New York Times bestselling author and Life Designs, Inc. creator Martha Beck shares her step-by-step program that will guide you to fulfill your own potential and create a joyful life. In this book, you'll start by learning how to read the internal compasses already built into your brain and body--and why you may have spent your life ignoring their signals. As you become reacquainted with your own deepest desires, you'll identify and repair any unconscious beliefs or unhealed emotional wounds that may be blocking your progress. This will change your life, but don't worry--although every life is unique, major transformations have common elements, and Beck provides a map that will guide you through your own life changes. You'll learn how to navigate every stage, from the first flickering appearance of a new dream to the planning and implementation of your own ideal life. Based on Dr. Beck's work as a Harvard-trained sociologist, research associate at Harvard Business School, instructor at Thunderbird Business School, and especially on her experiences with her clients over the last six years, Finding Your Own North Star offers thoroughly tested case studies, questionnaires, and exercises to help you articulate your core desires and act on them to build a more satisfying life. “Explorers depend on the North Star when there are no other landmarks in sight. The same relationship exists between you and your right life, the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness. I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot.” -- Martha Beck

Bestselling author Martha Beck shares her step-by-step program that teaches you to read your internal compass and cultivate your dreams. The wisdom and humor of the excerpts provide insight you can use to chart a course to your own North Star.

Author of Oprah’s Book Club Pick—The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self “The best known life coach in America” (Psychology Today) and bestselling author of Finding Your Own North Star provides a new transformational program for creating an unconventional life path to a sustainable way of life. Martha Beck’s program has been practiced by Oprah and featured on Super Soul Sunday! Finding Your Way in a Wild New World reveals a remarkable path to the most important discovery you can make: the knowledge of what you should be doing with your one wild and precious life. It’s the thing that so fulfills you that, if you knew what it was, you’d run straight toward it through brambles and fire. Life coach and bestselling author of Finding Your Own North Star Martha Beck guides you to find out how you got to where you are now and what you should do next, with clear instructions on tapping into the deep, wordless knowledge you carry in your body and soul. You probably have sensed that you have a higher calling and a quiet power that could change the world—you lack only the tools. With her sparkling prose, Beck draws from ancient wisdom and modern science to help you consciously tap into that power and develop those tools for transformation. You’ll also find your inner identity and your external “tribe” of like-minded people, experience the spark of inspiration, and take action to make a lasting impact on the world. Compassionate and inspirational, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is a revolutionary journey of self-discovery that leads to miraculous change.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A candid and moving memoir of how one woman’s pregnancy forced her to confront her definition of how to live a successful life “Slyly ironic, frequently hilarious, [Martha] Beck’s memoir charts the journey from being smart to becoming wise.”—Time This edition includes a new afterword about Adam. From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They’d plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked. Expecting Adam captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of facing impending parenthood, being forced to question one’s deepest beliefs, and rewriting life’s rules.

In Steering by Starlight, renowned life coach Martha Beck, Ph.D., describes the step-by-step process she uses with her private clients to help them navigate the terrain of their best lives. Bringing together cutting-edge research in psychiatry, neurology, and related fields in an accessible, substantive, original way, Dr. Beck offers powerful methods for solving the problems that beset ordinary people. Using her trademark wisdom, empathy, and engaging style, she connects you with proven, effective strategies that have worked for the hundreds of people she has coached. For those who have found your North Stars, this book will be an invaluable tool to stay the course and overcome obstacles. For those who still feel adrift, it will provide a way to find true North and follow the path of best destiny. Dr. Beck identifies three stages along the path to recapturing a satisfying life: • "The Stargazer" helps you understand why it is so easy to lose yourself and offers strategies for sighting your North Star • "The Mapmaker" uses this newly clarified perspective to evaluate your situation and plot a course for upcoming years • "The Pathfinder" discusses the adventures that may be encountered as you travel along this new life course Whether you are seeking better relationships, a more focused career direction, a more harmonious lifestyle, or the achievement of specific fitness goals, the colorful anecdotes, case studies, and exercises in Steering by Starlight will point the way.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “A roadmap on the journey to truth and authenticity… [The Way of Integrity] is filled with aha moments and practical exercises that can guide us as we seek enlightenment.” –Oprah Winfrey Bestselling author, life coach, and sociologist Martha Beck explains why “integrity”—needed now more than ever in these tumultuous times—is the key to a meaningful and joyful life As Martha Beck says in her book, “Integrity is the cure for psychological suffering. Period.” In The Way of Integrity, Beck presents a four-stage process that anyone can use to find integrity, and with it, a sense of purpose, emotional healing, and a life free of mental suffering. Much of what plagues us—people pleasing, staying in stale relationships, negative habits—all point to what happens when we are out of touch with what truly makes us feel whole. Inspired by The Divine Comedy, Beck uses Dante’s classic hero’s journey as a framework to break down the process of attaining personal integrity into small, manageable steps. She shows how to read our internal signals that lead us towards our true path, and to recognize what we actually yearn for versus what our culture sells us. With techniques tested on hundreds of her clients, Beck brings her expertise as a social scientist, life coach and human being to help readers to uncover what integrity looks like in their own lives. She takes us on a spiritual adventure that not only will change the direction of our lives, but also bring us to a place of genuine happiness.

