Miss Bowles

Who was your most influential teacher? Why?

Miss Bowles wouldn’t have needed to lift a finger to get your attention.

She was a 5 foot tall, not quite as wide, pocket rocket of dignified power.

As a school headmistress she wielded that power silently. She could come out into noise and chaos, stand still and wait, silence would spread down the hall. Then she would just say “Thank you ladies.” And return to her office.

She was scary but incredibly kind if you were grown up enough to listen to her. If you made her angry it was very uncomfortable but never frightening. Her first choice was always a discussion with you.

She made a difference to me because I respected her so much, and she thought a lot of me. Which in turn meant a lot to me. She really believed that I had the potential to do whatever I wanted, and actively encouraged me.

She was appalled when my parents took me out of school at 16, and literally put me in a dead end job. Like me, she thought I was going to university. I know I was destined for head girl at school.

She talked to my parents, then in despair she called my brother’s school to ask what sort of student my brother was.

His Headmaster said completely disinterested. But then mum had told him he was thick like her before he even went to school. I still remember the shock and asking her how she knew that?

She set him up for a failure he did not deserve. He was very intelligent in any number of ways. I respected my brother from the moment he could speak. He was wise beyond his years, an amazing reader of people, could turn his hand to anything, and certainly intelligent enough to drive a front line ambulance and learn everything he needed to in order to save lives.

He was also the most extraordinary driver, his instructor said if he could keep him at 30 he would pass a test easily, straight after his first lesson. The instructor said that they were coming to a humpback bridge and Bro slowed down. When he asked him why Bro replied “there’s a line of traffic the other side.” There was. That blew Gordon’s mind. I wasn’t surprised.

As a footballer and goal keeper he could have played for England. A top team was after him aged 11.

Miss Bowles concluded that mum was never going to let me do better than Bro. She was almost right. She was never going to let either of us do better than dad. Plus, because I was like dad in character, she almost forced Bro to be like her.

My mum was a lovely, intelligent, wise woman, utterly beautiful, definitely the best of the three sisters by a New York mile. Certainly the kindest. Lack of confidence destroyed that for her. She had an intelligent husband, an intelligent daughter, she just wanted someone like her. We were all like her, she just didn’t know it.

Important messages

When your confidence is destroyed as a child or young person it can be very hard to undo that programming. It filters down through families, and it’s important to remember that it was no one’s fault. Only the first bully that started it, and who knows how far back that goes.

To rebuild confidence is difficult. Just how?

By forgetting about it completely.

Seriously. You don’t need it. Here’s what you do need:

• Learn to do what you want or need to do. People are often confident simply because they know what they’re doing. Nothing more magical than that.
• When it comes to appearance: find a good hairdresser and have a style you like and can cope with. Don’t follow fashion in clothes or hair. Be yourself. Work out what makes you feel good and wear that.
• Don’t define yourself by body weight. Be fit. Fitness is ten times as important. Slimmer helps with that.
• Your gorgeousness isn’t defined by your looks. It’s perfectly possible to loathe a slim, expensively dressed, highly educated, very wealthy person who seems to have it all. It’s not the looks, it’s the happiness you exude. Happiness is the way to radiate confidence and wellbeing, and draw good people to you like a moth to a flame.
• Focus on happiness always. It’s your best decision maker. Sounds lame or woke, or too simple? I married a man the first time who was already making me very unhappy. What if I thought for one moment that happiness was important? The answer is obvious.
• This extends out into every corner of your life. Have a career you love and it will never feel like work. Be in friendships that don’t hurt you they support you, romantic relationships that are loving and respectful. If you live in a run down and violent area, find a way out. Nothing wrong with run down if the people are wonderful. Ditch a bully boss at the first opportunity.
• Confidence does not come from unhappiness. Fact.
• Most importantly: Do NOT NOT NOT let your upbringing or education define you. I lived what I was taught for far too long. I was raised to be second and never met anyone who put me first for too many years; so neither did I. It’s called keeping an ancestral pattern going. Break it. I was the ancestral line breaker.

Please consider these ideas

You are as important as every other living thing in this world. Fact.

You decide that you matter, no one else.

You decide and define who you are, no one else.

You choose to be who you want to be. Choose happily. Then you’ll reap the benefits not pay the price.

Believe in yourself or no one else will, then it doesn’t matter if they don’t because you do.

Trust yourself to know best for you, only you can.

Don’t focus on mistakes focus on learning, otherwise you’ll keep making the same mistakes.

Have a wish list and live it.

Dreams need creating – create them.

Intelligence as we define it is NOT everything, there is a great deal more to confidence and success. I’m able to learn easily because I love it, but it means little if you’re not happy. I truly consider intelligence as we know it to be completely the wrong approach and attitude. Don’t define yourself by it, either way.

Interesting fact

If you have an IQ (intelligence quotient) test, you also need an EQ (emotional quotient), and a PQ (percentile quotient) test, to define your true level of intelligence.

What’s the point of being the most intelligent bully of a boss on the planet? Staff hate you and do the minimum. They’re always off sick with stress. They can’t think straight at work. Whereas if you had the emotional intelligence to build them and support them? What then?

You need it all. But the element I find the most fascinating is:

If a young person born in a village in the middle of nowhere, with no education whatsoever, has an IQ of 50, they’re basically a genius. That’s the percentile quotient in action. Your early educational opportunities make a very real difference. But they don’t mean you’re not super clever. Opportunities allow for growth that all.

So if you are intelligent when it comes to books and learning, be grateful not superior. If you’re super-intelligent but unaware of the needs of others, you may do great damage in your life. So what’s the point of being clever then?

If you’ve struggled all your life, put that to one side and find something you really, really want to do. I guarantee you that you’ll surprise yourself.

And…

If you have someone in your life who believes in you, as I did with Miss Bowles, trust them. I didn’t and it cost me a lot. I listened to the wrong people.

Listen to the people who believe in you.

This is a long blog, written because I believe you matter fellow soul. 💖

Best love and lots of happiness.

Deb xx