My journey to become a relationship coach began many years ago when I was involved in a difficult, frustrating, and painful relationship. Before that relationship started, I had been going through some personally challenging times, while also recognizing that I needed to make some changes. In reflecting on my life, I realized that I was repeating the same relationship mistakes, yet I was not learning anything. My actions epitomized at least one definition of insanity: To do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

I committed myself to finding answers to questions that remained unanswered for too long. I began my quest by reading and learning everything I could about relationships and myself. I ordered so many books from Amazon.com that I kept waiting for the CEOs personal thank you note! And my quest continued. I attended lectures and seminars, found a wonderful therapist, and even hired a personal coach.

Though the process took time, I began to gain a conscious awareness and understanding of myself, which allowed me to move past my denials. I identified my fears and false beliefs, took absolute personal responsibility for my actions, and healed old emotional wounds. Then I began to learn, stretch, grow, mature, and change. That evolution cultivated the Emotional Intelligence necessary to ask some brutally honest questionsabout myself and my relationships with others.

As the journey progressed, I was relieved to learn that I was not crazy. Nevertheless, I started to grasp the underlying reasons why my I was responsible for many of the problems within myself and in my past relationships. I recognized that I had not taken the time, nor put forth the effort, to gain the awareness, the knowledge, and the skills to understand these questions:

Where did I come from and how does my past affect who I am today?

Who am I today and how does my current self affect my relationships with others?

Where do I want to go and what do I need to do today to get there?

During this awakening, I became conscious of a passion resonating inside me. I realized I wanted to help others gain the same awareness, knowledge, and skills necessary to answer the same questions. Ultimately, I discovered the role of relationship coaching as a catalyst in guiding couples along their own journey to Co-Create successful relationships.

At that point, the concept of The Journey from I-TO-WE was not only born but literally began to take on a life of its own. The process has created a powerful and positive transformation in my life, and has become my passion and career. I like to say that couples must have a fulfilled and healthy I to live every day with a positive attitude, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts and, most importantly, peace in their souls TO have a loving and successful WE.

The Journey from I-TO-WE shows couples how to gain the awareness, learn the skills, and practice the techniques to be Best Friends during the Day, Lovers at Night, and Partners for Life. My structured coaching program -- Co-Create a Conscious Relationship -- provides the focus and content of the book. This is the actual process I employ to coach my clients and help them gain the awareness, learn the skills, and practice the techniques for 22 areas of their relationships.

We all know that marriage is extremely difficult and challenging. According to recent statistics, the chance of a first marriage ending in divorce over a 40-year period is 67%, with half of all divorces occurring in the first seven years. Some studies find the divorce rate for second marriages is as much as 10% higher than for first-timers.

Even more alarming is a finding from a University of Michigan study by Lois Verbrugge and James House. They determined that an unhappy marriage could increase a persons chances of illness by roughly 35%, and even shorten a life by an average of four years. People who are happily married live longer, healthier lives than either divorced people or those who are unhappily married.

The Journey from I-TO-WE is the culmination of a dream. It is my privilege and passion to help couples find a way to a safe, loving, peaceful, joyous, and passionate relationship for the rest of their lives. I hope this book can help you and your partner on your journey to love the one youre with and live the life you both want to love.

Divorced, I have taken part in many failed relationships, and made numerous mistakes in my life. These painful experiences led me on my journey to research and learn all I could about myself along with the ability to have a happy and successful relationship. My hope is that I can help you avoid the same mistakes I made.

As I read books, attended seminars, and spoke with many experienced and learned individuals, I realized I wanted to accomplish two things: one, to empower myself to gain my own awareness and develop the skills to facilitate my own successful relationship; and two, to find a way to help couples accomplish the same.

Many brilliant and dedicated men and women have researched and developed successful skills and techniques to help couples find safety, friendship, trust, respect, admiration, joy, passion, and love in their relationships. Each of these wonderful people has written books and workbooks to assist couples in areas of their expertise. Such masters include Dr. Harville Hendrix and his concept of Imago, Dr. John Gottman and his outstanding research into the interactions of couples, Daniel Goleman and his theory of Emotional Intelligence, and Dr. Patricia Love and Jo Robinson in their approach for couples to have passionate intimacy in their relationships.

My concept for this program was to model the best of the best in each of the most important areas. I then blended their ideas with my own life experiences and the knowledge gained from my research and coaching couples. The Co-Create a Conscious Relationship program, as a result, uniquely encompasses all of the crucial areas and aspects of a couples relationship and presents them in a simple, powerful, and, most importantly, practical format.