A life asks three things of us: the work we give ourselves to, the people we are bound to, and the self we have to live inside and answer for.
I work across all three, because they do not stay apart.
Mountaineering, years ago, taught me what it is to guide: not to know the route — on the climbs that mattered, no one had been up before — but to know the conditions, to see where the ground gives way, and to keep a party fed and happy (bland expedition food, garnished with soy sauce and chilli) while they find the way themselves. Since then I have spent my life one step from those who lead — as counsellor and coach, trained to work psychodynamically, with individuals and with groups — and by building enterprises of my own, close enough to know the burden intimately, far enough to see what those inside it cannot. What I actually offer is simpler than any of that. I stay, and I help people see what is really happening and what it is they most want. The word company means those who share bread; that, in the end, is what this is — and occasionally, for a short while, the carrying of a load that has become too heavy to carry alone.