About David Kummer
On a Sunday afternoon in November 2014, everything I had spent a lifetime building dissolved in an instant.
My marriage of 28 years. The home where we raised our children. The carefully constructed identity of a successful man in complete control of his life. Gone. And in the wreckage of that afternoon — sobbing on the floor, completely broken — something extraordinary happened. . .
The suffering stopped.
Not gradually. Not through therapy or discipline or force of will. Instantly. In the space of complete surrender, a profound and permanent peace arrived. An awareness that was unmistakably me, but was not my mind, not my body, not the character I had spent four decades carefully constructing. Something underneath all of it. Something that had apparently been waiting patiently the whole time.
That experience changed everything. It is the foundation of every conversation I have as a coach. It is why I know — not theoretically, but from the inside — that peace is not something you chase. It is something you uncover.
The long road to that afternoon
I grew up in Los Angeles, the youngest of three boys in a family that fell apart early. My parents divorced when I was twelve. I watched my mother survive a suicide attempt. I found my way through adolescence with too much anger, too much alcohol, and a growing collection of what I came to call coats — layers of control, pride, and performance built over a frightened boy who had never found healthy ways to hold his pain.
I was also, somehow, relentless. I pulled a 1.0 GPA to a 4.0 through sheer will. I talked my way into a university that had rejected me by walking in and telling the complete truth. I graduated with honors, built a career, raised two extraordinary children, and spent 30 years as a business owner and partner in a successful insurance brokerage.
From the outside, it looked like everything. From the inside, I was orchestrating a symphony that played over and over in my head, constantly reminding me of how happy and successful I was.
Then the dam burst.
What the breaking open revealed
In the months and years that followed, I immersed myself completely in understanding what had happened. I read voraciously — across Buddhism, Vedanta, Christian mysticism, Jewish contemplative tradition, and modern psychology. I sat with teachers. I did the deep inner work on the wounded self I had been carrying since childhood.
And slowly, a framework emerged. Not borrowed from a training program or a certification course. Distilled from lived experience, from the wisdom traditions I had studied, and from the profound gift of watching others find their way through the same terrain.
I called it P.E.A.C.E.
Put an end to suffering. Eliminate conflict. Awaken joy. Cultivate fulfillment. Experience abundance.
Five thresholds. One journey. The same journey I had taken — and continue to take every day.
Who I work with
My clients are people who have built successful lives and find themselves quietly wondering if this is all there is. People who have achieved everything they set out to achieve and feel an emptiness they cannot name. People at an inflection point — a career transition, a loss, a marriage ending or beginning, a milestone birthday — who sense that something deeper is available if they could only find the door.
I was this person. I know this terrain. I am not a guide who studied the map from a distance. I walked it. I got lost in it. And I found what was waiting on the other side.
I don't offer quick fixes. I offer genuine partnership — honest, direct, and grounded in the belief that everything you are looking for is already within you. The work is simply to remove what has been layered over it.
David holds a BA in Psychology from UC Santa Barbara and is a certified Positive Intelligence coach. He has spent 16 years as a member of YPO and 19 years with Vistage, where he engaged with thousands of business and personal challenges alongside fellow leaders.
If something in these words is speaking to you — that is not an accident.
