There’s Method in the Madness — an Intro
So a few weeks ago, I went back to my university and delivered a talk to a packed room of masters students about entrepreneurship, careers and…well…my story.
I was pretty emotional when I received the email asking me to return and hand over a load of advice at a university that, frankly, I felt I had let down. I have so many regrets about my time at university — I feel like I was a shadow of the real me when I was there. I didn’t work as hard as I feel I should have, and was disappointed with my 2:1 in the end (I know this sounds rich — but having come from being top of the class and being the sort of person who measured their worth based on their grades, I felt like I’d really let myself down). I didn’t get involved with the societies and sports teams to the extent I wish I had. I didn’t make the most of my very flexible timetable. I wasn’t the ambitious, confident, ‘do everything to the best of my ability’ person I am now, or was when I was school. It’s like I had a little holiday from being Gemma, when I was at university.
But one thing I did do well when I was at Uni, was that I worked. I worked during term time, and I did internships during the summers. I started working when I was 14, so I felt much more ‘me’ when I was working, as opposed to being a student.
Anyway — I’m digressing — the point is, it felt bloody good to be asked back to my uni to give advice to current students. It was like some kind of weird validation; that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t this ‘perfect student’ I felt I had missed out on being. It was a huge compliment that my uni — an academic, highfalutin kind of place — had a freelancer-cum-entrepreneur, with an ill-defined job title, who was made redundant just over a year before, as the person they felt was in the best place to give advice. They said they liked that I’d done lots of different things and that had resulted in me being entrepreneurial and ‘not just in the usual consultancy or investment banking job’.
And after I did the talk, I got some bloody lovely feedback — from both the organisers and the students.
So — all of this is a long way of saying: I thought it would be a good idea to share some of my thoughts around how I go about life and work with whoever else is interested. I’m feeling totally insecure about dishing out advice (the little voice in my head is saying ‘who gives a toss about what you think / your career isn’t that successful / oh this is so attention seeking / you are going to sound like a right pretentious internet advice coach / etc…’). But if only one person ever reads this and finds it useful, well that’ll be a success for me.
And here we are — a wee space on the internet for some ramblings about how I go about thinking about what I’m doing with my life.
I hope some of it is useful — and for each post, I hope you guys will share your thoughts, tactics and advice. I’m in no way perfect and I still have a long way to go in my career, so I could do with some advice from you lot too.
- Gemma
