[Music]
the distance from my old office of
Director of services to the new office
of the CEO was just five paces away but
it felt like a dark ocean existed
between me and the office behind the
glass window and looming large in the
window was a big black chair sitting
there waiting for its new owner
expectant and I couldn’t get it out of
my head that it looked like an
executioner’s chair I didn’t want to sit
in there and I didn’t have a boat to get
me across the ocean I was being offered
the chance to lead the national charity
missing people a charity that I loved
and was really close to my heart
and with 10 years experience as a
Samaritan with an open university degree
with years of leading the national
services of missing people and working
on myself as a lifelong self-improvement
project I quietly turned it down why
well it was too soon I told myself it
was too soon I decided it was too soon
those sort of opportunities don’t come
across very often and they’re very hard
to come from and imagine being in that
situation you might have thought that I
would have learned the opportunities
about seizing those big moments I was a
piano player in a band writing songs in
a music class in whole was Sherrill the
singer the edgy one who pushed like mad
for us to record our first song I of
course wanted to wait I wanted to write
a better song I wanted to perfect the
song but we went and we recorded it
anyway and then we moved to London
and with a small bunch of songs written
we’ve dared ourselves to make
appointments with senior people in
record companies and publishing
companies and then we’ve dragged the
piano keyboard and it was big halfway
across London on the tube we plugged it
in an offices and we nervously played
our hearts out
and one day someone took a chance on us
and then we wrote a hit song and all
felt it from the heart song that soared
and roared we recorded two albums we did
two major tours we played the whole city
hall gig in my hometown Wembley Top of
the Pops and in case you thought I’d
learned about not waiting for the
perfect moment well I hadn’t because
there in my mind
all along was the thought that one day
I’d be found out how many opportunities
big and small do we fly away from how
many times could we open a door and with
no one there to push us we just quietly
closed it in front of us we give way to
people we think are the great and the
good and sometimes we give way to people
who aren’t so great and aren’t so good
we give way to people who bound along
with a belief in their own ability that
takes your breath away
they stand tall they cast a long and
impressive shadow and some of us just
stand in it we could wait a long time
for the perfect day to come along we can
wait until we’re old enough and wise
enough bold enough and good enough we
can wait for a wash of self-confidence
that will banish every self-doubt we
ever had or we can stand there and take
our place in the queue and just never
quite get to the front you know my
grandad missed a moment
and that miss momen lasted a lifetime
he was an unlikely scholar he was born
in a slum in Sheffield and he went to
school with no shoes and he left school
when he was 14 and he became a kind of
ships engineer I can imagine him now
sitting there in his tiny front bedroom
of his council house on the shire garena
state surrounded by a library of books
he taught Bible classes and he began
reading to understand
he learned economics by post and he had
grand ideas of pensions for factory
workers imagine that and one day he was
offered the opportunity to go to Ruskin
College Oxford University for he was
someone who could speak he was someone
with ideas sponsored by his trade union
of future MP perhaps and there he was
tucked up in social economic and
aspirational deprivation and it was just
that world that needed him and he turned
it down not enough money not to work to
study and not enough self belief to go
and really that was it perhaps he
thought his time was to come with kids
or grown up with more money with more
confidence that he would get his second
chance that there would be a knock at
the door and it wouldn’t be Harry from
next door in his best ask him to borrow
a cup of sugar it would be his chance to
change the world for the better but the
second knock at the door never came
I always felt sad his papers his unread
words his lost words his ideas unheard
and I think he had insight too I think
he knew that starting at the bottom of
the ladder meant that he
took his equal share in the world me and
my granddad used to write to each other
and in one of his letters to me he said
my dear is Joanne one of my biggest
regrets in life is I didn’t have a good
standard of education for a good
education opens doors and gives you
self-confidence and he said he was
really thrilled because somebody had
described him as a good scholar and that
it made him feel six feet tall which
given he was about five foot two and a
peanut really is saying something where
does the confidence come from how does
some people find a voice and a platform
and a set of ladders to get them there
when only 7% of the population is
privately educated then why are over 50%
of print journalist privately educated
and 30% of MPs and 50% of the cabinet
it’s like there’s a confident secret
people emboldened by a life that keeps
on giving where doors keep on opening
and they keep on expecting themselves to
jolly well walk on through but it’s not
all about the big career and the big
stage either I will always remember
being at a family funeral and there we
were at the wake
eating egg sandwiches and sausage rolls
that nobody fancied and we were waiting
we were waiting for someone to say a few
words to say we’re really sad that she’s
died because we really loved her and she
would have been so chuffed that you were
all here today so let’s raise a pint for
her life but nobody did and it always
stayed with me unspoken words
unconfident and a missed moment to mark
a life I guess there’s somebody here in
