Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
“Welcome. Thanks for coming in today Tom” I said enthusiastically shaking the young boy’s hand and trying to make him comfortable cupping my hands around his. Tom’s lack of eye contact and his sweaty palms were an instant giveaway that this process was not going to be easy for him. Or for me.
“Thanks for the opportunity” Tom said with a passing glance as he perused the number of chairs around the table and pensively sat down directly across from me placing his hands on his thighs.
I smiled and gave him a few moments until we regained eye contact. “Can I get you a water Tom?”
“Ah, no thanks, I’m fine. Thank you.”
“Well, let’s get straight into it then” I continued feeling the awkwardness and hearing the shallow breathing from the other side of the table as Tom pulled a lot of paperwork out of an envelope.
“Why would you like to work for Allan’s Music Store Tom? What is it about Allan’s that appeals to you?”
My inner critic kicked in. “Oh bugger, two questions. I shouldn’t have asked him two questions in a row like that.”
“I play the piano, cello and flute. I love music and I would really enjoy the opportunity to work part time with people like myself who know a lot about the industry,” he replied before moving his paperwork so that it lined up accurately with a join in the mahogany table.
“Do you listen to music a lot Tom?”
“Yes, I do” he replied. Again, our eyes met and he smoothed his right thumb along the edges of both paperwork and tabletop.
My inner critic again… “Note to self Soozey – no closed questions. Only open questions. What am I thinking?”
“Tom what is it that you enjoy so much about playing such a wonderful variety of instruments?”
Tom straightened up a little and looked up to the ceiling behind me for what seemed like at least 10 seconds. “To me, one note is one hundred words.” Tom paused for a moment and continued, “Music is an expression. It’s a story. It’s an experience. It’s everything.”
I felt a lump in my throat and I awkwardly looked away hoping that this young man didn’t see my eyes welling up with emotion. I took a moment to make a few interview notes writing his exact words so that I could Google them at my first possible opportunity.
“Wow, did he really just say that? Or, has he memorised a quote from Mozart or Bach in preparation for our mock interview?” were my immediate thoughts while making notes and trying to compose myself in preparation for the next question.
“So, you only have a few more years left at school Tom. What do you see yourself doing when you finish here?”
“My plan is to get into engineering at Melbourne”
“Oh?”
We sat in silence for a moment as I thought about a response, and then Tom fired up a little: “Well, my Dad’s an engineer. My grandfather was an engineer too. There’s just not the money in a music career.”
With a sense of relief, my inner critic started being much more sensible. “OK Soozey, stop the interview. Tom and I have such a short time together today. Use this opportunity for a real, vulnerable, heart-felt conversation. What’s there to lose? You know that this young man will end up as a 45 year old adult in a broken marriage, in a job he hates earning big money to buy a lifestyle he doesn’t need and stuff he doesn’t want if he keeps going down this path.”
“Hey Tom, would you mind if we stopped the interview right now so that I can give you some feedback?”
Tom’s first smile emerged and he took a deep breath and pushed himself into the back of his chair. “Absolutely, that would be great thank you,” he replied.
I went on to give Tom some feedback and we discussed some tips, strategies and responses for his upcoming interviews. Finally, we chatted about his future, his passion for music, his father’s expectations and the long life benefits of choosing what you love. “Tom, as an executive coach, I see supposedly highly successful people going to work each day to do a job to pay a mortgage. They are screaming inside.”
“So are you saying that I should continue with my music through my final years at school?”
“Tom, I’m not saying anything. I’m asking you to consider what makes you happy. To choose the subjects that you most enjoy. To further explore what lights you up.”
Tom looked at me with such intensity. No words were necessary. I could feel his relief as a quavering “thank you” emerged while he leaned forward to shake my hand. In that moment, there was such a confidence in him. The heaviness lifted.
As an executive coach I work with a lot of middle and senior managers who go to work to do a job for a wage. People who started their working lives on the path to achieving someone else’s goals. Only to find themselves working in a soulless business surrounded by many others like themselves doing a job with the primary motivation to pay for more stuff, more things, more crap that brings limited or no happiness?
Why do we put so much pressure on our children so young? Why is the question “What do you want to do when you grow up” part of so many adult child conversations? Why is it that the word ‘career’ still used in 2014? Why is the education system skewed towards subject choice, getting high marks, choosing a ‘career’ early, starting VCE in year 10, getting the right ATAR score so that you can get into the right degree at the right university?
Why not choose the one note, the one hundred words while the choice doesn’t involve starting over?
Soozey Johnstone is the author of the soon to be released book entitled “I am the Problem” – the “tell it like it is” real-world stories of why some businesses grow and prosper and others inevitably stumble and decline.