A Real Game Changer I love to read.
Right now, I’m in the middle of two books.
I’ve been reading The Way of Mastery for months. I’m even in a small group with my good friends Deryl Sweeney and Johannes Metzler. Occassionally we get together to share what we’ve been taking from it.
I think it may end up being the most important book I’ve ever read. It really is that good.
The other book I’m reading is Awakening the Coach Within by my coach Ankush Jain.
It’s his second book. His first, Sweet Sharing , came out a few years ago. I’ve read that one twice and shared it with many of my clients.
But Awakening the Coach Within is on a different level.
I’m only halfway through it, but I genuinely think it could become one of the most important books for anyone starting the journey of building a coaching practice.
It reads almost like a journal. Stories, steps, stages and insights from Ankush’s early years training as a coach and building his practice while still working full time in a corporate job.
It’s honest. Raw. Vulnerable.
He opens up about the highs and lows of becoming a coach, both experientially and emotionally.
If you’re a coach just getting started, you should read it. There’s a huge amount in it.
Even if you’ve been coaching for years, it’s worth reading. It will remind you of your own journey and bring back nuggets of wisdom you may have forgotten along the way.
Anyway…
A few days ago, I was reading a chapter about the early stages of Ankush’s coaching relationship with Steve Chandler.
In what I think was his first paid session with Steve, Ankush raised the issue of a client who hadn’t shown up for a meeting.
Steve talked with him about how he wouldn’t work with someone who didn’t keep their agreements. He coached Ankush on how he might help this client change his relationship with commitment.
Then Ankush wrote this line:
“He explained that if my client’s words didn’t mean anything to him, then his self-esteem was low. He didn’t trust his own words.”
Those words stopped me in my tracks.
In that moment I saw something I hadn’t really seen before.
If I don’t keep my word to myself…it probably isn’t a discipline issue. It’s a self-esteem issue.
That realisation landed hard.
I’ve heard versions of this idea many times before.
From Ankush. From Steve Hardison. From Steve Chandler.
I’ve heard people talk about keeping your word. I’ve been on courses that talked a lot about integrity and being someone who does what they say they’re going to do.
I’ve coached clients on it.
I’ve even heard people say that if you don’t keep your word, then your word doesn’t mean much to you.
If you’d asked me a week ago, I’d have told you I fully understood the importance of being someone who keeps their word … not just for others, but for themselves.
But something about these words hit differently.
They felt like they jumped off the page and slapped me around the face.
I know I’ve always been someone who likes to keep their word with other people.
That’s one of the consequences of growing up as a people pleaser. I probably attached some degree of morality to it without realising. Keeping your word was good. Not keeping your word was bad.
And I much preferred to be seen as good in the eyes of others.
But when it came to keeping my word to myself?
That was a different story.
Years of seeing myself through the lenses of not good enough and I don’t really matter had left their mark.
I had heard the teaching that being your word has nothing to do with good or bad or right or wrong.
But now I’m not sure I had really moved beyond that frame.
Until I read those words this week, I had never connected not keeping my word with low self-esteem.
I had never really seen that saying something to someone, or to myself, and then not following through might simply mean that my words didn’t mean very much to me.
That I didn’t trust them.
That I had a weak relationship with my own word.
And that is all significant, because I know my language is always creating.
As I sat there reading and re-reading that line, it suddenly felt obvious.
What else could it be?
In the past this would have sent me into a spiral of self-criticism. I would have beaten myself up for not seeing it sooner.
But my relationship with myself has changed a lot in recent years.
Especially since I created my document.
Part of one of the lines in my document declares:
“I am a man of my word.”
Living with a document is a bit like climbing a mountain without a summit.
Just when you think you’re close to the top, more of the mountain appears.
What was refreshing in that moment was the possibility I saw.
Possibility to strengthen my relationship with my word.
Possibility to strengthen my relationship with myself.
Possibility that my life becomes more impactful by becoming someone who really does what he says he will do … not just for others, but for himself.
In that moment, I made a quiet commitment to change my relationship with my word.
I know it won’t be perfect.
But I’ll be coming from a very different place with the words I use and the things I say I’m going to do.
And I have a feeling it’s going to make a big difference.
I’m excited to see what emerges as I lean more deeply into being my document by being my word.
This single insight is still giving me goosebumps and feels like it could be a real game-changer.
Much love