John Linton I don't know when it happens 'on average' in a young human beings life that they discover for the first time that, if they persist against previous conceptions that something is not possible for them to do, miracle of miracles, they will actually do it.
For me it was in my 12th year when I desperately wanted to overcome my puny physical frame and kick a soccer ball from the corner spot to the near side of the goal post with enough 'curl' to score if the goalkeeper wasn't fully alert. I used to spend 30 plus minutes of every day of the winter and Easter terms in an English prep school practicing kicking the ball. At first I couldn't get the ball to reach the post more than a few centimeters off the ground but throughout the winter term I asked every person I could and watched as many oeople as I could in terms of their run up, feet positions, upper body positions and how they held their arms until shortly before the end of that term I could get the ball from the corner spot to head high by the time it reached the goal post. It took me the whole of the next term (undoubtedly helped by the growth in height and weight that occurs around that age) to learn how to put the right amount of spin on the ball so that it would 'dip late' and actualy go into the goal. I succeeded and my ability to score the occasional goal from a corner plus the ability (much later) to use that control to pick out any team mate in a scoring position allowed me to play in the school rep teams for the whole of my senior school career.
Not much of an achievement. True enough. In itself it was an horrendously wasteful expenditure of time in almost always bitingly cold and often rainy or snowy conditions. But for me, and for every person who has ever despaired of ever doing anything that, at first sight and for many attempts seems too difficult, it was the basis for never giving up in trying to do what I really wanted to do (and believed that unless innate physical limitations prohibited success - I never did win the 400 meters in the Olympics).
I realise that every human being goes through this pre-adolescent or early adolescent 'rite of passage' on their way to the horrors of adult hood and the unrelenting demands of self sufficiency and that every human being finds their own level of 'belief' in what's possible for them to achieve in every different aspect of their ongoing lives. I am not suggesting that my personal experiences are 'special' in any way.
What brought this to mind? Well it might have been the interview on TV while I was having a cup of coffee of the current "Defence Minister" being very kindly dealt with by Laurie Oakes - I mean - where did he get dragged up from - the man can't put two words together and his vocabulary and speech seem to indicate he left school at 15 and never picked up a book or a pen since - yet he has succeeded in becoming a cabinet minister with serious responsibilities despite his clear natural unsuitability for the position (how he got selected to run for parliament in the first place would make interesting reading).
That aside, it was actually reading through the career plans for the Exetel employees and seeing the diversity of 'confidence' that was displayed by the 30 plus different people. Of course, when any process is new (and I doubt that any of our younger employees had ever thougt about a career planning process before they were asked to complete an Exetel questionnaire) it is difficult to grasp just what is involved and too little thought together with too little knowledge of either the company you work for or the industry you are currently working in lakes for a difficult task to complete.
I'm too removed from the direct management of even a small number like 30 people to actually contribute as effectively as I would like to the explanation and direction of what each Exetel person might like to consider the best ways of developing their careers over the coming three years (either within Exetel or with some other entity). I am reduced, in most cases, to do as Napoleon once said a "commander's" chief responsibility was - "to deal in hope". By which I interpret him to have meant that anyone who has some reponsibility for other people must do their best to help them achieve as much as possible irrespective of the circumstances they may currently find themselves in. It seems to have worked very well in a long career; with one notable exception of course.
It doesn't matter whether it's some sickeningly 'sweet' Hollywod 'feel good' movie or every sporting triumph story you've ever heard but it is a 'truism' that any human being can achieve (with only a very, very few limitations imposed by physical attributes) practically anything they are determined to achieve if they keep trying long enough - and often re-think their approach and look more widely for advice.
I would like to continue to believe that I can do the last thing I have always wanted to achieve (in a business sense) and in doing that hope that it will assist quite a few other people achieve what they most want to achieve.
Hopefully that small group of buildings coming in to view isn't Quatre Bras.