Midlife can feel like a crossroads with more questions than maps. For Peter Reek (’89), it became the place where calling began. A Trinity Western University alumnus, author, and leadership coach, Reek has dedicated his work to helping people rediscover meaning when life feels uncertain. Through his company InHabit.Life, combining coaching, counselling, and retreat experiences, and his new book, SHIFT, he walks with people who feel their sense of purpose slipping and shows them that life may just be beginning again.
Through InHabit.Life and SHIFT, Reek helps people reimagine the second half of life. “The single biggest determinant in what people’s midlife experience will be is the mindset that they bring to it,” he said. “If they can only look at what they lose rather than what they gain, that does not set them up for a positive transition.”
Beginnings at TWU
When Reek first arrived on campus in the mid-1980s, he dreamed of becoming an aviator. “I came in 1985 and graduated in 1989, but ultimately that did not pan out because you could not have corrected vision back then if you wanted to become a pilot,” he said. So, he joined the business program instead and quickly found another calling: people.
Reek became editor of The Pillar, the University yearbook, and later president of the student association. “Trinity Western was a real opportunity to spread my wings,” he said. “I really credit those junior and senior years with birthing something in me. That’s a strength I bring to the work I do now: creating from concept to completion.”
The long apprenticeship
After graduation, Reek entered the world of marketing and human capital, where he learned to read not just data but people. He managed hiring teams for major Canadian companies, opened recruiting centres, and led overseas projects in the United Kingdom and Australia. “I worked at the intersection of people and brand,” he said. “It was busy and exciting, but I reached a point where I wanted my work to go deeper than results on a spreadsheet.”
That search led him back to school for a master’s degree in applied positive psychology, where he began studying midlife transition as both a psychological and spiritual passage. His research became a revelation. “I realized that midlife can actually be a time of awakening,” he said. “It’s a time to integrate who we’ve been with who we are still becoming.”
From that seed grew InHabit.Life, a community that brings together coaching, counselling, and reflective retreats built around walking experiences, reflection, and small groups that help people move through change with purpose. “I want to inspire people to think about what’s still possible,” he said. “This is not about decline; it’s about becoming whole.”
Pilgrimage & the work of renewal
Earlier this fall, Reek led 13 strangers along the Portuguese Coastal Camino, a 280-kilometre pilgrimage that begins in Porto, Portugal, and ends at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. For centuries, Christians have walked the Camino as a sacred journey of prayer and renewal, seeking a deeper relationship with God through quiet reflection and endurance. Even though not everyone on Reek’s trip shared the same faith, each person found the experience deeply meaningful.
“The Camino is really about leaving lighter,” Reek said. “We walk through life, and there are stressful points. You raise kids, you look after parents, and you figure out what everything means to you. There are things to let go of and things to hold on to.”
Those experiences became the inspiration for his book SHIFT and the Shift Sessions, a live event launching alongside the book. The sessions bring together storytelling, guided reflection, and practical psychology for people navigating life’s turning points. Nearly 400 people registered.
“It’s a vulnerable act to release a book into the world because you don’t know how people are going to receive it,” Reek said. “But I wanted to make something people could apply, something that helps them ask better questions and answer them honestly.”
The message of SHIFT
His book SHIFT is organized around three commitments and seven mindset shifts. Each chapter ends with a reflection summary and questions for readers to consider, giving people space to pause and think.
His goal is to offer language and practices that are hopeful but real. “You can’t avoid change,” he said, “but you can choose how you meet it.” The book invites readers to see midlife not as a season of endings but as one of re-creation, where purpose grows again from what remains.
Although SHIFT is written for a broad audience, Reek’s Christian faith shapes its heart. The belief that every person is made in the image of God quietly threads through his work. “My faith is deeply important to me,” he said. “But I’m writing for those who might not have grown up in the church. I still want them to know that renewal and meaning are possible for everyone.”
A friendship that shaped the work
The book carries a dedication to someone who deeply influenced Reek’s life and the life of the University. Malcolm Cameron served as TWU’s campus chaplain from 1988 to 1990 and later founded the Peace Portal Counselling Centre, where thousands found healing and hope.
When Cameron was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, Reek watched his friend’s light fade slowly. In SHIFT, Reek writes in the dedication: “His absence is felt in ways big and small, in stories unfinished and spaces left empty. This book is for you, my friend. Your light lives on.”
Reek had hoped to build InHabit.Life’s counselling centre with Cameron by his side. Though that plan changed, the spirit of their friendship still anchors Reek’s work.
Walking each other home
Today, InHabit.Life continues to grow. What began as a single retreat has turned into a movement of people learning to walk through change with courage and kindness. Whether in a crowded room at a Shift Session or on a quiet coastal trail, Reek reminds people that life’s middle years can be a beginning, not an ending.
“Midlife is not a crisis,” Reek said. “It’s an invitation.”
His story is one of grace rippling outward, reminding readers that even when life rearranges the furniture, God still makes room for a future that’s bright.
Story by Netanya Castillo.
About TWU Alumni
We invite our alumni community to continue to participate in the life of the University. Our desire is to nurture an engaged and flourishing global community of alumni by cultivating meaningful relationships and creating engaging alumni experiences. Learn more at TWU Alumni.
About Trinity Western University
Founded in 1962, Trinity Western University is a global Christian liberal arts university dedicated to equipping students for life. Uniting faith and reason through Christian teaching and scholarship, TWU is a research institution offering undergraduate and graduate degrees in the humanities and sciences as well as in several professional schools. TWU has its main campus in Langley, B.C. and campus sites in Richmond, B.C. and Ottawa, Ont. Learn more at www.twu.ca or follow us on Instagram @trinitywestern, Twitter @TrinityWestern, on Facebook and LinkedIn. For media inquiries, please contact: media@twu.ca.