at your office is to check your voicemail and emails first. Don’t do it! You may be opening a can of worms! The best thing you can do to improve your efficiency and performance is to give your first, best hour of the day to your most important project or current initiative. . Work on that special big project. Write that report. Prepare for the big meeting. Make that important call. Work on whatever your current, most important initiative is and do that for one hour first thing every day. Then, and only then, open your inbox.

Now, no matter what else happens for the rest of the day, you’ll know you are making real progress on what is most important. If you open your inbox first, it may very well end up taking over and dictating the rest of the day. You have no doubt already experienced this effect personally.

I found myself falling into the unproductive habit of checking emails first to see if any of my clients had news or updates for me. Applying this tip to my own life, I deliberately sat down and planned out my day. What was the single most important activity for the day? To write the April newsletter. I did that first and it didn’t take as long as I had thought. (When you concentrate without interruption and are fresh you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can get things done.) Then I opened up the emails. It felt great to know that I had already completed the most important job. If I had opened the emails first, then there might not have been time for the newsletter as they can easily consume an entire day. This is based on the law of attraction: what you focus on expands…focus on your emails and they will multiply faster than rabbits. Emails create more emails. Focus on your important projects and you quickly get big results.

The 80/20 rule is that we get 80% of our results from 20% of our efforts. And that important 20% is what makes all the difference in our work. It is very easy to spend our entire day responding to emails and calls—the 80% of our work that only yields a 20% results. In fact, I could probably spend an entire week just looking at my current inbox of emails and not make any progress on my big projects. This is where my dear friend’s motto, “Good enough is good enough” comes to mind. It may not be necessary to answer ever single email or call that you receive. Pick out your most important project and give that your best hour of the day.

Enjoy!
Talane

Talane’s Tip for the Week of April 7, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #18 – Letting Go

My assistant has a little tea tin and wrote “God Can” on the top. When she can’t handle something, she writes a little note and puts it in the God Can. It’s about letting go and trusting that God can handle it when she can’t. In December she moved her aging mother into an apartment nearby and put her mother’s house up for sale in January. The housing market is very slow right now and it wasn’t selling, which was creating a serious cash flow problem for Faye and her husband who were helping her mother with expenses. She’d forgotten to put it in her God Can and realized she needed to turn it over to let God handle it. That was on March 11th. And that evening, her realtor called her with two contracts. And, it was a cash sale which closed on March 31st much to her absolute delight!

I love this idea of a “God Can” and you can adapt this tip to whatever spiritual or religious belief you have. It could be a “Buddha Can” and “Allah Can” or a “The Universe Can”.

The key is letting go of the problem and trusting that it will get handled.

Enjoy!
Talane

Talane’s Tip for the Week of March 31, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #17- Imagine The Universe Plays Hot and Cold with You

When I was a little girl looking for Easter eggs hidden in the house, our parents would play “hot and cold” with us. If we were getting closer to the hidden egg, we were getting warmer and if we were right on top of it, we were boiling hot. If we moved further from the egg we were getting colder until we were absolutely freezing if headed in the completely wrong direction.

Now, as an adult, I imagine that the universe plays hot and cold with me. If I am headed in the wrong direction, working in the wrong career or following the wrong path, things get difficult and unpleasant and sometimes even uncomfortable. When I was working at the bank and heading up the management ladder (wrong career path!) I had to drag myself out of bed in the morning. After hitting the snooze alarm countless times and drinking a cup of coffee to jumpstart myself I finally got out the door. While walking to work, my body would occasionally seize up with a back spasm and I’d be frozen for a few minutes until I relaxed and was able to keep on going. My body was literally stopping me in my tracks on the way to work. I clearly did not want to be going where I was going and my body knew it! Conversely, when I started life coaching part-time in the evenings, I found it easy to attract coaching clients and wonderful opportunities landed in my lap. It was so easy and so much fun that I wondered if it was a viable career path. I got my answer when a personal coaching client said she was getting so much value from the coaching that she wanted to pay me more than I was asking. This path was fun, easy and enjoyable. I could work all day at the bank, come home exhausted and drained, take a half hour nap on the sofa and then start coaching. After a few hours of coaching, I was so energized; I’d find it hard to go to sleep at 11 p.m. This was the right path for me without a doubt. And years later, when I took The Highlands Ability Battery™ I discovered that management, even though I had been successful at it, was one of my weaknesses, and that coaching was one of my top strengths. It would have been nice to know this earlier on, but by following the hot and cold signals from the universe, I finally got on the right path.

