Mark McCartney reached out after Tim Leberecht mentioned my work on his podcast. Tim had been a guest on What is a Good Life?, and somewhere in that conversation, my name came up. One dialogue sparking another, which is how these things should work. As conversas são como as cerejas (“conversations are like cherries”, you can’t just eat one as one leads to another), the Portuguese saying goes.
Mark has interviewed over 300 people for his show, not to prescribe answers but to let their inquiries spark something in whoever listens. When I looked at his work, I understood immediately: this is someone who treats conversation as a practice, not a performance.
We talked about coherence. Not authenticity, a word so thoroughly colonised by personal branding that it now means its opposite. Coherence is something else: the coincidence between your values, your ideas, your feelings, and your actions. Especially when no one’s looking.
I told Mark it’s been the toughest task of my life. Not because coherence requires moral perfection. That would be rigidity, which is easier and leads to arrogance. Coherence is harder because it demands flexibility, curiosity, and the willingness to notice when you’ve drifted.
The conversation went to places I don’t usually go publicly: spirituality in everyday life, parenting as a test of alignment, helping without imposing. We spent time on quiet activism, and on something adjacent that I’m still working out: stubbornness. Not the defensive kind that closes down, but the kind that sustains a way of being despite pressure to abandon it. The insistence on showing up in a particular way, paying attention to the small things that most people rush past. Coherence isn’t built in grand gestures. It’s built in the gaps, in what you do when it doesn’t seem to matter.
Mark handles silence well. He doesn’t fill it. He lets it do its work, rare in a world where silence has become something to optimise away. Watching him use pause as an integral part of conversation reminded me why I keep insisting that meaningful dialogue is underrated as a tool for change. It’s not about what you say. It’s about the quality of attention you bring.
We ended on not knowing as a practice. Which felt right.
(Thank you, Tim, for the spark.)
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