we do indeed live in times of great
disruption and transformation in my work
for you I I get to work every day
thinking about what this means for the
future of work I’m a creative I’m a
branding leader so I get to spend all
day thinking about how does
transformation affect work and this
you’ve been living on Mars you may have
heard that automation and the robots
will replace us all if you believe the
rhetoric
very lucky I have a really interesting
job when I worked some extraordinary
talented people
but it wasn’t meant to be like that when
I was seven years old if you told me I
was gonna be a global branding leader
for a professional services firm I
wouldn’t have understood you and even if
I had I would have almost certainly have
started to cry I grew up in a remote and
rural part of England on the east coast
called Lincoln chef and Lincolnshire
there man still is more about
agriculture than culture this was a
1970s it was shall we say a tech absent
era not like the childhood my children
are enjoying and I’m paying for with
broken screens every other day so there
wasn’t much to do but I was blessed with
a father who was a gifted pianist
although he hadn’t been able to afford a
piano for many years so when a
Singaporean concert pianist rolled into
the town next to ours I say town
I hope we’re talking village like no 700
people lived in my village it was an
exciting moment certainly for my dad he
rushed out and bought tickets and said
Julia we’re gonna go and see a concert
pianist doing anything else today so I
was taken to this concert and the things
I remember mainly are that for 99% of it
I was unbelievably stultifyingly bored
it seemed to go on forever this man you
know the the novelty wore off quickly
he’s huge hair not Duncan well so
relieved when it finished I remember
feeling like goodness and get out of
here and to my horror he walked back on
again and sat down oh please let this be
over
but he then spent four minutes playing a
Prelude by Rachmaninoff which
transported me and my little
seven-year-old brain to a place that I
didn’t know existed I was overwhelmed I
was overjoyed I jumped out of my seat
and I clapped like a maniac and in that
moment I changed my life ambition from
prima ballerina to concert pianist which
was quite an announcement considering I
was growing up in a house without a
piano
my mum was quite pleased because I was a
clumsy and physically unimpressive child
some would say still as an adult and in
a tutu I was borderline dangerous my
father didn’t need much encouragement to
empty their small savings destined for a
new washing machine and before we knew
it we had a piano installed in our home
and I began lessons and pretty soon it
became clear I was quite good I was
actually very good I was a bit
precocious and I was a bit of a brat but
I was I could play the piano and my dad
and I would spend hours together as he
taught me shouted at me prodded me and
turned me into a quite a good little
musician I let through the grades and by
the age of 14 I could play that piece by
Rachmaninoff that that man had played
that night when I was so bored and I was
still fixed on my North Star I was going
to be a concert pianist no messing with
that
my father died two days after I took the
last piano grade
I lost my companion and I lost my
inspiration I almost lost the man who
would bully me into working a bit harder
and this burned me on even more actually
to do a diploma that he’d never had the
chance to do and then I was at London
University doing a bachelor’s Irv on a
batch of honors in music and I was a
master class scholar at an International
Music Festival my goal seemed almost
Within Reach
I was still fixed on becoming a concert
pianist and then something I could have
done with knowing when I was about 18
was pointed out to me and that was I
wasn’t gonna be good enough feedback is
a gift not good enough to be a concert
pianist good pianist on a good day very
good but not gonna be a international
concert pianist sorry about that Julia
nowadays I can’t help thinking that
people would perhaps challenge that or
get a second opinion but I didn’t I just
accepted it okay not good enough so in
that moment I went from aspiring concert
pianist who failed a concert pianist
without a job because while everyone
else had been applying for internships
and grad programs I was busy in the
practice room for eight hours a day
wrestling with Bartok and whoever else
totally absorbed in my mission to become
a concert pianist so this left me with
something of a problem no job
graduate career late eighties not a good
situation to be in my mother with
characteristic British understatement
described this as being in something of
a pickle actually a bit of a catastrophe
my first experience of uncharted waters
so I converted my student job into a
full-time job and I was a gorilla in a
theme park walked around in her green
her outfit I wasn’t all glamorous
sometimes I was a pirate on the ship
that sailed the stagnant sea and walk
the plank twice a day if the amusement
of children and in between times I was
teaching piano were talking I don’t like
children a situation that was remained
unchanged even having two of my own and
I was an accompanist for often
ungrateful soloists and I became a sort
of emergency on-call pianist for a
theatre group whose resident pianist
Arthur had appendicitis or some sort of
over alcohol consumption during the
interval this was not the glittering