Imagine that the universe is playing “hot and cold” with you? What direction feels nice and toasty warm? Go there and you are on the way!

Warmest,
Talane

Talane’s Blog for the Week of March 24, 2008
To Do Lists–A Variety of Methods from our Readers

A big thank you to the numerous readers around the world who wrote in response to last week’s blog on To Do Lists and sent in their suggestions. I have compiled a few of them here. If you aren’t 100% happy with your system, see if any of these sound right for you. There is not one right way, so experiment until you find the system that really works for you and leaves you feeling empowered, accomplished and in control.

Warmest,
Talane

A Single Mother’s Method:
I have been writing a daily To Do List for the past 20 years I couldn't survive without it. I'll write the list the night before all the things I need to accomplish the following day. I divide it in three parts morning my job as a teacher, after school errands and evening events. I find this works and I get a lot completed in all three areas of my life job, personal needs and night responsibilities.

The Yearly Plan Method:
I'm an avid Finnish reader of Talane's blog. I bought her book years ago, and have now returned to it due to great on-going life changes. I just thought to drop you a quick note, as a few comments came to mind on a couple of the blogs. Personally I have found it helpful to divide my weekly master to-do list into two categories: things that must get done and things that I would like to get done. On the left hand side of the landscape oriented A4 sheet, I have a list of the weekdays. Into these I enter appointments and reminders that are specific for that day. Then I make daily to-do lists from this master list. I also set my goals for each year and then break them down into monthly goals. It's a great way to help me move in the direction that I want.

The High Tech Method:
This is the way I work with a To Do List.
I have a master list in Microsoft Outlook. I sort my tasks by category and date. Every morning I put new tasks on the list and I can remove some tasks. Then I import the tasks for that day into a Mind Map program. During the day I work with the Mind Map.

The Aesthetics’ Method:
What works for me is a BEAUTIFUL notebook where I write all of my things to do. Because it is a beautiful book I don't mind using it and looking at it. Every time I use it it makes me smile just because of the fact that I LOVE the design of the book.

From Ask A Coach
What a fortune that you're sharing your (and other people's) tips. I love it that these are practical tips. I'll share a new system for a to do list. I use tiny yellow Post it notes, the smallest that are available. I write one task on each of them. That is my master list.Then I chose the ones I want to do today and put these on (or in) my notebook. If I didn't manage to do a task, I put it back on my master list. If I did a task I put the note aside, view my achievements at the end of the day and then throw the pile of yellow notes away. This saves me from rewriting the master list again and again. Plus I can easily organize the tasks that are connected (like in a specific order) by arranging them from left to right.

Talane Miedaner
Master Certified Life Coach
Author of the International Bestseller, Coach Yourself to Success
Acclaimed Life Coach, Personal Coach, Executive Coach

Talane’s Blog for the Week of March 10, 2008
The Power of a To-Do List

Sometimes an author needs to eat some crow. And I’m about to do that now. In my book, Coach Yourself to Success, Tip #64 “Toss Your To-Do List” I advise readers to toss their to-do lists as well as their goal lists. I wrote that when I was 29. Now at the age of 42 I’m discovering that a To-Do List is a very handy thing indeed. I need to make a list for everything or I will forget about it completely. After giving birth to two girls, missing over a full year of sleep and drinking soy milk for too many years, my short-term memory just isn’t what it used to be. I’m hoping it will improve when my hormones settle down, but right now I’m very glad to have a to-do list on hand to remind me what I wanted to do. Perhaps it is just the added complexities of managing a new family while looking after aging in-laws and of course, running an international coaching company from overseas, writing a book, and redesigning a website. There is just a bit too much going on for me to operate without a list. So, list in hand, away I go. My first experience in making a list was that it was demoralizing. There were so many things on the list to do I felt immediately behind, not to mention overwhelmed. There is no way I can just whip through all of these projects. So the big massive list is my Master of All Lists with everything and sundry, both business and personal written down.

Every day I look at the Master of All Lists and I select the few things that are most important to do today and schedule those in my calendar and then put the Master List away. This has been very effective as I feel good at the end of the day knowing I’ve done what is most important. Is everything done? No, but it would be impossible to do everything because I keep adding new things to the Master List. As a bonus, I get the satisfaction of checking things off two lists—my daily schedule and the Master List.

