How will 2010 be different?

Once you recover from the holidays, what will your new year hold?

How motivated are you to begin another year of making thing happen?

If you’re like most of us, you probably have mixed feelings about it. A part of you is rested and hopeful that this year will be different. But a part of you is also tired and hoping 2010 will be a LOT easier than 2009.

You go through cycles: you’re hopeful and motivated, you use that energy to work hard… and then you hit a wall.

In the combined 25 years we’ve been coaching, the two of us have seen it countless times: go-getters hit the ground running at the beginning of the year and a few months into it, they wear themselves out. They set big goals, achieve a ton, but then pay the price. Hitting those lows gets pretty old. And through time, the rollercoaster ride can lead us into a lack of inspiration, feeling bummed out, and even feeling resigned to this fate. We lose our old sense of fun and ease. We forget what really excites and energizes us. And we forget that life and work don’t have to be this hard.

You’ve been on a rollercoaster and it’s exhausting.

You have the best of intentions. You invest a lot in your development, you care about doing your best. But something about the way you’re working isn’t working. You go through so many ups and downs, you lack energy or question your purpose. You procrastinate, even on things you want to do. The thing that’s tricky is that you start the year feeling good because you’ve rested a bit, but it’s not long before you find yourself on the road to burnout.

These are all signs you’re on the road to burnout

You’re tired all the time, no matter how much rest you’ve gotten
You get overwhelmed frequently – and by things you’d think you could handle, but you can’t
It feels like you’re losing brainpower: you can’t focus, articulate, think, or create like you used to
You’re tired when you get home on Friday, but it’s not much better on Monday morning.
The whole world sometimes seems to be incompetent or moving in slow motion
When you get a little time for yourself, you don’t know what to do with it (and you wind up checking e-mail or surfing the web or bad tv)
You overindulge with food, drink, shopping, etc. because you think “I deserve it” or “I need to relax” – or because you DON’T think!
You think in terms of “getting through _____” (the next deadline, project, year-end, holiday, etc.) or “I can’t wait till _______________ is over”
The people you love the most annoy you
The thought of a promotion or more clients sounds more stressful and overwhelming than exciting
You have one or more health issues you haven’t gotten around to addressing
People around you tell you “you look tired,” “lighten up,” “relax,” or “you don’t seem like yourself lately”
Even things that used to make you happy or energized don’t renew or excite you anymore

But here’s the good news: there’s nothing wrong with you. This is not a permanent state. You are simply depleted. And this kind of depletion is an epidemic among professional people today!

It’s happened to us!

For over a year after I had my son Cooper, I (Michele) had a really hard time getting back into the groove. Between the baby, my work, trying to get some sleep, reconnecting with friends I hadn’t seen forever, and trying to find some motivation to take decent care of myself… I didn’t know which way was up! I was cranky, un-focused, and dissatisfied, and I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get my old self back again. Thank God for Sara, who kept the ship of our company steady while I found my footing again!

Then it was Michele’s turn to do that for me (Sara). One Monday morning, after a week in which we spoke to more than 1,600 people, in three different keynote engagements, you’d have thought I’d be on top of the world. But I woke up with half my face paralyzed. I had Bell’s Palsy, a non-life-threatening but very energy-flattening virus that knocked me out of commission for a month straight before I started to feel my energy (and the muscles in my face!) come back. Even though we teach this stuff, and even though my work-life balance and self-care practices were a model for my friends and clients, my way of working had still worn me out.

We had to coach ourselves and each other through this. Lucky for us, we’d learned a ton from our coaching clients: corporate leaders, business owners, and busy working parents. Our work with them had taught us how to get out of a depleted state, how to find focus again, and how to re-work one’s way of living and working so that we’re BURNOUT-PROOF.

Now, with the humility of knowing no one is immune to depletion and burnout (even if you teach people to avoid them!), we have created a program to help you make sure that 2010 brings fun, clarity, motivation, and ease, without struggle, overwhelm, or depletion.

