MyCoach, Jason's Tips on Living a Winning Life

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Welcome to my ezine. I have decided that with an ever increasing
client load (I am getting popular!), I no longer have the luxury
of writing these ezines every two weeks. Therefore I am changing
to a monthly schedule.

I am ever so happy to announce that I have a second website that
is totally devoted to my work with parents of teenage boys and
young male adults. If you are in that delightfully wonderful and
often horrendously puzzling phase of parenting or know friends
who are, please checkout http://TheParentsCoach.com

I am also happy to announce that on Thursday, March 1st. at
7PM EST, I will be doing a tele-class about How to Win the
New Years Resolution Game, which was the feature article of
last month’s ezine in a tele-class format. This will be a great class.
I have refined the method since I put it in the ezine. After a brief
presentation of the steps, I will work with those of you who have
questions at to how to apply it to your particular resolutions. If
you have never participated in one of these tele-classes (conferences)
before, it is quite simple. Just fill in and submit the form at the
bottom of this ezine and I will send you a number
to call and a code (pin) number for you to input. You
dial in, input the pin number when asked and you will, magically,
be connected with me and everyone else on the call. The class is
free, although there might be toll charges for the call. This
will be both interesting and fun. Please join me.

Ann Strong, my friend and mentor, wrote the following
in her latest ezine. Since it is Valentine's Day, I think it is
appropriate to reproduce it here:

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is
serious. So Enjoy, Already!

Anyone who is in the public as a business person or needs the
cooperation of new contacts ought to know the downsides of
wearing scents that might turn off a significant part of the
population. I am quite sensitive to most colognes and scents.
Some of them are just plain obnoxious to my being. There are
others, though, that cause me physical discomfort in the form of
sneezing, a quickly stuffed up head, running nose and difficulty
breathing. I used to think that I was just hypersensitive. That
thinking was reinforced by my friends, family and coworkers who
dismissed my reactions as being “in my head.”

I discovered that I was not a minority of one when I decided to
cancel my subscription to the Sunday Los Angeles Times because
the Macy’s sale insert always had a sample of the latest perfume
they were pushing. The sample stunk up the whole paper and I was
having to throw it out unread. Even unopened, I was being
physically affected by the odor. When I told the service
representative at the Times my reason for canceling, she
informed me that they had an edition that did not include the
perfume samples. They switched me over and the problem was
solved. I occurred to me that there must be many more people
than me who have this problem with colognes and perfumes for the
LA Times to go to the trouble of publishing an edition without
the obnoxious ads. A quick bit of research on Google produced
more that ample evidence that this was a significant enough
workplace problem for government guidelines to be issued. I also
found out that perfumes are directly implicated with increased
asthmatic reactions, especially in children.

I decided to write this article because of the implications to
any business or personal effort that needs the voluntary
cooperation of strangers, of having a sizeable percentage of the
population with adverse reactions to scents. I can report that
many salespersons, including car salespeople and real estate
brokers, have lost sizeable commissions because I could not be
in the same room with them due to their colognes and shopped
elsewhere. I have turned down employment positions where they
really wanted me and actively were recruiting me because I knew
I could not work in the same space with a heavily scented boss.
Socially there have been folks who were actively courting me,
who I really liked and wished to be with, but had to cut off
contact with them because their scents were giving me headaches
and breathing problems. To make matters worst, some of them
sprayed cologne on their clothes. When hugging them, the cologne
transferred to my clothing causing me to have to go home and
quickly change my clothes.

None of the people in the above examples were aware of the
reason why I did not continue contact with them. All they knew
is that they lost a sale, a potential employee, a possible good
friend, etc. I am sure that most of these people are very
conscious of how they dress, so as not to offend or turn off
potential clients or associates. They probably are wearing the
scents because they think it is an attractant. I am suggesting
here that even if they really like and enjoy their very
expensive colognes and other scent producing products such as
soaps, deodorants, and clothes dryer softeners, they need to
consider the quite significant downside of doing so.

Would you like to reprint this article? You can, as long as you
publish the entire article and include this complete blurb with
it: "Life Coach Jason Wittman publishes "My Coach Jason's Tips
for Winning at Life" monthly ezine. If you're ready to
jump-start your life, you can find more FREE tips, FREE
subscription information, and how you can benefit by his
coaching at http://MyCoachJason.com "

I was dragged into doing personal writing kicking and screaming
all the way. Many years ago, I had a mentor with whom I would
meet to talk about what was going on in my life. He was someone
that I called upon to assist me to sort out my current concerns.
When I would poise a problem I was having to him, he would
usually reply by asking me if I had written about the problem.
My reply would be no and I just wanted to talk to him about it.
This became the regular verbal dance we did every time we spoke,
until one day when he answered my question with, “I’ll tell you
what, I am not going to discuss this with you until you go home
and write about it!” No amount of protestations would get him to
budge. I was more than quite peeved, to say the least,
(actually, since this is the PG version, I can only say the least).

