When someone believes in you it changes the course of your life

In 1967 a new Rock band was formed, whose name has been carved in the annuls of music history – Fleetwood Mac. The name of the band was built around one of its founder members – Mick Fleetwood. Mick recalls his teenage years of frustration with his schooling and his dad one day asking him, 

“Ok Mick, what is it that you really want to do with your life?” 

Mick replied that what he really wanted was go to London and be a drummer in a band. So, at age 15 Mick’s dad bought him a set of drums and sent him off to London.  Mick’s life was at a crossroads moment. What was unique was that his dad must have stared into the heart and DNA of his son and saw something calling out from him, so supported him down a risky road. The rest, as they say, is history. But, what if his dad had said, 

“Mick, that is stupid. Stay at school, pass exams and go and get a real job.” 

Decades later I am sitting in a private room in one of the UK’s High Street Banks HQ, coaching one of their senior managers. The forty something year old looks like he has aged prematurely. The conversation seems laboured. So much so, that I eventually take my courage and say to the guy,

“You seem so unhappy”

His reply?

“I am. I hate my job”

As I explore why he’s doing a job he hates so much, he reveals that his real love was architecture. He loved design, technical drawing and the beauty of buildings.

“So why are you in banking?” I ask him.

“When I told my dad that I wanted to be an architect, he said that it was an insecure career, so I should go into banking, because that would always be safe. So, I did and have hated it ever since.”

These two stories reveal a pivotal moment in everyone’s life, that quite frankly, I find terrifying. The moment when an adult speaks into the life of a young person with words of life, or words of suffocation. These two stories I have heard countless times, all over the world, in a host of different scenarios.

“You can do this”

“Go for it”

“I see that real talent in you”

Or,

“You are no good at that”

“Don’t bother going down that route”

“You’re not an artist, engineer, poet, dancer, leader”

Everywhere I look, including my own life, I see this moment, this pivot, where the ‘older’ speaks into the life of the ‘younger’ and the ripples play out for a life time. Last week I met an amazing fine-artist. She has only picked up a paint brush in the past four years. Why only now? Because her art teacher told her that her work was never going to be good enough to make a living from. What if the art teacher had said to her at 18, “Go for it; you can do this”. Or the neighbour who, fifty years after leaving school, finally summoned the courage to join a choir.  Why only now? Because fifty years ago her head teacher told her that she couldn’t sing. What if her headteacher had said, “Go for it; you can do this”.

Every time I hear these stories, I feel myself miss a breath. It literally terrifies me that an adult has such power to liberate, or crush, a young person’s potential. Every young person is full of amazing potential. Each one is an acorn seed awaiting their emergence as an oak tree. They are the millions of untold versions of Gillian Lynne’s[1] story, whose mother and psychologist sent her to dance lessons, rather than school detention, or Ritalin[2], and she became one of the worlds most prolific stage choreographers from everything from Cats to Phantom of the Opera. 

There is a scary moment in every young person’s life when that seed is watered, or crushed, affirmed and cheered on, or discouraged and re-routed down a safe, but life-denying track.

So, I speak to the elders of every young person’s life – the parents, the teachers, the youth leaders. We have an awesome responsibility to encourage the potential of the youth in our world. The power of your words of affirmation, support, vision, and belief, can and often do, literally change the course of a person’s life. 

We are not to push our fears, our own unanswered callings, our own undiscovered talents, our disappointments and bitterness’s from our own histories. We have to put our own autobiographies behind us and focus on listening to what the Greeks called the Daemon, in that young person.  That unique spirit, gift, element (Sir Ken Robinson called it). The Daemon was seen as the guiding spirit, the DNA, that every child is born with. Our job is to hear it and not get in the way of it, but rather to en-courage it, to literally put the courage into that young life.

Potential (or another word might be possibility), needs calling to, calling out, nourishing, affirming. Our job as adults is to hold belief on behalf of young people’s potential, until they believe in themselves. The adult voice carries huge amounts of power. This is why we can do so much lasting good, or lasting damage, when we use our words wisely, or bluntly. The call on the parent, youth leader, teacher, is clear and if it isn’t clear then we should be running courses for adults in all these professions and vocations, on how to use our role to call out to a young person’s potential.

Let me leave you with a challenge. Make a list of every young person you know – your child, a nephew, niece, a friend’s child etc. Then make the time to intentionally listen to them, hear them, hear their spirit, their energy, their dreams…and then speak words of life to them and keep on doing it until they learn to do it for themselves. Let us olders own our own potential and be true elders to young people. 

This is our calling.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_Lynne#Major_stage_credits

[2] Used to treat ADHD in children