The Extraordinary Ordinary
My Letter to my younger Self.
Actually not a letter, but a speech that I was asked to give earlier this year back at my old school, to an audience of 13-18 year old gifted and talented students. It occurred to me that this was a somewhat arbitrary distinction, as I think we are all gifted and talented, but as my first ever speech invitation, it probably wasn’t worth having a row about that.
The image is of 17 year old me at my Leavers Ball, when Marlboro reds and very shiny flammable ballgowns were all the rage, and no one had yet heard of GHDs. Yes, with a back and shoulders like that I probably should have got into rowing.
Anyway, here’s what I said in my speech back in my old school theatre. Take from it anything that you find useful. File the rest in the bin, along with all the pointless strategy slide decks and all those lengthy meetings that should have been emails.
I’ll start with a confession.
I’m not standing in front of you this evening as the Chief Exec of Tesco, or the Prime Minister. Or someone who has climbed Everest, or raised billions for charity, or won gold medals at the Olympics. Because I have not (yet) done any of these things. Although some of you in this room today might go on to do them, or more, most of us don’t.
So I speak to you this evening from a place of what I call “the extraordinary ordinary”. I’m going to talk from my heart, about some things I have learned in my life and my career that I wish someone had told me when I was your age – about the purpose and impact you can have on the world whatever you go on to do.
Come to think of it. Perhaps someone did tell me back in the day and I wasn’t listening…but hopefully you’ll do a better job than me of paying attention for the next ten minutes, and at some point, in your future life there might be a moment when my words resonate, and you’ll remember this moment with fondness.
Anyway, here goes. There are five things I will speak to, and they apply to all of life – not just the work or career bits.
So let’s start with thing one. Being brilliantly you…
When I was at school, I was very good at lots of things – academic, sporty, singing, piano…all the things, yada yada…and it seemed the general principle of life to be busy and to be quite good at as many things as you could.
And yes, I do think that it’s good to keep options open, try out lots of things, throughout your life – always worth saying yes and giving something a go!
But I know now that where you end up is realising that you don’t have to be good at lots of things at all – really you just need to be brilliant at a few. It’s taken me years to figure out what being brilliantly me means, and it’s the one thing I wish I had started thinking about earlier in my life. It means knowing…
How do I want to show up in the world? Who do I want to be? What do I want to be famous for? On my thirtieth, fortieth or seventieth birthday, what do I want people to say about me in the speeches?
So, I’ve spent time and effort defining my answers to these questions - defining my superpower skills. Spoiler alert, not one of them is “being good at maths” or “playing tennis for Dorset” or “getting good A Level results” (sorry teachers!).
Who knows what your might be, but they’re likely to be deeper things like “encouraging and inspiring other people” or “caring for others and the world” or “solving complex problems”. They’re usually measures of INPUT (which you can always control) rather than OUTCOMES (which you can’t).
I’ve now figured out and written my superpowers down. They are how I measure myself in life – how well did I show up today and execute my superpowers? I don’t get it right every day (some days I am rubbish and just need to go back to bed) but just knowing what they are gives you an amazing sense of anchor and purpose.
So if you can, find the time and space to define your superpowers. I can recommend some books/resources that might help you to get started. And of course, because they’re YOUR superpowers and not anyone else’s only you have to be happy with them, and you can edit them as you go throughout your life – a working hypothesis of superpowers is just fine.
So there’s thing one. Be brilliantly you, know your superpowers.
Now let’s add point two, as it builds on it. Thing two is called the triumph of all the talents.
The triumph of all the talents. By defining your brilliance, you will therefore have to walk away from some stuff – not to say that you don’t care about it or it doesn’t matter at all, but just that it’s not your thing.
So, the job now is to curate and collect other people around you who are good at the things you’re not. And not just good – but better than you. And then you work the jigsaw. So, for example, I’m not great at the details of a task – so I always make sure I have a number two who is, so that between us we get the job done.
In making decisions, I can be quick to think and act (which is very helpful in some situations, but not all) so I always have someone close to me who is more reflective – because they’ll remind me to slow down, or to sleep on it.
So, collect people (it’s the most interesting hobby in life!). Keep the good people in your life jigsaw and use their talents alongside your own, because the whole is always more powerful than the sum of the parts.
Thing three builds on one and two and it’s #InspirationIsAContactSport.
This has been my life hashtag for a long time. And there are different views on this.
My artistic, creative friends would say that they get inspiration from locking themselves away in a studio with their canvas or sitting alone on the edge of a beautiful lake or something. And don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely a place for that.
But if you really want to be inspired, to think differently or creatively, or to join the dots of the world in new and interesting ways, I have learned that you rarely do it alone – it’s all about bumping into other people – physically or metaphorically.
You start with a bit of an idea, tell someone – they add a bit, change a bit, or recommend a book, or introduce you to someone else who adds a bit, changes a bit, shares a YouTube video or an influencer reel and there you go. Or someone else shares an idea or a thought on your socials and you go “yes, AND…” – you breathe life into their idea, help it to grow, you tag someone in the comments who can help them, that kinda thing.
So be this for others, and surround yourself with others who do it for you.
Don’t create an echo-chamber or surround yourself with groupthink.
Do invite people with different views and perspectives, but curate your newsfeed – ditch the haters and the mood hovers and the idea-killers!
And because of things one, two and three, thing four becomes obvious.
Progress beats perfection. Every single time. Think big, yes. But start small. Just start somewhere – write the first draft, take the first step, do the tiny thing.
One of the questions I use most often at work to unstick my teams when we are stuck is “what is the first/next step here?” Not all the steps, that can feel too hard. Just the next one – the rest will come. Or it may be “what’s the least bad option here”, because sometimes that is just the reality.
Come to think of it, I do it at home with my kids, and I do it a lot with myself.
It’s also a very helpful mantra if you suffer with overwhelm, anxiety or challenging mental health – all of which I have experienced (but that’s a speech for another day).
Progress beats perfection.
And so to the final thing.
I am conscious that I am speaking to you because you are already streets ahead in terms of academic success and potential, and many of you will know already that you want to be a lawyer, or an actor, or an accountant and nothing else.
So I hesitate slightly to share this one with you. Teachers, and particularly careers advisers, and parents – please cover your ears at this point.
The biggest secret of all is this. You can have a plan, for sure, and for a lot of people this will work really well. But, you absolutely don’t have to have a plan.
I’ve been lucky enough to have the most incredible, interesting career – I’ve lived and worked all over the world, met amazing people, done great things and had huge amounts of fun. I’ve got stuff right, got stuff wrong and there have been some truly rubbish bits along the way. But mostly it’s been brilliant.
But at no point in my life did I ever have a plan for any of it. I had a vague sense of direction at best, and then I looked for the opportunities that I could create or that presented themselves to me. I was curious about the world, wondered “what if”, gave it a go, and I knew that I could change my mind at any point if I wanted to. Many of my career choices started out as happy accidents, and I have enjoyed the benefits of a “squiggly career”. So if you’re sitting there with a plan (that might turn out to be wrong) or without a plan at all, please know that that is ok.
So in summary…
Work out who you want to be. Show up like that as consistently as you can.
Collect the good people.
Inspire others and allow yourself to be inspired.
Put one foot in front of the other and keep going.
Have one plan, have many plans, don’t have a plan at all.
But just be the extraordinary ordinary and know that these five things will help you navigate whatever life throws at you. They’ll help you own your path and create control where you can. And they’ll also help you through the uncertainty and the doubt and the really difficult bits.
Thank you for listening…thoughts and questions?