The good news is: we can show you how to eliminate depletion and burnout and make 2010 an amazing year without that usual post-achievement let-down.

All you need is a cleaner source of fuel.

Imagine yourself as a sports car. See, sports cars all used to be powered by fossil fuels. They consumed a tremendous amount of energy, made a lot of noise, and took a lot of resources to keep racing along.

But now, with new hybrid technology, a car can use energy, but also generate its own energy as it rolls along. You can buy a Lexus hybrid sport sedan today that uses renewable energy not just to conserve fuel, but actually to ENHANCE performance. And you’re the same way.

With the right “technology” or performance tools, you will learn to renew yourself WHILE you work. You’ll conserve energy so you have juice left over at the end of the day, and you’ll cough out fewer toxic fumes on the people you care about the most. Best of all, instead of compromising performance for this new “fuel economy,” you’ll actually produce BETTER results using these sustainable energy sources. How cool is that?

We can teach you to do better at work and at home without ever burning out.

You can have more fun, more ease, and less stress, while producing better results. In the first quarter of 2010, you can set yourself up for a whole year (the rest of your life, really) of sustainable success. Starting this January, join Michele and Sara for a very fun program to help you learn and enjoy the skills of going all out without burning out!

Personal Sustainability: Learn to Go All Out Without Burning Out

12 Week Program (plus bonus weeks before and after!)

By the end of April, you’ll have learned the skills to:

Identify your signs of depletion… and the signs of running on adrenaline
Prevent burnout
Eliminate the “fallout” on others that happens when you’re worn down
Get way more done each day… and have it be easier than you have imagined
Renegotiate your agreements with others…without ticking them off
Get off the performance rollercoaster
Prevent the “crash” after a big deadline or project
Create whatever change you most want: in a relationship, your work, your creativity, reducing your stress, having more energy, or having more fun
Be connected to yourself and your true desires on a daily basis
Get better at your work and get more rewards for your contributions
Feel on top of your life, clear and not overwhelmed
Actually be smarter every day
Have a lot more fun than you’ve had in a long time…yes, even when you’re working!

You’ll get all these benefits through an abundance of tools.

We’ll wrap around you like a cozy cashmere robe. There’ll be myriad ways you’re enticed to learn the tools… all without adding more to your to-do list.

The program offers:

Powerful, tried-and-true tools for productivity, balance, and ease
Worksheets to help you focus on what matters most and let go of what drains you
Fun and independent daily check-ins
Powerful weekly habits
Experiments that break you out of your “work hard to make it happen” box
Ongoing community support
Expert answers to your most challenging questions and situations

Each week, we’ll cover a different facet of Personal Sustainability to help you learn to work in a way that works for you. Any one of these weeks (and likely almost all of them) will produce enlivening breakthroughs in your work, your home life, and your relationship with yourself. As the program builds week by week, you’ll find that –even without doing it perfectly – the things that were bugging you and wearing you out are changing…for good.

We’ll alternate each week between live calls where you can get personal, interactive support and videos that will inform, entertain, and inspire you at any time of day or night. The program will be life-changing, for sure, but without eating up hours and hours of your life each week.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Optional Preview Call #1: Goals that Work For You

Our popular guide to New Year Goal-Setting is included
We’ll answer your questions and coach you to make sure you don’t have to work for your goals in 2010: they can go to work for YOU!

Optional Preview Call #2: Burnout-Proof Your Year

You’ll identify the biggest energy drains from 2009 and develop an alternate way of working that will actually give you energy.