Do you know who - and what - you are? Do you know who you're meant to be? Do you know how to find the answers to questions like these? Knowledge of Self is the result of a process of self-discovery, but few of us know where to begin when we're ready to start looking deeper. Although self-actualization is the highest of all human needs, it is said that only 5% of people ever attain this goal. In the culture of the Nation of Gods and Earths, commonly known as the Five Percent, students are instructed that they must first learn themselves, then their worlds, and then what they must do in order to transform their world for the better. This often intense process has produced thousands of revolutionary thinkers in otherwise desperate environments, where poverty and hopelessness dominate. Until now, few mainstream publications have captured the brilliant yet practical perspectives of these luminary men and women. Knowledge of Self: A Collection of Writings on the Science of Everything in Life presents the thoughts of Five Percenters, both young and old, male and female, from all over the globe, in their own words. Through essays, poems, and even how-to articles, this anthology presents readers with an accurate portrait of what the Five Percent study and teach, as well as sound direction on how to answer timeless questions like: Who am I, and why am I here? Why is there so much injustice in the world, and what can be done about it? Who is God and where on Earth is he? How do I improve myself without losing myself? Why are people of color in the situations they're in? What can we do about the global problems of racism and poverty?

Discover a menu of ten behaviors you can add to your way of living and thinking to enhance every day’s journey through the unpredictable terrain of your existence. Add these behaviors gradually and watch your life become steadily more vivid and satisfying. Or you can go on a “crash Joy Diet” to help you navigate life’s emergencies. The ten menu items are: • Nothing: Do nothing for fifteen minutes a day. Stop mindlessly chasing goals and figure out which goals are worth going after. • Truth: Create a moment of truth to help you unmask what you’re hiding—from others and from yourself. • Desire: Identify, articulate, and explore at least one of your heart’s desires—and learn how to let yourself want what you want. • Creativity: Learn six new ways to develop at least one new idea to help you obtain your heart’s desire. • Risk: Take one baby step toward reaching your goal. The only rule is it has to scare the pants off you. • Treats: Give yourself a treat for every risk you take and two treats just because you’re you. No exceptions. No excuses. • Play: Take a moment to remember your real life’s work and differentiate it from the games you play to achieve it. Then play wholeheartedly. • Laughter: Laugh at least thirty times a day. Props encouraged. • Connection: Use your Joy Diet skills to interact with someone who matters to you. • Feasting: Enjoy at least three square feasts a day, with or without food. No matter what your long-term goals are, The Joy Diet, written with Martha Beck’s inimitable blend of wisdom, practical guidance, and humor, will help you achieve the immediate gift of joyful living in the here and now. Begin your journey today.

"The Best of Martha Beck's Columns from O, the Oprah Magazine"--Cover.

From one of the boldest voices in the world of personal growth and motivation, a guide to moving past inner struggle to discover the power of relinquishing control. Too often we limit our lives by putting conditions on them. We think things should go a certain way, and when they don't, we hold on to what isn't working, reinforcing what is causing us pain and affirming our lack of trust in the universe. There is another way: We can harness the power of relinquishing control and discover more purpose and meaning in our lives. After the passing of Kute Blackson's mother in 2017, he discovered that the powerful lesson his mother had been modeling her whole life had always been at the heart of his own teachings--he just hadn't realized it. What was that keen insight? Surrender isn't passive. It isn't giving up. It's strong and courageous. It's about tapping in. In this inspiring book, Blackson traces how surrender was a key factor in the lives of so many great people throughout history, and shows readers how they can move past self-imposed barriers in their lives to discover the freedom and possibility on the other side of surrender.