WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL IT IN THE BEGINNING??

I happened to listen to a guest lecture, yesterday, by the BBC chief of journalism foundation, Andrew Wilson. Wilson was a former student of Ilford County school and completed his A levels and left for Cambridge in 1986. He is a sort of mentor in chief for the new and budding journalists’ working for BBC.   

The lecture was unique in many ways; even my son said so when he was travelling back from school after the talk.

 In this GCSE award function, I was expecting the former student will wax eloquent on how he arrived from the east London school to a position of power and prestige as a big man in the BBC, but it was different.

 It is interesting to see him calling this Grammar school as ‘County-High’ which might have been the way to address the school in his days.

He was reflecting on the times by recounted how he had to wait in the queue for half an hour in front of a red telephone box to phone a school friend for 2 minutes. He told about how the books were the main fodder for them instead of mobile phones, Skype and Facebook messages. 

He said he was speaking to a young journalist who has been working for the past six years and looking for inspiration in some creative work. Andrew told him that it is only hard work and mastering the detail, and there is nothing like creative work, and it just happens with hard work. The journalist told him “why didn’t you tell it in the beginning”. Andrew fashioned his talk around this kernel.

Andrew, instead of demonstrating his knowledge, borrowed the collective wisdom of everyone. The way he did is exciting. He did it through “Crowd-sourcing”.

Crowdsourcing is a new tool for public speakers, especially for the serious ones. They flash the title of the lecture to a broader audience through social media like FB and Twitter to seek the issues related to the title, opinions and takes.  They design their speech, from this source so it can be useful, relevant and appealing to the audience. Critiques opine that this kind of crowdsourcing will lead to ‘’Group Think ‘’, mediocrity and majoritarian bias. But Andrew has avoided these pitfalls by smartly picking up those which his experience and maturity and sense of judgement could endorse.

Andrew Wilson put the question on the FB and Twitter something like “Given the experience in life, which could not be visualised by a 6th form student, what could be the advice on “what matters in life”.

He got about 160 replies on twitter and Facebook. They include messages from teachers, solicitors, bankers, doctors, scientists and every walk of life.

He gleaned the meaning of these messages and categorised them into five silos. They are Family, Friendship, Success; life and Values. These are the most central in adult life.

Talking about the family, he said what he understood from others that family matters most in life and also the stories of the family matters. He narrated the story of an MP who retold the story of his grandfather who lived in a prefabricated house in Hackney, at London at 13, joined trade union movement at 16, campaigned for educational rights from the age of 18. That was the story of his grandfather. It is the reminder for all of us, and all of us have stories of our fathers and grandfathers if we cherish them and if we care to own them.

Number 2 in life is friendships. Andrew quoted his son, who said to him that five close friends are better than 500 on Facebook. Fewer is better than a lot. Quality is important than quantity.

Number 3 on this crowdsourcing list, he said, was about Success. What is it that brings about Success in life? Andrew quoted a senior journalist, who did not realise that till he was 38, that hard work and taking care of the tiny details would make the big stuff to happen. How much ever the talent one may have, without the hard work on the small details, Success will not occur. There is no substitute for hard work. The harder you work, the luckier you get. Luck is the only moment in time in hard work and dedication.

David Beckham’s hard work on Wanstead flats, day in and out, rain or shine is the secret behind the fantastic goal he scored at the World cup against Greece.

When Andrew joined the BBC, he was thinking about the glamour, fun, incredible creativity and the joy of being with a great institution. But soon he realised that 99% of it is repetitive hard work and the so-called creativity is nonsense. Another employee who was working for six years expressed his dismay by saying “Why didn’t you tell it in the beginning?

Life is the last one on the list. No one is asking you to do better in life. Stop stressing and stop worrying about what other people think.

Your life is your movie you have created, and no one is precisely interested to see it, and failure is not exactly wrong. It teaches you resilience which is an important quality required for life if you get the lesson of the failure right. Sometimes being resilient in defeat is more important than winning in life.

Andrew mentioned about a top psychologist who said that by the age of 21 a person’s life is fully formed in terms of ideas, values, politics, the music they listen, the books he or she reads and the people they like. They spend the rest of their lives conforming to it. I add a phrase “it generally happens so”.

Andrew also said waiting to be found out (recognised) is a mere waste of time. It will never happen, and you will never stop waiting. Life is not about it. This waiting game could not be real life.

Andrew continued saying that there are four models of leading life. They are prison, passive, professor, and participant.

The process depends on what model is selected.

The first one, life is a prison. Complete the term and get out.

Some lead it passively. 

Some do the act of a Professor thinking everyone is lucky to be with him. 

Some participate in life to the hilt as it should be.

Many people are successful but feel miserable and look for fulfilment and happiness. It can only happen by connecting with others, and the secret of it is to have the ability to listen. He said that 99.9% are not good at listening or adequately listening. They hog the time to talk, talk and talk to impress.

He said it is about connecting and listening whether it is in a lecture, negotiations, and relationships, with spouses or the rest of it in life. If we crack the code of what is listening is and how to listen, Success is in your bag. It is the central most skill in life.

Finally, he said the youngster’s future depends on how they make others feel, how they listen and how they treat other people on their way plus how they contribute and pass the baton around

On my way back home, my son, sitting in the car beside me was silent and surprised as some of his takes on life are different from the speakers’. He said he should have recorded the lecture. I told him that I had done it on my phone. He promptly took it and saw the recording and typed the title and said that he is naming the clip as “LIFE”…….             

KR Matcha

** Andrew Wilson is in the middle of the photograph