Join Us For A Teleclass...

Announcing… Your Personal Growth Hour of Power

Grab your phone for an hour-long break packed with information and inspiration. Join coaches Tammy Potosky and Margaret Pundmann for a five week teleclass, "Your Personal Growth Hour of Power" beginning on Wednesday, October 15, 2008. This 5 week teleclass program will help you develop a plan for personal growth and enrichment. Each week we will discuss topics that help you enrich your personal and professional life. Each class will feature a specific topic designed to raise your awareness and cultivate personal growth. During each session we will have a group discussion and laser coaching. You’ll walk away with strategies that you can begin using today to enhance the way you work, live, and relate to the world around you. Your investment in these teleclasses is kept low (only $60 for the entire 5 week program) because we want everyone to have an opportunity to experience these powerful events with Tammy and Margaret! As an added bonus we will offer each participant a one-on-one coaching session with either Tammy or Margaret. Register now for this empowering teleclass. And if you register by October 3rd your investment is only $50.

The program will begin on Wednesday, October 15th and will run through November 12th. We will offer two separate classes (both on Wednesday’s) so that you can choose the time that best fits your schedule.

Session I @ Noon ET (11AM CT) or Session II @ 9PM ET (8PM CT) What is a teleclass? A teleclass is a seminar or group coaching session offered by phone. Anyone from anywhere in the world can participate. You will incur regular long distance charges, just as if you were making any other call. How does it work? Once you register for the 5-week program, you will receive a confirmation email providing you with details including the dial in number and access code. It will work like a conference call. Additionally you will receive a program workbook via US Mail. The program workbook will provide a roadmap for our 5-week course. Click here to register now! We hope you’ll consider joining us for this empowering program!

Cleanliness - One Step Away!

Dear Friend,

It's the little things you do that can make a big difference. What are you attempting to accomplish? What little thing can you do today that will make you more effective? You are probably only one step away from greatness.

Bob Proctor

This week we return to examine what constitutes a virtuous life. Benjamin Franklin suggests that cleanliness is part of a virtuous life. He indicates that we should be clean in our body, in our appearance, and in the way we live. Recently, a client told me that she had so many piles around her home that she didn't know what to do. To 'get rid' of this clutter she opened the nearest closet and tossed it in! Yes, this is a true story! And after sharing a good laugh, my concern was simple: now that the plies are buried, their impact and energy drain doesn't go away. She knows that this stuff is still in her home. And presumably at some point in the future she will have to address the situation. So what she did is postpone the inevitable. And yes, her house does look cleaner, but in reality it isn't any cleaner. How good do you feel when you are driving out of a car wash - the inside of your car is clean and the outside of your car is shiny? Pretty fantastic, right? To that end, I'd suggest that having a clean office, desk, car, or a clean appearance isn't about how it looks, but rather about how we feel. When we take action and get rid of unnecessary clutter, tighten our appearance, or dust the old books in the study what changes on the outside is merely a fringe benefit of how we feel on the inside! That is what being clean is about - being able to walk with our head held high knowing that we are living powerfully in our own lives.

Take Action Challenge

May I suggest that this week you resolve to do today, what you know needs to be done rather than postponing it for tomorrow? Your challenge this week is to select one small area of your life that needs to be deep-cleaned and take action. Here are some suggestions: get the hair cut you've been putting off, set up online bill pay, clean out the glove compartment or trunk of your car, go through the mail that is piled up on your kitchen counter, toss the dowdy suit, have those buttons, zippers, or tears repaired on your favorite garments, review your email in-box and take action or delete at least 50% of the emails, revisit the files on the floor of your office - organize, send some to storage, and shred what is no longer needed. This week I ask that you focus on cleaning up the problem, rather than postponing the inevitable! Take one small step each day! Good luck and remember you are a small step away from greatness!

