Sometimes you need blank space to emerge for positive things to happen in your career
Ten years ago I was offered a job to join a world-class organisation in Geneva. It had a tempting Swiss Francs salary, working with a great bunch of people. And would have got me out of a bit of a hole, giving me much needed stability at a time when work was particularly uncertain.
I turned it down. Friends thought I was crazy. But at that point in my life, it just wasn’t me.
The trouble was, I didn’t have much work on. February 2015 had a lot of blank space in the calendar. I’d said no to stability and was now looking at an uncertain period ahead. What now?!
A week after turning down the job, a university lecturer friend of mine asked if I could talk to his students about careers in the creative industry. “I’m afraid the guest lecturer fee is just £100.”
I said yes.
The talk was the first presentation I’d given for some time. And when I stood on stage in front of the students I felt at home. I remembered how much I loved speaking on stage, sharing my knowledge and expertise, inspiring these young people to reach higher. At the end of the lecture I took this photo of the class. It’s ten years ago to the day.
On the way home I stopped off for a pizza and beer. Mulling over what I’d just done, it struck me: this was exactly the path I should be on. I wrote in my notebook: “I need to do more of this. Walking up and down, getting fired up, firing others up.”
I realised that this small speaking gig on a campus in east London was the place I was meant to be.
A few months later I heard from David Hieatt who asked me to speak at that year’s Do Lectures in Wales. It was a turning point for me, opening the door to my adventures in storytelling.
Had I filled the beginning of 2015 with tasks and projects and roles, I’d never have had the space and inclination to do the small speaking gig. I’d be on a treadmill to somewhere else. Sometimes we need the blank space, however scary it is, to refocus and give us a chance to listen to our beating heart.
Sometimes you need to give yourself space for your true self to emerge.