Relationships

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

—James Baldwin

I had my reasons, of course. As I say, she is crazy. I am, too, but in a very different way. The immense effort it took for me to spend a whole day with her and ensure that it was “perfect”—that I did nothing to offend, upset, or bother her—proved to me that we just didn’t work. And I thought: When a relationship does not work, each party has the

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The way I think about coaching is very much how I think about parenting, and I think it translates in lots of other places, that your ability to drive change is about the quality of your relationship, not your hierarchy.

   "I want to talk about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all --- which is so important to --- to those we do not love. But it would be so different if we did. Because listening is a strange and magnetic thing, a creative force. You can see

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Instead of asking "Are you the one," ask two questions of each of you. Do I accept my partner despite their shortcomings? Do I commit to nurture them to achieve what is important to them? And likewise, do they accept me and do they commit to me? All you need is four yeses.

But when they say, “I’m thinking of leaving,” I think, Now hang on a sec. You had me right up to that last bit. Fine: you’ve changed; she’s changed; life has changed. And the kids—well, they’ve disrupted, interrupted, confronted, confounded, and otherwise fundamentally altered everything . All very, very hard. And yes, sometimes it feels

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