hello so I want to start by asking you
to raise your hands if you know exactly
what it is you want to do when you leave
education I can see about six hands okay
now I want you to raise your hand if you
have a few more general ideas or
actually you have no idea at all okay
that’s that’s that’s the vast majority
of you so not that long ago at all I was
sitting where you are today and I had no
idea either I have no idea when I was at
school when I was at college then at
university and when I finally enter the
workplace in my early 20s I didn’t know
that either
what I want to do today is tell you a
little bit about what I did about that
problem so to set the scene I want you
to come with me to a wintry Monday
morning in November three years ago it’s
6:35 a.m. and it’s cold out it’s dark
it’s raining basically like this morning
and I haven’t slept all night all night
I was kept awake by the thought of
having to go to work the next day I had
a tight knot of stress in my chest and
it had prevented me from sleeping all
night long from worry and so eventually
my alarm went off I had to get up and
had to go and face the day ahead at work
what I had was a really bad case of the
Sunday night blues so I had quite a good
job I was working on a corporate
graduate scheme that I’d worked really
really hard to get on to my parents were
really proud of me was owning a good
salary
I had job security job stability I was
using all the skills that I’d learned at
university and had a clear path of
progression I ticked all the boxes I had
one the career lottery but yet every day
when I woke up I dreaded going just work
absolutely dreaded the idea and it took
me a whole nother year to figure out
actually what had been my dream bot my
dream job that had ticked all of my
boxes it turns out that it was not for
me and that was okay so that begs the
question what on earth is for me I had
no idea I was back to square one so in a
fit of despair one night I wrote down a
list of all the different careers I had
ever wanted to try everything from when
you’re asked as a small child what you
want to be when you grow up you say
astronaut or firefighter prime minister
so my list had 25 jobs on it and they
ranged from really traditional sensible
professions to slightly more unusual but
still fairly mainstream ones then the
third category seemed completely random
there were things that I’ve been told
weren’t real jobs at all but they all
have one thing in common all of them
were things that I had secretly dreamed
of doing my entire life but for one
reason or another had never had the
opportunity to fully explore them but in
my mid-20s I was still curious about
them now I sat back on couch I started
daydreaming trying to picture Emma the
author Emma the Explorer Emma the
archaeologist and there are so many
different possible cells to choose from
and each one was totally unrecognizable
from my current reality that day sitting
on that couch I decided that I was going
to try every single one on that list in
a year before my 25th birthday and I was
just about to turn 24 so that worked out
was roughly one every two weeks I was
going to quit my job and take a radical
it’s the battacor so I had to my notice
at work which was both the most
terrifying and the most liberating day
of my life and I said I said about
trying all these different jobs they
ranged from wedding photography
be publishing to being an extra in a
movie then there was teaching tall
guiding and interior design after that I
was working in the police dogs unit
there was landscape gardening and
blogging and just as I’d always dreamed
there were adventures by exploring in
the Atlas Mountains of Morocco there was
travel writing in Venezuela and
archeology in Transylvania of all places
so what I want to do now is tell you a
little bit about what I learned doing
all of these jobs and the three most
important things that I learned from
doing so many jobs in so many different
industries so the first thing is about
starting your career search not by
thinking about jobs but by thinking
about who you are as a person
so set jobs aside for a minute and see
how you’d answer these three questions
when I did this I went back to my list
of 25 and I changed some of them so
first up is what skills do you want to
be using and what skills are you good at
and they’re not necessarily the same
thing but what you need to do is try and
find the crossover about where they are
so this could be things like teamwork or
leadership could be analyzing data
problem solving writing a second
question is what do you want to get out
of the workplace and all too often we
think about how we fit into a job or a
career type we don’t consider how well
it suits us so this could be something
like making a difference having a
positive impact on society or it could
be variety not wanting to do the same
thing month in month out or perhaps it’s
autonomy you being in control of your
workload the third thing to think about
is working environment this is something
that’s very often overlooked and
actually it can make a substantial
difference to your happiness at work on
a day-to-day basis so do you want to be
a power dresser going into a slick City
office or maybe you like the idea of
doing something practical outdoors or
using your hands do you want to be
working for a large international
company that will send you around the
world
or do you like the idea of starting your
own business it’s an entrepreneur with
your two best mates in your garden shed
use your answers to these questions to
objectively assess how well different
sorts of jobs student you so the second
thing I want to talk to you about is the
sheer importance of getting multiple
