Life Changing

Once, I wanted to change the world.

No, really change it. And change it in a comical way that, I fear, had me positioned front and centre within the change. It wasn’t quite Boris Johnson’s ‘world king’ stuff, but it was pretty insufferable, I suppose, if you weren’t me.

Then, the older I got, the less ambitious I became about what I could influence, a healthy attitude that is directly fostered by the act of raising teenage children. Point 1: they are not going to do what you want them to do. Point 2: they are absolutely fine without your pearls of wisdom. That’s how life works. For they had fire in their bellies, whilst I just had cauliflower cheese in the oven. By the time I was 60, it was all I could do to influence my elderly Jack Russell not to go down rabbit holes for 4 or more hours, a task I failed at more than I succeeded.

Recently, I’ve done quite a few talks at schools. Before one of them, a large group of sixth formers, (and only after I’d expressed concern that I might not be telling them what they wanted to hear) the teacher responsible for them kindly took me aside before the talk, and said:

‘Don’t worry. Just remember: there are 150 people in this room. 120 will either ignore you completely, or at least wish that you would get to the point as quickly as possible. 20 will find you cringingly embarrassing and want you to be struck by lightning. 7 of them will be polite enough to look attentive and smile when they think you are trying to be funny. And 3 will come up tearfully after the talk and tell you that you have changed their lives. That’s why you are here. For those 3.’

He was right, particularly in his estimate of the number who would tell me that I had changed their lives. It was, as he said it would be, 3, although only one was tearful.

It has happened at almost every school that I have spoken at over the last few years, and in almost exactly the same ratio. Actually, it’s happened at many of the talks I have done for retailers and at festivals (where, admittedly, the majority are there voluntarily and therefore manage not to look bored). By my estimation, that is about 100 people who have told me that I have made a positive impact on their lives through what I have just said, and how wonderful is that?

I suspect that I am not the only public speaker who is racked with imposter syndrome in the minutes before they get up to speak. I also suspect that I am not the only one who has discovered that, if they do their speaking to the very best of their ability, and with appropriate humility, they have a real power to influence a very small number of their audience.

And that this power is an extraordinary privilege.