Entrepreneur Jo Cruse reminds the girls to celebrate challenges as well as success
What an extraordinary privilege it is to be with you on this incredibly special day: a time to reflect both on the year which has passed, and all that lies ahead – especially for the outgoing Upper Sixth.
Wherever you have come from today, however you have found yourself to be in this room – as a student, teacher, parent, or friend of the school – it can be a challenge to find moments of pause such as this.
And the rarity of such moments makes time like that which we share together today even more valuable. They offer us precious opportunities - away from the hustle and bustle of life outside these doors – to come together, to reflect, and, girls, to celebrate all that you have achieved.
To the outgoing Upper Sixth, today marks both the end of one significant journey and the beginning of another: a prospect which must evoke a heady mixture of excitement and trepidation.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. I stand here, at this juncture of uncertainty and possibility, with you.
Allow me a few moments to explain.
This is not the speech I planned to deliver to you today. A few weeks ago, I took a difficult and unexpected decision which has given the story I planned to share with you today a very different ending.
So, instead, I thought I would share some thoughts about that decision with you, and use it as a prism to examine the nebulous – but also exhilarating – world which this wonderful school is preparing you, its girls, to enter.
I am an entrepreneur. For 18 months, I have led an education company - called The Unreasonables -which designs and delivers leadership development programmes for the most ambitious schools across the UK. We have had the privilege of working with thousands of young people. Our message to the students we work with is simple: not every student may want to lead a company or country, but they will all have to lead one thing at the very least: their own lives. Leadership is therefore of relevance to each and every one of them. The recognition of this fact is a crucial step towards empowering young people to create positive change in their own lives, and the lives of others.
As a former A-level teacher, I have seen first-hand the seismic impact that developing students’ leadership skills can have on their lives and futures. We had the joy of working with many, many school leaders who passionately believed the same. But the challenges of growing and sustaining a young business in a highly competitive sector have been enormous. And for us, those challenges became insurmountable. The Unreasonables will close its doors this Summer.
There is a delicious irony to the situation I now find myself in. As I contemplate life beyond the organisation I currently lead, I now face exactly the uncertain future which our programmes sought to prepare young people for. I have spent many hours coaching Sixth Form students about how to face what lies beyond the school gates. And now, I too must ready myself to face the unknown.
And so, I have realised I need to approach this time in the way that we as an organisation have always encouraged students to face their futures – with authenticity, ownership and curiosity. In so doing, the ending of this business will, I hope, be a powerful live case study of all the lessons we have sought to share with young people up until now.
And so, girls, I stand here with you. I feel a huge sense of possibility as I look out to the future. I’m not sure what life will look like beyond July, and am excited as to what might come next. But I am also afraid. As you look out on the next chapter of your lives, I know what it feels like to not have a blueprint which neatly maps out what happens next.
It would have been easier not to share this story with you today. I understand the possible incongruence of sharing a story of failure – or what may be perceived as failure – on a day dedicated to stories of success. But it would have felt deeply inauthentic to stand in front of you today and present myself as the finished product – the shining example of the successful entrepreneur - while knowing that the reality was very different (and in many ways, far more interesting).
We do ourselves a great disservice if we aren’t able to celebrate both our successes and our challenges. And so today, girls, we celebrate not only your extraordinary successes, but also those sometimes forgotten moments of triumph – the moments when you have doggedly persisted at something that truly challenged you, or chose to learn from failure rather than be discouraged by it. For every trophy handed out today, there has also been a constellation of other triumphs over the course of your school careers, and today we recognise and celebrate them all.
I’m going to let you in on another secret.
I had always thought – rather mistakenly I now realise – that something magic happened on the eve of your 30th birthday (which, when I was sitting in my own school Prize Giving aged 17, was in my mind when you became ‘old’). I dreamt I would wake up as a 30 year old and all the uncertainty, all the confusion, all the questions which I had carried with me through my teens would disappear. The wisdom of the world would be bestowed upon me, and I would become an expert at what has delightfully been called ‘adulting’.
But, as some of you may have already guessed, this didn’t happen.
Instead, what I have learned is this – none of us really know what we are doing. Very few of us have followed a linear path through our lives and careers. Take the chance to ask your teachers and parents about what their lives look like today versus what they would have imagined at 17 or 18. And this is perhaps one of the most wonderful things about life of all – it is what poet Mary Oliver calls “the unimaginable”. Planning is vital, but so too is allowing ourselves the space to explore new paths, to take unexpected turns – to remain open to opportunities and possibilities which we may not even have dared to imagine.
This, Leavers, is your challenge. As you look out today onto your own futures, you may feel that you have to make sure that you choose the right path. But your real responsibility is to uncover what is the right path for you.
On this road, you will have many powerful tools at your disposal. As you leave the gates of St Mary’s you take with you many gifts, and there are two in particular I’d like to mention.
Firstly, you will leave with a compass – of the metaphoric kind.
This wonderful and wise school knows that it can never prepare you precisely for every possible challenge you will face over the coming years. It knows it could never give you a map for every path you may stumble across. But what your St Mary’s education has given you is ways of thinking, interpersonal skills and knowledge which you can draw on whichever situation you may find yourself in. At any moment, you can reach into your pockets, no matter where you find yourself, draw out this compass and it will help you to chart a path forward.
This is the essence of the High Performance Learning philosophy which St Mary’s embraces so whole-heartedly. In its newly-released report into the future of the workforce, Skill Shift: Automation and the Future of the Workforce, the
McKinsey Global Institute identified the following skills as future-critical:
- Technological skills such a digital proficiency and programming;
- Social and emotional skills like leadership; and
- Higher order cognitive skills, especially creativity.
With its passion for STEM, excellent pastoral focus and integrated approach to education, St Mary’s has equipped you with precisely these skills. The education you have received here has given you an extraordinary grounding not just for learning, but for life.
Secondly, you will leave St Mary’s with a powerful network of allies. You do not go out in to this world alone. Look around you. You face this next stage of your lives as part of a community of extraordinary young women. Draw on each other. Support each other. Take care of each other. As Mary Ward herself chose to do, lean on each other not just in moments of success but also in moments of struggle. The love and friendship – as enshrined in the Mary Ward values - you give and can continue to give each other will be vital as you set out on the path ahead.
As I look out across this hall, and contemplate what lies ahead for each of you, the sense of possibility is breathtaking. Who knows what inventions, expeditions, families, communities, companies, political movements and sporting triumphs, will be lead and contributed to by the young women in this room.
There are some quiet but powerful lessons inherent in the time we spend together today. In addition to the metaphoric compass in your pocket, I hope you will take these with you too. As we are doing today, I hope you will continue to find moments to pause, to celebrate and reflect. As you have the chance to do today, I hope that you will continue to make time to look around you with gratitude at all those who have nurtured and supported you. And I hope that you will always take the time to look next to you, to your friends and peers, and be reminded that you never face this path alone.
And, safe in the knowledge of the community you have around you and the gifts St Mary’s has given you, I hope that you will have the courage to go forwards and be the most radical, extraordinary thing of all - the fullest and most authentic version of yourselves.