the audience today with an ambition
there’s someone here with a deeply held
belief that you’ve never shared with
anybody I bet there’s someone here with
a small idea to change the world for a
better for the better I bet there’s
someone here with a solution to a
problem you’d love to solve a speech or
written in your head that you would love
to make a job you’d like to do a song
you’d like to sing something you want to
say and you know we need thinkers of all
styles of all kinds and of all
backgrounds of all voices loud and small
we need leaders and philosophers we need
believers and dreamers we need hopers
and carers of writers and talkers and
singers and creators and someone who
will say a special word or two on a
special day you know I’m one of those
people who could spend a lifetime
preparing for a life to come waiting for
a second knock at the door well I did
get a second chance I was asked to cover
the CEO role for a few months so I
bought a new jacket a new pair of shiny
shoes and I went for it and though the
challenges were tough I put in the graft
and I burnt the midnight oil and I rose
to the moment and all along I had a very
valuable thing I had a
get-out-of-jail-free card I had a way
out if it didn’t work out and when
prospective candidates for the role went
up to the mark and I was given the
opportunity for the second time well
this time I said yes for I had proved to
myself that I could live up to the
expectations of myself of the role and
lead and be part of a charity to be
proud of so in my strongest northern
voice I dared myself to open the door to
the office behind the glass window and
there looked around and I spotted some
new chairs that were more me so I tried
to find someone to
for permission and with the wind
whistling around my ears I realized I
didn’t have to ask the decision could be
mine lonely and strangely liberating and
from where I’m standing
I’ve stumbled on a secret that some
people don’t wait for the perfect moment
some people don’t wait until they’ve
written a better song some people don’t
wait for all of their learning and
skills and passion and brilliance to
come together on one glorious day for
the people who speak up and speak out
who take their seat at the table
who talk and share opinion and fill the
air space and steal the limelight and
capture our imaginations well they’re
not really ready either doubting their
ability and strength and nerve leaning
on the people around them quietly
putting in hours of practicing and
learning hanging on by their fingertips
and sometimes feeling oceans of space
between them and the big moment so we
can dare ourselves to just dare
ourselves
we can give ourselves a
get-out-of-jail-free card we can take
our equal share in the world and
remember that the world needs an equal
share of us too and that missing people
we have a value it’s written on the
walls and it’s written in our hearts to
let fly so dare yourself if you hear a
knock at the door we’ll open it and let
fly
[Applause]
[Music]
the distance from my old office of
Director of services to the new office
of the CEO was just five paces away but
it felt like a dark ocean existed
between me and the office behind the
glass window and looming large in the
window was a big black chair sitting
there waiting for its new owner
expectant and I couldn’t get it out of
my head that it looked like an
executioner’s chair I didn’t want to sit
in there and I didn’t have a boat to get
me across the ocean I was being offered
the chance to lead the national charity
missing people a charity that I loved
and was really close to my heart
and with 10 years experience as a
Samaritan with an open university degree
with years of leading the national
services of missing people and working
on myself as a lifelong self-improvement
project I quietly turned it down why
well it was too soon I told myself it
was too soon I decided it was too soon
those sort of opportunities don’t come
across very often and they’re very hard
to come from and imagine being in that
situation you might have thought that I
would have learned the opportunities
about seizing those big moments I was a
piano player in a band writing songs in
a music class in whole was Sherrill the
singer the edgy one who pushed like mad
for us to record our first song I of
course wanted to wait I wanted to write
a better song I wanted to perfect the
song but we went and we recorded it
anyway and then we moved to London
and with a small bunch of songs written
we’ve dared ourselves to make
appointments with senior people in
record companies and publishing
companies and then we’ve dragged the
piano keyboard and it was big halfway
across London on the tube we plugged it
in an offices and we nervously played
our hearts out
and one day someone took a chance on us
and then we wrote a hit song and all
felt it from the heart song that soared
and roared we recorded two albums we did
two major tours we played the whole city
hall gig in my hometown Wembley Top of
the Pops and in case you thought I’d
learned about not waiting for the
perfect moment well I hadn’t because
there in my mind
all along was the thought that one day
I’d be found out how many opportunities
big and small do we fly away from how
many times could we open a door and with
no one there to push us we just quietly
closed it in front of us we give way to
people we think are the great and the
good and sometimes we give way to people
who aren’t so great and aren’t so good
we give way to people who bound along
with a belief in their own ability that
takes your breath away
they stand tall they cast a long and
impressive shadow and some of us just
stand in it we could wait a long time
for the perfect day to come along we can
wait until we’re old enough and wise
enough bold enough and good enough we
can wait for a wash of self-confidence
that will banish every self-doubt we
ever had or we can stand there and take
our place in the queue and just never
quite get to the front you know my
grandad missed a moment
