Sitting there I remembered Nancy Duarte’s post ‘ Are You Brave Enough to be Vulnerable?’ She wrote, “sharing a story about yourself makes you vulnerable. The sun was shining and everything felt different. It felt like I’d been in a therapy session. Afterwards I sat down to catch my breath over coffee in Climpson & Sons on Broadway Market. Maybe there was something about that rough and ready radio studio that felt intimate, where I could just be me. It was time to tell it as it was: to talk about my struggles with burnout and depression - the reason why I’d quit my job back in 1999. I don’t know exactly what happened or why, but as George opened the microphone faders I began to open up. A walk that took almost an hour, up through Hackney to London Fields. That morning I walked from Fenchurch Street station to George’s studio in Bayford Street, E8. All I knew was they wanted to riff about work. I’d been invited to be a guest on a podcast with broadcaster George Lamb and writer Ross Ashcroft. Ploughing through old notebooks last night I discovered that being honest with my story actually started a couple of months earlier, on a Friday in early March 2015. It was my first opportunity to stand up in front of people, and tell my real story. I’ve written before about the positive effect speaking at The Do Lectures had on me. I knew I was missing a trick, I wasn’t fulfilling my potential and I wasn’t walking tall. I’d had professional successes - started a virtual marketing agency, authored four books, written for the FT - but underneath the surface something was lacking. Up until that point, I’d been doing okay. And it all started five years ago today on a light industrial estate in Hackney. Writing these words, I can pinpoint the time things changed for me, when I rediscovered my professional confidence and became committed to the path I’m on today.
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