Is My Document Arrogant?
A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a room of business leaders.
I shared my journey through burnout and back, along with the work I’ve done on myself using my document and the impact that has had on my life.
Then I shared the document itself and opened the room for Q&A.
I never really know how something like my document will land. Sometimes I wonder if people will think it’s inspiring. Sometimes I wonder if they’ll think it’s completely nuts.
The room was full of questions.
One of them has stayed with me ever since.
“Do you ever worry that your document sounds arrogant?”
I really understood the question.
My document is a list of more than 50 declarations beginning with the words “I am.” Each one is a declaration about who I am and who I am creating myself to be in the world.
It speaks about miracles, perfect love and creating the impossible.
It speaks about me being an incredible husband and father.
It speaks about me being the most inspirational coach on the planet.
The language is strong. Clear. Unapologetic.
It was never designed to have me play small.
It was created to remind me who I really am and have always been beneath years of fear, insecurity and limitation.
If you haven’t read it, you can read it here.
Some days I live very aligned with it.
Some days I don’t.
I’m still human. Still growing. Still learning.
My document may be many things, but I don’t experience it as arrogant.
Because for me, my document points to something that exists in all of us.
Not just me.
We live in a world that constantly moulds us to be realistic, fit in and not stand out too much.
For decades I lived that way.
I spent years trying to be who I thought I was supposed to be. Trying to earn worth. Trying to prove I was good enough.
Eventually I burned myself out.
Then something changed.
I started to see that there was something far more powerful underneath all of that.
Something innate.
Something already there.
The metaphor that comes to mind is the ocean.
Each of us is like a wave in an ocean of billions of waves.
A wave appears unique in form for a while, but it never really leaves the ocean. It comes from it, is sustained by it and eventually returns to it.
And the power of the ocean is unimaginable.
Recently my son Jake, who loves surfing, told me about surfing “the wave of his life.” He described the size of it, the force of it and how small and powerless he felt riding it.
He was buzzing telling the story.
That conversation stayed with me.
Because I think we forget what we are connected to.
We forget the scale of the life moving through us.
I may only be one wave, but I am connected to something vast.
And because of that, I want to live fully.
Not because I need significance.
Not because I need attention.
But because I want to be a stand for what is possible when a human being stops hiding and starts expressing more of who they really are.
A stand for possibility in the face of impossibility.
A stand for light instead of fear.
A stand for the greatness that exists in every single one of us.
That’s why my document doesn’t feel arrogant to me.
Because underneath the “I am” language, my document isn’t just about me.
It’s about all of us.
Much love
Peter