A Review of "Transformational Life Coaching" - A Book For Mentors and Mentees Everywhere

There are many different indicators in today's world demonstrating that humanity has reached a new level of awareness and appreciation for its own existence. If we look at the shifts in the types of occupations being pursued (and sought after), the abundance of life coaches and personal development mentors is like a mirror held up to our collective psyche. It seems to say that life is a precious experience, and we simply want to be sure that we're present for it in every way possible. To coin a somewhat overused phrase: We seek to live authentically.

In 1977, long before having a "life coach" was something commonly discussed at Starbucks, Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott published her first book on the subject and began a career that eventually, would find her labeled, "The Mother of Coaching." New Species (published in 1978) was to become the first of many books Dr. Scott would write on personal development. The long list includes, "Negaholics," a series of 'Rules' books - including "If Life is a Game, These are the Rules," and her most recent work, "Transformational Life Coaching."

Transformation Life Coaching throws open the doors to Life Coaching School and invites us all inside. Although written for those who either are, or espouse to become, mentors in the transformational movement, this book is an accessible "how to" for anyone. It welcomes all those who have spent time seeking to develop a better appreciation with their own life and how they intend to live it. Chapter 1 literally outlines what to look for and how to choose a coach, offering twenty-five important questions to discuss during the interview process.

In this book, Dr. Scott has created a virtual concordance of information, challenges for personal thought patterns and judgment, practical exercise and reference tools to use over and over. Embracing many global teachings, Dr. Scott often refers to the different chakras, or energy centers, as tools to release the ego and be of maximum service to others. As she explains, "You are in the process of opening up and taking control of your power," and by deeply understanding each energy center, we will be able to literally, "open and close each chakra at will."

Imagine being able to consciously open the fifth chakra (which controls speech and communication) in order to more fully participate in our marriage or work relationships - or being able to close down our first chakra, which embodies survival and security, so that we might be more risky and daring in our professional roles or fearlessly take on new adventures in life.

Dr. Scott has spent most of her professional life traveling the world and sharing her expertise on personal empowerment and development at every turn. On her website she shares that, "Writing a book is not done with the wave of a wand. It takes time to reflect and soul search for the universal truths related to each developmental phase." These same words could definitely be applied to the very journeys that Dr. Scott encourages us to make with our lives.

What we know about coaching is that it is not only sought after, but it is necessary in today's fast-paced world of endless challenges. From corporate teams to softball teams, being coached and coaching others on how to live as appreciatively and authenticity as possible is a proactive way to turn roadblocks into paving stones on your road of success.

Dr. Success (aka Andrea Goeglein, Ph.D.)

http://www.ServingSuccess.com

DrSuccess@ServingSuccess.com

(702) 243-4040

Repairing a Leaking Toilet

Let me explain how a toilet works. First when you go to flush the toilet a little arm pulls a rubber flapper up and lets the water drain into the toilet bowl. The water draining into the toilet bowl forces the old water out along with the number two or number one waste and extremities.

If the toilet sounds like it is running there is a good chance that the seal between the rubber flapper and the plastic rain at the bottom of the toilet is broken somehow. The sound you are hearing is water running around this ring and in to the toilet bowl.

This leak is actually causing no damage to the toilet itself but is wasting water. Hence the water bill will be a little higher if you don't fix the leaking toilet. The best way to find out if this is actually your problem is to take the toilet tank lid off. Then stick your hand down into the toilet bowl and press gently on the rubber flap.

If the water stops leaking or starts running faster this is your problem. Turn the water off to the toilet. There will be a shut off valve on the wall under your toilet bowl in the bathroom. After you turn the water off removed the plastic flap and examine it.

You will be looking for a warped toilet flap or of some sort or grooves on the flapper itself. Take the toilet flapper down to your local home improvement store and buy a new one. Go home and replace the new toilet flapper and this should solve 90% of your leaking toilet problems.

There is one more thing it could be. With the toilet tank lid off, check to see if water is overflowing into the little round plastic pipe. This plastic pipe should have a small hose running from the float valve assembly into it.

If the water is over flowing from the toilet tank into this little plastic pipe you will need to adjust the float.

First thing you will need to do is while the toilet is running lift up on the float lever arm. If the water stops you can simply bend the metal arm of the float lever. The purpose of bending the arm will force the float deeper into the water there for stopping the water from rising over the small tube in the center of your toilet.

There are few parts to a toilet and most parts can be purchased at your local hardware or home improvement centers. Toilet repairs like this can be made simple and the parts used to replace are inexpensive.

Happy Toilet Repairing.

Greg Vanden Berge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more House Building and Remodeling Library and adding useful content to help solve problems created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.

