In the summer of 2005, I came home from a fellowship in South America homeless, jobless and not quite broke. From that inauspicious starting point, Authentic Conversations proved to be the catalyst for a job, true love, a husband, and the most amazing, magical partnership I have ever experienced. I met my co-author and now husband, Jamie, on August 16, 2005 at a coffee shop in Phoenix, not far from where we live now. After nearly 25 years in newspaper journalism, I was searching for a new career and a job coach had advised me to interview people who were doing work I might be interested in. Through a mutual friend, Jamie had agreed to meet with me so I could pick his brain about his business consulting practice, which he established in 1989. When he walked through the door and said, "Are you Maren?" I was a little taken aback. He bore no resemblance to what I had imagined a business consultant might look like. He was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. An earring dangled from his left ear and he had a baseball cap on backward. Definitely not what I expected. My first thought was, "Who hires this guy?" About 30 minutes into our converation, I totally understood why people hired him. This bald guy with the silver goatee soon began to defrost my cynical heart. The two hours we spent together in the coffee shop that day was the beginning of a fascinating, authentic conversation that has yet to conclude. He mentioned he'd been trying to get a book written, and asked if I would be interested in looking at a box of materials he had gathered to see if I thought there was a book there. Those materials articulated ideas I had long believed about the ways people should be viewed and treated at work and in life. There was a book there, and I was interested. Within a few weeks I had joined the business, a decision that expanded my world and lead to love. On a perfect day in April 2006, we vowed to take full accountability for each other's success and for the success of our relationship, both personal and professional. We wrote the book in the spring of 2007 in a collaboration that was remarkable for its lack of conflict or dissonance. It was published in 2008. Our partnership is just another example of the wonderful things that can spring from Authentic Conversations. And by the way, when he cleans up to work with clients, he's everything I had imagined a consultant would look like, and more.