This seems to be working. I now feel at peace knowing I have a list and don’t have to try to remember everything. I’ll keep you posted on developments and also welcome any suggestions from others who have an empowering To-Do List.

Warmest,
Talane

Talane Miedaner
Master Certified Life Coach
Author of the International Bestseller, Coach Yourself to Success
Acclaimed Life Coach, Personal Coach, Executive Coach

Talane’s Classic Tip for the Week of March 3, 2008
Earn What You Deserve

Now that you've cut your expenses, it's time to get to work on the second half of the money equation: increasing your income. If you work for someone else, you can ask for a raise. If you own your own business, you may be able to raise your fees or add another product or service. If you are already making more than the market rate, perhaps you could moonlight to raise your income.

Let's start with how to ask for a raise. Find out what people at similar companies doing your job are earning. Business magazines publish national salary averages so look at the library or on the internet or call up friends who work for other companies and ask them. Write down a list of all your accomplishments over the past 6 months to one year and type it up in a memo. You will want to build a strong case for why you deserve a raise. Use as many concrete, numeric figures as possible and demonstrate how your performance helped improve the bottom line. Your boss may not remember everything you did. Stick to the positive facts. Then request a meeting to discuss your performance in person. At the meeting, ask for what you want. The person who asks and makes a solid case is much more likely to receive a raise than the person who may be working just as hard, but never states his or her own case.

If you own your own business and have already cut your expenses, it may be appropriate to raise your fee or rates. To do this you need to be continually adding value to your services so the increase is worth it for your current clients. Moonlighting can be a great way to make extra money while experimenting with a different field. If you are wondering where you will find the time, try turning off the TV. The average American watches more than 20 hours a week – enough for a part-time job. What are other creative ways you could increase your income? Perhaps a hobby could net a little extra income if you got creative. What about leveraging your natural strengths? If you are super organized, you could moonlight as a professional organizer. Take a moment and write down ten possible ways you could increase your income.

Excerpted from Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner
Copyright © 2000 McGraw Hill

Talane’s Classic Tip for the Week of February 25, 2008
Go On A Money Diet

One of the fastest ways to break the spending habit is to go on a money diet. For thirty days, stop spending. Make no purchases whatsoever other than the bare essentials like toilet paper, groceries, etc. Hold off on all other purchases. It is okay to make a list of the things you'd like to buy, but during the 30 day period, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING. Go grocery shopping no more than once a week and do not buy that magazine or pack of gum at the checkout. Make sure you have all the essentials on hand before you begin the money diet. If you want to buy gifts for a wedding or birthday coming up, buy them in advance to decrease the temptation of going into the store.

One client tried the money diet and discovered a wealth of creative solutions and resources she had never noticed before. Since she couldn't buy books, she found herself at the library, checking out books, videos and CDs. She couldn't buy bagels out, so she began making breakfast at home and created a pleasant family ritual. Instead of going out for dinner and a movie with her husband, she packed sandwiches and they took long walks and had picnics. They found time to talk about their life and make plans together, which improved their relationship as well. Going on a money diet helped her get in touch with the simple pleasures of life that are so rich - and she saved $500!

Once you have broken the spending habit, you will discover the joy of saving. Extra money gives you a wonderful sense of security along with the freedom to do what you want – and who wouldn't want that?

Excerpted from Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner
Copyright © 2000 McGraw Hill

Talane’s Classic Tip for the Week of February 18, 2008
Pay Off Your Debts

In the past 20 years, it has become socially acceptable to have debts. It used to be that people saved money for what they wanted and then bought it; now it is the other way around. To cost is high, and not just the interest. It is stressful to have debt. You may be so used to having debt and using credit cards that you don't even realize how stressful it is. In fact, until you are completely debt free, you won't believe what a relief it is.

When I started my first job after graduating, I felt rich. In no time I had tapped into 5 different credit cards and a line of credit. I dreaded opening the bills, never knowing exactly how much it would be. I had no idea how stressful this was until I paid off all my credit cards and loans using the plan described by Jerrold Mundis in his book "How to Get Out of Debt, Stay Out of Debt and Live Prosperously". It took me about 2 years to pay off thousands of dollars of debt.

