The Client wrote down the first of many new ideas:

“What's the easiest commitment you can make?” the Coach asked. The Client was silent.

“As we begin this journey, it would be useful to understand commitment. Commitment is a huge part of results; you see that, right? But what may be equally powerful is understanding the nature of commitment. Because if we understand the nature of a thing, we understand how it works and how to use it. Right?”

The words resonated with the Client. His engineering background was going to serve him well here. He was ready to commit to something other than who he was, right now. He desperately wanted a change, even though he bailed out because he didn't think he could get there. He was settling into the conversation.

He didn't know what was waiting for him in five days.

“Have you heard of Imogen Cooper?” the Coach asked him. He had not. “She is one of the greatest concert pianists in the world. At the ripe old age of twelve, she decided she was unhappy and unsatisfied with the conservatory work she was doing. She wanted more than what her teachers could give. So her parents investigated opportunities in two places: Paris and Moscow.”

“Where was she living at the time?” the Client wondered, recognizing that those two capitals were a long way from the capital of Texas.

“She was in North London. Her parents decided to enroll her in a French music school. The choice was regarded by many as a mistake: pulling her out of a traditional educational environment so that she could concentrate solely on the piano seemed … extreme. Cooper devoted herself for the next six years to becoming a concert pianist, seeing her family only on holidays, living and learning in Paris year-round. Was this kind of commitment too harsh, too much to ask? Some folks in the UK thought so. But no. Not for her. Not for Imogen Cooper.

“I'm sure the training was rigorous, the hours were long, the practice sessions intense. For someone else, it might have looked impossible. Leaving home before seventh grade, living in a foreign country, making the kinds of commitments necessary to become a virtuoso – can you imagine? But for Imogen Cooper, the commitment didn't look difficult, or arduous, or extraordinary. Do you know why?”

“Perhaps she was insane,” the Client offered.

“Artistic brilliance can look like madness sometimes,” the Coach said, chuckling, “unless that brilliance is part of your identity. What might seem like an impossible commitment to you or me was a much easier choice for her. Not without difficulties and challenges, but her choice was a commitment made easier by this one single factor.”

The Client remembered learning to play piano as a kid. What could have made it easier? He wished he had known that back then, but sports and girls and other things captured his imagination more so than sharps and flats.

He reflected on the commitments he had to make in order to move into his current career, and his current position. He was no stranger to commitment: he'd been at his current company for ten years. His commitment – his career – was a huge part of his identity. He wanted that identity to change. He was here to discover how to make that change and make it easier.

The Client saw that the Coach was asking him to commit to himself. “A commitment is what is required to create any progress in your life. A commitment to your identity. Because nothing is easier than committing to be who you are.”

The Client wrote down the words.

The Client heard something inside the words. A commitment to himself. That felt like a lazy Sunday afternoon. Getting stuff done but doing things on your own terms and your own time. Because you always commit to yourself on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, beyond his career, he wasn't sure he knew who he was. In five days, he would find out.