Martha Beck is the Life Coach to the Life Coaches

Even master life coach Martha Beck can't believe her wisdom is worth millions.

- Taffy Brodesser-Akner

In the conference room of an oceanside hotel in Pismo Beach, Calif., Martha Beck stands on stage, nearing the end of an effusive 90-minute keynote speech for the semiannual Meet and Greet of the (mostly) women enrolled in her life coach training program, when she stops abruptly. “Integrity check!” she says.

She’d been telling the 80 or so trainees a story about her diagnosis many years ago of fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. She’d been an avid runner before the diagnosis; she’s started running again, even though exercising is often painful for people with fibromyalgia. Her point was that we shouldn’t always believe in our limitations, no matter how expert the source who presents them or how concrete they may seem. Also, maybe we don’t need quite so many rules! She reminded everyone that so much of what we know is told to us with great authority, and we accept it. Part of Beck’s credo—part of any trained sociologist’s credo—is to understand that most rules put in place for our lives are a social construct, so it’s our constant job to ask, “Wait, is that presumption that I have true? What proof do I have that it’s true? How did I come to believe this, and does it serve me to continue believing it?”