Week 1: Kick-off Call: Introduction: Where You Are and What You Really Want

Here’s where we get clear on what’s not working so well and what exactly you want to change

Week 2: Video and Experiments: Understanding Your Fuel System and Leveraging Your Energy

We’ll teach you about the two fuel systems we all have: Vitality and Adrenaline
You’ll learn when and why you switch between them
We’ll show you different sources of energy and how to make sure you’re “plugged in” to perpetual, renewable resources that’ll never burn you out

Week 3: Call: Pinpointing Your Signs of Depletion and Adrenaline, Designing Your Fuel Supply Systems

You’ll get a clear understanding that there’s nothing wrong with you… Instead many of the things you may have been trying to ‘fix’ are symptoms of depletion and adrenaline
You’ll identify two specific experiments that will radically change the way you work

Week 4: Video and Experiments: Productivity Power Tools: Permission, White Space, and Simplicity

We’ll teach you to give yourself permission to do what works for you, guilt-free, at work and at home
You’ll learn how to take the almost-magic time we call White Space, the appointment with yourself that has no pre-set agenda
We’ll help you hone in on the REALLY key priorities, so that you can feel successful every single day, no matter what hits the fan

Week 5: Call: Your Personal Productivity Accelerators

We’ll help you pick the productivity tools that are perfect for you and tailor them to fit just right

Week 6: Video and Experiments: Exactly What You Need

We’ve designed “White Space” into the program so we’ve got time to address the challenges and desires that we couldn’t anticipate but that are most valuable for the group

Week 7: Call: Exactly What You Need

This call is “White Space”: We’ll do whatever the group most needs; this call will be more valuable than anything we could’ve designed before the course started

Week 8: Video and Experiments: Overcoming Overwhelm and Mastering Motivation

We’ll help you short-circuit the overwhelm machine so you can stay grounded, focused, and cool in the face of seeming chaos and competing demands
We’ll demystify motivation and help you find it again even when it seems lost for good

Week 9: Call: Putting Perfectionism in Its Place

You’ll identify areas where perfectionism helps you and areas where it hurts, and we’ll teach you how to find more ease and satisfaction with “good enough”

Week 10: Video and Experiments: Another “Just What You Need” Segment

Among all the things we might choose to provide in this week, we’ll pick the things the group most needs, likely to include covering some success stories with “interviews” with participants

Week 11: Call: Application and Integration

By this time in the program you will have made massive progress. This call will help you integrate your new skills in a no-brainer way

Week 12: Video and Experiments: Bringing It All Together

We’ll boil down and review all that you’ve learned and summarize all the tools so you can prioritize what’s next as you embark on your burnout-proof year

(BONUS WEEK) Week 13: Call: Your Burnout-Proof Life and Celebration

You’ll get to celebrate your gains, articulate your next goals, and establish ongoing support from your new community

Is this what you need?

As you look forward to 2010 (and beyond), do you need a new approach to your work and your life? Does the thought that you could get better results and more satisfaction with LESS effort sound nice? It’s true. We’ve experienced it ourselves and we’ve taught hundreds of other people to do it, too.

If your business or career isn’t as rewarding as you’d hoped it would be, this program will help. If you find yourself frustrated in your partnership and too worn down to be the kind of friend, parent, or sibling you’d really like to be, this program will help. If you can’t bear another year of hard work and lots of ups and downs, this program will help.

And if that sense of play, fun, and excitement that you felt when you were a kid seems like it was a lifetime ago, you really need this program. And this program will help. You deserve to live with energy, joy, and ease. So much of what we’ve learned about how to be successful has taken us away from our innate vitality and fun, all in the name of results. Then, we’re afraid to try to reclaim that zest for life, because we’ve been convinced that we’d have to trade off our results to get it back. But with the tools we’ll teach you in 2010, that’s simply not the case. You can be MORE productive, MORE successful, make MORE money, accomplish MORE… but have it take less out of YOU.

If that’s what you want for 2010, please join us.

If you’re in, here’s how it works:

1. REGISTER: You join the program by registering online. We’ve made it even easier with a four-month payment plan.

2. ONLINE COMMUNITY: You’ll be invited to join the private community for this program on ning.com. You can give everyone a little intro to yourself, upload a picture, and start discussions online. Throughout the program, this is where you’ll post your experiment results, a-ha moments, questions, and requests for group support.

3. RHYTHM: We’ll send a schedule for the entire program as the time gets closer. Each week, you’ll have habits to practice and daily check-ins to experiment with. Every other week, there’s a live call. On alternate weeks, we’ll post a new video on the Ning site.

