Beck - Steering by starlight: find your right life, no matter what!

T here are only so many ways to say thank you, so these acknowledgments will be rife with repetition. Trying to express the gratitude I feel toward everyone who contributed to this book, and who shored me up during its writing, is like trying to capture a sunrise by drawing with a stick in the dirt. As many thank yous as there are here, each is different to me; they have their own flavors and textures, and each is unique.

That said, I first must thank my clients, whose courage and determination to live their destinies inspire and motivate me every day. Without their example and their willingness to trust that well find their destiny together, I could never have developed the strategies or imagined the stories recounted in this book.

Thanks to my editor redoubtable Leigh Haber, project editor Nancy Bailey, designer Chris Rhoads, and all the good people at Rodale who were there to support the labor of writing, to hold the baby manuscript once it arrived, and care for it until it could stand on its own feet.

My fabulous literary agent, Suzanne Gluck, is a phenomenally concentrated source of intelligence, wit, heart, and savvy. Its a privilege to work with and learn from her. Amy Gray and Bill Stankey, agents in other fields, have put enormous energy into the work weve done together. Deep thanks to all of them.

More gratitude for the amazing people at O, The Oprah Magazine, including (but not limited to) my kind, long-suffering, and talented editor Mamie Healey, the inimitable Amy Gross, the irrepressible Gayle King, and the incomparable Oprah Winfrey. I would never have dared dream that Id be associated with a team so gifted, impressive, and kind.

Betsy Rapoports brilliant mind and sparkling, steadfast spirit have shaped my writing and my life for over a decade. I dont even want to imagine what my world would be like without her friendship. Annette Rogers is not only one of the best authors and editors I know, but also a dauntless companion always ready to offer wisdom, compassion, and generosity. To them, and to my other friends (oh, God, did I leave anyone out?) my most heartfelt thanks.

I cant begin to express my gratitude for the amazing people whove come to be trained in my life-coaching methods. They are very sweet to me and are very salty, as in the salt of the earth. Im so proud and happy our paths have crossed and that they continue to do so. My coaching tribe is an incredible blessing, and I love you all. Specifically, my life-coaching colleague Brooke Castillo is one of the most talented, compassionate, and ethical people Ive met in any business. Meadow DeVors combination of high humor and laser insight changed my life. Yvonne Morier is as dependable and trustworthy as sunshine. Im inexpressibly grateful to be working with them.

Koelle Simpson, gifted coach, horse whisperer, and all-around shaman, shares my passion for animals and has taught me so much through her gift for working with animals and humans, separately or in combination. Thank you, thank you.

Deep appreciation and amazed gratitude go out to all my friends in South Africa: inspired master coach Judy Klipin, Alex van der Heever, the whole Varty family, the personnel at O, The Oprah Magazine in SA.

Stacey Shively, Al Preble, and especially Kim Barber, have also devoted themselves to figuring out how adults learn, change, and find their own North Stars. I loved the time we spent working together and look to them for new insights, theoretical advances, and applications as life coaching develops in the coming decades. They are ground breakers whove already touched thousands of lives and will continue doing so. Again, I am so, so grateful.

John, Joni, and Joseph Parker have been gentle and blessed presences in my life. Johns spirit, care, advice, selflessness, and enormous compassion put me back together when Im frazzled into fragments.

Lydia Nibley, Russell Martin, Megan Nibley, and Sylvia Nibley have been willing to swim in the end of the gene pool where I paddle around. My gratitude for this leaves me speechlessand as my loved ones know all too well, I am rarely speechless.

Most of all, I must thank my wonderful, patient, loving, accepting, wise, supportive family: Kat the wizard, Adam the angel, Elizabeth the practical magician, and especially Karen the soul-guide, without whom I could never have learned to steer by starlight myself. If we really are commingled with everything in the universe, as physicists tell us we are, then my love for all of you permeates every star in the cosmos. It certainly feels that way.