All that debt is stressful and drains your energy, making it very difficult to attract the people and opportunities you want. If you are in way over your head, contact a credit counseling service in your community or the Debt Management Program run by the federal government. They will take all your credit cards and arrange a monthly repayment schedule with your creditors. The skills and habits you develop to pay off your debts are the same ones you will need to build a financial reserve. Don't be discouraged. If you feel buried under debt, get Mundis' book. The more closely you stick to the plan outlined in the book, the sooner you'll be out of debt and the easier it will be to attract the things you want.

Excerpted from Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner
Copyright © 2000 McGraw Hill

Talane’s Tip for the Week of February 11, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #16 – The Magic of Three

One of my highly successful clients shared one of his very effective tips for powerful relationships both in business and in his personal life called “The Magic of Three.” The key to making sure your spouse, date, manager or employee feels really special is to do three special things in one day. All it takes is three little things to make someone feel wonderful. And the combined impact of doing three in one day is better than doing one small thing a day. Here is an example of how this might work. In the morning, you might bring your mate a cup of tea or coffee, just the way they like it, in bed or leave a sticky note on the bathroom mirror saying, “Morning, gorgeous!” You might send an email or call at midday and say, “Just called to say I love you!” And at night, you might put a chocolate on their pillow and turn down the covers. Three little tiny gestures cost little to nothing and take hardly any time at all - but the impact is huge. Your partner will feel very loved and special. And, you can do this sporadically with different gestures so that it doesn’t become expected or routine.

This past weekend, I personally experienced “The Magic of Three” at the American Embassy in London — the last place on earth I would have expected it! We had to present our one-year-old daughter, Sophia, in person at the embassy in order to get her U.S. Citizenship, Passport and Social Security number as she was born in England. Months in advance I reserved the appointment and sent in the paperwork. We expected to wait for hours while the wheels of bureaucracy slowly turned. A grim task, but it had to be done. Much to my surprise, the consular officer was a very special man and he turned a boring administrative task into a very special ceremony. Whether he was aware of it or not, he used “The Magic of Three”. First, while others at the embassy were wearing jeans and casual clothes, he wore a suit and tie. Second, he didn’t use an ordinary plastic pen to sign the documents, he had a fountain pen and a beautiful signature to go with it. He made sure I noticed that this was a special ceremony by saying he takes special care when signing the certificate so that his signature is legible in the years to come. It was when he said this that I noticed his fountain pen and lovely signature. Then he very carefully blotted his signature so that it wouldn’t run. Third, he said with proper solemnity and warmth, “Sophia Penelope Fox is, as of the moment of her birth, an American citizen” and added a heartfelt, “Congratulations!” One thousand people go through the American Embassy a day and this man must have performed this task countless times, but he made it very special by doing three small things that were unexpected. He could very easily have been bored and just rubber-stamped his way through, but he took just a few seconds extra to make it a very special occasion. I left the embassy feeling absolutely delighted. I was so proud, I felt like framing her certificate. All because one man knew “The Magic of Three”.

Use “The Magic of Three” with everyone around you and you’ll leave a wake of delighted people wherever you go. It takes no time and it costs nothing so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Enjoy!
Talane

Talane Miedaner is a Master Certified Coach and an Accredited Life Coach. She is the author of the international bestseller, Coach Yourself to Success: 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life and numerous audio programs, including, Irresistible Attraction™: A Way of Life.

Go to www.lifecoach.com to find the perfect coach for you whether you are looking for a personal coach, business coach, executive coach, career coach or, of course, a life coach. Change your life and try a free life coaching call today!

Talane’s Tip for the Week of February 11, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #15 – The Power of Thought

This Attraction Tip was also included in the February 8, 2008 Newsletter.

The more clearly you imagine and picture what it is you want, the more likely you are to attract it. When you take your vision and write it down, draw a picture or make a collage you are much more likely to effortlessly attract what you want. This technique for attracting what you want is so powerful and effective it seems like magic, but it isn’t. The fact is, your thoughts are not fluffy, insubstantial stuff – they are real. I’m not the first author to insist that the key to success is harnessing the power of thought. Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, is a classic example. And the scientific proof that thoughts are real is old news.

