Ziv: Hello, Martha, I’m really excited and happy to have you with us in our interview. How are you?

Martha: Great. Thank you for actually having me.

Ziv: With pleasure. Let’s start with an open question for you. Tell us a bit about yourself, how you got to become a coach, a confidence coach. What does it mean? And a bit about your journey.

Martha: Ok, my name is Martha Mok. Nice to meet everyone here. I am a super confident coach for woman.

I have a very lovely, colorful past that from the age of seven that I’ve been bullied from school from the older my age to teenagers. And then after when I was actually age twenty one, I was married and I was actually married to a narcissist for 19 years before I actually moved out from that marriage. And through that and then before that, as well as probably about eight years old young girl, I was sexually molested by someone that I trust.

So my life that has been a very colorful life. And during the same times, I still won multiple businesses. So I was actually very comfortable working as international well-known hair and make-up artist. Nevertheless, that’s always a gap inside me. So and in last year after my divorce, I started working on myself in personal development area and it was actually my trauma therapist who suggest me and say, Martha, you can do so much more for people.

So I’m like, OK, maybe I will actually start going into coaching area. And that’s how I started. And I have been coaching for a little while now and I absolutely love the journey that I was able to be a part of some amazing woman. It makes me feel alive and it makes them come out of their shell.

My mission is actually for no woman to suffer in silence anymore. I suffer for over thirty years without anyone knowing it, and it’s the first time that people actually find out what happened behind me. People always know me as a successful entrepreneur and it’s a multi-award winning hair and make-up artist that travel the world speak onstage, that I’m a competition judge and I’m always very successful, happy, positive, powerful. But I don’t know what’s actually happening beside me because I was too ashamed, too scared to tell anyone about it.

And after my personal development, I finally gained the courage to actually tell the world of what actually happened behind me.

And the good thing is everyone can actually see how beautiful my life have become, how much more confident that I have in my smile, even though I was quite a diva before already. And I actually find my ideal partner as well. We’ve been together since early this year and we are going amazing. And that’s the message that I wanted to bring out to become a confident coach for a woman. Doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from. I’m a size sixteen, forty year old woman and I can still find the love of my life. And it’s amazing to be able to actually do that.

Ziv: What a story. What a journey. And really inspiring. How do you do this transition? How do you do the transition from such a difficult, challenging life with all those things that you went through for so many years? And from that point to flourish like you have, how do you do it?

Martha: Pretty much that I’m someone who refused to give up, I, even in whatever situation that I’m in, I still believe in the good in people. Yes, some people are bullies. Some people are bad, but it doesn’t mean the whole world is like that. Being a makeup artist allowed me to see a lot of people.

And my job had brought me all over the world. And I love the fact that I’m able to give confidence to people.

To especially to women as well, thinking that they are not good enough, they’re not pretty enough and they’re not nice enough. In fact, there’s so much goodness inside us, doesn’t matter who we are or what we are. So I decided to actually choose to be light instead of dark. Yes.

A lot of people consider that while with your colorful past, you could easily go down another path. I didn’t want to do that because I know that I don’t want another person to suffer what I have suffered, so I choose to be people’s light to guide them, to support them. Even I will speak. Even before I was life coach, I was always coaching in my industry, helping people, supporting people. And it’s a wonderful thing to do.

I actually love it. And the reward is soul satisfaction. It’s not just about financially. It’s the way that we can help people. And that’s what completely changed my life. And I have to thank my trauma therapist, which is Naomi Stockmann, that she actually encouraged me and got me out of the deep hole that I was in and now I’m healed. I feel amazing. And she is a hypnotherapist.

Ziv: So you mentioned that a way to help people understand that they’re not and they’re not bad, that they’re not a week, that they’re not so many of us throughout our life.

Everyone tells us how and what kind of failures we are that we are useless and some more and some less. But we get it for so long and our confidence is all always being hurt. How do you rebuild it?

How do you help people to get over it and find the beauty inside themselves?

Martha: I was called worthless for about 19 years by my ex-husband. It was daily abuse that I actually received. But it doesn’t actually stop me from being who I am. My work of being able to make another woman smile, to bring happiness to other people was always my lifeline.

So I found that if people are suffering from depression and anxiety, the one suggestion I can send to them is do not be afraid to actually ask for help. I suffer for a very long time before I was brave enough to ask for help because my work has given me such satisfaction.

I have actually have to admit that I am a workaholic because it gives me so much joy. However, knowing that when I started to get help to actually work on myself one I remember the one sentence that I really hate to hear is that you must love yourself first before you actually get better. And I’m like, I love myself. What’re you talking about? But in fact, I wasn’t really. I thought I was loving myself. I was powerful. I was happy, I was confident. But it was only a shell. It was only a mask that I carry and wear every single day. I didn’t realize how beautiful it is to really find the grounding in yourself, to actually feel complete. That’s actually the major change that I find that was actually the difference in me.

Ziv: So first step is to be able to ask for help, for someone to ask for help and then to learn to love yourself. How do you do it? Really?

Martha: Really, and from what your problem is, what your trouble is, because we keep ourselves so much excuse, I’m not good enough.

I can’t do this. I’m not important. I don’t matter.