Visit us and get more information on building and remodeling your homes and Some Great Plumbing Ideas

Ask And You Might Receive Or Ask

Through Any Obstacle - Self Help Tips

If there were no obstacles, I could accomplish anything. I'd just get up, do the things I needed to do and "viola!" one day my goal will be achieved. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work like that. No path to success is smooth or easy; otherwise everyone would do it. Life throws obstacles in our way and the daily grind gets us down so that we have to continually motivate ourselves.

But what if you had a motivation that was so powerful, so ironclad, so inspiring to you that no obstacle couldn't be overcome or worked around? What could you accomplish then?

Oh, we think we have strong motivators. We think we're motivated by the benefits we're expecting from the actions that we take. These benefits might be more money, more time, the finer things in life, but these aren't the real, true, and strong reasons "why" we are going to get up and fight the good fight every day.

What is the reason why? I can't tell you because everyone's why is different. And sometimes it's hidden deep beneath consumer-cravings and societal pressure. So here's a no-fail, simple process to find your personally motivating why.

Steve Siebold, author of 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class tells us that champions are driven by emotional motivators, not logical reasons or benefits. We're used to thinking of the benefits to our actions as enough motivation. But these are logic-based. Your inescapable "why" has to be an emotion behind your actions.

Here is the simple statement you need to complete to find your personally motivating why:

"I want to _____________, so that ________________ because _______________"

It's deceptively simple, but for the most powerful result, you will need to dig deep into your feelings and emotions.

Let's walk through the process. Start with a benefit that appeals to you. This is what gets you started. That goes in the first blank. For example, "network more to get more clients."

Your sentence now reads, "I want to network more to get more clients, so that ..." What? What is the purpose of having more clients? You will have more money, experience more stability, grow the business? Let's choose, "I can have more money."

Because why? What does the money do for you? What do you want from it? Perhaps you want to retire early. Now, our statement is "I want to get more clients so that I can have more money, because I want to retire early."

Are you done? Is that a strong enough motivating statement? No it's not because this is a logical statement, there is no emotion tied to it. If the "because" doesn't make your throat tighten, or your heart beat faster, or make your eyes tear up, this motivating statement will not work

If the "because" is not emotionally compelling to you, keep going. Repeat the "so that" and "because" statements until you have an absolutely ironclad, emotion-laden statement. You can repeat them in pairs or separately.

I want to get more clients so that I can have more money, because I want to retire early, so that I can travel the country with my wife because she's never traveled and because I love her and want her to experience the wonders of America by my side.

Which part of that statement would make you get up early every Tuesday for your leads club meeting? More clients? Or traveling the country with your wife?

Here's another example:

I want to expand my networking contacts so that I have a safety net because I'm concerned about layoffs so that I don't have to worry about finding another job because my children see the job losses on the news and ask me if I could lose my job because I don't want them to feel fear and because I want them to feel proud and confident that Mommy has lots of friends who would help her find a better job really fast.

The final statement must be a positive, love-based statement. Steve Siebold emphasizes that great people evolve from fear-based to love-based motivation. If your last "because" is fear-based, then you need to keep going until the last statement is full of love and gratitude. Fear will sap away your strength and reduce your enjoyment. You want to move "toward" something positive, not "away" from something negative. Your why must be positive-emotionally motivating if you want to achieve great results and break through any obstacles.

Follow the "I want to/so that/because" formula. Write it down, post it, and review it when you feel tired, or discouraged, or lack motivation. Your love-filled, emotional statement will give you strength and the ability to continue on toward your goal.

Beth Bridges is the Membership Director of the Clovis Chamber of Commerce in California. She has helped thousands of people get connected through hundreds of networking events with the Chamber and other organizations. For tips, tricks, and networking strategies, visit http://bethbridges.blogspot.com For more motivation and personal development training, access thousands of hours of top authors, speakers, and writers (including Steve Siebold) at http://www.NetworkWithILG.com

Surviving As A Contractor In California

So you want to make big money making a living as a contractor in the state of California. Well now I bet you have seen contractors on TV or maybe you know someone who is a contractor. You see these men and women playing the part as Mr. or Mrs. Money bags. If you have the slightest thought that becoming a contractor will provide you with a life of riches think again.

Most contractors that I know and have worked with over the years don't think of there jobs as easy. They have to work everyday and a lot into the night doing estimates or meeting with potential clients because they are to busy during the day. The life of most contractors in the beginning will be difficult to say the least. But if successful you will make a great living for yourself and your family.

Now that we got the false illusion of the contractor answering his cell phone all day at some nice golf course having lunch talking about the money that he just made selling his oil stocks. We can start on reality. If being a contractor was that easy everyone would be a contractor. Right..... Well maybe not everyone.

