Life in full circle

In both my books – The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator from 2013 and Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation published this March – I make no secret of my early struggles to find meaning and purpose. Back home in Jersey, for a period approaching a decade from my mid-teens, I went through the motions doing what most people around me were doing – working in a well-paid but totally unfulfilling job. It was a fairly dark time, but one which I thankfully stumbled my way through.

Part of my strategy at the time was to go on long drives in my beloved TR7 – quite a feat on an island the size of Jersey. As most people my age did I’d play my music loud, putting together compilation tapes of some of my favourite thought-provoking, sometimes gloomy, music.

In 1986, like many people, I found myself caught up in the buzz and excitement of a new album called So by Peter Gabriel (famous for a number of hits including Sledgehammer, Don’t Give Up and Big Time). I began ordering some of his earlier records (yes, I had to order vinyl LP’s from actual record shops back then). One of those records was his very first album, and one track in particular found its way onto many of my driving/contemplation tapes. Playing it today still takes me back to a place I didn’t want to be, almost thirty years on.

So it is one of life’s little ironies, in a way, that Peter Gabriel agreed to write the foreword to my new book. In the same way that life sometimes goes full circle, his involvement has almost bridged what feels like two lives – the one I had before I found purpose, and the one I’ve had since.