After dinner speaker for hire
I received an email this week from someone who works at one of my old schools. They were wondering if I would like to come in and do a careers talk.
It was a lovely email to receive, and it made me emit a little hoot of flattered disbelief. After my hoot, I spent some thinking about it.
One of the good things about making bread is it gives you loads of time to think. I thought about it for 3 days while making 78 loaves of bread and cycling 27km.
Carrie Bradshaw would have smoked 78 cigarettes and written 27 words, so already I’m a better role model. I emailed back and said Yes.
Initially I’d paralysed myself with the thought [I couldn’t help but wonder]: Clearly I’m not the right person to do this. I’m not sure this bakery is a success in the traditional sense. It probably wouldn’t be part of a parent’s roadmap for their daughter’s future.
Then I thought about my own roadmap, with my supportive parents’ annotations, and how it all got more interesting when I lost the map, drove into some ditches and dug myself out.
I have had access to 3 Careers Rooms in my life, and nothing in any of them fitted.
I did the Morrisby test - did you? Its results were forgettable, as I’ve forgotten them. I admired my friends who had a calling. The doctors - declaring at 16 that they knew they wanted to be doctors! - the dentist, the lawyers, the teachers; and later, after my degree, the psychologists.
I did not have a calling, I had a cacophany. Age 22 I aspired, career-wise, to be a combination of about 20 different people. This list is not exhaustive, but it’s certainly exhausting:
The therapist who rehabilitates Harrison Ford’s character in 1991 cliche-fest Regarding Henry
First British woman in space, Helen Sharman
Polar explorer Mike Stroud
Carrie Bradshaw. I know, I’M SORRY. It wasn’t for long.
My friend Jude
My sister in law’s old school friend Nicky
Author Helen Fielding
Adam and Joe
and there wasn’t a ring binder for this combination.
So what I did was talk to people who I thought had fire in their bellies, and asked a lot of questions.
You don’t have to do what they do as a job, but if you’re hungry for stories I bet you can look back in 20 years and realise you’ve taken parts of what you admired about them, and it sparked something in you that actually feels like you. A ring binder just for you! That - crucially - can earn you money!
It would take me too long to draw out the tenuous threads between this crazy dinner party list and my working life now, but they are there.
When I was 22 I emailed my sister in law’s old school friend Nicky (see 6. above) who was a BBC radio producer, and I asked him for some guidance. Nicky didn’t know me but he emailed me back one of the longest and most useful emails I’ve ever received. I’ve still got it, and I’ve just re-read it.
Nicky concludes
I love the work I do and can't think of many other areas I'd like to work in. It's stimulating, exciting, varied and fun. I get to indulge my own interests, travel around the UK and sometimes abroad, work with interesting people, and take 3 hour lunchbreaks! You should think about why you want to do it, weigh up the negative points and the initial hardships, and if you're still interested, go for it. With a bit of perseverance it's not too difficult to get a job.
#Goals! It was so amazing to hear these words from a grown up (he was 30). It gave me so much hope, and I put into action so much of his advice, and had many great adventures off the back of it.
After re-reading Nicky’s email, I wrote back to my school to say Yes. Because it’s not about persuading girls to open a bakery is it (although I can field many questions on the topic); it’s about exposing them to enthusiasm for life and all its opportunities, like he enthused me.
I looked Nicky up and he went on to run a project helping people with dementia and their families connect through music. There is a path that led him there from the BBC radio studio where he started, but you can be pretty sure it wouldn’t have been a page in the Radio Producer folder in a Careers Room. He would have used his curiosity to talk to people, and his perseverance to make it happen.
You don’t have to choose one folder and stick to it. Build your own!
Addendum: I am aware reading this back that I am repeatedly referring to careers ring binders as if they are actually a thing anymore. I will do my research before putting myself in front of any teenagers. Is it a wall of QR codes now? Is the Morrisby test now a blood test? You are 20% endocrinologist; 30% radiologist; 50% biochemist, oh and you should take a Vit D supplement. I will check.
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And I’d love to hear who your career role models were when you were young. And if, for any of you, they also include Adam and Joe then we should go for a beer.
I would that I had made that list! I think I need you to come to me and give a talk.