I have been a contractor for over 22 years and in construction for 30 year. I have seen a lot of changes over the years. I remember when a few contractors that I worked for made a lot of money during the late 1970's. These guys had Ferraris and money to burn with one exception they had no idea how to save any of it. These guys went on vacations and bought extravagant toys for them selves. Out of most of the big framing contractors I worked for about 10 percent are still in business or actually saved their money during the good times so that they could make it through the bad times.

These contractors never thought it was going to end. Life on easy street that is. But it did and most went by the way side. I guess that is the nature of business. Especially the current economic business cycles that we seem to go through over the years. If you don't have the money to advertise or carry a payroll. Your business is going to suffer during the bad times. Sure there is credit and bank loans but you still have to pay that money back. IF you can't save your money stash some away for advertising.

Some of the best advice I can give a contractor anywhere especially in the state of California is " Don't Think The Great Times Of Easy Money Will Last Forever". Save some of the money you make just in case you need to get through the bad times. You will thank me for this latter, Some time down the road. Take this advice and put it into action starting right now.

Greg Vanden Berge has over 30 years of experience in residential home building and remodeling. This provides you with the comfort of knowing that you have a professional with the knowledge and skills to complete your construction projects in a timely manner.

Our low overhead along with our new online estimating system will provide you with the most competitive construction pricing in the area. We continue to educate ourselves about the new home improvement books and building systems in the construction industry. If we have any doubt that something might not work we don't use it. We have found some of these products to be the root of some major home building problems.

Click on the Home Remodeling Ideas to get more information and a possible online estimate for your home improvement project.

If I Hate My Brother

Peaks and Valleys by Spencer Johnson

Spencer Johnson has done very well for himself by taking simple lessons and sharing them in short stories. It is not surprising that USA Today called him "The King of Parables." "Peaks and Valleys: Making Good And Bad Times Work For You - At Work And In Life" is Johnson's newest parable, and like those before it, this book contains more than meets the eye.

The book is short, only 99 pages, and some of those contain only one quote. And like his other books, it is a smaller formatted hardcover. However, despite its length, there are some practical pearls of wisdom that if applied will make one's life more positive. It would be easy to dismiss this book as too simple, or too easy. After all, in the text Johnson refers to the story as common sense. But how many people actually apply the simple lessons of life? Treat others as you want to be treated is a universal lesson found throughout history, but do people actually apply it? Some do of course, but so many don't.

Often, we spend countless hours, sometimes even lifetimes, searching for some profound truth or magic moment that will enlighten us and make all of our troubles disappear and success and riches materialize in abundances we only dream about. While searching for the complicated, we sometimes fail to listen to the simple. We forget what we know. We don't apply the lessons we do learn because we are too busy looking for something greater.

What I like about "Peaks and Valleys" and the other books by Spencer Johnson is that they remind us of the simple, and encourage us to apply these simple lessons to our own lives. One of the lessons in "Peaks and Valleys" is to imagine yourself enjoying a better future in such specific, believable detail, that you soon enjoy doing what takes you there. This is not new. Earl Nightengale taught the same lesson in his "Strangest Secret." Nightengale taught "We become what we think about most of the time." Others have taught variations of this, and it is so simple that it is often overlooked.

Just because I have heard variations of this lesson before does not mean I didn't enjoy it here. Like the young man in this book, I too forget these lessons at times, especially when the hustle and bustle and stresses of today's world seem to overwhelm at times. The short time it took me to read "Peaks and Valleys" was a relaxing reminder of some important concepts that when followed make life better.

I would encourage anyone to take a little time for yourself, find a relaxing place, and enjoy this short parable by Spencer Johnson. Then take a little longer to assess how you can apply the lessons from this story to your own life. If you do, you just might find yourself enjoying more Peaks and realize your Valleys are not as bad as you thought.

Alain Burrese, J.D. is a mediator/attorney with Bennett Law Office P.C. and an author/speaker through his own company Burrese Enterprises Inc. He teaches people to live with the warrior's edge through his writing and speaking on a variety of topics focusing on the business areas of negotiation and success principles as well as self-defense and safety topics. He is the author of Hard-Won Wisdom From the School of Hard Knocks, several instructional dvds, and numerous articles. You can find out more about Alain Burrese at his websites http://www.burrese.com and http://bennettlawofficepc.com

New Home Buyers Beware

Ican't believe how many homebuyers purchase a house, with very little information and a Lotta hope. I'm a general contractor and often work on these homes, after they have been purchased and a homeowner has their money, the real estate professional is no longer involved in the transaction and the new homeowner is starting to experience the pitfalls from buying the home, that they sincerely believe was in good condition.

It's usually somebody like me that gets involved with the new homeowners after everyone else is out of the picture and chooses not to return their phone calls or explains to them quite simply, it's not our responsibility, you're the new homeowner and we really feel sorry for you, please call us again if we can help you with anything.

You couldn't even help me with that, why would I want to call you again if I had a problem. I never could understand this thinking but have ran into it often. It sounds like an oxymoron when someone refuses to help you but offers you help in the future. What ever!!!.

If homebuyers had something else to rely on besides their real estate salesperson, home inspection service, mortgage or insurance professional, I believe they can eliminate some of these problems. Where do you start and how do you get the information. You can gather information from reputable people, books, the Internet and so on.

The problem is how do you know these people are reputable and the books on the Internet have good information. This brings us to another problem, but I've got the solution that will help eliminate some of the grief. I'm not going to remove all of the grief from your life but have a suggestion for you that will eliminate some of the pain when buying a home.

Arm yourself with a good home inspection checklist. You can search the Internet and they have quite a few good home inspection checklist to work with. These checklist can provide you with things you might not have thought of, and this is where you can eliminate some of the problems.

If you took one of these checklists with you while you were shopping for a home, you would be aware of some of the problems with the home. You might not find all of the problems but these checklist will help you with some of the problems.

Greg Vanden Berge is working on the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow guides and home building books to help professional building contractors as well as the weekend warriors. He has just finished a Home Buyers Guide to take some of the frustration out of home shopping.

If your looking for some more home inspection or home building ideas.

Wrong With Bible Verse

Yoga Isn't Stretching

If we look at the purpose of yoga and understand it in its spiritual context, we could distill itas 'opening the body, at the physical and subtle levels'. In this process of opening what is held within these different levels, the holding and in fact what creates the holding itself, is released. This process of the release through openingis in yogic terms purification. There is no way shape or form by which this process can beequated withstretching.

Stretching does not transform. As the word implies implicitly it is simply a forced lengthening. If we look at asana practice in this way the consequence of stretching will of course result in greater flexibility. This type of flexibility however requires perpetual stretching to be maintained. Because there is a force in stretching the natural response of the body is to retract again once that forces is removed with the same amount of force as was applied. This is a basic law of physics.

It is possible that through stretching, the body can be reshaped, the muscles and tendons lengthened. But if we compare this affect to the purpose of yoga, then the purpose is not achieved. Doing yoga by stretching will also have benefits, but they will be limited and short term. Yoga classes where you are exhorted to pushed to the limit, and then some, might leave you in a state of sweaty exhilaration, but like any high you come down. If this was what yoga was really about, then gymnasts and ballerinas, would be yogis and yoginis.

My yoga teacher in Rishikesh continually warned a naturally flexible student that her flexibility was a barrier to her practice. He also used to say that there were two ways to we could do asana practice. One way was the way of force, in which I am including stretching. He described the way of force as using a sledgehammer. The second way he described as using a chisel, and a hammer. He said the chisel was awareness the hammer was intelligence. Awareness takes consciousness into the body and intelligence follows it and directs it. As I have written elsewhere what the body holds is the contents of our subconscious. Obviously this means that we do not have conscious awareness of what is held. Yoga as a process of opening and releasing is then the discovery and making conscious what our subconscious holds in our body.

We live in a fast paced got to have it now culture. Sledgehammer yoga might elicit fast results, but the possibility of injury can be attested to by many. If conscious awareness was there could injury occur? I think not.

What then is opening and how do we do it? Well first of all, as what is held in the body is not conscious, it must become conscious, which essentially means we have to discover it. This discovery requires us paying a lot of attention while doing asana, the first 'union' is between awareness and body, then awareness body and breath.

Holding is by definition a contracting. Opening then is a letting go of the holding/contracting that is unconsciously occurring. It is the creation of spaciousness in the body. On a practical level it looks like this. We must in any asana find and not pass the boundary of our bodies capacity. Then we slightly withdraw from that boundary - just a little. Then we breath into the area where we find our boundary. Inhalation is definition expansion, so we breath space into the boundary of holding. Then as we exhale we direct awareness into the space we have just breathed open, and we keep doing this over an dover again.

This is asana as a meditation practice. This is yoga as an ongoing relationship of discovery with yourself. To practice this way takes patience, perseverance and courage. Courage because sooner or later you will start to meet parts of yourself you probably didn't even remember or know where there. Parts in pain, in darkness. In practicing this way, it is slower in terms of 'results' from the external view, but the results will last forever and you are fulfilling the age old addage to all spiritual practitioners "know yourself".

Ray Baskerville is a healer, meditation teacher, certified hypnotherapist, yogi and proud father. He has taught in worldwide. Ray is also the creator and editor of http://www.lifedivine.net an online magazine for yoga, meditation, spirituality and personal development. Please visit for more free quality articles like this.