“The April 5, 1999 Newsweek article, “Thinking Will Make it So” by Sharon Begley describes how thoughts are electrical signals that can be picked up by an electroencephalograph (EEG) to control mechanical equipment. Neurobiologist Niels Birbaumer of Germany’s University of Tübingen has six patients with sound minds trapped in completely paralyzed bodies. Living with the aid of machines, these patients are wired to a “thought translation device” which amplifies their brain waves and enables them to select letters of the alphabet from a computer video screen and compose sentences. Here’s how they did it: Tübingen’s team placed electrodes behind the patient’s ear and on the scalp. The electrodes are designed to detect brain waves and carry them to an EEG, which picks out a single type of wave from the many waves, much like you’d tune in a radio to pick up a favourite station. After hundreds of hours of practice the patients learned to control their brain waves, by focusing on an audio tone. Once they master this they can spell out words on a video screen using only their thoughts. The researcher’s next project is to go wireless by creating electronics sensitive enough to “grab” brain waves out of the air. The groundbreaking science proves that thoughts are not only real, but interact with the environment.

Once again, it all comes back to energy. Thoughts are electrical signals—just another form of energy as real as a solid mahogany desk. Science is catching up to what many radical or New Age thinkers have been saying all along—that our thoughts create our reality. Only there is nothing mystical or magical about it—it is simply the power of thought.”*

—More readers have sent in examples of how they have used the power of thought to create the reality they want:

Sent: 05 February 2008 00:53
To: talane@lifecoach.com
Subject: write it down or draw it or say it!

Your story about the woman who wrote down a description of her future husband reminded me of a true story of a couple we’re friends with. When she was single, the wife, who is a professional artist and illustrator, drew an exact picture of her future husband as one of the illustrations for a book. This was several years before she met him… but the likeness is unbelievably exact! Such a cute story!

For myself – I find that without fail, any time I hang up a copy of W.B. Yeats poem “The Lake Isle of Inisfree” (“I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree…”) where I see it all the time, I end up getting to take a trip to my most favorite place in the world, Ireland. Very often the trips occur totally serendipitously – not necessarily through my own planning.

Dear Talane,
Thanks so much for your tips. My whole life comes from just what you described – I started doing creative visualisation in the 80's while "stuck" in New York. I dreamed of living in France, speaking French, getting married having kids and raising bi-lingual children. These were all separate exercises of course, and it took some time but it all came to pass.
Most recently, while looking through magazines, I found my perfect little house and little dog and cut them out and stuck them on a big poster board. Well, I am writing from the house and Cowboy, my dog (who looks EXACTLY like the cut out) is at my feet.
I am still dreaming of worldwide travel, particularly to Asia and to having a full-blown business. Think I'll describe these and cut out pictures again for good measure. I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, keep those excellent tips coming!
Much love,
MJ

Mary-Jeanne “MJ” Cabanel is a Personal and Professional Coach and can be reached at mjcabanel@gmail.com. You can read her profile at www.lifecoach.com in the International Coaching Directory.

How does this actually work? Well, I’m a life coach, not a neurobiologist, but, my best guess is that the act of drawing, writing or making a collage is taking your vague thoughts and crystallizing them. You have to be very specific and clear to write something down or draw a picture. And the act of doing so is “making it real” in the physical world. So while the thoughts are real in your head, by making your vision or dream physically viewable it becomes real in reality and therefore, real to you. Then it is just a matter of time before you will attract it. The coaching program/process helps do two things: 1) clarify your thoughts and 2) it dramatically speeds up the time in which you manifest your vision in reality. This I’ve personally seen after coaching thousands of people. If you want to speed up the rate of return, try working with a life coach or working the personal coaching program outlined into Coach Yourself to Success book and the Coach Yourself to Success Workbook .

Enjoy!

Warmest,
Talane

*Excerpted from Tip 101 from the international bestseller, Coach Yourself to Success: 101 Tips from a Personal Coach for Reaching Your Goals at Work and in Life by Talane Miedaner.

Talane’s Tip for the Week of February 4, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #14 – Write It Down!

Last week’s tip sounded like hooey balooey to some—about attracting what you want effortlessly simply by writing it down. In fact, one person decided it was such nonsense and asked, not very nicely, to be removed from the subscribers list, which of course we did immediately. Then, I received a number of emails from readers who did in fact effortlessly attract exactly what they wanted. Here are two inspiring examples that demonstrate that this is, in fact, a very effective way of getting what you want, whether that is a relationship, a house or the ideal career.

Example #1
Sent: 29 January 2008 21:49
To: talane@lifecoach.com

I loved your tip this week. When I was 37 and single for the longest time ever, someone suggested that I visualize the man I wanted to meet and what we would do together.

