Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want [Hardcover]

Martha Beck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 27, 2011

Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is 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 a journey to the thing that so fulfills you that, if someone told you, “It’s right outside—but watch out—it could kill you!” you’d run straight toward it, through the screen door without even opening it. 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, concrete instructions on tapping into the deep, wordless knowledge you carry in your body and soul. There are certain people who sense that they are called to do something fulfilling and significant, but who often get caught in self-destructive, unproductive cycles. This is the book that will lead you to unleash your incredible creative energy—and fulfill your life’s purpose.With her inimitable ability to translate inner life into accessible, witty, sparkling prose, Beck draws from ancient wisdom and modern science to help readers consciously embrace their skills and create the life they really want. What she’s found is that these people with great passion, empathy, and creative potential often sense a higher calling—in a society where that calling isn’t even recognized as real. They often have within them a quiet power that could change the world; they lack only the tools. Beck offers real, actionable methods to tap into that power. She shows how to find your inner identity and your external “tribe” of like-minded people. She demonstrates the four simple tools for transformation: Wordlessness, Oneness, Imagination, and Creation. With clear step-by-step instructions and guided reflections, Beck shows how to drop into the wordless state of communion with nature and self, how to experience for yourself the oneness between yourself and the universe, how to be empowered by the spark of inspiration, and, finally, how to take action and realize creative potential 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. *** From Finding Your Way in a Wild New World:The mother rhino paws nervously, and I feel the impact tremor in the ground beneath my own feet. She is huge. She is nervous. She could kill me as easily as I clip my fingernails. But my mind is filled only with wonder, distilled into two basic questions.Question 1: How the hell did I get here?Question 2: What the hell should I do now?Both issues seem equally mysterious. . . . But it all seems to clear now— it was my true nature that brought me face to face with a rhinoceros. . . . I’m finding out what it feels like to reclaim my true nature. It’s one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever experienced. And, because ecstasy loves company, I want you to experience it too. The wild new world of the twenty-first century is the perfect setting for reclaiming your true nature. And your life will work much, much better if you let it direct your choices. It will bring you freedom, peace, and delight; give you the optimal chance of making a good living; and help you create the best possible effect on everything around you. I’m not certain exactly how it will play out in your case, but here’s what I do know: it’s time you met your rhinoceros.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"In a world that seems more and more chaotic, this book gives readers new tools--tools that bridge the gap between science and magic--for steering a clear path to joyful lives."

--Marci Shimoff, author of Love for No Reason

About the Author

Martha Beck, Ph.D., is a life coach and monthly columnist for O: The Oprah Magazine. She is the author of the bestsellers Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live and the memoir Expecting Adam. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (December 27, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451624484
• ISBN-13: 978-1451624489
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #98 in Books > Self-Help > Motivational

More About the Author

Martha Beck is a writer and "life coach" who specializes in helping people design satisfying and meaningful life experiences. She holds a bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies and master's and Ph.D. degrees in sociology, all from Harvard University.

She worked as a research associate at Harvard Business School, studying career paths and life-course changes in today's economic and social environment. Before becoming a life coach, Dr. Beck taught sociology, social psychology, organizational behaviour, and business management at Harvard and the American Graduate School of International Management. She has published academic books and articles on a variety of social science and business topics.

Her non-academic books include the New York Times bestsellers "Expecting Adam" and "Leaving the Saints", as well as "Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live", "Steering by Starlight", and her newest book, "Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaiming Your True Nature". Dr. Beck has also been a contributing editor for many popular magazines, including "Real Simple" and "Redbook", and is currently a columnist for "O, the Oprah Magazine".

More information can be found at marthabeck.com, including Dr. Beck's lively blog posts and video blogs, books, speaking appearances, and life coaching strategies and suggestions.

Dr. Beck lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her family.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful tools for living the wayfinder's life, December 27, 2011

By 

Elizabeth H. Cottrell "RiverwoodWriter" (Shenandoah Valley, VA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want (Hardcover)

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" is a truth that will manifest itself over and over as this exciting new book is read and shared and read again. The number of markers and underlines and margin notes in my preview copy are testaments to the fact I was ready. I devoured it and now am going back to start practicing the many exercises. The book's purpose is to help you more clearly identify "what you should be doing with your one wild and precious life."

The author, Martha Beck, has outstanding educational and life experience credentials for writing this book. It is both a sharing of her own life journey as well as a manifesto for anyone ready to embrace their own best life. With a B.A. in East Asian Studies and master's and Ph.D. degrees in sociology from Harvard University, Beck is a trained observer and analyst. Her coaching specialty is helping people design satisfying and meaningful life experiences. She first got on my radar screen as a columnist for Oprah Magazine, where I am regularly impressed with her no-nonsense, delightfully humorous approach to issues about life's questions, fears, and psychological roadblocks.

