There’s a loneliness in leadership that creeps in quietly. It shows up even when you’re surrounded by people, leading meetings, signing deals, or being praised in the press. It has nothing to do with being alone physically. It’s about not feeling seen for who you are beneath the role, the title, the influence. It’s a lack of connection and we need to connect as humans. We are literally wired for it.  

A client said to me recently how she’d heard the quote, ‘you write the book you need’ and how she had turned to her friend and said, ‘that’s Mari.’ In some respects she was right, and wrong about the book I’ve written – ‘It begins with you.’ I wrote the book I had needed way back when I began my journey. However, the new book I’m writing is a book I needed decades ago and yet, like the quote, it is the book I still need in some contexts and, as I’m now hearing, the one you may need.