Well, I am officially retired! I just signed the papers to hand the reins from my financial planning practice over to my wonderful partner of 13 years, John Steves. I must say, it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. I began to feel that there was something else that I was supposed to be doing with my life back in 2002, but I kept pushing the thoughts back down...ignoring them.

How many times have we done this to ourselves... ignoring our intuition that there is something else we should be doing in the world—our Life Purpose. Well, thank God that I finally listened to my intuition and walked through me fear to follow this dream. I am having the time of my life, my family is happier, my former clients and planning partner will flourish and Jill and I now attracting all kinds of people and companies that want to join us in our mission. It’s amazing!

Think about it...when we allow ourselves to play a larger role in life, everyone benefits:

• We grow and are able to contribute in a way that provides us with joy and satisfaction.
• Others benefit by the unique gifts we are able to bring to the world by fulfilling our life purpose.
• Often find that we love what we do so much and are inspired with passion, that we no longer even think of it as work—so this idea of “retirement” is not an issue. As long as we take care of ourselves, we may never even want to retire. This is the idea in Zelinski’s book, “Retire Happy, Wild and Free” which I highly recommend.
• When we are living authentically and focusing on our unique gifts and talents, we attract others into our lives with the same mission.
• Life flows effortlessly—our health both physically and emotionally is improved because we are producing endorphins rather than adrenaline.

Spring is just a few days away...a time for change, growth and rebirth. How do you want to live the rest of your life? Are you ready for a change, a new beginning, new friends, and inspiring work? If so, take action now. You do not have to do this alone...there is an entire community...a network here at Smart Women’s Coaching ready and waiting to support you.

What do you do first?

1. Visit our home page and sign up for our f.ree 7- part audio mini course, so you will learn how to embrace teh Law of Attraction, as seen in the movie, The Secret, into your life
2. Do all seven exercises...they are very simple...
3. Print out your Perfect Life Elements...read them every day.
4. Complete the assessment at the end of the series to get clear about where you want to start.
5. Take advantage of the 20 minute complimentary coaching session with Jill or me. It's that simple!

Be sure to sign up for this course before April 1st since it will be changing - Secrets for Getting Ahead in Life and Business.

~ Katana

Katana is an expert in helping women prepare for taking care of their aging parents. She has been a featured speaker with the Area Agency on Aging as well as the Federal Reserve Board’s Money $mart Week. She will soon be launching a new program called, “The Designated Daughter^TM— Living in the Sandwich Generation.” For more information, you can visit her website at www.Smartwomenscoaching.com or request her article on the topic by emailing her at katana@smartwomenscoaching.com with Designated Daughter in the subject line.
 

Jill Jordan, Personal Branding Coach with Smart Women’s Coaching – an organization that coaches people through personal and professional transitions in order to live with purpose, prosperity and passion – recommends that if you don’t “brand yourself” you won’t get noticed. Just like organizations and companies develop “their brand” in order to market themselves, employees need to do a very similar thing. So get involved and create some style!

1. INVOLVE YOURSELF OUTSIDE OF YOUR DEPARTMENT

Many people will know your great work inside your department but how many know what you are contributing outside of your department? A great way to get noticed is to volunteer for projects within the company outside of your area of focus. You’ll earn respect and admiration from all levels.

2. HEAD UP AN AFFINITY GROUP

Do you like to read? Create a book club. Do you like to bike? Create a bike group. Many companies have affinity groups already established. Join one that fits you and if there isn’t one, create it. You’ll make new friends and know co-workers better.

3. VOLUNTEER FOR A NONPROFIT

Many large corporations partner with various nonprofits. Get involved in one (or more). What is “significant” is to take on a leadership role. For example, if you work in marketing then volunteer to chair the marketing committee within a non-profit. People will notice your great work and be more apt to do business with you or your company.

4. CREATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

When you walk away from someone how will they remember you? Are you unique (in a favorable way) or do you blend in with the pack? Why would someone choose you over someone else? Do they even know your talents? Create your personal branding message. I’m not just “a coach”. Rather, “I help people re-invent themselves when they feel like they may be stuck or wishing for a more fulfilling life/career.”

5. CREATE YOUR “SIGNATURE STYLE”

Make a favorable visual impression with people. Are you well groomed and appropriately dressed? Do you project credibility and confidence? Your personal brand hinges on theses questions. You don’t get a second chance for a first impression. Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.

If you don’t brand yourself, then someone else will. It may not be the “brand” you want.

Contact Jill at 248-408-2432 or jill@smartwomenscoaching.com.

Call for information on her upcoming seminar, “Get Ahead by Getting Known!” or visit her website for your free audio mini-course, “Your Perfect Life Focus”.

Look for Jill's new 7-part audio course in April!
 

Dear Family and Friends;

I’ve been thinking a lot about the incredible luxury of central heating lately. Autumn is here and the days are filled with warm sunshine, temperatures climbing to the pleasant 60’s & 70’s. The fields are a sepia palette of rust and gold as sorghum and maize continue to ripen and dry for harvesting. But the nights bring on icy winds. On many mornings light frost is everywhere.

