My Speech at UCL Graduation 2024
Hello everybody.
I’m Robbie Swale – I’m a coach to leaders and entrepreneurs, the host of The Coach’s Journey Podcast and the author of the 12-Minute Method series of books about procrastination and productivity.
But more importantly, just under 21 years ago I was sitting in my student accommodation on Drummond Street feeling incredibly lost in my first term studying maths at UCL.
Some of that was what happens if you move from a tiny town in North Yorkshire to one of the biggest cities in Europe. And some of it was about how hard it can be to study something like what I studied, and the various courses you all studied.
As part of trying to find my way through that really tough term, I emailed my old teacher, Mr Ketchell. Among the things that Ketch said was that if you study something like we all studied, stretching and exercising your mind in the particular ways you do when studying topics like these, then at the end of it you get to feel like you’re part of a special club.
I found my ways to cope and then thrive at UCL and I made it through.
And you made it through, too – so it is a great honour to say to you all today: welcome to the special club.
(A particular welcome to lower second class members of the club because… you’re my people.)
All of you will go on from here, taking the particular ways that you have stretched and challenged yourself – and it will have changed the way you think – out into the world.
Some of you to further study, some of you to the kinds of industries that search out people who think in the ways that studying in a faculty like this trains you to think. Some of you will take those ways of thinking in ways you can’t imagine – I would never have predicted spending my time using the rigour and clear thinking and problem solving of my studies to help leaders make decisions in the most important moments of their lives, decisions that sometimes affect hundreds of people in their organisations or many, many pounds on their bottom lines.
The leaders I work with often face complex environments and situations, and one of the things I’ve learned is that in complexity we can’t control where things go, no matter how much we wish we could. We need to focus instead on principles that create the conditions for good things to happen and before I finish I want to share three with you that I’ve learned from my work, in the hope they can help you create the conditions for good things to happen in your work and lives:
Number 1: Courage comes first, confidence comes after. Wherever you go next, there will be things you don’t know how to do. Don’t wait for confidence – be courageous, act in the face of fear, dive in and learn. After, you’ll feel confident.
Number 2: Practise trumps talent in the long term. If you want to be different, to know something, to be good at something you aren’t, there’s a proverb – the best time to plant an apple tree was 20 years ago; the second-best time is now. Start practising now. Even a tiny amount of practice every week can compound into something magical.
Number 3: Discover your uniqueness: the point in the Venn diagram (and this is a good audience to talk about Venn diagrams to) where your strengths, what you love and the way you want to contribute to the world overlap. That – your zone of genius, if you like – is where you’ll create the most abundance and the biggest impact.
I can’t wait to see what impact you create and the changes you make: the world needs them.
If there’s ever anything I can do to help, please let me know – connections through a place like UCL mean something to me and many other alumni. My name is on the Graduate Portal – and you can google me.
Best of luck, congratulations on your graduation and – again – welcome to this special club.
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I was honoured to be invited to give a short speech as part of UCL’s 2024 MAPS Faculty Graduation on 2nd September, 2024. This is the speech I gave.
