*happy martha day*

Article Posted on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 at 4:37 pm

Just in case you forgot to mark your calendars, today is Martha’s 69th birthday. My dream from the time I was 12? To be Martha. Rather than ramble on about how much I adore everything she puts together and what an amazing inspiration I think she is to entrepreneurs everywhere, I am offering a little taste of things from my own Martha*file. (Oh, don’t act like you don’t have one. We all should. It’s a good thing.)

“In college I discovered the world of chemistry, which I loved. I discovered the world of architectural history. I discovered so many different things that I decided that maybe I would forgo the teaching career for a while. The first thing that really caught me was the stock market. I became a stockbroker, immediately out of college, forgoing architecture school. My dream now, in retrospect then, was to be an eclectic knowledge-gathering person, in order to be able to learn and then to teach. And I’m still doing that, so I think I am a teacher.”
{source}

When asked what the most important characteristics for success…
“For me it’s a dedication to your real interests. It’s an ability to be open-minded. Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success. The great artists have been open-minded, even though they may seem, like Picasso, to be very directed, you can be directed and open-minded at the same time. I think you have to be really intensely serious about your work, but not so serious that you can’t see the lightness that may also involve your life. You have to have that lightness too. You have to not be so heavy-handed and so ostentatious. It’s very important not to be.”
{source}

“I’m going to glitter my butterfly.”
~my bestie, Matt’s new favorite Martha quote
{Click here to buy Martha glitter}
{Click here for Martha glitter projects}

This next clip is a very blunt interview done for ‘Good Morning America.’ While I don’t respect Cynthia McFadden much after watching this and think her lack of respect in handling this interview was non-existent and shameful (watch NBC, Hoda-woman would never think of being so unladylike), I do love how graceful and unphased Martha is by the whole thing–a lady til the end…

“When work is based in passion, it does not feel like work–it feels fulfilling and empowering, far more about creating, building, devising, initiating, leading, and serving than about simply moving through one task and on to another.”
~from The Martha Rules (p 3)

If you have an hour to kill, I highly recommend You Tubing clips from Whatever Martha. Watch Martha through the eyes of her daughter. (P.S. when Martha comes on in the mornings, Matt & I sometimes spend the whole show being Alexis & Jennifer.) My favorite is when she whittles…

Visit the Whatever Martha blog here.
My, what I wouldn’t give to be in the “Martha Circle” of blogs… one day!

*Happy Birthday, Martha!*
xo~ HannahB.