A client had been wanting a new job for some months. She fretted about it constantly. Every week she was either up because she had just had an excellent interview or down because she had just heard that another job had been given to someone else. She was almost ready to give up when suddenly, "out of the blue" she got a call and a job offer.

Of course she was not just sitting and waiting for that call. She was looking. She was applying. She was having interviews. She was putting the word out - to people who might hire her, to people who might know people who might hire her, to the world at large. The reason she was becoming discouraged is precisely because she was doing so much to get a new job. However, all work that was increasing her "attractiveness" to those new jobs. She was constantly drawing them closer to her.

The "Universal Law of Attraction" says that everything that happens to us is somehow drawn to us - by what we are doing or perhaps simply by who we are. We increase or decrease the attraction in many ways. By simply being clear about what we want or don't want - by understanding clearly our intention - and by focusing on what we are doing - by paying attention - we can attract what we want and repel what we don't want. I'm working on losing weight. I have clarified that intention by picking a specific weight goal and a specific rate of weight loss. Having gotten clear about that, however, I move my attention elsewhere. I pay careful attention to what and when I eat by keeping a log. I pay careful attention to the exercise I'm getting by putting that in the log, too. Every evening, I review the day and summarize both the calories eaten and the calories "burned" in my activities. This combination of clear intention and careful attention is slowly having its effect: the weight is coming off.

Attraction equals intention times attention. No matter what you intend, it's unlikely to come to you if you don't pay attention. And if you're not clear about your intention, how can you know what to pay attention to? But if you are clear about your intention and if you pay careful attention, you will attract the results you want.

Talk to your coach about how you can increase your clarity about intentions and ideas for improving your level of attention.

"Apology" comes from Greek by way of French and it's commonest interpretation - an admission of fault, an acceptance of blame - is actually an extension of a secondary definition. The primary definition is "Something said or written in defense or justification of what appears to others wrong." The assumption that an apology is the same as an admission of error is effectively arguing that only guilty people need to be defended. (By the way, that's a concept my brother-in-law once used to get excused from jury duty!)

So if an apology doesn't have to say I'm in the wrong, what does it say? Mostly, I think, it says I care more about you and about our relationship than I do about being right.

If you are hurt by something I've said or done - or something you think I've said or done - I can easily say I'm sorry about that since it was certainly not my intention to hurt you. I can listen to your description of what