I recently read Beck's bestselling book EXPECTING ADAM, the story of her 1987-88 pregnancy and giving birth to a Downs syndrome child (new edition in 2011). Its subtitle is "A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic." The unabashed revelation of her own fears, neuroses, and personal/professional challenges at the time was both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Martha has known and overcome tragedy, sadness, and self-limiting thoughts. She is an excellent guide for empowering others to overcome their own life issues. FINDING YOUR WAY IN A WILD NEW WORLD is her ultimate guidebook, the best of her teaching and philosophy in one zinger of a book.

FINDING YOUR WAY IN A WILD NEW WORLD is not going to resonate with everyone. Some will dismiss it as just another pop cultural self-help book. Others will use terms like "woo-woo" and "New Age nonsense." They'd be selling it short. I am a devout Christian with an insatiable curiosity and open mind about spirituality and human potential. This book was filled with research-based findings on the power of our connectedness with each other and with all living things in nature (flora and fauna), and I believe people of any faith will find it enriches, rather than contradicts, their core beliefs.

Beck includes many practical exercises for each section of her book, all designed to exercise the parts of our brain that we don't use enough, to train ourselves to focus our attention, and to tap into the energy that is mostly likely to allow us to find and cultivate our own best selves. They're designed to get us out of our mental ruts!

Here are some hints that this book might be perfect for you right now:
* If you feel a yearning that you can't identify or suppress.
* If you feel the need for clarity and purpose in your life.
* If you're afraid to do things that you think you'd love to do.
* If wild success and abysmal failure both scare you.
* If you feel fragmented with no clear focus in your life.
* If your wild fantasies seem impossible but won't let you go.
* If you feel you're about to explode with possibilities and potential but can't grab on to that one thing that feels just right.
* If you suspect your self-talk is holding you back.
* If you feel like you're bumping your head against one obstacle after another but you're certain there's something better on the other side.
* If you feel the world is changing so fast you can't keep up.
* If you feel stuck and unproductive.
* If you feel in need of emotional healing before you can move on to your real purpose of healing others.
* If you desperately want to make a difference with the rest of your life but don't know what on earth you that might "look like."

If any one of these rings true, you owe it to yourself to read this book. There is a generous excerpt available for free on Amazon. If it doesn't grab you by the time you finish reading those pages, either the book is not for you or the timing is not right in your life.

If the timing is right for you, you'll gain clarity, focus, and powerful tools for living abundantly in the best sense of the word.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Koren Motekaitis, December 27, 2011

By 

Koren Motekaitis "swimgeek" (Davis, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want (Hardcover)

I was excited to read Martha's new book Finding Your Way in a Wild New World until I found out that it was about MAGIC. Oh no I thought would this be too woo woo? Would my clients now think I was crazy since I trained with Martha Beck and am one of her coaches? Would my radio listeners turn the dial and look for something else that really applied to their life?

Then I read the book. WOW! I invite you to go beyond the language that Martha uses in her book. Maybe you do not understand what Wordlessness means right now. But when you read the book and practice her tools you will experience and understand Wordlessness. Don't let the ideas or what you think MAGIC, WORDLESSNESS, or some of her other words Martha uses to stop you from at least exploring Martha's latest book. When I read this book I let go of my resistance to the language in her book and Martha opened up information and powerful experiences for me. Her book makes so much sense and her tools can help you.

And like all of Martha's other works she encourages you to test it out for yourself and see if it works. Don't just take her word for it since she is a best selling author and columnist in O, the Oprah magazine.

Unlike other self-help books where you ask yourself, "how can I REALLY apply this to my life?" Martha gives you tools that you can do while living your life in her latest book Finding Your Way In A Wild New World.

I rarely write book reviews eventhough I have used the reviews for 1,000s of books/items for years as a buyer and this time I decided to write a review, because maybe you are skeptical like I was and I wanted you to know that once I let go of my resistance, Martha's book gave me more insight and tools to help myself as well as my clients and listeners on my show.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can You Really Make Money Following Your Bliss?, December 28, 2011

By 

Gina Clowes (www.allergymoms.com) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Finding Your Way in a Wild New World: Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want (Hardcover)

Did you ever hear one of those interviews when someone says "I feel SO lucky because I get up everyday and I get to do what I love and get paid for it!" ?

Finding Your Way in a Wild New World is a guidebook to enable you to do just that!

After serendipitously being introduced to "Expecting Adam" several years ago, I became huge fan of Martha Beck's writing: intelligent and insightful, yet self-deprecating and silly.

You're having so much fun reading that you hardly realize how much you are learning and that she has equipped you with tools that can change your life.

Don't be fooled by the simplicity of some the exercises in the book. Do them and you're on an expedition that will help you dust off your unique talents, combine them with the lessons you've learned in life (aka bumps in the road) and put them to "work" (play!) in a way that no one else can.