career I’d expected or hopeful
it really couldn’t continue and so
sometimes in life we talk about
disruption as is something that it’s
done to us but I decided to disrupt
myself and I announced to the world of
music that I was leaving the world of
music took this in its stride by the way
and there was no great loss to the
international piano scene and so it was
that in 1997 when the rest of the UK was
mourning the tragic death of Princess
Diana I somehow got through the door of
a job interview for a recruitment
business everyone was very distracted in
the UK that week I remember it
distinctly I don’t wish to diminish the
grief that the nation felt but for me it
was a huge opportunity the lady who
interviewed me only asked me two things
could I get along with people yes I was
a professional pirate and could I be
left to get along with things on my own
yes I’d spend seven hours in a practice
room eat just a piano she gave me a job
which was by the I can’t even slightly
reckless because I couldn’t actually do
anything didn’t matter at suit and she
was couldn’t walking and I had a desk
and it became very clear to me that I
was a very late start I was surrounded
by 22 23 year-olds they were much
smarter than me better educated than me
and you how to do their job so I had a
lot of ground to make up and I did I
really did make up some time
pretty soon I was getting promoted Wow
just getting along with people and doing
things as I was left to it and then I
got a headhunted then I was working for
Arthur Andersen suddenly I’ve got a team
meeting really important now my life has
transformed I’ve gone from failed
concert pianists to reasonably
successful executive corporate woman
about town being pretty pleased with
myself didn’t have a piano got rid of
that never in for it anymore
too busy party busy jetting around being
important
being busy
and certainly hadn’t played the piano a
very long time but I only seem to care
about that I didn’t seem to bother me I
was okay I was doing alright until one
day I was at some family gathering or
other and I was only drinking alcohol as
you do at family gatherings and I
overheard somebody saying yeah I think
Julia used to play the piano of it
and it stopped me dead in my tracks
really that someone can describe me as
someone who used to play the piano a bit
did they don’t know that I could play
the rapt manonoff payload in c-sharp
minor’ when I was 14 did they not know
how hard I’d worked and how many hours
I’ve spent training on this instrument
did they not know I was a failed concert
pianist
can screws was they didn’t I didn’t even
bother to mention what I’d done my
degree in on my CV I didn’t talk about
it wasn’t relevant didn’t have value I
wasn’t going to impress anybody who
cares that you have failed concert
pianists
and then a few months later at work I
was confronted by a Hungarian child in
the colleagues house in Hungary for some
reason he had a piano he wanted me to
play it with him I have no idea why I
must give off some kind of piano vibe
but he kept coming up to me and his
English was way better than my Hungarian
so it was forced to sit at the piano and
I couldn’t play I couldn’t play couldn’t
get my fingers to do anything gone all
that work gone
and in that moment I realized I’d done
something really rather terrible
I had discarded and destroyed arguably
the most interesting thing about myself
I couldn’t help thinking what my dad say
Julia what have you done so when you’re
in that situation what are you gonna do
how could something so familiar to me be
so completely alien how could I end up
in uncharted waters with the piano the
only thing I really knew right from the
beginning of my life pretty much so I
set about rebuilding my technique and
believe me if you leave something to
rock for long enough it really will rot
I’d done a great job
it was rubble I couldn’t play baa baa
black sheep anymore but I wanted to play
that myself again I promised myself that
I would get back to playing that rat
manonoff I wasn’t to be a concert
pianist didn’t matter I just needed to
get back to that piece took me a while
my kids weren’t happy my dogs weren’t
happy no one was happy noise my hands
weren’t happy and I discovered that my
hands 14 years of neglect they weren’t
doing so good turns out I’ve got a
little bit of arthritis creeping in all
those hours in the practice room
ironically I damaged my joints so now
I’ve got agency now I’m playing whenever
I can doesn’t matter that I’m busy
doesn’t matter that I’m flying around as
a motor I’ve got kids whatever else is
going on I make time because who I
really am is a piano player and in an
age of total disruption and
transformation the only thing we really
can be sure of is who we really are
so I’m gonna play the rap man enough for
you in a minute I’m sorry about that
and I play it for you because actually
instead of thinking myself as a failed
concert pianist I should have thought of
myself as an almost constant pianist do
I introduce myself as that no that would
be crazy
I’m a piano player I also work in
branding for a living
so my question to you is this are you
absolutely sure that you are true to
yourself or have you lost sight of any
of your passions and talents because you
confuse them with not having commercial
success or academic value and if you
have what you’re going to do about it
thank you
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
