Mike and I wanted to avoid any problems down the road by formalizing our coauthor partnership structure for this book. The easy part is we are completely on the same page that we are 50/50 equals and we have built a great working relationship on other things in the past. The only small difference that I vainly wanted was that my name would appear first in the author credit line. That was the easy part, but the devil is certainly in the details on things. There are a bunch of scenarios to plan for and agree to how we handle them up front. Some are nice to think about: What if the market begs us to write sequel after sequel? What if we sell a lot of training and speaking engagements based on the work? What if George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Frances Ford Coppola beg us to let them turn it into the next film blockbuster? I can already hear that deep movie preview voice introducing our film ... "In a world starving for a new 'leadership in the workplace' book...". I wonder if Brad Pitt is available to play me. Should I have them remove all the green M&Ms from my trailer? ... OK, got carried away a bit there, but you get the picture. The wild part is thinking about some other scenarios that are not quite as fun to think about but smart to plan for. What if one of us can't hit our deadlines? What if one of us just goes AWOL? Very unlikely but worth covering. Good thing is that Mike had an agreement he had drafted by an attorney for a previous effort that we could use as a starting point. After my attorney reviews and we make some minor tweaks over several review cycles, we finally got it finalized. Today. Now I am ready to start writing and editing prose aimed at real people, not attorneys. "Herein, we shall make all reasonable efforts to never use the word "Herein", in electronic or hard copy format, in The Work..." OK, now back to being nervously excited about our first live call with a potential publisher tomorrow afternoon.