and that miss momen lasted a lifetime
he was an unlikely scholar he was born
in a slum in Sheffield and he went to
school with no shoes and he left school
when he was 14 and he became a kind of
ships engineer I can imagine him now
sitting there in his tiny front bedroom
of his council house on the shire garena
state surrounded by a library of books
he taught Bible classes and he began
reading to understand
he learned economics by post and he had
grand ideas of pensions for factory
workers imagine that and one day he was
offered the opportunity to go to Ruskin
College Oxford University for he was
someone who could speak he was someone
with ideas sponsored by his trade union
of future MP perhaps and there he was
tucked up in social economic and
aspirational deprivation and it was just
that world that needed him and he turned
it down not enough money not to work to
study and not enough self belief to go
and really that was it perhaps he
thought his time was to come with kids
or grown up with more money with more
confidence that he would get his second
chance that there would be a knock at
the door and it wouldn’t be Harry from
next door in his best ask him to borrow
a cup of sugar it would be his chance to
change the world for the better but the
second knock at the door never came
I always felt sad his papers his unread
words his lost words his ideas unheard
and I think he had insight too I think
he knew that starting at the bottom of
the ladder meant that he
took his equal share in the world me and
my granddad used to write to each other
and in one of his letters to me he said
my dear is Joanne one of my biggest
regrets in life is I didn’t have a good
standard of education for a good
education opens doors and gives you
self-confidence and he said he was
really thrilled because somebody had
described him as a good scholar and that
it made him feel six feet tall which
given he was about five foot two and a
peanut really is saying something where
does the confidence come from how does
some people find a voice and a platform
and a set of ladders to get them there
when only 7% of the population is
privately educated then why are over 50%
of print journalist privately educated
and 30% of MPs and 50% of the cabinet
it’s like there’s a confident secret
people emboldened by a life that keeps
on giving where doors keep on opening
and they keep on expecting themselves to
jolly well walk on through but it’s not
all about the big career and the big
stage either I will always remember
being at a family funeral and there we
were at the wake
eating egg sandwiches and sausage rolls
that nobody fancied and we were waiting
we were waiting for someone to say a few
words to say we’re really sad that she’s
died because we really loved her and she
would have been so chuffed that you were
all here today so let’s raise a pint for
her life but nobody did and it always
stayed with me unspoken words
unconfident and a missed moment to mark
a life I guess there’s somebody here in
the audience today with an ambition
there’s someone here with a deeply held
belief that you’ve never shared with
anybody I bet there’s someone here with
a small idea to change the world for a
better for the better I bet there’s
someone here with a solution to a
problem you’d love to solve a speech or
written in your head that you would love
to make a job you’d like to do a song
you’d like to sing something you want to
say and you know we need thinkers of all
styles of all kinds and of all
backgrounds of all voices loud and small
we need leaders and philosophers we need
believers and dreamers we need hopers
and carers of writers and talkers and
singers and creators and someone who
will say a special word or two on a
special day you know I’m one of those
people who could spend a lifetime
preparing for a life to come waiting for
a second knock at the door well I did
get a second chance I was asked to cover
the CEO role for a few months so I
bought a new jacket a new pair of shiny
shoes and I went for it and though the
challenges were tough I put in the graft
and I burnt the midnight oil and I rose
to the moment and all along I had a very
valuable thing I had a
get-out-of-jail-free card I had a way
out if it didn’t work out and when
prospective candidates for the role went
up to the mark and I was given the
opportunity for the second time well
this time I said yes for I had proved to
myself that I could live up to the
expectations of myself of the role and
lead and be part of a charity to be
proud of so in my strongest northern
voice I dared myself to open the door to
the office behind the glass window and
there looked around and I spotted some
new chairs that were more me so I tried
to find someone to
for permission and with the wind
whistling around my ears I realized I
didn’t have to ask the decision could be
mine lonely and strangely liberating and
from where I’m standing
I’ve stumbled on a secret that some
people don’t wait for the perfect moment
some people don’t wait until they’ve
written a better song some people don’t
wait for all of their learning and
skills and passion and brilliance to
come together on one glorious day for
the people who speak up and speak out
who take their seat at the table
who talk and share opinion and fill the
air space and steal the limelight and
capture our imaginations well they’re
not really ready either doubting their
ability and strength and nerve leaning
on the people around them quietly
putting in hours of practicing and
learning hanging on by their fingertips
and sometimes feeling oceans of space
between them and the big moment so we
can dare ourselves to just dare
ourselves
we can give ourselves a
get-out-of-jail-free card we can take
our equal share in the world and
remember that the world needs an equal
share of us too and that missing people
we have a value it’s written on the
walls and it’s written in our hearts to
let fly so dare yourself if you hear a
knock at the door we’ll open it and let
fly
[Applause]
[Music]
Please follow and like us: