In the movie "You've Got Mail," the cutthroat businessman played by Tom Hanks advises Meg Ryan's character not to get bent out of shape because a competitor is trying to shut down her bookstore. "It's not personal," he stresses. "It's business."

Most people, however, find it difficult to separate their professional lives from their "regular" lives. And more and more people, from support staff to CEOs, are turning to life coaches to help them bring the best of themselves to both.

"Whoever said you don't bring your personal life to work is wrong," says life and career coach Laura Berman Fortgang. "You do bring your personhood to your job."

Business people often seek out coaches with a goal of increasing their sales, or developing their management skills, says Fortgang. "Instead, we find out we're addressing fear, or hesitance. Fundamental issues that appear not be linked to a goal, have everything to do with the goal."

One of the country's top career coaches, and the author of "Living Your Best Life: Ten Strategies for Getting from Where You Are to Where You're Meant to Be" (Penguin Putnam Inc. 2001, 202 pages, www.laurabermanfortgang.com), Forgang has identified one of the most critical aspects of the coaching process: tuning in to your own wisdom.

"I was looking at why coaching was working," Fortgang says of the time she was gathering ideas for what was to become "Living Your Best Life."

"People couldn't hear their own wisdom." But in the facilitation process of coaching, they started finding what was already there. "We live in an externally-referenced world," she says. ""We can't hear our internal cues, unless we access our wisdom."

Many business and self-help materials play to our need for immediate gratification, Fortgang points out. But it's not always what is best for us.
"People want instant results. But the results of 'instant' don't last -- they're not sustainable. But accessing your wisdom is a whole different take. It's a process."

But Fortgang also emphasizes that there's a paradox at work. "By slowing down, results get accelerated," she says. "When you hook into something organic to yourself, goals, results, happen more quickly -- it will feel instant."

For those that feel wisdom is just another one of those feel-good, New Age-y myths, Fortgang offers a fresh outlook. "Wisdom crosses over from 'woo-woo' to 'real land,'" she says. "Everyone wants to be wise. In business, emotional intelligence is sexy-it's a key to people's success. And this work is the key to emotional intelligence.

"Intuition is becoming a business skill," she continues. "The more you engage your emotional intelligence, the closer your actions are to your own interests and strengths. And the truer you are to yourself in business, the more successful you'll be."

By developing your boundaries, by saying 'no,' you can grow more quickly, Fortgang says. Going against your values means you'll have more trouble, less growth. But when you stay true to yourself, it's easier to take your business to the next level.

She notes that there's often a conflict between our own wisdom versus conventional wisdom -- that we're often blinded by what's generally accepted. "We still live in an old-world, industrial-age ethic that says, 'if I suffer, I'm going to get something.'"

But the new work ethic shows us that we don't need to suffer, says Fortgang. If we take time to slow down, to be still, our natural priorities become clear -- and we can create extraordinary futures with less struggle. "It seems illogical, but you bring more of your best stuff to the job when everything in your life is in order."

Fortgang says that people often ask her why wisdom is so important to business. "Things change so fast. Information and knowledge become obsolete so quickly, that the only organizing platform we have, to determine what stays and what goes -- what information to keep and what to let go of-is our own wisdom," she explains. "That's why I believe wisdom is at the forefront of business issues-because nothing, especially business, is constant."

The current economic slowdown certainly illustrates how fast things can change -- almost overnight, we saw our booming economy turn into a bust. But Fortgang has a strategy for riding out the tough times -- to counteract feeling like we have to work harder just to stay in one place.

"Don't buy into the fear -- try to insulate yourself," she advises. "Shut out the fearful economic stuff, and get quiet with your own life."

Fortgang isn't downplaying the bad news -- she's seen a real panic out there, and the slowdown is not going to go away for a while. But, she adds, if you can take time for silence, for going within, the solutions will come. "Ask yourself, 'what do I need to do to get through or succeed for the next two years?' Live with that question for a week, and see what answers you get."