I’d known him for 7 years when, in 1995, I hired him as my “partner-in crime,” and my intellectual sounding board. Officially he was a consultant on an internaltional venture.

That week he’d introduced me to my counterparts in the UK — 23 meetings in 10 days. After the last meeting, he suggested a leisurely lunch on the next day, before I left for Heathrow. . . .

We’re close friends, but I didn’t know about lunch.

Finally, I said, “Only if you show up. I don’t want to see the guy who’s been with me all week — I want the person I know.”

Lunch was at a small bistro. The fruit creme brulé was spectacular. The wine was wonderful. The conversation was even more than I’d hoped for.

My friend had one way to be in business and another in real life. I suppose that’s not so uncommon. . . .

But that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Does it?

Steve Farber, was working for Tom Peters way back then. Now he’s a leadership coach and author of Radical Leap and Radical Edge, a two-book narrative on extreme leadership and personal growth. He’s got words for what I was thinking and where I want to go.

In Radical Edge, the characters — Steve, himself, is one — call what I’m thinking of finding your frequency. They say these things about it in a scene over dinner.

“The first thing we have to do is find our frequency, find our station, the one thing that clearly expresses who we are at our core.”

“You have no business, no money no life without yourself right at the center.”

“I don’t know how much of that I could have accomplished if I hadn’t found my frequency.

Steve wrote the book, and he questioned the idea, “Human beings are more complicated than than that.”

He got this answer.

“Yes they are, But it’s not about finding your frequency by ruling out everything else; on the contrary, it’s about finding the frequency that includes all those other important values and ideals. The very act of trying to wrap it all up is what’s really important, because in order to do so, you have . . . define them, think them through, understand them to their core, and evaluate your life against each one.”

I can’t quit thinking about how much sense that makes. It’s the extreme added-value of relationships to really “show up” at the table. It’s the “authentic voice” of leadership, of being who I am I could argue that it’s what my gene pool was designed for.

Talk about finding a way to make a life, change the world, and have no regrets that you’ve used what you’ve got.

If you know what you value, you value what you have to offer.

I’m tuning out the static, to home in on my signal.

Can you hear me now?

Is this better?

Imagine what we can do when we can actually hear each other.