And I don’t deserve. So once you started to change the language, you talk to yourself. This is one of the ritual that I give it to my my students is like, you need to look in the mirror and actually tell yourself I’m enough.

I’m beautiful, I’m important, I’m better, and I deserve this by doing this exercise it really wake me up and say, hey, you know what, I am important. I am good enough. So by doing this exercise more and more and communicating with yourself from within, you will find that you will feel a lot better about yourself, about how other people’s judgment to you.

Ziv: So how do you interpret it? Sounds like a really powerful exercise. How do you internalize it? How do you make it daily? How do you make it part of you?

Martha: What I actually say is actually a shower ritual, because when we see people’s lives, the only thing that they have time is one day in the shower. I will talk to actually cleanse ourselves from the forehead, from the top of our head to the forehead and all the way through our body. And we will actually say whatever bad that happened that day. So it’s like an expression of all our anger and frustration.

Not the day before, not the year before, but just on that day. So I could be saying I dropped my coffee. I stepped on my cat, I dropped two dollars, whatever that you wanted to say to but to say it out verbally so you can get that anger and frustration out of you. Afterward you go into your mirror and actually do this motion. It’s like walking off the steam of your view. This is the trigger for your brain to tell you it’s okay now, I’m going to give something good to you and then…

It’s a very simple exercise that is so powerful. The feedback that I got from some of my students is not until after the fourth day I could not stare at the mirror directly. Not many people actually look at the mirror and say, I’m beautiful. So by doing that, it really triggered something in them and say, hey, you know what? I am beautiful just the way I am.

Ziv: That’s so powerful. That’s beautiful. That’s beautiful. And that’s something you would say. Do it daily every day, stand in front of the mirror.

Martha: And these five sentence, if I have some of my students, is in a little bit of a bad situation or of not optimal mental state. I will ask them to do it as soon as they wake up in the morning and then as soon as they sleep right before they sleep at night as well to do it again. And you can always add to it.

It’s like you can actually say, like, I’m super confident I’m having the best day of my life. This will be the most amazing day I’m going to happen. And I am the rainbow. I’m the sunshine. Anything that you can actually cite, that will make you feel better. Do it. When on my dating days, this is what I do when I actually before I go on a date, I would tell myself I’m beautiful, I’m confident, I’m gorgeous. I’m a unicorn that brings happiness and joy to people’s life. So I will find the ideal partner of my life.

And guess what, I did!

Ziv: Of course. It can work also before interview, before any important or significant moment where we prime ourselves into the good parts inside.

Martha: Yes.

Ziv: That’s so powerful. If you could choose, that’s a really powerful daily habit, which I’m going to try and start practice on it from now on. And if you could, you could choose another habit, like for anyone that if we would do daily, we think our life will get better, our confidence will become stronger. What would it be?

Martha: It will be mind what you can control. Do not try to control things that you can’t control. For example, if someone tell you that you’re not good enough, it’s actually not you. It’s them because they’re not feeling good enough or having that insecurity in their life. That’s why that they actually were able to say something like that. But when they say something like that is out of your control, so why control something you cannot control? Instead of controlling them, control our mindset when they say we’re not good enough, we would change it and say it’s not their fault. It’s not my fault, it’s OK, and I am enough.

Ziv: That’s really powerful. How do I practice it? Because when I’m confronting someone that tells me that I’m not good enough, I’m so protective and defensive and I have no capacity to think about anything else except jumping on that person. And so how do how do we practice that?

Martha: I always try to be the nice person and I will actually say thank you for your opinion and I will consider it.

Ziv: And then you would go and how would you practice this mindset?

Martha: And actually swear or do whatever you want to do at the park so all the energy can actually go out and then say to yourself, OK, if this is something I control, I can control or not?

No, I can’t control what they say. I can’t control what they do. So what can I control? Me. OK, I’m going to control my mindset and change that from a negative thing and saying that, you know what, I actually feel sorry for them for having such negativity in life. So I’m the good person. And if I have extra to give, that is my blessing. So for my blessing, I know that I am in control and I’m within myself.

Ziv: That’s beautiful. So a few moments before we finish this interview, is there any other message you would like to bring out to the world? What would it be?

Martha: I would say to anyone that if I used to say, no, I don’t have a problem, I’m fine. When you actually say something that say I’m fine, that means you are not fine. Go and actually ask for help. Go and actually talk to the people who are professional, who actually know what they’re talking about. There’s a lot of people outside. Yes, I know. But you go and do your research and make sure that you find someone that you can trust.

As a coach, we do not have any judgment. We’re not here to judge you. We’re not here to tell you what to do. As a coach, we here to guide, support and inspire you. And believe it or not, all the answer is actually within you. And I love to bring that out for you. So I’m giving everyone a little tip over here. I do a one-hour empowerment session, they’re normally three hundred dollars Australian. But I’m going to be dipping one of you like all of you guys free of charge. This one is on me. So I want to help anyone who actually wants to get help. Don’t be afraid to reach out. I have people all around the world coming to me. I just want my mission is really to help women that you do not need to suffer in silence like what I did for 30 years. You don’t have to. Help is out there. So I hope that there’s a chance that we can connect and we can help you.

Ziv: Thank you so, so much for your wisdom, experience and generosity for this interview. Thank you very much.

Martha: Thank you for having me. It has been such a pleasure.