work experience placements in a diverse
range of careers so I think careers
should be like dating very few of us end
up marrying the first person that we
kiss were first person to be on a date
on date with but with our careers that’s
exactly what we do we marry our first
career and what I think we should be
doing is dating around
we need to date a few more careers
because doing so allows you to make
career decisions based on knowledge and
experience rather than based on
assumption hearsay or perhaps
expectation and I think this point about
assumption is really really important
and it’s something that I learn a lot
more about during doing so many
different jobs there was one job in
particular that showed that and
bizarrely that was alpaca farming so
this job I got through Twitter of all
things sent out a tweet said quite like
to try farming don’t know any farmers
but in ten minutes an hour Packer farmer
from Cornwall got in touch and said come
and work for me thought okay sure why
not
and it was September I was it was still
quite warm out I was hoping to go down
maybe get a bit of a town at the same
time and we spoke on the phone and she
said absolutely not you need to come in
January because if you like farming in
January when the weather is miserable
you’re meant to be a farmer I was such
good logic that I couldn’t disagree with
her so a few months later January rolled
round got my car they drove down to
Cornwall my phone signal did that there
was a little X at the bottom my phone
and arrived in the middle of the night
and the first thing I did was step into
a puddle
I wonder what on earth I was doing with
my life
well I’ve got the next morning though
and the hillside was covered in a
glittering frost I put on about seven
jumpers and went outside and I did all
the things that I’d always thought I
would do farming
so feeding animals animal husbandry
helping to use with lambing it was
fantastic but then it got to lunchtime
and sat down with the farmer she turned
to me and says that’s less than half of
what I do because to be a sustainable
farmer and the 21st century I have to be
an entrepreneur as well after actually
make a living selling the produce for my
farm and she had multiple lines of
business but the one that she told me
about and that I worked on while I was
there was which took her our Packers she
shared them throughout the wall spun
into yarn then the yarn was made into
high-end luxury children’s wear that she
sold Harrods and she managed every
single step in that process from helping
in our Packer give birth to negotiating
with Harrods imagine all the different
steps in that process on top of the
regular jobs of being a farmer and what
this showed was how many business acumen
skills you needed as well as combining
with a practical outdoor job and it
showed how completely wrong I’d been
about this career I was so wrong about
it and I would never have known if I
hadn’t have gone and seen for myself if
I hadn’t learned by doing so the last
thing I want to talk to you about today
it’s about what happened after I tried
all those different jobs
because I loved more than one of them
and I’ve quite a lot of them and this
left me with a new problem how to choose
I realized that all my life I’ve been
trying really hard to be a high achiever
but it turns out that’s not why it was
what I was was a wide achiever why I
also realized was that maybe I didn’t
need to just choose one but maybe don’t
apply that to the dating analogy growing
up I’d always assumed you can only do
one job but what doing so many different
jobs showed me was there in fact this
isn’t necessarily the case at all in
fact this is a flawed assumption what I
could have was a portfolio career
and this is the concept of having
multiple jobs at the same time in either
the same or in different industries and
doing so by for part-time freelance or
contract work I can take the skills that
I was best at and that enjoyed most and
I could specialize in those rather than
industry specific knowledge I could take
my skills and instead of applying them
vertically in one industry I could apply
them horizontally in many so if we fast
forward a year I’m now 26 and I finished
my project just over a year ago I chose
to specialize in communications both in
terms of written and verbal through
speaking and over the past year and a
bit I have officially had seven jobs and
I see that as something to be proud of
not something to hide I think a
portfolio career can show opportunity in
what is traditionally seen as fickleness
or indecision because instead it can
show traits like flexibility
adaptability resilience the ability to
learn quickly given that 65% of the jobs
that you will do don’t even exist yet
and that our careers are likely to span
well into the mid 70s as ultramarathons
and that we all have over 5 career
changes not job changes career changes
each I think these are pretty useful
skills to have but ultimately I think
it’s about happiness figuring out what
job or jobs you want to do and getting
the experience to see if they are right
for you happy people have been proven to
earn more both of themselves after their
companies or organizations and to work
harder so is in everyone’s interest that
you love what you do both yours for
friends your families the people you
work with and the people you work for
we often hear throwaway statements like
follow your passions or achieve your
potential well I hope this talk has done
has given you some insight as to how you
can practically go away and figure those
things out because these days every day
I wake up and look forward to the day
ahead and I don’t think that I should be
the outlier I think that should be the
you know thank you [Applause]
