INTRODUCTION

       There is only one success—to be able to spend your life in your own way.

CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

What Is Coaching?

Coaching closes the gap between where you are now and where you want to be. It is a professional relationship with someone who accepts nothing but your best and who will advise you, guide you, and encourage you to go beyond self-imposed limitations in order to realize your full potential. Think of Olympic athletes. These are the most successful and powerful athletes in the world—because of coaching. Their coaches give them the edge that allows them to go for the gold. They provide an outside perspective and keep the athletes focused on their goals.

A life coach points out things you can’t see and gives you ideas on how to improve your performance while at the same time motivating you to be your absolute best. A life coach challenges you to go beyond where you normally stop. A life coach helps you tap into your greatness and enables you to share it with the world. Can you imagine how much more productive and successful you would be if you had your own coach? You don’t have to imagine anymore. This book contains the key elements of my coaching program and the latest formulas for achieving success and attracting everything you have always wanted. Coaching used to be reserved for CEOs and other top executives, and, of course, superb athletes, but now life coaching is available for anyone who wants to live his or her dreams. Today, thousands of professionals and executives use life coaches for advice and strategy on improving their professional and personal lives.

People often think that when they achieve success, they will be happy. This is not necessarily true. I myself was a very successful manager. In the eyes of the world, I had made it. I made more money than 90 percent of the population, and my prospects for advancement were excellent. But, while I was very good at my job, I hated it. In fact, one day while walking to work, I caught myself daydreaming about getting hit by a bus so I could spend a month or two in traction at the hospital and thinking this was a more attractive option than going to work at the bank! I clearly hadn’t found my calling, and I knew I wasn’t living up to my full potential.

I would like to be able to say that I hired a coach to help me figure out what to do with my life, but I hadn’t even heard of life coaching. My coach, Thom, found me. He asked me if he could coach me, and I told him, as politely as I could, to get lost. To this day I am extremely grateful that he was persistent; coaching changed my life completely.

I am now doing exactly what I love to do. My work is incredibly fulfilling. I get tremendous satisfaction from leading seminars around the world and helping my clients achieve their goals and dreams. I now lead the finest team of coaches in the world as the founder of Lifecoach.com. I have all the personal time I want, have found the man of my dreams, and have an amazing life that I thoroughly enjoy. Now that is success. And I’m certainly not interested in getting hit by a bus!

You are the master and creator of your own destiny. You may already have a clear picture of what you want at work and in life, or you may be clueless. It doesn’t matter where you start. In fact, it is probably better if you are clueless so that you don’t limit your options. You may be wondering if coaching will work for you. Try it and see. In one sense, nobody needs a coach; it is a fabulous luxury. But, like an Olympic athlete, if you seek to perform at and be your absolute best, you’ll want the edge coaching provides.

When clients first hire me, they are usually tired of struggling to achieve success in life and are looking for an easier way. Most of us live our lives backward. We spend a great deal of our time and energy working harder and harder to make more money to buy and do more things that will supposedly make us “happy.” This is the hard way to success. The easy way is to first decide who you want to be, and then act on that decision. By doing so, you will effortlessly attract the life you want.

And a funny thing happens when you start living this way—you discover what you really want.

You no longer waste precious time on goals, projects, or relationships that aren’t fulfilling. This book will show you how to be your very best, most successful self. When you are happy, relaxed, having a good time, and doing what you love to do, you will naturally attract success. People can’t help but be drawn to you, and opportunity lands in your lap.

Two Ways to Get What You Want

There are two basic approaches to getting what you want in life, whether you are after business, success, opportunities, money, or love: (1) set your goal and go after it; and (2) attract your goal to you. We’ve been trained to use the first method, but it often doesn’t work. We end up trying to force or will our goals to fruition. This can be unnecessarily frustrating, stressful, and unhealthy.

People call attraction by many different names—serendipity, good luck, synchronicity, networking—and they would be right if this kind of thing was an occasional or random event. But amazingly lucky things happen to my clients and me all the time. One client, a regional marketing executive at a Fortune 500 company, was making a very nice income of $125,000 a year, but felt stuck and unsatisfied at work. We worked not on writing a résumé or job hunting, but on her life. She started getting rid of all the petty annoyances that were dragging her down. She began playing more golf on weekends to relax. I encouraged her to take better care of herself and get a weekly massage. She cleared out all the old files and papers cluttering her office and home. After nine months of working to get every aspect of her life in great shape, she received a call from a recruiter who arranged an interview with another company. Within the week, she got the job, instantly doubled her salary, and now has a challenging career with people she enjoys working with. She didn’t chase after this opportunity; it came to her. She attracted this result. My clients frequently experience this sort of success, and there is no reason why you can’t, too. You can systematically create a life that draws happiness and success to you. By removing the energy drains in your life and adding pleasurable activities that increase your energy, you create the space for opportunities to come to you.

Most of us don’t give ourselves credit for attracting success. Good things come to us, and we chalk it up to luck or serendipity. What we don’t know is that when we are at our best, doing fulfilling work and feeling happy and excited about life, it is natural to attract success. The problem is that many things prevent us from being our best. That’s where some coaching tips can come in handy.

Using the practical wisdom drawn from a wealth of experience as a professional coach, as well as many years of corporate experience, I’ve collected 101 of the most powerful and effective coaching tips and presented them here in an easy-to-follow, 10-part program. Each part is filled with practical, proven tips and down-to-earth, real-life client stories that will help you attract everything you have always wanted.

How Does Coaching Work?

After coaching thousands of clients to attract what they want, I’ve found that the process is pretty simple. It all boils down to the raw basics: energy. Einstein figured out that all matter is energy. We can do things that take away our energy or things that give us energy.

Coaching will show you how to eliminate the things that drain your energy and bring in the things that give you energy. The more energy you have, the more attractive and powerful you will be. People who are energetic and full of life, people who are doing what they most love to do, are successful.

Coaching works for anyone who is willing to take these actions. There is work to do, but the work isn’t focused on striving to reach your goals. Rather, you will focus on being the best person you can possibly be today. This coaching program will help you realize your unique talents and gifts and then maximize them to achieve the success you want. Working on your own life is the most rewarding thing you can do. The good news is that the coaching process builds a natural momentum so you won’t have to keep motivating yourself. Once you start in one area of your life, you will be drawn to work on another. Once you’ve experienced effortlessly attracting what you want, you will never want to go back to your old ways of achieving success.

Before You Get Started

This is an action-oriented program, so you will want to find a special journal or binder to keep your notes in while you work through the coaching assignments in this book.

If you are not in the habit of keeping a journal or diary, it is easy to begin. Just write down a paragraph or two a day about what you are thinking, feeling, or doing to get started and work your way up to three pages or more a day when you feel so inclined. You can start by writing what you did during the day, even mundane things like, “I made scrambled eggs for breakfast.” Don’t worry about grammar or punctuation. No one will read this but you. The journal will show you how much you have accomplished and help you digest and adapt to the many changes you will make in your life during this coaching program. It is also a great tool for tapping into your creativity.

Throughout this book you will find Bonus Boxes which refer to additional tools or resources available at www.LifeCoach.com that will speed up the process of your reaching your ideal life.

Finally, take the “How Coachable Are You?” test in Appendix A or online at LifeCoach.com to see if you are ready to begin this coaching program.

A Final Word of Caution

Most of the ideas in this book are so simple that you may think you have done them just by reading them; this is a big mistake. Reading and taking action are two totally different things. If only it were true that reading an idea were sufficient—we would all be perfect by now. So pick a tip from Part One that appeals to you, and then do it. Focus on one or two tips a week. Some can be done immediately, while others may take quite a bit of time to complete. For example, while you may be able to sew on a button in two minutes, it might take you a year to save six months of living expenses. Don’t worry about how much time it will take to reach the end result. The important thing is to set up the structures for fulfillment of your goals and dreams.

If you can afford to hire a coach to support you in this process, great. I’ve listed resources to help you find one in Appendix B, along with the questions you should ask when interviewing a coach. In Appendix D, I’ve listed books and audio programs that I frequently recommend to my coaching clients in addition to organizations and associations that will help you find the people you need to reach your goals. If you can’t afford to hire a private coach, you might want to take advantage of the special 30-day online coaching offer that comes with this book and try our Premier Coaching Program, which includes group coaching calls with on-the-spot coaching every month. (See below for more details on activating this offer.) At the very least, find a partner or a buddy who will work through this book with you and call each other once a week to check in.

While it is perfectly okay to jump around the book and do whatever you most feel like, if you find that you are struggling in one area or an idea seems impossible or far-fetched, it may be that you need to take care of something from an earlier part first. For example, it is hard to hire a personal trainer if you are still in debt. And it may seem ridiculous or impossible to go for financial independence when you are still figuring out how to pay the babysitter. However, financial independence will sound like a large but achievable project once you have paid off your debts and have six months of living expenses socked away. It is easiest if you follow the process as outlined; however, if you feel that you are ready to take on certain steps before others, go right ahead.

Above all, remember to have fun and enjoy the process!