This is what the next chapter of the practice looks like: more platform, more writing, more development of the frameworks I have been building through practice into something transferable. It is the natural evolution of the work, and it is work that I am excited about in the way that I am excited about very little else.
Daniel knows this. It is part of how things are now: he knows the things I am excited about, and I know his, and we talk about them, and there is a version of our marriage that is more fully what I thought we were building when we started.
That version is available now. We have to keep building it, carefully and with our eyes open, but it is there.
## What I Would Tell Someone Starting a Consultancy
I want to include this section not because it is directly about the story, but because I have thought about it a lot in the context of this year, and because it is practical.
If you are leaving a salaried job to start an independent practice, the professional advice I would give you is the standard advice: have clients before you leave, have savings, have a professional listing somewhere so that people looking for someone with your specific background can find you. Keep your network active. Say yes to things that build the practice even when they don’t pay well; say no to things that pay but don’t build it.
The personal advice is less standard: tell your family what you are doing. Not a detailed briefing, not a presentation, just a clear and accurate account of what your work is and how it works. Not because you owe them a full explanation, but because the alternative — a vague description that can be heard as something it is not — creates problems that are entirely preventable.