4. CALLS: Each call will be recorded, so it’s okay if you can’t be there “live.” The recording will be posted on the Ning site within a few hours and you’ll even be able to submit questions on the site for us to answer during the call.

5. VIDEOS: Each video will contain information from Michele and Sara about a particular topic, as well as experiments for the coming two weeks. Video weeks are also great weeks to set up buddy calls, and we’ll suggest exercises for you to do with a buddy in the group.

6. PARTICIPATION: There will be a bell curve of all the participants in the program: some will be very involved, active on the site and on the calls. Some will only listen to recordings in the wee hours of the night and we’ll seldom hear from them on the boards. Most of you will be somewhere in between. All these things are okay. What’s important is that you deliberately choose your level of participation, set your expectations of the program based on your energy investment, and let us know if there’s something getting in the way of your participating in the way you’d like.

7. GUARANTEE: For those of you who do fully participate, we GUARANTEE you’ll get what you want out of the program. “Whaat?” You ask. Money back? Yep, that’s right. We’re absolutely certain that if you show up, participate, and earnestly apply what we will teach you, you will succeed at whatever change you want to make. We’re so sure, we’re putting our money where our mouth is. If, at the end of the program, you’ve held up your end, but you don’t feel you’ve gotten your money’s worth, we’ll refund it. So there’s really no risk. Nothing to lose except burnout, overwhelm, and stress.

What’s Included?

Personal Sustainability 2010	Program Components	Personal Sustainability Program	Premium Program
)	Nine Interactive Conference Calls, Including mp3 Recordings for Review	ü	ü
¹	Six Fun, Informative Videos	ü	ü
²	MP3 Guidance for Daily Check-Ins	ü	ü
¥	Weekly Worksheets for Your Experiments and Habits	ü	ü
þ	Community Site with Discussion Board, Audio, Video, and Other Goodies	ü	ü
^	3, 30-minute 1:1 Coaching Sessions with Michele or Sara ($525 value)		ü
	Price Until January 5 (click price to register)	$199 or 4 payments of $50	$449 or 4 payments of $115
	Price Starting January 6	$249 or 4 payments of $63	$599 or 4 payments of $150

PS: If you’re still wondering whether this program is going to be “worth it”, let us tell you about a few results we’ve experienced personally as a result of this approach to work. We’ve been working this way all year, because our goal for 2009 was to earn more than we ever had before, without getting burned out as we had at some point every other year.

Michele wanted more time to be with her toddler and still take care of herself. Sara wanted time to volunteer at her kids’ schools, and a work pace that didn’t leave her so tired. So, throughout 2009, we experimented with everything we’re going to teach you in this program.

We used these tools with our clients too. If you’re still not sure this program is going to be “worth it”, let us tell you about a few results we’ve experienced personally as a result of this approach to work:

Michele created her dream life as a working mother: She spends a full day each week with Cooper. She has an awesome nanny her son loves. And she loves the way she works in her home office… for about 5 hours a day. That leaves her plenty of time for yoga, pedicure business meetings with Sara, and writing our book.
That brings us to the book, doesn’t it? After four years of trying… intending…struggling… to write our book (and being embarrassed that we’d told people we were doing it, but we never seemed to finish!), it’s truly underway. Our creativity, clarity, and focus have been unleashed. Look for “Working with Power: How You Can Go All Out Without Burning Out” in bookstores next year.
Sara lost and kept off 25 pounds because she was finally working in a way that was nourishing. Her “comfort eating” just sort of went away.
Our business found new audiences and new accolades we could never have “driven” toward: we simply received them. Even in this tough economy (and even while working fewer hours), we made more profit in 2009 than in 2008, which had been our best year yet. Did we mention we worked fewer hours and made more? Just wanted to be sure…

If this kind of focus, positive results, ease, and playfulness sounds like what you want in 2010, please join us.

Click here to register with one payment

Click here to register using the four-payment plan

Can we answer a question for you? Fire away!