Meditation & balance
Martin's philosophy of balance integrates martial arts practice, self-care disciplines, and deliberate health tracking as foundations for sustainable creativity and presence. Rather than viewing work-life balance as a luxury, he treats it as essential infrastructure—the conditions under which his best thinking and deepest connections become possible.
Aikido: learning through the body
Martin has practiced Aikido for about 14 years, having become fascinated by the martial art in 1997. Breakit ↗ Unlike competitive martial arts, Aikido—"the harmonious way of power"—emphasizes cooperation over competition. For Martin, it's been a way to embed solution-focused thinking into the body: when practicing, you face aggression in real-time and must deal with it without thinking, getting "into your backbone the idea of focusing on the solution to a problem." This embodied learning contrasts sharply with abstract problem-solving—the body learns through immediate feedback.
Work, flow, and productive recovery
Martin has developed strong principles around sustainable productivity. He believes that productivity stems not from long workdays, but from a focused number of hours in deep flow rather than diluted hours stretched across the day. When overtime happens, he compensates by taking time off as soon as possible.
More recently, Martin has shifted toward a much more balanced passion between his private life and work life, a deliberate rebalancing after years of prioritizing only work. This isn't framed as a sacrifice to productivity—rather, being well-rested, eating well, and sleeping well makes him much more available to other people.
Self-care creates the conditions for intuitive leadership. When he maintains his wellbeing, he can lead much more from his heart and intuition rather than relying on plans and checklists.
Body awareness and health practices
Martin has recently become experimental with personal health tracking, using continuous blood glucose monitoring to understand his body's responses to food and work patterns. He uses a blood sugar monitor without a diabetes diagnosis, finding the data visualization more valuable than reading books about nutrition. Through this practice, he's learned that a ketogenic diet keeps blood glucose curves smooth and stable, unlike diets with high-glycemic foods that create sharp spikes.
He's also structured his physical practice differently: rather than running through the city, he's adopted a morning routine of driving to the forest to run 5 kilometers—a more sustainable approach because it removes the friction of urban running.
Mindfulness extends into intimate life as well. Martin sees sex as a mindfulness practice requiring his complete presence and attention, and has learned that distraction breaks sexual connection.
Transformative inner work
Beyond daily practices, Martin has pursued deeper transformational experiences. He's completed a tantra massage course, which he describes as a huge eye-opener for an engineer like himself. He's also experimented with shamanic drum journeys, though he suggests these pale in comparison to his deeper work with the Mankind Project, a men's organization he views as one of his most valuable personal investments.
These practices revealed something that transcends scientific explanation: he became aware of energies existing within his body and between people in ways completely unexplained by science, yet strikingly tangible.
Presence as a default state
Reading Eckhart Tolle's "Power of Now" was transformative for Martin, especially the opening teaching that you are not your thoughts and you are not your body. This perspective shift supports his broader practice: rather than fighting thoughts or resisting the body's demands, he can observe them as separate from his core presence.
At Narrative, the company itself embodied this philosophy: the Linköping office featured a meditation room decorated with a Buddha figure, where meditation sessions happened regularly.
When Martin lived between New York and Sweden, he discovered that he needed to find his sense of home within himself rather than in external circumstances. This internalization of stability became foundational to his later work building teams and companies in uncertain conditions.
Worth remembering
- Martin values his farming upbringing, where parents worked seven days a week but were always home—a model of presence-within-work that shaped his philosophy.
- Many of his closest friendships originated from past work relationships, valued for genuine connection rather than professional achievement.
- Setting explicit intentions with AI mirrors his personal practice: being clear with yourself about what you value allows you to nudge your decisions in the right direction.