to raise your hands if you know exactly
what it is you want to do when you leave
education I can see about six hands okay
now I want you to raise your hand if you
have a few more general ideas or
actually you have no idea at all okay
that’s that’s that’s the vast majority
of you so not that long ago at all I was
sitting where you are today and I had no
idea either I have no idea when I was at
school when I was at college then at
university and when I finally enter the
workplace in my early 20s I didn’t know
that either
what I want to do today is tell you a
little bit about what I did about that
problem so to set the scene I want you
to come with me to a wintry Monday
morning in November three years ago it’s
6:35 a.m. and it’s cold out it’s dark
it’s raining basically like this morning
and I haven’t slept all night all night
I was kept awake by the thought of
having to go to work the next day I had
a tight knot of stress in my chest and
it had prevented me from sleeping all
night long from worry and so eventually
my alarm went off I had to get up and
had to go and face the day ahead at work
what I had was a really bad case of the
Sunday night blues so I had quite a good
job I was working on a corporate
graduate scheme that I’d worked really
really hard to get on to my parents were
really proud of me was owning a good
salary
I had job security job stability I was
using all the skills that I’d learned at
university and had a clear path of
progression I ticked all the boxes I had
one the career lottery but yet every day
when I woke up I dreaded going just work
absolutely dreaded the idea and it took
me a whole nother year to figure out
actually what had been my dream bot my
dream job that had ticked all of my
boxes it turns out that it was not for
me and that was okay so that begs the
question what on earth is for me I had
no idea I was back to square one so in a
fit of despair one night I wrote down a
list of all the different careers I had
ever wanted to try everything from when
you’re asked as a small child what you
want to be when you grow up you say
astronaut or firefighter prime minister
so my list had 25 jobs on it and they
ranged from really traditional sensible
professions to slightly more unusual but
still fairly mainstream ones then the
third category seemed completely random
there were things that I’ve been told
weren’t real jobs at all but they all
have one thing in common all of them
were things that I had secretly dreamed
of doing my entire life but for one
reason or another had never had the
opportunity to fully explore them but in
my mid-20s I was still curious about
them now I sat back on couch I started
daydreaming trying to picture Emma the
author Emma the Explorer Emma the
archaeologist and there are so many
different possible cells to choose from
and each one was totally unrecognizable
from my current reality that day sitting
on that couch I decided that I was going
to try every single one on that list in
a year before my 25th birthday and I was
just about to turn 24 so that worked out
was roughly one every two weeks I was
going to quit my job and take a radical
it’s the battacor so I had to my notice
at work which was both the most
terrifying and the most liberating day
of my life and I said I said about
trying all these different jobs they
ranged from wedding photography
be publishing to being an extra in a
movie then there was teaching tall
guiding and interior design after that I
was working in the police dogs unit
there was landscape gardening and
blogging and just as I’d always dreamed
there were adventures by exploring in
the Atlas Mountains of Morocco there was
travel writing in Venezuela and
archeology in Transylvania of all places
so what I want to do now is tell you a
little bit about what I learned doing
all of these jobs and the three most
important things that I learned from
doing so many jobs in so many different
industries so the first thing is about
starting your career search not by
thinking about jobs but by thinking
about who you are as a person
so set jobs aside for a minute and see
how you’d answer these three questions
when I did this I went back to my list
of 25 and I changed some of them so
first up is what skills do you want to
be using and what skills are you good at
and they’re not necessarily the same
thing but what you need to do is try and
find the crossover about where they are
so this could be things like teamwork or
leadership could be analyzing data
problem solving writing a second
question is what do you want to get out
of the workplace and all too often we
think about how we fit into a job or a
career type we don’t consider how well
it suits us so this could be something
like making a difference having a
positive impact on society or it could
be variety not wanting to do the same
thing month in month out or perhaps it’s
autonomy you being in control of your
workload the third thing to think about
is working environment this is something
that’s very often overlooked and
actually it can make a substantial
difference to your happiness at work on
a day-to-day basis so do you want to be
a power dresser going into a slick City
office or maybe you like the idea of
doing something practical outdoors or
using your hands do you want to be
working for a large international
company that will send you around the
world
or do you like the idea of starting your
own business it’s an entrepreneur with
your two best mates in your garden shed
use your answers to these questions to
objectively assess how well different
sorts of jobs student you so the second
thing I want to talk to you about is the
sheer importance of getting multiple
work experience placements in a diverse
range of careers so I think careers
