Big Boots to Fill

I have an old photo in my drawer. I am 7 years old, in my grandfather's garden. My grandfather, my father and I, are all carrying swords, standing to attention. Two successful, decorated soldiers and some big boots for me to fill.

These are two giants in my life and it’s a source of sadness that we could never have a photo of four of us - my son included.

Years later I joined the army. To this day I'm not sure how much of that was my own need for their approval, or the path already laid out for me, or to satisfy my own desire for adventure.

Confusion about who I really was, and a persistent sense of being an imposter, became the flavour of those years. I went to battlefields to prove my worth, and found them unable to give it to me.

I longed for a path that was actually mine, but didn’t know where or who to turn to.

Fast forward to a time when the army was behind me, but still, my need to ‘perform’ was not.

I'm standing in a windowless room in a local authority office somewhere in England. I'm wearing a suit that doesn't feel like me. My hands are sweating. There are ten people around the table to whom I am trying to sell something: counter-fraud software.

I’m selling counter fraud, but feeling like a fraud. This job had none of me in it. Right in the middle of my pitch, the product failed.

Ten pairs of eyes on me. Humiliated, I fumbled through an apology, gathered my things, walked out of the building, and stood on the pavement outside furious - mostly at myself.

"Is this what my life has come to?"

I'd arrived at that room through a series of junctions where I'd said no to myself and yes to everything and everyone else.

Fast forward 15 years, a boat load of help and just as many brave decisions of my own, and I’m leading men again - but this time in the battlefield of their own psyches.

Now my job is to listen and tell the truth. And I’ve come alive.

This isn’t really a story about fatherhood, but about us men dropping the performance and living from our hearts and souls in such a way that other men are inspired and feel permission to do the same.

That, in my opinion, is a legacy worth the risk of failure. The real risk isn't failure. It’s reaching the end of our lives still performing, and regretting that we didn’t let anyone see or benefit from who we are without the performance, or the armour.

But how can we be ourselves when we no longer recognise who we are? And how can we ask for help when our instinct is to disappear? I know. I grappled with these questions for years. 

Start by answering this call. Come and join me and a few other men, who may also feel their life and work no longer represents who they are.

Its an invitation to pause, connect, look more honestly at ourselves, and begin listening to the life that's calling us - not the next role, project or plan, but what and who is underneath all of that.