He was supportive at home and he told a different story outside it. This is a coherence failure. I do not know exactly when he became aware of the incoherence; I think probably earlier than his behavior suggested.
## What Julia Reyes Knew
Julia Reyes and I met four years ago at an Alliance networking event, before I had even decided to go independent. She is forty-two and has worked for the Alliance in various capacities for twelve years; she currently manages their speaker development and referral programming. She has a specific way of evaluating speakers that I have always found useful: she looks for whether someone can explain the practical application before they explain the theory. A lot of people in process improvement lead with the theory. Julia’s speakers lead with the thing in front of them.
When I went independent, Julia was the first person outside my immediate professional network that I told. She was supportive in the practical way that is more useful than the emotional way: she helped me set up my profile in the directory correctly, reviewed my initial workshop description for clarity, connected me with two of my first Alliance clients.
She knew about my marriage in only the most general terms — she knew I was married, had met Daniel briefly at one Alliance event, had not formed a particular impression of him. She did not know that his family thought I was unemployed. I had not told her, partly because it was embarrassing and partly because it had not felt relevant to our professional relationship.