disruption and transformation in my work
for you I I get to work every day
thinking about what this means for the
future of work I’m a creative I’m a
branding leader so I get to spend all
day thinking about how does
transformation affect work and this
you’ve been living on Mars you may have
heard that automation and the robots
will replace us all if you believe the
rhetoric
very lucky I have a really interesting
job when I worked some extraordinary
talented people
but it wasn’t meant to be like that when
I was seven years old if you told me I
was gonna be a global branding leader
for a professional services firm I
wouldn’t have understood you and even if
I had I would have almost certainly have
started to cry I grew up in a remote and
rural part of England on the east coast
called Lincoln chef and Lincolnshire
there man still is more about
agriculture than culture this was a
1970s it was shall we say a tech absent
era not like the childhood my children
are enjoying and I’m paying for with
broken screens every other day so there
wasn’t much to do but I was blessed with
a father who was a gifted pianist
although he hadn’t been able to afford a
piano for many years so when a
Singaporean concert pianist rolled into
the town next to ours I say town
I hope we’re talking village like no 700
people lived in my village it was an
exciting moment certainly for my dad he
rushed out and bought tickets and said
Julia we’re gonna go and see a concert
pianist doing anything else today so I
was taken to this concert and the things
I remember mainly are that for 99% of it
I was unbelievably stultifyingly bored
it seemed to go on forever this man you
know the the novelty wore off quickly
he’s huge hair not Duncan well so
relieved when it finished I remember
feeling like goodness and get out of
here and to my horror he walked back on
again and sat down oh please let this be
over
but he then spent four minutes playing a
Prelude by Rachmaninoff which
transported me and my little
seven-year-old brain to a place that I
didn’t know existed I was overwhelmed I
was overjoyed I jumped out of my seat
and I clapped like a maniac and in that
moment I changed my life ambition from
prima ballerina to concert pianist which
was quite an announcement considering I
was growing up in a house without a
piano
my mum was quite pleased because I was a
clumsy and physically unimpressive child
some would say still as an adult and in
a tutu I was borderline dangerous my
father didn’t need much encouragement to
empty their small savings destined for a
new washing machine and before we knew
it we had a piano installed in our home
and I began lessons and pretty soon it
became clear I was quite good I was
actually very good I was a bit
precocious and I was a bit of a brat but
I was I could play the piano and my dad
and I would spend hours together as he
taught me shouted at me prodded me and
turned me into a quite a good little
musician I let through the grades and by
the age of 14 I could play that piece by
Rachmaninoff that that man had played
that night when I was so bored and I was
still fixed on my North Star I was going
to be a concert pianist no messing with
that
my father died two days after I took the
last piano grade
I lost my companion and I lost my
inspiration I almost lost the man who
would bully me into working a bit harder
and this burned me on even more actually
to do a diploma that he’d never had the
chance to do and then I was at London
University doing a bachelor’s Irv on a
batch of honors in music and I was a
master class scholar at an International
Music Festival my goal seemed almost
Within Reach
I was still fixed on becoming a concert
pianist and then something I could have
done with knowing when I was about 18
was pointed out to me and that was I
wasn’t gonna be good enough feedback is
a gift not good enough to be a concert
pianist good pianist on a good day very
good but not gonna be a international
concert pianist sorry about that Julia
nowadays I can’t help thinking that
people would perhaps challenge that or
get a second opinion but I didn’t I just
accepted it okay not good enough so in
that moment I went from aspiring concert
pianist who failed a concert pianist
without a job because while everyone
else had been applying for internships
and grad programs I was busy in the
practice room for eight hours a day
wrestling with Bartok and whoever else
totally absorbed in my mission to become
a concert pianist so this left me with
something of a problem no job
graduate career late eighties not a good
situation to be in my mother with
characteristic British understatement
described this as being in something of
a pickle actually a bit of a catastrophe
my first experience of uncharted waters
so I converted my student job into a
full-time job and I was a gorilla in a
theme park walked around in her green
her outfit I wasn’t all glamorous
sometimes I was a pirate on the ship
that sailed the stagnant sea and walk
the plank twice a day if the amusement
of children and in between times I was
teaching piano were talking I don’t like
children a situation that was remained
unchanged even having two of my own and
I was an accompanist for often
ungrateful soloists and I became a sort
of emergency on-call pianist for a
theatre group whose resident pianist
Arthur had appendicitis or some sort of
over alcohol consumption during the
interval this was not the glittering
career I’d expected or hopeful