I think I told you about my heating arrangements. I have propane gas tanks; two of them. They’re huge. They look like the bombs that E. Pickens rode down to global destruction in “Dr. Strangelove”. During training I made about every mistake one can make with these potential bombs including leaving both the tank valve open and a hotplate burner on – unlit – while I visited the latrine. Upon returning, not only was my room filled with gas but also the entire house to which it was attached was primed to ignite. The mother of the family with whom I was living ran out, advised me of the peril we were all in and proceeded to turn off my tank and fumigate the place. She saved the day and a lesson was learned.

I now have an almost anal procedure that I follow to light both my cooking burner and the heater – and to turn them off. So far, so good. My current issue with my heating and cooking system is refilling the darn gas tanks. The tanks, even empty, weigh a ton. They can only be refilled in town – way down the mountain. Here’s the current procedure. A herd boy and I hitch up the oxen and load the empty tank into a cart. We take this to a point where it can be off loaded to a pickup truck. I have arrangements with several pickup owners in the valley. In town we exchange the empty tank for a full one and return to a prearranged ox-cart pickup. It’s a hassle to say the least. As a result I’ve become very frugal about heat. I find myself hanging around cooking fires outside at night listening to long stories told in a language I understand only minimally then scurrying into my hut, jumping into my sleeping bag resplendent in my mittens and stocking cap.

Can this, I ask myself, really be Africa? This Mountain Kingdom has a ski resort that I definitely plan to visit this winter and will report upon to you. I’ll just bet their rental gear is circa long ago – we’ll see.

In many ways living here is what life must have been like in rural America in the early 1900’s – without the propane tanks. To the villagers, my hut is very luxurious. Clean, gas heat is considered hugely extravagant. On cold days I always turn on the heat for visitors and they love it. They sit huddled around my gas heater, munching PB&J’s, sipping tea and trying to think of reasons to stay all day. Most huts are heated with wood and dung fires - inside. It’s terrible. The roofs theoretically absorb the smoke but they don’t really. People sit inside breathing in dense smoke. In bad weather women cook over these indoor fires with babes wrapped to their backs – their tiny lungs filling with particulate matter. Lung and breathing problems are very common here.

In rereading this letter, I think I’m a little depressed. It’s been a lousy week. The food shipments that were supposed to come from the UN Food for Work Program didn’t arrive. The local distribution official, after a month of assurances that she would put our village on her areas’ distribution list, decided that we really belonged to another district. I wanted to strangle her. It means starting all over again with proposals, justifications - mountains of paperwork. In the meantime we continue to bury heartbreakingly bone thin corpses.

On the bright side, the cooperative is doing well and I’m working with another PCV to initiate HIV/AIDS training for 54 home health care workers, 9 sangomas and 7 community leaders. HIV/AIDS and poverty go so hand in hand here. If we can in any way initiate the behavioral interventions necessary to stop the spread of this disease we will be taking a positive step. I’m excited about the training program and will spend most of next week in Maseru lining up speakers, resources and funding. I also just spent a most enjoyable day writing a constitution with the executive committee from the newly formed Menkhoaneng Community Development Association. This will be the umbrella group that directs the Co-operative, the construction group that builds the toilets for the school and the workers who are being trained in traditional building methods for the Cultural Village project. We will register this new constitution (which is very much like a business plan) with the central government and become an official CBO (Community Based Organization). Hopefully, this will allow this association to run effectively for many years after I leave. The meeting, which took place in my hut today for nine hours, was a joy. We had both of my laptops going full blast, the constitution being written in both English (by me with much serious input by community leaders) then translated into Sesotho (by a brilliant local teacher). I was able to serve wonderful food – Bear Creek Farms minestrone soup, steamed bread, chocolate bars and cans of soft drinks – it gave us all a feeling of affluence. The group left just as the sun was setting into a colorful sky graced with a bright full moon.

I just read an excerpt from Jeffery Sachs book, "The End of Poverty" and was hugely inspired. My sister sent it to me from the March 14th issue of Time. Sachs runs the UN Millennium Fund and has stunningly brilliant ideas on how to end world poverty. It would just take 0.7% of the GNP of donor countries to halve poverty by 2015 – sure sounds good to me.

Tomorrow is going to be really fun. I’m going to the Cultural Village Project to take photos of all the volunteer workers. They’ve been primed to show up spiffy. We’re going to make official badges for everybody. They’ll say, "Moshoeshoe I Cultural Village Volunteer". We’re hoping they will be worn as a badge of honor.

With love from the currently quite chilly heart of Africa,
Peggi
 

Please join the NAWBO Greater Detroit Chapter in honoring women who are making a difference at the 13th Annual Top 10 Michigan Business Women Awards Luncheon. Stop by the Smart Women's Coaching booth to say hello and a have a chance to win a complimentary coaching session.

If you are self employed as a consultant, coach, or professional, please join Master Business Coach, Travis Greenlee for his Live Expert Webinar Metoring Session on March 14th 2007. I worked with Travis personally most of 2006 and took this program myself. Travis works around 60 hours a month and earns close to $300,000 annually by leveraging technology and the internet.

Keep your eyes open for Personal Branding Coach, Jill Jordan's new mini course in April!

Seven Secrets for Getting Noticed in Life and Business

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