Table Of ContentALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Expecting Adam: A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic
Breaking Point: Why Women Fall Apart and How They Can Re-Create
Their Lives
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published
material: The Famous Music Publishing Companies. Lyrics from “Paths of Desire” written by Emil
Adler and Julie Flander. Copyright © 1991 by Famous Music Corporation and October Project
Publishing. HarperCollins Publishers: Excerpt from this page from Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, A
New English Version, with Foreword and Notes by Stephen Mitchell. Translation copyright © 1988
by Stephen Mitchell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2001 by Martha Beck
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Three Rivers Press, New York, New York.
Member of the Crown Publishing Group.
Random House, Inc. New York, Toronto, London, Sydney, Auckland
www.crownpublishing.com
THREE RIVERS PRESS and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beck, Martha Nibley, 1962–
Finding your own North Star : claiming the life you were meant to live / Martha Beck.— 1st
ed.
1. Success. I. Title.
BJ1611 .B32 2001
158.1—dc21 00-043133
eISBN: 978-0-30745313-6
v3.1_r2
Karen, this one’s for you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Throughout this book, I have drawn heavily on examples from the
clients in my Life Design program and workshops. However, to protect
their privacy and ensure confidentiality, I have changed their names,
descriptions, and other identifying characteristics. I am profoundly
grateful to them for their example and trust in me; in helping them find
their own North Stars, they have helped me find mine.
I have not disguised the names of any members of my family, my
friends, or my sainted beagle, Cookie.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book owes a great deal to my students at the American Graduate
School of International Management (Thunderbird), who put up with my
unorthodox teaching style, forgave me for my mistakes, shared their life
and career histories, and urged me to explore my interest in “life
design.” In particular, I’d like to thank Jessica Walters and Susan
Bagdadhi for their insight, energy, and sensitivity. I’d also like to thank
the individuals who allowed me to interview them, in an undisguised
attempt to steal the secrets of their success.
The ideas for this book began to take shape while I was working as a
research assistant for Dr. John Kotter, of Harvard Business School. I
thank him for hiring me despite my total lack of experience or ability,
and for being patient while I developed a little of each.
I’m also deeply grateful to Dr. John Beck, of Andersen Consulting’s
Institute for Strategic Change (no, the name is not a coincidence). Many
of the ideas in this book came from John, and all of them were run
through his brain at least three or four times as we debated over our
morning lattes.
Aristotle believed that a physician had to experience a disease before
trying to cure it. I’ve definitely been through the process of losing and
regaining my own North Star, and without certain people as guides, I
would never have found my way back. It’s impossible to name all these
people, but some of them are (in the order they showed up) Rebecca
Nibley, Robert Bennion, Will Reimann, Sibyl Johnston, Ruth Killpack
and the gang at Aspen, Lydia and Sylvia Nibley, Dawn Swanson, Annette
Rogers, and all my brave, wonderful clients.
My incredible editor, Betsy Rapoport, has been not only a friend and
North Star guide, but a midwife to this book and my writing in general. I
can’t thank her enough for her brilliance, kindness, wit, and sheer
endurance. My agent Beth Vesel and her assistant Emilie Stewart have
also been stalwart supporters. My magazine editors, including Jeanie
Pyun, Lisa Benenson, Marcia Menter, Carol Kramer (and all the other
folks at Real Simple), encouraged me to push “life design” ideas further
and put them in readable form. It has been a privilege having them as
teachers.
Finally my love and thanks to the population of my Stella Polaris:
John, Kevin, Kat, Adam, Liz, Cookie the Intrepid, and especially Karen.
Their presence in my life is daily proof that even impossible dreams
come true.
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Disconnected Self
Chapter 2 Reconnecting: How Your Essential Self Says “No”
Chapter 3 Getting to Yes
Chapter 4 Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean Everybody
Isn’t Out to Get You
Chapter 5 Getting Everybody on Your Side
Chapter 6 How Holly Got Her Bod Back
Chapter 7 Soul Shrapnel: Repairing Your Emotional Compass
Chapter 8 Reading Your Emotional Compass
Chapter 9 Charting Your Course
Chapter 10 Advanced Compass Reading: Intuition
Chapter 11 A Map of Change
Chapter 12 Square One: Death and Rebirth
Chapter 13 Square Two: Dreaming and Scheming
Chapter 14 Square Three: The Hero’s Saga
Chapter 15 Square Four: The Promised Land
About the Author