5 Strategies to Flourish Personally & Professionally

Dear Friend,

For every mountain there is a miracle Robert Schuller

We are going to take a week long departure from Benjamin Franklin's virtuous life to discuss a ground-breaking study done by McKinsey & Company and published in The McKinsey Quarterly. For those of you not familiar with McKinsey & Company it is one of the premier consulting firms in the world. This month they published an article based upon the McKinsey Leadership Project an initiative founded four years ago to advance professional women. One goal of this project is to learn what drives and sustains successful female leaders. My newsletter this week will summarize the findings; however, I encourage you to read the full report. I believe men and women alike can learn from the findings within this research. McKinsey's findings lead to a five dimension leadership model comprised of broad yet connected categories: Meaning Managing Energy Positive Framing Connecting Engaging Meaning Meaning is what takes something from simply a job to a calling. Yet it is important to recognize that in various points of our life our 'meaning' may be driven from different places of our life. For example, many young mothers are happy to simply have a job because they derive meaning from their children. What is essential is that you understand what you enjoy doing and what you are good at and allow meaning and purpose to flow from there. Positive psychology has also connected happiness to meaning. Happiness is achieved as the progression from pleasure to engagement to meaning. Simply stated we derive more meaning from teaching a child to read than we do from eating ice cream. Therefore, the greater the meaning in our lives, ultimately the greater the happiness. Managing Energy This concept addresses having flow in your activity. As many of you working mom's know work-life balance is a joke. However, you can manage the energy that you expend on various activities. Successful people by and large spend a large portion of their day doing activities that keep them in the flow and give energy rather than zap energy. Researchers also found that the more time spent in activities that provide flow the greater our productivity and our satisfaction. Positive Framing A glass of water is filled halfway - do you see it as half-full or half-empty? Those who can see situations from a positive vantage point more easily manage difficult situations.However, there is an important distinction between positive framing and positive thinking. Positive framing is characterized by taking an inventory of positive and negative and taking action. In contrast, positive thinking relies on replacing a belief rather than taking action. Connecting According to Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain, people with strong networks and mentors experience more promotions, higher pay, and greater career satisfaction. We are wired to be connected beings. As an emerging woman it is important to cultivate advocates who will teach you, guide you, and if necessary stick up for you. Ever heard the phrase, "make it personal?" This was advice that I received from my first boss. It is true, people connect with individuals, people buy from individuals, people promote individuals, and people do business with individuals. Show your true self - your human side and you will open your door for connection. Engaging Engaging isn't about bragging; it is about being excited about and proud of the work you do and sharing this with others. Have you ever heard the phrase "create your own luck?" Well in a sense this is very true. Working hard and toiling away without speaking up and celebrating your work with others isn't going to get you noticed. Creating your own luck is about being genuine, but also recognizing the opportunities where you can share your results with others. This research by McKinsey provides a window into creating your most powerful personal and professional life. Again I encourage you to read the full report! Take Action Challenge This week I invite you to explore one of these five areas of your life. Select one area and commit to finding a couple of ways you can grow and evolve. If you are in the beginning of your career perhaps you examine which part of your job makes you surge with energy and which areas make you feel like your energy is zapped? If you are a more experienced woman, perhaps now is the right time to spend time helping a young woman develop her career? Perhaps you are in a place of transition (as I was last year) and you want to consider what type of work will provide you with both meaning and purpose? May all of your mountains become miracles!

Brightest Minds in the World, Share Thoughs with You...

Dear Friend, Have you heard about TED? TED - stands for technology, entertainment, and design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Each year they host an annual conference featuring the brightest minds in the world. During the 2006 TED conference Anthony (Tony) Robbins, shared a fascinating talk on why we do what we do and how we can do it better. Explor TED's website and enjoy the brillance available to you!

Ivy League Classes Free - From Your Home...

Dear Friend- Did you know that some of the top Universities across the world offer their courses online - for free? Here are a few: Yale MIT Univ. of CA at Berkeley Notre Dame Princeton & Other Universities So if your a little jealous of your kids in school...why don't you decide to learn something new and take a class?

Moderation - Is more better?

Dear Friend,

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Plato

Benjamin Franklin suggests that moderation is averting extremes. In a culture obsessed with accumulating more things, more approval, more beauty, and more pleasure we must rethink - do we really need more or do we simply need moderation? I believe it is important to consider the question - how does moderation help us to live a fulfilling life? And I suggest to you there are three ways moderation guides us to a fulfilling life:

Less is More The law of diminishing return states that beyond some threshold, each additional unit "in" does not yield more. Imagine one cook in the kitchen, initially more cooks in a kitchen increases the effectiveness of cooking yet there is a point at which too many cooks in the kitchen yields negative results in other words less productivity. Our life works like this as well, too many clothes in a closet yields an inability to find what we need, too much time working leads to an inability to have a social life, and too much food in the stomach leads to an inability to move! More isn't always better hence moderation is key.

Contentment When we stop searching for more, for better, for different, for larger, for newer, and appreciate exactly what we have now, we surrender to the perfection of the present moment. Moderation allows us to fully savor that which we already have.

Balance Balance in our lives is a place where all of the people, projects, and things presently in our life are manageable. Moderation brings us this stability. Balance is also about managing the extremes of our behavior. When we have too much or too little of any one activity we become out of balance. Take sun exposure, for example, too little and we have a vitamin D deficiency, too much and our skin is bright red and painful. Moderation both tempers and anchors.

Through moderation we find that often less is more, we feel content, and we find balance - each of which leads to a fulfilling life. The ability to enjoy and appreciate what we have today leads to a full, rich life filled with gratitude and satisfaction. Therefore I suggest to you that moderation is one of the secrets to a fulfilling life.

Take Action Challenge Take five minutes and select one area of your life where you would like to have moderation. Grab a pen and write down five ways that you can add moderation to this area. Then next to each put the days of the week, Monday through Friday. Remember to keep this list in a place where you can refer to it. Mark your calendar for one week from today and reflect upon your success. Notice what worked and what didn't and adjust accordingly. For example, if you decide that you are going add moderation by getting more sleep each night then select five ways that you can get more sleep. At the end of the week reflect upon the success of your goal. Ask yourself, am I sleeping better? Is my time, closet, office, or car more organized? Am I working more efficiently and effectively? Whatever area of your life you desire to add moderation - ask yourself what steps worked and continue to do those. May you have success in your journey!