I did just that. I wrote down all his qualities on a piece of paper. I imagined the kinds of things we would do and enjoy together. Within a couple of months I met him. He had every quality on the list and we enjoy all the things I imagined – sipping our morning coffee together on the patio outside, doing the crossword puzzle together and hiking. We’ve been together 3 years and just celebrated our 1 year wedding anniversary on Sunday.

Happily Married

Example #2
Sent: 29 January 2008 19:50
To: talane@lifecoach.com
Subject: Vision

Dear Talane,

Having a vision really, really works!!! For years I have been using this technique to create the life I have dreamed of living! As soon as I completed a big goal I had set for myself . . .I began daydreaming of my next adventure.

I heard a voice in my head say, "Move to Lake Point." Lake Point is an exclusive GORGEOUS neighborhood where I live. I am a single mother and I work on commission . . .the idea sounded just nuts!

My intuition said think about it . . .so I did. I imagined what the house would look like, the floor plan, all the details. While on vacation in Sweden, I drew the floor plan of my dreams.

After I returned from vacation, I was at the gym. I met a new friend. I asked where she lived. She lived in Lake Point. I told her I had always dreamed of living there. She said she had a friend who was building and would soon put her house on the market. She put us together...and the floor plan was the same one that I had drawn on vacation!!!

My daughter and I are very, very happy here! My vision came true!

I’ve used this technique for all the big and wonderful things in life—my husband, my house by the sea, my coaching company. So, if you haven’t taken a few minutes to write down, create a collage or draw what it is you really want in life, you are missing out on a very powerful tool. Be as specific as possible and think very carefully about what it is you really want.

Warmest,
Talane

Talane’s Tip for the Week of January 28, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #13 – Have A Vision

One of the 28 principles of attraction is to have a vision. Now both my personal coaching clients and business coaching clients usually freak out when they hear that word. How do you create a vision? Don’t panic. This isn’t hard at all. A vision should come to you naturally and it doesn’t have to be grandiose to be effective. In fact, you can have lots of visions and they can be personal or business-oriented. The point of having a vision is to inspire you to think really big and to give you a visual image in your mind to focus on. Let’s look at some big, inspiring visions: Bill Gate’s vision for Microsoft is to have a computer on every desk running Microsoft software. JFK had a vision to land a man on the moon. Lifecoach.com has a vision to make personal coaching accessible and affordable to everyone on the planet.

You can also have personal visions. When I was single and living in the Catskills Mountains alone with my two cats, I had a vision of having a family living in a beautiful house by the seaside. It has now come true. You might envision a new sofa for your living room or driving around in a red convertible. You don’t have to have lofty or generous visions. Selfish visions are perfectly okay!

How to create a vision? Just think of what you’d love to have happen in your life and your business or career. If you draw a blank, take a stack of old magazines and flip through them. If something attracts you, cut it out. Paste everything you want on a white board and this is the vision for your life. One executive coaching client did this and found a house exactly like the one she had cut out of the magazine!

How does this work? One of the laws of attraction is: What you focus on expands. So imagining and picturing your vision will draw it to you. Seems strange but it is a very effective technique. The trick is to see it as already true and to hold it very lightly as you would a wish. When we are desperate to have something happen, we can drive the opportunity away.

Try it and let me know what you attract. And, if you’ve already had success with this method, please let us know at talane@lifecoach.com.

All the best,
Talane

Talane’s Tip for the Week of January 21, 2008
Law of Attraction Tip #12 – Eliminate All the Petty Annoyances

A number of readers have requested that I go back to covering the 28 Principles of Attraction. Although it looks like I’ve been side-tracked, if you do any of the tips, you’ll be making yourself more attractive. This is based on a very simple formula:

Increase your Powers of Attraction = Eliminate Energy Drains and Add in Energy Boosters.

As you eliminate from your life all sources of negativity, all major and minor stressors and add in the activities and people who make you feel great about yourself, you’ll discover that your ability to effortlessly attract what you want increases. In other words, you’ll discover that you can have a thought about what you want and it lands on your lap. Your vision is quickly translated into reality. The more energy drains in your life, the harder it is to manifest what you want. Reaching your goals can be hard or a struggle. The solution is simple. Start tackling those energy drains and get them out of your life or transform them into energy boosters.

