What do arrogance and Times New Roman have in common?

I found myself in two very different rooms yesterday.

But I'll come back to the second one.

First - arrogance and Times New Roman.

In room one, I was asked what my Kryptonite - the things that weaken my energy - were? Without hesitation, I gave my answer: Arrogance and Times New Roman font.

And when I sit with my why these two seemingly unrelated things bother me so much, I had an epiphany.

They're both defaults.

Times New Roman is what happens when nobody made a conscious choice about the font. It's the setting that was already there. The one that got inherited, never questioned and just… kept going. Nobody sat down and thought: "Yes. This. This is the font that best represents what I'm trying to communicate." They just never changed it.

Arrogance works the same way. 

It's rarely a deliberate choice. It's a setting that developed somewhere - in an environment that rewarded dominance, in a culture that mistook volume for value, in a career that kept promoting the performance without ever questioning what was underneath it. And then one day it's just there. A default. Running quietly in the background.

Both signal the same thing: an absence of intentionality. Someone who inherited a way of being and never thought to examine it.

I can't stand either of them.

The second room
Later that same day, I walked into a very different kind of room.

People of considerable standing. Experience. Influence. Mana. I was introduced - and I want to sit with that word for a moment, because being introduced in a room like that means something - as an expert in taking people on a change journey. And then I was invited to share my view on an independent organisational performance report. 

Not asked to observe. Not invited to listen and learn. Asked to contribute. To bring my perspective to bear on something that mattered to people who know their field well. 

Here's what I want to tell you about that moment.

There was a time - not that long ago - when a room like that would have activated something uncomfortable in me. That quiet internal calculation: Do I belong here? Are they going to realise I don't know enough? Should I wait and see what others say first? 

Yesterday, none of that happened.

I spoke. From a clear place. Without apology.

Not because the room was less intimidating in the abstract. But because I walked in as someone who has spent years doing the work - on himself, with others - of understanding what genuine expertise actually looks like. And where it comes from.

It doesn't come from the title. It doesn't come from the institution. It comes from the accumulated experience of showing up, staying curious, doing the uncomfortable thing and helping others do the same.

I walked in knowing what I bring. And I brought it.

The rooms didn't change. I did.
What's interesting about those two moments - the ease of room one and the confidence of room two - is that they're the same thing expressed differently. 

In room one, I was relaxed enough to say what I actually think. No performance. No calibration. Just an honest response to a question about what I can't stand in a workplace.

In room two, I was grounded enough to contribute meaningfully in a space that once would have made me feel small.

Both of those things come from the same place: knowing who you are and what you've built. Not defaulting to a version of yourself that was designed for a different room, a different time, a different set of expectations.

This is, in essence, exactly what I help people do. 

Not to become someone new. But to stop running the defaults. To examine what they've inherited - the beliefs, the behaviours, the fonts, if you will - and make conscious choices about what actually serves them.

Because the professional you want to become isn't waiting in a room you haven't entered yet.

They're already in you. Just running on an older setting.

Final thought
So here are the questions worth sitting with this week:

• Where in your professional life are you running on a default you've never consciously chosen?

• What would change if you walked into your next important room knowing - not hoping, not performing - but actually knowing what you bring?

• And what's the Times New Roman in your leadership that it might be time to change? 

Because defaults don't have to be permanent.

They just have to be noticed.

Go on. Take the Next Step.