It Is That Simple
This wasn’t the title I had planned for this week’s newsletter.
That changed yesterday after a call with my coach Ankush.
To be honest, he is on fire right now.
We are five sessions into our latest programme together and the way he is showing up just keeps moving the needle of what looks possible to me.
I started our session by sharing what I had been noticing about him. Not just as a coach to me, but in the way he serves people everywhere he goes.
People who will never pay him.
People he has nothing to gain from.
And yet he just keeps showing up for the person in front of him. Again and again and again.
I had a story that I could show up this way for clients because that was my work, but to live like that everywhere felt draining. Unsustainable.
After speaking for probably ten minutes, I finally landed on the real question underneath everything.
“How do you keep serving so powerfully everywhere you go and keep it sustainable?”
He asked me one question.
“Peter, how do you get the results you get in the gym?”
I answered immediately.
“Consistency.”
His reply was simple.
“There you go. Do you need me to say any more?”
Silence.
My mind started racing.
It can’t be that simple.
But at the same time… I knew he had nailed it.
Consistency is my superpower in the gym.
I never question whether training hard is sustainable because I understand recovery.
I sleep well.
I eat well.
I hydrate.
I prioritise protein.
I recover.
So why would this be different?
And suddenly it was obvious.
It isn’t different.
I had simply created a story that showing up consistently in service to people would eventually drain me.
But it wasn’t true.
It was just a story.
A limitation I had innocently created that was standing in the way of what was already and always possible.
Ankush didn’t need to say much more after that.
For the rest of the session, we explored consistency, simplicity, commitment and service.
The big thing I want from this year working with Ankush is to know that I can coach anybody and to be that.
And we talked about how that starts long before a coaching session.
It starts with being willing to serve the person in front of me.
Whoever they are.
Wherever I am.
If I hold back, if I become timid, that future never gets created.
We also talked about my commitment to my document.
About what becomes possible if I go deeper with my commitment to it.
Simple again. I expand my being.
Not 10% more.
But two times more.
Five times more.
Ten times more.
Not just as a coach.
As a human being.
At the end of the session, I wrote three words at the bottom of my page and circled them.
Consistency. Simplicity. Service.
Everything suddenly looked so simple.
And every story I had ever created about the next level of coaching being complicated or difficult started to fall away.
What if the next level in coaching, leadership, relationships, health…even life itself, is much simpler than I have been thinking?
What if it’s mostly about being clear about what I want… and then consistently showing up in alignment with that?
Not occasionally.
Not emotionally.
Consistently.
This morning I messaged Ankush.
“I think our call yesterday unlocked a door… which of course never actually existed… into a world of possibility I had never seen before. Watch this space.”
This morning, without those old stories to hold onto, everything felt lighter.
Simpler.
More available.
I’ve spent the last few hours simply serving the people in front of me from a place of love and having so much fun doing it.
As I finish this, I’m sharing a short clip from the movie Bleed for This … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9lsfIWp9Fo
It captures this idea beautifully.
One line says:
“The truth is, it’s simple. It ain’t easy. But it’s simple.”
That feels very true to me right now.
What if it really is that simple?
Much love
Peter