Released 19th July 2019
So here’s what happened…
A few weeks ago, I was due to be interviewed by Anne Curtis for her ‘Secret of Everything’ video series. I love Anne’s vision; she wants to share the inside-out understanding with millions of young people around the world, so she’s recorded a series of videos with principles teachers aimed specifically at people in their teens and twenties.
As soon as she told me about her project, I said: “I’m IN”. After all, it totally aligns with my team’s mission to inspire and educate a generation to experience lives of clarity, resilience and wellbeing.
So the hour arrived… I was set up in my studio, dialled into our online meeting, ready for the interview to start, and…
I couldn’t hear Anne!
She could hear me. The recording equipment was picking up her voice. It was even picking up my voice, but I couldn’t hear her. We tried a few different solutions and nothing worked. But you know that old saying…
The show must go on! So Anne introduced me (or, at least, I assumed that’s what she was doing), and then I started talking. And here’s where it gets interesting…
Earlier in the day, I’d been thinking about how it had been for me in my teens and twenties, and I asked myself a question…
“When you were in your teens and approaching adulthood, what do you wish you’d have known? What would you love that younger you to have known? Something you know now, but hadn’t realised when you were younger?” And as I reflected on it, the answer came to me in a flash!
I’d love to have known what I’ve come to refer to as “my motto”.
It crystallised many years ago when I was having dinner with a friend. She’d been having a hard time, getting all kinds of hassle from people…
Telling her what to do…
Acting like they knew better than she did about how she should live her life…
So I told her, “Maybe you need a motto. I’ve got a motto and it really helps me out.”
She asked me what my motto was, and I told her…
“Be who you are, do what you love, and don’t take any sh*t from anybody.”
I told her, “You can borrow mine if you like.”
Next time I saw her, she said everything had started turning around. She’d been reflecting on the motto, and she’d had an insight.
And her world started to change.
So that’s what I talked about for the next 40 minutes.
You see, I still couldn’t hear Anne’s voice. So she couldn’t interview me. So I talked about the motto instead.
You see, it turns out that the motto connects directly to the two most valuable things I believe a person can discover…
How experience is created, and who you really are.
And it turns out that those two things are at the heart of the motto…
“Be who you are, do what you love, and don’t take any sh*t from anybody.”
You can watch and listen to my spontaneous 40-minute riff on the motto here: https://youtu.be/9c2QIDkesPg
The title of the session is, “From chaos to clarity: Action in the face of stress, uncertainty & overwhelm.”
You can also find all the other interviews Anne has created there.
To your increasing clarity!
Big love,
Jamie