Three pivotal moments...
“Mart, you’re off the gravy train.”
“(Novice student) “What’s happening man?”
(Tibetan Meditation Master) “Everything””
“...he not busy being born is busy dying”
As a coach, I bring all of who I am to each relationship, each conversation. I draw upon experience that spans business, contemplative disciplines, entrepreneurship, father and son-hood, a loving partnership, volunteerism, activism, and spirituality. And an emotional life that has tasted the full spectrum – most significantly, love. My journey has been rich with twists and turns, ups, and downs. I've succeeded and failed, and perhaps learned the most at moments of greatest loss. I've risked and achieved (sometimes fool heartedly) much and been blessed with many gifts and opportunities. Fear, uncertainty, critical choices, and disappointment have not been strangers.
Since university, I've tried to be dedicated to aligning effort with aspirations - for personal, social, and environmental transformation and toward the creation of enlightened sustainable communities, organizations, and societies.
I’ve led an intertwined life, successful in business and organizations of all kinds, a galvanizing creator and instigator of all types of pioneering enterprises - as a CEO, Executive Director, and officer in public, private, and not for profit sectors. My leadership roles haven’t followed a linear progression but have been diverse and creative. I like it that way - continually called to be an entrepreneurial creator. At age 23 I was Executive Director of a newly envisioned college, now a fully accredited undergraduate and graduate university. At 26 I was a founding partner of a national business; at 27 founding treasurer of a now successful credit union. As Executive Director, I grew a non-profit environmental organization by more than 600%. For government I led the policy engagement and task force leading to development of pioneering environmental and social policy. As a major shareholder in a multi-hundred-million-dollar employee owned company I was its’ first ever Vice President of Marketing and Branding, first ever director of strategic planning, and director of strategic organizational transition, then first Senior Vice President of Sustainability and corporate social responsibility. When our company was acquired by a much larger public sector consulting company (now 500+ offices and 23,000 employees), I was immediately asked to be their first Vice President of Sustainable Development, leading both internal performance and emerging market development.
On the side of my career, I served as President of both a regional nature conservation trust and an international social policy think tank. I’ve also been a student, practitioner, and teacher in mindfulness/awareness and contemplative disciplines my entire adult life. But I’ve had my share of oddball semi-livelihoods - a potter, pizza maker, canoeing counselor, mime, stained glass artisan, gem importer, retail store owner, screw machine operator, and bankrupt. My kids always thought pizza maker was the highlight and most useful. Sometimes I have too. In short, everything needed to be a life and executive coach. Except for actual training, which I completed as well through the extraordinary Newfield Network certified coaching academy.
What have I taken from this tapestry of a life? A few takeaways stand out right now:
§ I am responsible for my own life.
§ All my experience, knowledge, causes and conditions have brought me to the moment of ‘now’, but my next step is always up to me.
§ Business can and must be a force for social change.
§ Any organization is defined by its' values and culture.
§ The most holistically successful and authentic leaders lead from their center, and cultivate organizations that lead the same way.
§ Everything is intimately interdependent and interconnected – and closely in accord with nature’s principles.
§ Therefore, we can't separate personal, communal, and social transformation. They are inextricably intertwined elements in any life that is truly whole.
I firmly believe that we can ALL take hold of our lives to be substantially more fulfilled, fundamentally happy, and make a difference. So much is possible. And so little can be held onto. As my meditation Master wrote, "Good or bad, happy or sad, all thoughts vanish into emptiness like the imprint of a bird in the sky." That doesn’t devalue sky, which inspires and contains all possibilities.