should be like dating very few of us end
up marrying the first person that we
kiss were first person to be on a date
on date with but with our careers that’s
exactly what we do we marry our first
career and what I think we should be
doing is dating around
we need to date a few more careers
because doing so allows you to make
career decisions based on knowledge and
experience rather than based on
assumption hearsay or perhaps
expectation and I think this point about
assumption is really really important
and it’s something that I learn a lot
more about during doing so many
different jobs there was one job in
particular that showed that and
bizarrely that was alpaca farming so
this job I got through Twitter of all
things sent out a tweet said quite like
to try farming don’t know any farmers
but in ten minutes an hour Packer farmer
from Cornwall got in touch and said come
and work for me thought okay sure why
not
and it was September I was it was still
quite warm out I was hoping to go down
maybe get a bit of a town at the same
time and we spoke on the phone and she
said absolutely not you need to come in
January because if you like farming in
January when the weather is miserable
you’re meant to be a farmer I was such
good logic that I couldn’t disagree with
her so a few months later January rolled
round got my car they drove down to
Cornwall my phone signal did that there
was a little X at the bottom my phone
and arrived in the middle of the night
and the first thing I did was step into
a puddle
I wonder what on earth I was doing with
my life
well I’ve got the next morning though
and the hillside was covered in a
glittering frost I put on about seven
jumpers and went outside and I did all
the things that I’d always thought I
would do farming
so feeding animals animal husbandry
helping to use with lambing it was
fantastic but then it got to lunchtime
and sat down with the farmer she turned
to me and says that’s less than half of
what I do because to be a sustainable
farmer and the 21st century I have to be
an entrepreneur as well after actually
make a living selling the produce for my
farm and she had multiple lines of
business but the one that she told me
about and that I worked on while I was
there was which took her our Packers she
shared them throughout the wall spun
into yarn then the yarn was made into
high-end luxury children’s wear that she
sold Harrods and she managed every
single step in that process from helping
in our Packer give birth to negotiating
with Harrods imagine all the different
steps in that process on top of the
regular jobs of being a farmer and what
this showed was how many business acumen
skills you needed as well as combining
with a practical outdoor job and it
showed how completely wrong I’d been
about this career I was so wrong about
it and I would never have known if I
hadn’t have gone and seen for myself if
I hadn’t learned by doing so the last
thing I want to talk to you about today
it’s about what happened after I tried
all those different jobs
because I loved more than one of them
and I’ve quite a lot of them and this
left me with a new problem how to choose
I realized that all my life I’ve been
trying really hard to be a high achiever
but it turns out that’s not why it was
what I was was a wide achiever why I
also realized was that maybe I didn’t
need to just choose one but maybe don’t
apply that to the dating analogy growing
up I’d always assumed you can only do
one job but what doing so many different
jobs showed me was there in fact this
isn’t necessarily the case at all in
fact this is a flawed assumption what I
could have was a portfolio career
and this is the concept of having
multiple jobs at the same time in either
the same or in different industries and
doing so by for part-time freelance or
contract work I can take the skills that
I was best at and that enjoyed most and
I could specialize in those rather than
industry specific knowledge I could take
my skills and instead of applying them
vertically in one industry I could apply
them horizontally in many so if we fast
forward a year I’m now 26 and I finished
my project just over a year ago I chose
to specialize in communications both in
terms of written and verbal through
speaking and over the past year and a
bit I have officially had seven jobs and
I see that as something to be proud of
not something to hide I think a
portfolio career can show opportunity in
what is traditionally seen as fickleness
or indecision because instead it can
show traits like flexibility
adaptability resilience the ability to
learn quickly given that 65% of the jobs
that you will do don’t even exist yet
and that our careers are likely to span
well into the mid 70s as ultramarathons
and that we all have over 5 career
changes not job changes career changes
each I think these are pretty useful
skills to have but ultimately I think
it’s about happiness figuring out what
job or jobs you want to do and getting
the experience to see if they are right
for you happy people have been proven to
earn more both of themselves after their
companies or organizations and to work
harder so is in everyone’s interest that
you love what you do both yours for
friends your families the people you
work with and the people you work for
we often hear throwaway statements like
follow your passions or achieve your
potential well I hope this talk has done
has given you some insight as to how you
can practically go away and figure those
things out because these days every day
I wake up and look forward to the day
ahead and I don’t think that I should be
the outlier I think that should be the
you know thank you [Applause]
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