The Ick of Sharing Your ‘Life Lessons’
Why would mine be of any relevance whatsoever to yours?
It’s been a while since I’ve shared ‘my story’ (thank God). I used to do this a lot in my ‘Female Entrepreneur’ days to rooms of early-career women or invincible first-time founders. Years before ‘35 things I learnt by 35’ became popular clickbait, I had curated an entertaining monologue of anecdotes and life-lessons from across my career - something for everyone… (so thought my flattered ego). Since retreating from London with a young family, I’ve gotten better at saying no, plus have had fewer reasons for self-promotion, but suddenly I find myself committed to an encore - the first in 5 years - and frankly, I feel a bit embarrassed.
So I’m killing birds this week by using this post to try and think out loud on how to bring my story up to date and maybe draw out some different conclusions with more years under my belt. The previous version, delivered to graduating girls at my old school in 2018 can be found here and as I commented in the blog-blurb at the time:
My inner philosopher came out …slightly patronising and preachy in tone I realise on re-reading — but as an exercise, it was an invaluable one. I’d love to write one of these every 5 or 10 years and see how my rules and advice would change… as even re-reading this 2 years later, some of these ideas have moved on.
Hello, 6 years later.
And yet I hesitate. Because increasingly I find the presumptuousness of the whole ‘what I want to tell you about life’ trend gives me the ‘ick’ - at least from anyone under the age of 65 or who hasn’t been seriously confronted by their own mortality. The older I get, the more aware I become of how much I have to learn, let alone impart…
Life lessons assault us. As previously discussed I feel an almost physical aversion to the modern cult of ‘personal brand’ and the narcissism I fear it encourages but it now seems to be a prerequisite for authors, musicians or creators to bring a ‘following’ with them should they want to go ‘pro’. Even start-ups now only seem newsworthy if their founders’ stories are newsworthy. Above all, it has struck me that my lessons - borne from my interests, my background, priorities, values, family-life and financial circumstances - are only really relevant to… er… me. The value in stepping back to consider these lessons is always greater for the story-teller than the listener. What is it they say? That we should not compare ourselves with others, but with who we were yesterday. We should be our own competition.
Strong sentiment but surely we can’t help but look for mirrors in the faces around us- whether close at hand, or in the spotlight. Chat shows, biographies, Desert Island Discs and podcasting wouldn’t exist and be so popular if this wasn’t the case. Stories are the most powerful way of influencing people; shared fears, hopes and experiences are the glue that connects us.
We seek inspiration for ideas we can borrow and combine into mash-up role models: prioritise like her, write like him, parent like her, financially-plan like him, command speaking fees like her etc. The problem is that huge success in one field for any one of these people has usually come at the cost of something… breadth of knowledge, family, friends, mental health, balance... How many of us are actually willing to make those sacrifices? And yet how many of us still end up feeling like failures because we don’t?
Scott Galloway (NYU professor, author and entrepreneur) spoke brilliantly on this at a recent podcast recording I went to - admirable (if a little unlikeable) for his single-minded focus on wealth and status-creation, which he was honest enough to admit came at the expense of knowing his children when they were young.
He asked everyone in the room the question: what is ‘rich’? It brought to mind a social media reel I’ve now seen 5x of ‘influencers’ on the street asking passersby: ‘If I gave you a million pounds now, but told you you wouldn’t wake up tomorrow, would you take it’? No? Well that’s what tomorrow’s worth then’.
I for one, have always chosen balance and a ‘bit of everything’ over obsessive success in any one field. It’s why I’ll never be super-rich, but it’s also why I have so many awesome, wacky stories - from zoom calls with Royalty and starring in a documentary in Sri Lanka to going on a 48hr trade mission to China with a Prime Minister on the ministerial plane and (although I credit good fortune equally for this), I believe it’s partly why I have deep love and friendship in my life. I find the time to invest in it.
Last time around my 4 key life lessons were tailored to a room of 18 year old girls and consisted of: 1) why they should reject the modern feminist victimhood narrative 2) the importance of building and nurturing networks 3) staying curious and keeping out of echo-chambers 4) recognising and embracing the fact that we will not always be happy and don’t need to optimise for such (alongside inappropriate school girl memories).
I stand by pretty much all of those 6 years on - although take a slightly more nuanced view on some of 1. On re-reading, I also realised that I forgot the importance of 2 as I’ve let my network slide over the recent young-children years. Time and prioritisation simply hasn’t allowed for it making it so much harder now to reconnect or pull in favours when I haven’t had the energy to throw out any of my own karma for a while.
But perhaps my greatest learning of the last 5 years is the fact that I haven’t needed high profile success, status, travel or extreme experiences to have a fulfilled life. Sharing the experience of parenting with my husband and watching our babies turn into fascinating, wildly different little people has been the biggest adventure, bringing with it so many new learnings: seeing the oddness of the world through their new eyes; rediscovering the joy of music, play or nature; remembering the importance of silliness; investing in the daily minutiae of our local community; building a ‘home’ and sanctuary for those I love... plus how to survive (if not thrive) on limited sleep and with a constant bounce-head.
My suspicion is that these revelations in so many women at the same life stage are much more responsible for the gender pay gap than ever given credit for. By no means the sole factor, but a significant one given how many higher-earning women I’ve observed de-prioritise their careers during these years.
Parents of young children learn how to say ‘no’. We are constantly letting people down and bailing on plans last minute. But yes, I could probably have worked better during the last few years at pareto-principling the 20% of my network engaged in the problems I now care most about. I’m currently working hard to build it back up and in fact, this blog has been instrumental in reopening many of those old doors.
And maybe, without really realising it, Antidoters has provided a distillation of life-lessons over the last few years… a way to consolidate and make-sense of what I’m learning and thinking as-I-go. (Just with slightly less of ‘me’ and more my personal Antidoter inspirations as its focus). Undeniably though, the value is primarily mine, so that Jess tomorrow competes better with Jess yesterday. And if anyone else enjoys the weekly provocation-vomit, that’s just pretty cool.
I’ll adapt Dan Priestley’s book quote: The blog (or speech) that most changes your life is the one you write. (Book to follow).
And with that said.. apologies, I’m going biweekly for a while to get my head down on a few other products, including a book. Back in July. X
Once again, a lot of meat to carve from the Antidoters bone.