Having lost sight of our goals, we redouble our efforts.
- Mark Twain



Dear friends:

LESS: Accomplishing More By Doing Less is now available. I believe it is a timely book with an important message -- less busyness leads to more kindness and more love (and more productivity). It is a book about accessing and expressing our true freedom, and presents tools and practices meant for integral, long-lasting change.

I have a request (making requests is actually one of the practices in LESS – create more possibilities with less effort, by asking for what you want...try it!)
1) Buy LESS on Amazon or your local bookstore, for yourself, colleagues, friends.
2) Forward this email to your mailing list, or let your email list know about LESS.
3) Read the book.
4) Write a creative (or ordinary) review on Amazon.
5) Tell family, friends, bloggers, non-bloggers about the book.

As in most things in life, I had many motivations for writing LESS:
- to help people, in business and out of business, be more calm, connected, and productive
- to bring a sense of depth and meaning to the business community
- I felt "pregnant" with this book -- it needed to come out...
- for my livelihood, so I can send my daughter to college (and someday start a foundation to support socially responsible businesses.)

With warm regards,

Marc

P.S. The above photo was taken a few days ago -- sunrise, at a lagoon, in Jalisco, Mexico

Here are a few lines from the book’s prologue:

"Every life has great meaning, but the meaning of our own can often be obscured by the fog of constant activity and plain bad habits. Recognize and change these, and we can again savor deeply the ways we contribute to the workplace, enjoy the sweetness of our lives, and share openly and generously with the ones we love. Less busyness leads to appreciating the sacredness of life. Doing less leads to more love, more effectiveness and internal calmness, and a greater ability to accomplish more of what matters most – to us, and by extension to others and the world."

To order LESS on Amazon, click here

Meditation, Loss, and Love
Yesterday, Norman Fischer and I led a Company Time retreat at Green Gulch Farm. There were many returning attendees and many new faces. Though the topic was the role of meditation in our business lives, the underlying theme was that of loss. These are difficult times for many, as jobs disappear and as the economy continues to slide into unknown territory.

Meditation can be described as having three aspects: 1) stopping – just being still – noticing where we are holding, uncomfortable, comfortable; just being with whatever arises; not trying to change or fix anything; 2) looking deeply – being curious, opening, and questioning, and appreciating being alive; and 3) getting up – how do we bring our stopping and our looking deeply into our work and our lives outside of work.

We spent much of the day looking at how meditation practice can change our field of awareness. The more we can just be with our pain and our loss, the more kindness and love can rise to the surface.


I'm pleased to announce my new and improved ZBA Associates website. It has my updated schedule:

Seminars/Workshops
April 4 Warmhearted Leadership – 3 month study group,
Mill Valley
(meets on 4/4, 5/9, and 6/6) 415 389-6228

April 18 1-day workshop: Accomplishing More By Doing Less –
Green Gulch farm

May 1 – 3 Weekend Workshop: Accomplishing More by Doing Less
Mayacamas Ranch, Calistoga

June 13 Company Time, Green Gulch 10 – 5 (With Norman Fischer)

July 17 - 19 Leadership, Imagination, Zen – Tassajara, Weekend
Workshop (With Jackie McGrath)

July 19 - 23 Accomplishing More By Doing Less – Tassajara,
4-day workshop


Book Events for LESS: Accomplishing More By Doing Less
February 20 San Francisco Zen Center, 7:30 p.m.; Book reading

February 21 San Francisco Zen Center, 10:00 a.m; Public talk

February 25 Gateway Books, Santa Cruz, 7:00 p.m.

February 26 Readers Books, Sonoma, 7:30 p.m.

March 1 Green Gulch Farm, public talk, 10:00 a.m.

March 19 Copperfield’s Books, Sebastopol, 7:30 p.m.

March 22 Book Passage, Corte Madera, Sunday, 4:00 p.m.

March 28 East West Books, Mountain View, 7:30 p.m.

More details are on my website.

Check out the ZBA Associates website

Please take a look at, and post your comments, on my new blog, www.doingless.net: Tools and practices for living a more calm, meaningful, and productive life.

Click here to see my BLOG

Good reads
On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins – By the creator of the PalmPilot, an exploration of how the brain works, creativity, and consciousness. The subtitle is – How a new understanding of the brain will lead to the creation of truly intelligent machines.

Big Mind, Big Heart, by Dennis Genpo Merzel – This book give a good overview of Genpo’s process of combining Zen principals with voice dialogue – learning to explore, value, and transcend our “stories” through listening to our many voices.

www.zbaassociates.com