Try this incredibly simple and powerful exercise from Tip 1 in Coach Yourself to Success:

Write down everything that you are tolerating, from the missing button on your favourite jacket, to the burnt out light bulb in the fridge, the mold around the bathtub, car alarms, etc. Include little things, like missing buttons, to big things, like credit card debt or pollution. What are you tolerating at work? At home? About your body and your habits? Write everything down on a piece of paper. Most people end up with about 100 or more things. Now, set aside a weekend morning to handle all the easy ones. Or try turning the TV off and dedicating one or two nights a week to eliminating everything on the list. Start with the easy things and you will soon attract the solution to the bigger problems.

Most people underestimate the power of this exercise. What difference can these tiny annoyances make in view of my larger goals? Tolerations are like barnacles on the hull of a ship. They look very tiny and insignificant in relation to the whole massive ocean liner, but they create so much drag and resistance that they have to be scraped off every so often. Without barnacles, the ship can reach its destination with ease and less fuel consumption. Whatever you are tolerating is making it harder for you to reach your goals. Get rid of them and you’ll find yourself gliding through life.

Enjoy!
Talane

Talane’s Blog for the Week of January 14, 2008
Happy New Year

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is already mid-January. Ideally, one should do this tip on the 31st of December, but, if you are anything like me and had a busy Christmas and New Year’s you are just now coming up for air. It isn’t too late to do this wonderful exercise to start off the New Year on the right foot. Most people make their lists of resolutions and goals and are on their way without taking time to complete the past year. Take a few minutes to write down the answers to these questions:

What did I accomplish last year? Remember to include business and personal events. For example, my in-laws lived with us for four months while we helped them find a home in our town. During that time my mother-in-law was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. At the same time I was negotiating my book contract. My newborn wasn’t sleeping, I breastfed her for seven months. I mediated a conflict between business owners. List all of your accomplishments and all major events of the past year, both business and personal because it all counts.
What challenges/obstacles did you overcome? For example, I negotiated my own book contract without the assistance of my agent. Mother-in-law diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, grandmother died….
What qualities did you use or develop to overcome these obstacles? Patience, persistence, courage, humor….
What are your goals and wishes for 2008?
Bonus question: What is your theme for the New Year?

When my husband and I did this exercise, we suddenly felt really great about what had been a very difficult and, in many ways, discouraging year. And, we realized if we could accomplish all that we did on top of all these challenges, how much easier this year would be now that we were past these major hurdles. The best change is that the baby, now 13 months old, is finally sleeping through the night. Hooray! If we could do what we did without sleep, imagine how much more productive and happy we’ll be with sleep! Having written all this down and discussed it together, we both have experienced a huge burst of energy and enthusiasm for this year. And, our theme for this year is fun!

Two new phone classes (details below) are being offered to help jump start your new year. What a great gift to give yourself in 2008!

Enjoy!
Talane

P.S. For those of you who are asking for more of the attraction tips, I’ll pick up next week where we left off. Thanks for your enthusiastic interest. And, you’ll be pleased to know that my next book coming out in July will be all about attraction!

Talane’s Classic Tip for the Week, January 7, 2008
Tell the Truth About Money

Get the new year off to a great start by taking control of your finances. The way you start is by telling the truth about money. What is money anyway? We know it doesn't buy happiness or love or health. Money is simply a tool, and the way you handle your money can tell you a lot about yourself.

First, figure out what your own beliefs are about money. Our beliefs are the source of our actions, and our actions are the source of the results we get in life. Fill in the blanks:

I believe money is…
My greatest problem with money right now is…
Financial success means…
If I had all the money I could ever want, I would be..
My parents taught me that money is...

Limited beliefs create limited finances. Common beliefs are reflected in expressions such as "filthy rich", "money is the root of all evil", "it takes money to make money". Write down all the beliefs you have about money, and then write down all the new beliefs you would like to replace them with. For example, "I enjoy my money, I am grateful for money, I have enough money to be generous and do great things." Shifting your limiting beliefs to expansive beliefs is the first step toward financial freedom.

Enjoy!
Talane

Excerpted from Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner
Copyright © 2000 McGraw Hill

Talane’s Blog for the Week, December 17, 2007
A Holiday Gift

One of my life coaching clients has a ten year old son who is a pen pal with a child in Nepal. He asked his father to sponsor this penniless and parentless boy for Christmas and his father has done so. When another personal coaching client of mine in Switzerland commented that her 11 year old daughter keeps saying she doesn’t want any gifts for Christmas as she wants to give her gifts to charity for needier children, her mother hasn’t taken her seriously and continues to buy her gifts. I suggested that she might want to honor and respect her daughter by taking her seriously and giving her toys with the understanding that she can keep the ones she wants and send the rest to a needier child. I told her about the opportunity to find a pen pal and offered to get the information about the charity to her so that she could consider finding a pen pal for her daughter and perhaps sponsoring a child for her Christmas present this year. Where did these wonderful, generous kids come from? I wanted all my presents for myself at that age!

