Yearly Archives: 2009

What Matters Now — and Tomorrow

This is Martha’s long lost blog editor Pamela Slim stepping in for a moment to let you know about a cool project that Martha just participated in with Seth Godin. What Matters Now is an e-book filled with delicious one-page essays like Elizabeth Gilbert on ease and Daniel Pink on autonomy and Tom Peters on - Continue Reading

The Gift of Joyful Detachment… Insight from Martha

There is an old story about a Zen monk who was waiting to greet the emperor of Japan.  Just before the emperor arrived, he turned to a fellow monk and said, “I’ll be back later.”  “Later” turned about to be 12 years.  When his peers asked where he’d been, why he’d left, he explained, “As - Continue Reading

The Magic of Staying Calm, No Matter What… Insight from Martha

I’m packing my suitcases to go participate in two large conferences.  I have considerable tension in my mind and several cold sores on my body.  All of the negative feelings, of course, are the result of “dirty pain.”  My fears about the uncertainties of travel, my memories of traveling while physically ill in the past, - Continue Reading

Stone Age Wisdom for Modern Life Coaching

Back in the days when humans still lived in a pristine relationship with nature, a woman my age wouldn’t have spent more than four decades eating genetically altered food, unknowingly consuming insecticide with her vegetables, and noshing on processed snacks packed with preservatives.  She wouldn’t have spent all those years parked on her voluminous rump, - Continue Reading

The Willing Suspension of Disbelief…Insight from Martha

When you pick up a novel, knowing that the author plans to spin a good yarn, you perform a tiny trick in your head which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief.”  This means that although you don’t necessarily buy into the author’s reality, as long as you’re reading you will willingly accept - Continue Reading

The Language of Letting Go

(Of All Hope of Sounding Comprehensible) Well, I’m back in the States again after another amazing trip to South Africa.  I had a wonderful time connecting with many of our fabulous SA coaches, helping run the wilderness STAR (Self-Transformation Adventure Retreat) and beta-testing a plan to help some brilliant educators transform a small African village. - Continue Reading

Creating Brilliant Ideas…Insight from Martha

In many ways, one thing you can never anticipate is the quagmire of logistical and psychological problems that may confront you when you set out to find your own North Star.  It’s hard for me to write about your particular real world dilemmas, since everyone’s life is unique and conditions are changing so quickly that - Continue Reading

The Adequate-Sleep Life-Enhancing Experimental Project

First of all, I want to register a simultaneous apology and complaint:  My blog won’t post pictures today.  This has made me feel so defeated I think I’ll go back to bed.  Which leads me to today’s topic… Something incredibly bizarre happened to me last night. I turned out the light at midnight, but didn’t - Continue Reading

Summer Slowdown

Maybe I like this joke because tortoises are my totem animals (they remind me to take life in turtle steps, keep a tough outside but stay soft inside, stick my neck out to move forward, etc., etc.).  Here’s the joke:  A turtle gets mugged by a large, hostile snail.  When the police ask him what - Continue Reading

How to Be Richly Rewarded

So I wrote this book about training your mind to reprogram your body to be thin.  It’s called The Four Day Win, and much to my delight, it seems to have helped some people lose weight and feel better about their lives in general.  But I keep getting questions about this book; questions I never - Continue Reading