“You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met, but you are very funny” – Jenn, previous colleague, begrudged compliment.
“You’re really odd and I love it” – Millie, current manager, compliment.
“You’re too quick and too curious for your own good” – Andrew, previous colleague, subtle warning?
“I have no idea how you come up with this stuff” – Nicola, previous manager, said in a daze.
“You’re the best I’ve got but I don’t know how to motivate you” – Nick, previous manager, mild frustration.
Not many career pages start with quotes about oneself, but not many careers begin with someone excelling in their first two sales roles, receiving next to no reward for the gruelling efforts to achieve this, and yet leaving those pastures with their main frustration not being the lack of reward.
You see, Nick was onto something. I was too young, naive or plain stupid to see it, but not being motivated by commission, or more worryingly, not being annoyed enough about the lack of it, was a clear sign I was suited for something more creative.
As a young (beardless) boy in Year 6, I placed joint top of my year for my history project on WW2, and I had a chuffing great time doing it. The reward was a trip to McDonalds with the headteacher and the other person sharing the top honours with me. My chuffing turned to huffing, as the other person was a girl, and of course as a young (beardless) boy, I found her either terrifying or disgusting (can’t remember which).
If you’re wondering the relevance, it’s quite a simple explanation. I fall in love with the doing, not with the goal. That’s why Nick was frustrated with his highest achiever in the team – I was motivated by the challenge, not the reward. This also explains why any efforts to adopt the “work to live” mentally exhausted me, because it turns out I really want my work to matter. I want my work to inspire me so much that it carries over into my personal life.
Unfortunately I didn’t realise this until I was unhappy enough to have to. That’s when I started to piece together what Jenn, Millie, Andrew and Nicola had said. They weren’t the only ones, but they were the ones whose words held weight for me. Although these quotes may seem comical, I was grateful for them, because being motivated by a challenge is only half of the equation. The other half to figure out, was what these challenges would be.
Where would being memorably weird, noticeably funny, charmingly odd, frighteningly creative, disastrously quick and dangerously curious be strengths and not hindrances? I flirted with becoming an author or poet or comedy something or other during my career reset and wrote several amusing books. Whilst the writing and creation of ideas and concepts wasn’t an issue, it just felt really rather isolating, so I kept thinking.
I remembered I’d always picked up things really quickly in jobs, but after a while I found myself begging for new challenges and projects that never came, so I needed something fast paced with a reliable stream of new opportunities to learn and try new things.
After kicking around ideas week after week, I stumbled upon an interview with Rory Sutherland on YouTube, and I realised that the answer was obvious- advertising!
Once I’d discovered that being the odd one out and being bold isn’t frowned upon, and instead is actually sought after in the industry, the rest was history, except really, the rest is the future. I’ve attached a visual overview of my CV below, because I do understand that stuff matters, but I put it at the bottom because it’s probably a bit boring for you. Before you look at those, I’ll leave you with one final message.
As a now much older (still beardless) boy (in Year 26 theoretically – I did the maths), I know it is a difficult industry to get into, but I think I’ve already mentioned I love a challenge… Plus, what a story it could be for the agency that takes a chance on me! 🙋♂️
Click me for clarity 👇
Henry Mulligan 