On the way home, I stopped at my neighborhood stationery store
and bought one of those 6x9 spiral notebooks and a ball point
pen and, still fuming, wrote out my problem. For
some reason, once I wrote out the problem the solution became
quite obvious. He was right; the first step to problem solving
is writing it out. I have been writing ever since. Twenty years
and many filled notebooks later, I still have a spiral notebook
with a pen sitting in the spiral, tucked into my mattress so I
can write in it, in bed, before I retire every night.

I journal the events of the day, my feelings about those events
and my feelings at that moment about me and the other cast
members in that play called “my life.” It is a real taking stock
type of exercise. It is an automatic writing exercise. What my
mind is thinking my hand is writing. My conscious mind is an
idle observer of this process. Spelling and grammar are of
little importance. I do not erase or blot out anything. If
something needs correcting because it was the wrong word it gets
a single line through it and the pen moves on. Since I started
doing this type of writing, I have found that I get to sleep
faster because my mind no longer replays the day and my
feelings, over and over again. For some reason, once it goes
down on the paper, my mind can let go of the thought. Also, I
notice that if I wrote down some problem that was of concern to
me, I usually wake up with the answer. Doing this writing on a
daily basis keeps me constantly in tough with my progress on the
projects I am doing, allows me to fine tune the game plans to
make winning more of a possibility and keeps me in touch with
feelings so that there is less chance that my judgment will be
clouded by them. My strong suggestion would be to put doing
nightly writing high on your “to do” list.

Two months ago I started participation in a workshop that
follows the suggestions of “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron.
The book’s first suggestion is to write three full-sized
notebook pages first thing every morning. She calls this “the
Morning Pages.” It is also a train-of-thought, automatic writing
exercise. The difference between this one and my night time
writing is that this is not intended to be a journal. It has no
parameters and no boundaries. It is a vehicle for creativity to
abound. It can be anything the mind wants to produce; writing,
poetry, drawing, whatever. The only caveat is that it must be
three pages and it ought to be the first thing of the day. I am
finding that when I am finished writing my mind is fully engaged
and I am totally ready to take on the rest of the day. Prior to
doing these Morning Papers, it was maybe noon before my mind was
up to speed. Quite a difference! This writing requires more
preplanning of schedules than the night writing because it takes
me about an hour in the morning. I am now going to bed an hour
earlier so that I can do the writing without pushing my day an
hour back. That is a total revolution for this former night
person which in itself is a testament to the benefits of writing
the Morning Papers. By the way, both this article and the
Communications Skill article flowed out of my pen and onto the
“Morning Pages,” an effortless and highly creative way of
writing. Write On!

Tele-class: Thursday, March 1, 2007 on
"The 10 Steps to Winning the Resolution Game"
Time: 4:00pm Pacific (5pm Mountain,
6pm Central ,7pm Eastern)

Please join me for this sure-fire way to make sure that
your best intentions actually become your reality! I will
present the steps, including a tenth step that was not in
the last ezine article. After the presentation, I will
personally coach anyone that would like to apply the
Steps to a resolution of theirs. Although originally
designed for resolutions, the same technique can be
used for any goal.

To sign up for this event, just fill in the form below and
push the "Submit" button. I will immediately put you on
the access list and send you back the telephone number
you will need to call and a pin number that will let you in.

In future issues, I will be selecting a question that is related
to Life Coaching and/or one of the topics I have presented or
one that you would like me to cover. Just send your questions to
questions@mycoachjason.com

Life Coach Jason Wittman, MPS, brings to his life coaching
practice extensive experience in the therapeutic counseling and
coaching worlds. He is a Certified Hypnotherapist,
Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner and holds a masters in
counseling psychology. He has been coaching his clients to
achieve winning lives for themselves since the mid-1980s. He
believes that any endeavor in life and business can be designed
into a winnable game worth playing. He assists his clients to
design winnable games worth playing and coaches them to win.

If you would like to explore, risk-free, the possibility of
investing in a Life Coaching relationship with me as your coach.
I offer a brief 30 minute phone consultation where we can
discuss your questions about coaching and if I am the right
person for you. If you would like to schedule an appointment,
email me at freeconsultation@mycoachjason.com