As it turns out, the charity needs a lot of help as they have 72 children in need of sponsors so I thought I’d pass on the information to my subscribers in case anyone else would be interested in this very generous and thoughtful way to give.

Here is the note/information from my life coaching client:

”I am so impressed that your client’s daughter would consider such a heart warming gesture! Here is the contact information and website for the charity: www.allowthechildren.org

The charity is run by Mike and Sue Cook. Sue’s email address is sue@allowthechildren.org. They have a great need for gifts or sponsorship for about 35 children in Nepal, and 37 children in Burundi. Sue will make sure that even the smallest of gifts will reach the child directly. Mike and Sue pay all of their travel and overhead for the charity, so every dollar or gift goes directly to the child. It is not necessary to sponsor a child…just a small gift for Christmas will mean so much to any one of them. Your client will receive an information package about the recipient and they may become a pen pal. I must tell you that not every child will write, mainly because some are not capable. If asked, Sue will try to place your client with a child who will be a pen pal for her. The mail is very slow, as my son just received his last letter a week ago, dated 22 October. My son’s pen pal has no family, and just barely has basic needs like food and water…yet he always thinks of and prays for my son’s health, safety, and well being. I find it difficult to comprehend that a person struggling so hard just to have the basics of life will put others before himself.”

I’m going to set up my website so that all the referral fees from amazon.com go 100% to this charity. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could find a Christmas gift or sponsor for these 72 children? Send me a note with your results/actions and I’ll collect them to see how much we can do as one subscriber list!

Enjoy!
Talane

Talane’s Blog for the Week, December 3, 2007
The Key to a Problem-Free Life

One of my personal coaching clients this morning reported that last week one of her friends had been killed in a car accident, her house was burgled and her purse, money and credit cards stolen, and a family member was diagnosed as having cancer. What did she do to attract all this?

My answer: nothing. Deservingness has very little or no connection to what we have in life. Some people are incredibly deserving and have little or no “stuff” and others are not very deserving and are rich. And sometimes in life, bad things happen to perfectly good people. As Christopher Reeve commented, no one is exempt from catastrophe. The best we can do is create a buffer or a reserve around us to soften the blow when disaster strikes. And, you can also look at the disaster as a message. Is the universe trying to tell you something?

If you take the one of the principles of attraction, “It is all Good, Even the Bad Stuff” and apply this philosophy to the above scenario what do you get? In this personal coaching client’s case, a very loud and clear message that her life is about to derail and she is headed for a real crisis situation if she doesn’t take immediate action to turn things around. The solution wasn’t immediately obvious, but was after a half hour coaching call.

Thomas Leonard, the founder of coaching, said that life comes at us in messages. At first, we get a gentle message from the universe—a small warning signal. Then, if we fail to take action, that message gets louder and becomes a problem and if you ignore the problem, it will become a crisis. Take bouncing a check at the bank. If you ignore it, you’ll probably bounce a number of checks and rack up big fees at the bank. If you continue to ignore your financial situation, the bank could close your account which might be a serious problem. And, if you continue longer, you could rack up credit cards debts and personal debts and find yourself in a real financial hole. The solution: to overrespond to every “bad” event, especially when they are just little problems with the idea of permanently eliminating the problem at its source. So don’t just put more money in your account, instead, put $5000 in your account, sign up for overdraft protection, meet with a financial planner to discuss your finances. Go overboard in responding to this message and you will prevent it from becoming a problem in the future. If a relative has cancer, what can you do to improve your diet and health today? Don’t just take a multivitamin and call it a day. Get a complete physical, meet with a nutritionist for the best plan for your body and health, work out with a personal trainer or start some other regular physical activity. Get a weekly massage.

For a financial problem, get your insurance evaluated by a financial planner. Do you have your wills and other financial protection in place so that if the worst occurs, you and your family are well-protected?

Like the personal coaching client above, you must go to the source of the problem and eliminate the stress at its source. What messages is the universe sending you?

Enjoy!
Talane