it really couldn’t continue and so
sometimes in life we talk about
disruption as is something that it’s
done to us but I decided to disrupt
myself and I announced to the world of
music that I was leaving the world of
music took this in its stride by the way
and there was no great loss to the
international piano scene and so it was
that in 1997 when the rest of the UK was
mourning the tragic death of Princess
Diana I somehow got through the door of
a job interview for a recruitment
business everyone was very distracted in
the UK that week I remember it
distinctly I don’t wish to diminish the
grief that the nation felt but for me it
was a huge opportunity the lady who
interviewed me only asked me two things
could I get along with people yes I was
a professional pirate and could I be
left to get along with things on my own
yes I’d spend seven hours in a practice
room eat just a piano she gave me a job
which was by the I can’t even slightly
reckless because I couldn’t actually do
anything didn’t matter at suit and she
was couldn’t walking and I had a desk
and it became very clear to me that I
was a very late start I was surrounded
by 22 23 year-olds they were much
smarter than me better educated than me
and you how to do their job so I had a
lot of ground to make up and I did I
really did make up some time
pretty soon I was getting promoted Wow
just getting along with people and doing
things as I was left to it and then I
got a headhunted then I was working for
Arthur Andersen suddenly I’ve got a team
meeting really important now my life has
transformed I’ve gone from failed
concert pianists to reasonably
successful executive corporate woman
about town being pretty pleased with
myself didn’t have a piano got rid of
that never in for it anymore
too busy party busy jetting around being
important
being busy
and certainly hadn’t played the piano a
very long time but I only seem to care
about that I didn’t seem to bother me I
was okay I was doing alright until one
day I was at some family gathering or
other and I was only drinking alcohol as
you do at family gatherings and I
overheard somebody saying yeah I think
Julia used to play the piano of it
and it stopped me dead in my tracks
really that someone can describe me as
someone who used to play the piano a bit
did they don’t know that I could play
the rapt manonoff payload in c-sharp
minor’ when I was 14 did they not know
how hard I’d worked and how many hours
I’ve spent training on this instrument
did they not know I was a failed concert
pianist
can screws was they didn’t I didn’t even
bother to mention what I’d done my
degree in on my CV I didn’t talk about
it wasn’t relevant didn’t have value I
wasn’t going to impress anybody who
cares that you have failed concert
pianists
and then a few months later at work I
was confronted by a Hungarian child in
the colleagues house in Hungary for some
reason he had a piano he wanted me to
play it with him I have no idea why I
must give off some kind of piano vibe
but he kept coming up to me and his
English was way better than my Hungarian
so it was forced to sit at the piano and
I couldn’t play I couldn’t play couldn’t
get my fingers to do anything gone all
that work gone
and in that moment I realized I’d done
something really rather terrible
I had discarded and destroyed arguably
the most interesting thing about myself
I couldn’t help thinking what my dad say
Julia what have you done so when you’re
in that situation what are you gonna do
how could something so familiar to me be
so completely alien how could I end up
in uncharted waters with the piano the
only thing I really knew right from the
beginning of my life pretty much so I
set about rebuilding my technique and
believe me if you leave something to
rock for long enough it really will rot
I’d done a great job
it was rubble I couldn’t play baa baa
black sheep anymore but I wanted to play
that myself again I promised myself that
I would get back to playing that rat
manonoff I wasn’t to be a concert
pianist didn’t matter I just needed to
get back to that piece took me a while
my kids weren’t happy my dogs weren’t
happy no one was happy noise my hands
weren’t happy and I discovered that my
hands 14 years of neglect they weren’t
doing so good turns out I’ve got a
little bit of arthritis creeping in all
those hours in the practice room
ironically I damaged my joints so now
I’ve got agency now I’m playing whenever
I can doesn’t matter that I’m busy
doesn’t matter that I’m flying around as
a motor I’ve got kids whatever else is
going on I make time because who I
really am is a piano player and in an
age of total disruption and
transformation the only thing we really
can be sure of is who we really are
so I’m gonna play the rap man enough for
you in a minute I’m sorry about that
and I play it for you because actually
instead of thinking myself as a failed
concert pianist I should have thought of
myself as an almost constant pianist do
I introduce myself as that no that would
be crazy
I’m a piano player I also work in
branding for a living
so my question to you is this are you
absolutely sure that you are true to
yourself or have you lost sight of any
of your passions and talents because you
confuse them with not having commercial
success or academic value and if you
have what you’re going to do about it
thank you
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
you
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: