LESS, the book - I’m excited about my new book LESS; Accomplishing More By Doing Less, coming out in February. It contains antidotes to busyness, and practices for how to live a more calm, meaningful, and productive life. The idea for the book began as a talk I gave a few years ago, and proceeded to take on a life of its own. I enjoyed researching and writing about issues of effort and effortlessness, the relationship of busyness with fear, with our views about time, and exploring how our stories and ideas around accomplishment hinder and help us. The book addresses the issue of how we easily confuse activity with productivity, and provides tools and practices for undoing these habits.

Less
Accomplishing More by Doing Less, by Marc LesserI was reading part of the book last night, after not looking at it for several weeks, and said to myself, “interesting, this is a good book.” Even my wife thinks it’s a good book. (And she has very high standards.) Her testimonial is not included on the back cover of the book, but if it were it would say: “It’s really a good book!” Lee Klinger Lesser, diversity trainer, sensory awareness teacher, and Marc’s wife.

I had a life-changing “incident” a few weeks ago – I was sitting on my living room couch, minding my own business, sipping a glass of red wine. I felt a small jolt of pain in my heart; strong enough to get my attention. Then, I began to feel woozy, lightheaded, and was soon unconscious. A few minutes later, I was just fine, and I felt that everything was different. It’s one thing to speak, teach, and write about life and death; and another to experience the thin veil between being conscious and not being conscious; the edge of life and death that we all live on. I’m seeing the world through fresher, more appreciative eyes; taking less for granted.

This is the subject of my book, (this is actually one of the practices from LESS – imagine you have died and now you have returned to being alive – what would you do differently; how does this second chance influence you?) and often the subject of my life (and all our lives...) – how to live with less fear, less assumptions, less distractions, and less resistance to change and to what is; how to live with passion and compassion, and how to be in touch with and accomplish what is most important.

I wish you much peace and happiness, and accomplishment (with less unnecessary effort) in 2009!