Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
ISBN 978‑0‑307‑59083‑1
eBook ISBN 978‑0‑307‑59085‑5
Jacket design by
Jacket photographs:
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First Edition
Acknowledgments 187
Index 190
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ing gene? And if I called her every time my baby had a hiccup,
how would I ever learn to be the perfect mother without her?
Was she nothing more than a giant crutch?
A few days later I realized that I didn’t want her to give
me the answers. What I wanted to learn from her class wasn’t
what to do when the baby hiccuped; it was to trust in myself
to figure it out. I didn’t want her to teach me to become the
perfect mom; I wanted her to teach me to become an empow-
ered mom, one who trusted herself and her instincts. When I
brought this up to her privately, she replied candidly, “If I did
that, I would be out of a job.”
I got it. Her entire career was thriving because we live
in a society in which self-trust is not encouraged. We are ex-
pected to look outside of ourselves for answers. We are sup-
posed to go to an expert every time the going gets rough. But
the secret no one wants to tell you is that when it comes to
your life, you are the expert. Not the Baby Coach, not the
self-help guru, not the rabbi. You.
Of course, we all have teachers—people who can share
suggestions, ideas, and perspectives based on their expe-
riences and wisdom. The Jewish tradition says, “To find a
teacher is to find a friend.”* We are supposed to have many
teachers in our lives who are true friends, people who make
us better by guiding and empowering us. But they are never
supposed to replace us as the architects of our own lives.
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That is why I promise you this book will not tell you
how to live your life. After all, we’ve never met; I don’t know
whether you should get married, get divorced, have another
child, start a business, etc. I, like you, am just trying to figure
out those questions and many more each day myself.
I can’t be your “expert.” But I can be your teacher and
your friend.
I can’t tell you which room to exit or enter, but I can help
you change the way you respond to the decisions and tran-
sitions you face. I can help you look inside yourself for the
answers—and help you find them. There is no secret formula
or pill that will instantly transform you into someone who
embraces change, thrives on it. But there are teachable skills
and techniques that can help ease the passage through these
hallways of your life. And if you are open to learning them,
then I promise you that with practice you will no longer
see these thresholds as obstacles; you will see them as op-
portunities. Rather than feeling fear you will feel excitement.
Rather than immobilized you will be motivated. Rather than
powerless you will feel powerful.
It is not going to be easy or simple. Most things of real
value and meaning are not. Crossing thresholds, even antici-
pated ones, is complicated and challenging and can take time
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