Blessings to you, Margaret.

Justice - Is that the right thing to do?

Dear Friend,

Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity.Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Justice for each of us brings forth a variety of connotations. Some of us think of the law and the judicial system while others of us think of justice as the notion of fairness. Philosophers have pondered the concept of justice since Socrates and Plato. Benjamin Franklin states that we should, "wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty." I believe that viewing justice through the lens of what is morally right and fair will provide some lessons for us this week. We all have the ability to "get away with" many things, but the question we must ask ourselves is, "Are we doing the right thing?" Examples that come to mind include:

• Borrowing supplies from your office
• Leaving the market with unpaid items
• Failing to notify the waiter of your under-charged bill at a restaurant
• Taking your turn to bring treats or volunteer at your school or office - doing your "part"
• Showing gratitude for those who have helped you
• Driving off after you bump a car
• Failing to tip when you receive a service

I believe it is one thing not to notice for hours or days, but it is quite another to be aware of your circumstances and yet do nothing to rectify the situation. It is my experience that these situations always come back to visit us - when we take from others, people take from us. As Sir Isaac Newton taught us in his third law of motion, "every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Research conducted at UCLA this year indicates that reactions to fairness are hard-wired into our brain. This research is also consistent with the notion that we have an intuitive feeling about what is right and wrong. Listening to this intuition allows us to live just lives filled with integrity.

Take Action Challenge

This week as you move about your life ask yourself, is this the right thing to do? If yes, continue. If even an ounce of you says, no, then readjust so that your actions reflect your inner moral compass. May you have success in your journey.

Great Quote...Every Day

I want to share a neat resource with you: TUT's Adventurers Club which is among other things a service that sends you a daily inspirational email 'Notes from the Universe.' These emails are little reminders of life's magic!

Here is a sample one:

Whenever your perspective on something creates emotional pain, *Your Name*,it's always because your perspective is still so narrow that you've yet to see all the good it will make possible.

Also to note, you may opt out at any time, they are free, and you can get them Monday through Friday or select the days you want to receive them! I hope that you enjoy!

Hugs and Love,

Margaret.

Maya Angelou's Poem for Women

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... Enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... Something perfect to wear if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. A youth she's content to leave behind....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... A past juicy enough that she's looking forward to retelling it in her old age....

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ..... A set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... One friend who always makes her laugh... and one who lets her cry...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .... A good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... Eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal,that will make her guests feel honored...

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... A feeling of control over her destiny...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... How to fall in love without losing herself...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... When to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... That she can't change the length of her calves,the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... that her childhood may not have been perfect..but it's over...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... What she would and wouldn't do for love or more...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... How to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. whom she can trust, whom she can't, and why she shouldn't take it personally...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... Where to go...be it to her best friend's kitchen table...

or a charming inn in the woods...when her soul needs soothing...

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... What she can and can't accomplish in a day...a month...and a year...

Love After Love

This is one of my favorite poems and I want to share it with you...

Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

Louise Hay - Loving Yourself

Thought this video was a goodie...enjoy! Love, Margaret.

The Virtuous Life - Sincerity

Dear Friend, To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." -Edward R. Murrow We all know when we are met with insincere words, actions, or gestures. We see right through the fake-ness! We know what isn't sincere, but what really is it to be sincere? Benjamin Franklin suggests that sincerity is to have our thoughts, words, and actions be pure, innocent, and just. I believe that being sincere isn't simply being nice and kind, but also about being in integrity and speaking our truth. A friend and her husband were looking forward to going to an upcoming wedding alone - for them it was a "date night" since the proceeding weeks had been extremely busy. Her girlfriend called and asked if she could tag along. The dilemma: to respond begrudgingly with a yes and resent the evening or to respond authentically and say normally yes, but tonight we need to spend some one-on-one time together so regrettably, no? My friend's response was that unfortunately it just wasn't going to work this weekend. As I heard the story I jumped for joy - she said no when she thought and felt compelled to do so! She did this in a direct, sincere, and honest way. How often do we want to say no, think we should say yes, feel badly about the situation and end up saying - well, okay? Then after we've said yes we end up being rather resentful and annoyed at the other person when in fact we were the one who was insincere and fake. We feel badly saying no, but here is the catch - saying yes when we want to say no - isn't very sincere, is it? Take Action Challenge This week think about how you can be sincere in all of your communications - even if it means having a difficult conversation. If it is difficult for you to say no, instead say, "I need some time to think about this" or "Right now, this just isn't going to work for me, but thanks for asking." Find the phrase that allows you to be authentic and true to others and to yourself. May you have success in your journey. Blessings to you, Margaret. P.S. Encourage your friends, family, and colleagues by sharing this newsletter with them and invite them to subscribe! Direct them to www.MargaretPundmann.com where they can sign up. Margaret Pundmann is a life and business coach, speaker, and author of numerous articles on living your most powerful life. Stay tuned, Margaret's first book for emerging women will be available for pre-order in the coming weeks.