How I Lost & Rediscovered My Uniqueness, embracing your uniqueness
What makes me unique: ways to discover your uniqueness
I recently came across the first professional musical recording(Stand Firm) that I ever made while still in my early twenties, and discovered to my surprise that on the cassette I was featured as Peter G. James Sinclair.
In my twenties I was flexing my unique muscles by changing my name Peter Sinclair to the fuller version of my name – Peter G. James Sinclair.
But then something happened.
I lost my uniqueness.
Peter G. James Sinclair was lost for nearly three decades until last year when I decided to once and for all stop being known as simply Peter Sinclair. Peter G. James Sinclair was the name that my parents pronounced over my life when I was born and it was that name that I was going to be known as for the rest of my days(1).
How did I lose my uniqueness, and how could I be lost for so long?
Here are the five reasons that I have uncovered.
By allowing others to dominate my uniqueness.
In my mid-twenties I came under the influence of some extremely strong leadership.
That leadership was so strong that I in fact, for a time, lost my identity.
Just newly married, my new wife struggled with the fact that I started to sound like, look like, smell like, and act like the dominant leadership that I had subjected myself to.
I had allowed this leadership to not simply guide and direct me, but to in fact dominate me.
I was young, vulnerable, and easily influenced.
It took a few years, but due to a range of changing circumstances I was able to break free from that leader’s hold over my life – and in the years that followed many others, who had come under that same leader’s influence, also broke free.
A lack of confidence in my own uniqueness.
From an early age I have always battled with self confidence. And after the experience I have just recorded, it took many years to regain confidence in my personal uniqueness.
By finally returning to the business world and going into business for myself, brick upon brick my confidence was rebuilt. Twice the walls started to crumble, but I was able to rebuild, and with the rebuilding came a burst of fresh confidence in who I was and for what I was born to do.
A lack of clarity in the area of my uniqueness.
A lack of clarity has tripped me up time and time again. There was many a time that I would say, as an adult, to my growing family, ‘I’m still trying to work out what I’m going to do when I grow up.’
I tried this. I tried that. I attempted this. I attempted that. My prime goal though was to feed, clothe and house my young family, while at the same time seeking to operate from a state of complete uniqueness. With every breath I was seeking to discover my unique voice once and for all(2).
A need to build a story of the search for my uniqueness.
Although I call those three decades – the lost years – they were not wasted. For during my search to rediscover my uniqueness I have developed stories that now define my uniqueness, and allow me to help others who too are in search of discovering their own unique story.
There is great power in the word of our testimony, and with every story I share, whether in written or spoken word, my uniqueness is reinforced, and my audience identifies and learns from the array of adventures had by me and my family during that time frame.
A final decision to obey the call of my uniqueness.
It was actually as I was reigniting a dream that I had buried for thirteen years that I once and for all decided that for the rest of my days I would be known as Peter G. James Sinclair. There are millions of Peter Sinclairs throughout the world, but there is only one Peter G. James Sinclair. And the more I began to unwrap my uniqueness, the more excited I have become about my future and the impact that I can have on millions of people around the globe.
My mission is to help others to discover their personal uniqueness and to equip them to bring their unique flavor to the world for the benefit of all mankind.
I will have to be honest with you – after I sold off the last vestige of my old person (my entire list of web design clients from a business that I had owned and operated for 7 years) and began to redefine my personal brand on the Internet, I opened up a whole new world of opportunity to live out my uniqueness.
I have finally found me, and can now, without confusion and complete clarity, begin to build a whole new story – built on the foundations of the lost years. This will carry me on and into the next five decades of my life helping others to become all that they have been created to become.
Have you a story of unique discovery in your life that you could share with us?
Peter Sinclair
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