Nearly thirty years ago I read a book called Unstoppable People by Adrian Gilpin. One line from it has stayed with me ever since.
“What would you do for the rest of your life if you knew you couldn’t fail?”
It took me a few years to do anything with the question. The practice I run today, a small number of clients I enjoy working with, no team of my own, every advisory conversation handled by me, is what eventually came out of it.
I bought a second-hand copy, because an essay I read reminded me of it. The essay asked a different question.
If nobody expected anything from me, would I still choose this life?
Two questions, thirty years apart, doing similar work. Gilpin’s takes away the risk of getting it wrong. The other takes away everyone else’s expectations. Both leave you looking straight at what you actually want, which is why most of us answer them quickly and move on.
Four ideas from the essay are worth your time.
1. You inherit most of your wants.
Somewhere along the way, “What do I want?” quietly becomes “What should I want?” Socrates put self-examination at the centre of a life worth living, and the uncomfortable part is what turns up when you do it. Goals you never chose. From parents, teachers, competitors, the trade press, the people you’d hate to let down. A child learns that good children don’t disappoint their parents. Forty years later the same person has built an entire business around disappointing nobody.
2. The role stops feeling like a role.
Carl Jung called the face we show the world the persona. The competent professional. The reliable owner. The one who has it all together. Roles are useful. The trouble starts when you forget you’re wearing one and begin saying “this is just who I am.” After that, failure is unbearable, disapproval feels dangerous, rest feels like idleness, and changing direction feels like collapse.
3. The longer you’ve done it, the harder it is to stop.
Ten years in the business. Twenty in the profession. Thousands of hours becoming someone. Then one morning: “I’m not sure I want this anymore.” And straight after it: “I’ve come this far.” I’ve sat across the table from owners running businesses they would never start today. They stay because leaving would mean re-reading the last fifteen years as something other than progress.
4. Attention is what you’re really spending.
Whatever gets your attention becomes your life. If comparison takes it, your life becomes comparison. If fear of failure takes it, your life gets organised around not failing. If other people’s priorities take it, you spend your working life inside someone else’s diary. Look at where the last month of your attention actually went. That’s a fair description of your life.
Here’s the practical part, and it’s why I still think Gilpin’s question is the better of the two.
The essay’s question tells you what to stop. Gilpin’s tells you what to start. Answer it properly and you’re left holding something specific, which you can then cost, plan and test.
So try both, in this order.
For seven days, notice every time you say: “I should.” “I have to.” “They’ll think.” “It’s too late.” “That’s just who I am.” Then ask whose voice that is. Yours, your parents’, your competitors’, or a version of you who made sense fifteen years ago.
Then take ten minutes and answer Gilpin’s question. What would you do for the rest of your working life if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Write it down. Don’t hand in your notice on the strength of it. Gilpin took years to build what came next, and so did I. The point of the answer is that you now know what you’re aiming at.
