Growing up in New York, Marty had a precocious first career as a teenage political activist until, at seventeen, he began to wonder what it was all about. Convinced there was more to life, he “retired” from politics to search for something deeper: studying Western philosophy at Yale and then pursuing private study of Eastern philosophy and depth psychology.
While a graduate student at the Yale School of Management, he made his first attempts to bridge the analytic, quantitative tools of business with traditional wisdom skills. After earning his MBA from Yale, he redoubled his commitment to deeper forms of inquiry and experience.
In this period, Marty began to practice Zen meditation, studied dream analysis, and trained in the facilitation of breakthrough experience with Dr. Stanislav Grof. He worked as a psychotherapist, supporting people recovering from severe trauma, and facilitated intensive retreats using breathwork to catalyze major transformation. He formed an experimental theater company, The Temenos Project, which was awarded a three-year grant from the Irish government to promote innovation in the arts. And he wrote his first book, Becoming Me, which unites various cosmologies into a deceptively simple story—winning rave reviews from psychologists, scientists, and leaders of many different faiths.
Marty eventually distilled his diverse experiences and insights into a simple, new form of meditation training—One-Moment Meditation®. This playful, practical technique has helped over one million people start meditating now and experience the benefits of just one moment of focused attention.
Marty is founder of the One Moment Company, LLC, which provides meditation and mindset training to large healthcare institutions and Fortune 500 companies, helping employees reduce stress and improve focus, safety, and resilience. He provides personal mindfulness training to leaders and, as a consultant, helps large organizations find innovative solutions quickly and develop cultures of deeper engagement.
Marty is also a popular public advocate for the benefits of meditation and mindfulness. His book, One-Moment Meditation: Stillness for People on the Go, has been published in thirteen languages and his short film, How to Meditate in a Moment, has been viewed by over one million people. For The Huffington Post, Marty created the Stop the Stresscalation campaign, and for Oprah.com, the series, Transform Stress in 30 Days with One-Moment Meditation. Marty’s Take a Moo-ment™ promotion, created in the UK for the Federation of Organic Milk Groups, was played on nineteen BBC radio stations. And in Ireland, Marty created the National Moment of Stillness, for which thousands of people stopped work to enjoy thirty seconds of total silence—live on national radio. Said the show’s host afterward, “The whole nation was enthralled.” He is a Zen priest in the Hollow Bones Rinzai order.
In 2021, he launched the One World One Vote campaign, to encourage politicians to take bold action to avert a climate catatrophe.