The single, most important thing I’ve learned in my life so far?

The one thing I’m going to make sure my kids remember, even when I’m not here anymore?

It’s just nine words long:

“Stick to who you are and build on it”.

I think so many of us would be happier in our work lives — and more successful too — if only we could be better at being ourselves.

Many of us get to understand who we are at an early age. We know what makes us tick, we know our strengths, what we love doing, what we stand for. If only we could use that self-clarity as a foundation stone for our careers, instead of having it demolished.

I had a clear sense of who I was as a teenager. And looking back now I can see how that the grown-up Ian is the same as the teenage Ian. The 1986 version likes reading the newspaper, he’s interested in politics, he likes going to Billy Bragg gigs. He likes trying his hand at different skills and projects, often at the same time. He doesn’t like to conform, he likes doing things his own way. He loves photography, and girls. He likes to observe, to interview interesting people, to look at things differently and to write about his experiences with his own unique take on life.

And you know what? All these years later, I’m still doing all those things, I’m very much the same person. Apart from the girls (I got married).

The trouble is, career trajectories can lead us away from ourselves. We try to impress parents, partners and bosses and in doing so embark on directions that are at odds with who we really are. That was my story: in between the clarity I describe as a teenager and the clarity I have now, I headed in the wrong direction. I didn’t listen to my gut. I didn’t embrace creativity, instead I got stuck in spreadsheets and appraisal forms. So by the end of the 1990s I’d climbed a career ladder, doing a job that ultimately wasn’t me. I wasn’t putting enough ‘me’ into my work, I was living the wrong work life.

Fortunately, around the age of forty I had a strong realisation of who I was — good and bad — and like a magnet, it drew me back.

I wonder how things would have turned out if I’d built a life on being me from the get-go?

So today, if the eighteen year old Ian could see me in my forties, he’d be incredulous. That he could grow up to live this work life with few walls and few rules; that he didn’t have to wear a suit to work like his dad; that he’d still be going to Billy Bragg gigs; he wouldn’t believe how lucky he could be.

If only the eighteen year old Ian knew that all he need do in life was to follow the advice ‘just be you’, then everything would be okay. How powerful would that knowledge be?

So don’t let teachers, careers advisors, bosses, partners, parents knock the ‘you’ out of you. Stand back, discover who you are.

Stick to who you are and build on it.