Joanna Martin

Every three months I have what I can only describe as an epic fortnight, and I've just come out the other side of one.

We had One Woman Conference just over a week ago, which truly was a remarkable event. We laughed, we danced, we transformed. The feedback from all of you has been overwhelming, and it has been a real pleasure to spend time looking at all of your posts and seeing the impact it's had.

Thank you. There are a million things you could have done with that weekend, and the fact that you made the time and energy to be there with us is huge. We're really grateful for you trusting us with your time, with your energy. Honestly, it was incredible.

Then a couple of days rest where I barely left my hotel room. A few walks along the Thames and laying very, very low.

And then on Wednesday we flew out to the south of France with my business mastermind Catalyst. Every year I take twelve women on a journey of business growth and expansion, and our summer retreat is always somewhere delicious and sun-filled.

This year we were in a gorgeous manoir outside the village of Flayosc. We went via Antibes on the way, which Greg and I spent a couple of month-long trips in before we had our kids. It holds a really special place in my heart and a lot of my abundance thinking came from wandering around that harbour. So I took our ladies for a walk around it.

We swam. We ate incredible food. We visited vineyards. And we grew our businesses while the sun shone on the vines.

You know that feeling when things start to feel wobbly?

Most of us do one of two things. We put the mask back on "I'm fine, everything's fine", and push through. Or we decide it's time for a big overhaul. New job, new relationship, new project. Something big enough to drown out that panicky feeling of being out of control.

I've done both. They both have a cost.

What I've found, and what I've taught thousands of women over the years, is that there's a third option and it changes everything.

I've written about three practices this week that I use myself and teach in every single programme I run, because they're that foundational. They're simple. They're not time-intensive. And they work.

Link in the first comment if you want to read it.

WOW.
I've just spent two of the most extraordinary days with some of the most extraordinary women I've ever had the privilege of being in a room with.
One Woman Conference 2026 is done… and I genuinely don't have words yet. Which, if you know me, is saying something.
What happened in that room over the past 48 hours - the stories, the tears, the laughter, the sheer courage of women turning up for themselves - I'll be processing it for a long time.

Thank you. Really. From the bottom of my heart.

If you were there, I'd love to know, what's the moment you're still thinking about?

When there's too much to do.
Dance.

I know that sounds flippant, but it really isn't.

When the list is too long, the decisions won't stop coming, and you've been holding everyone else together all week, your nervous system doesn't need another strategy. It needs to move.

So before you open one more tab, or write one more email, or solve one more problem that isn't actually yours to solve...

Put a song on. Move your body. Even for three minutes.

It resets something. Every time.

What's your go-to song when you need to shift your state?

Drop it in the comments...I'll see if it's on my playlist ahead of One Woman Conference.

It's been one of those weeks.

I've flown back into the UK. We're planning our annual conference, still delivering live trainings. And the rest of life doesn't pause for any of that, does it? Friends need you. Kids need you. Partners have their own stuff going on.

My go-to when it all stacks up? I close the office door, turn the music up loud, and dance.
Badly. To embarrassingly good pop songs. Sometimes with the kids. They're completely unselfconscious about it in a way I find genuinely inspiring.

I know it sounds daft. But moving your body when your brain is at capacity is one of the fastest resets I know. And here's the thing, it's not productive. There's nothing to show for it. That's actually why it works. It's the one thing in your day that isn't for anyone else, isn't ticking a box, isn't an achievement.

Just joy. For its own sake.

Do you have something like that? A little practice that shouldn't work but absolutely does? Tell me in the comments, I'd love to know.

I want to tell you something about the room at One Woman Conference that I don't think we talk about enough.

Most rooms in your life are filtered. By age, by career stage, by life shape. Even your closest friendships, when you actually look at them, are more uniform than they feel.
Conference is one of the few places I know where that doesn't apply.

On 13th and 14th June in London, you'll be in the coffee queue next to a woman who has never heard of us before. She said yes to a weekend and she's not quite sure why. She doesn't know what she's walked into yet.

You'll have lunch with a woman who has been coming for years. Who can tell you exactly how it actually went when she did the thing you're considering doing, if you ask.
And you'll sit in a row with a 28-year-old in her first proper job, a 52-year-old running a department of two hundred people, a woman who has just been widowed, and a woman who has just decided to start again. All on the same afternoon.

The woman three years ahead of you and the woman three years behind you, both within arm's reach.

What happens in that mix is its own thing.

Here's what unifies the whole room. Every woman there has come because she wants the world to be better. That's the through-line. You stop having to explain why you give a damn. Everyone gives a damn. It's the baseline.

There is something the soul does when it's in a room like that. I don't have a tidy phrase for it. But you feel it when you walk in.

If you've been wondering what the weekend actually is, that's the truest answer I can give.

Comment DECISION and I'll send you all the details. 13th and 14th June, Hilton Bankside, London.

Putting off an unimportant task isn't procrastination.
That's prioritisation.

We've borrowed a word from productivity culture and turned it into a way to feel bad about ourselves.

Before you call yourself a procrastinator, ask: is this task actually important right now?
Sometimes the answer is no. And that's not a character flaw. That's wisdom.

What's something you've "let yourself off the hook" about recently that was actually the right call?