Back in 1985, in the early stages of writing my Master’s Thesis in Philosophy on The Anatomy of Self-Overcoming in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, I asked my thesis advisor  if I could do my thesis in the form of a parable just like my favorite book by Nietzsche entitled Thus Spoke Zarathustra . She was quick to douse my enthusiasm: "This is an academic paper. Write it academically. After you graduate you can write whatever you want, in whatever form you choose."

I completed my thesis in the manner she requested, and while the idea of going ahead and writing a creative work quite appealed to me once I had graduated, the urgency of real-world considerations soon kicked in. I needed to find a job to support myself and make my way in the world. With my Philosophy degree the only job I could find at first was as a bartender, then a courier, and then after a year of re-training I became a computer programmer. It took me a full 8 years to face the fact that programming was not for me, and I broke away from it by traveling to Korea to work as an English professor at the University of Seoul. Upon my return to Canada, I tried out briefly as an arts administrator and then as an actor. While I felt I was starting to move closer to what I was meant to do, I still didn't feel that I had found it. And in the back of my mind, writing a creative work still felt like a part of it.

It was only in 2003 when an emerging field called life coaching was brought to my attention that things started to truly come together. I decided to get professional coaching training, and from that I founded Dao Coaching (for more information about my company and coaching in general, click here). It was during the training that a very important thought occurred to me: there is a new conversation in our society, and this conversation has the power to transform our lives and our world. Much of what I have learned from the experiences I am drawn to in my life seemed to crystallize brilliantly in this single thought. And so it was not long before I stood up and made a commitment to my fellow coaching students that I was going to write a book entitled Parables for the New Conversation. While it took almost twenty years for me to take up my thesis advisor's off-handed suggestion, I realize now that I would not really have been ready to write this book back then, as many of the experiences I have gone through since have been invaluable in informing the perspective I present in the book. As I got deeper into the writing, I came to see that each twist and turn of my life had its purpose, and my whole eclectic journey finally started to makes sense to me.