Know Yourself Embrace Your You Print
[Music]
[Music]
teme
nosse now why would a jamaican teenager
be familiar with this phrase
it was not her school motto that was
labor omnia winkett
labor conquers all temet nosse
means know yourself and that was what
this jamaican teenager’s mother’s
motto was for her and she told her that
every time she complained about not
being liked
you see i was that jamaican teenager
and my mother knew that the single most
important thing i could ever do in my
life
was to know myself by knowing myself
it would put me in a position of power
not just in life but also in business
it would free me of lives bullies in
particular the bully of
other people’s opinions and it would
give me a healthy appreciation of who
i was my unique qualities what made me
quintessentially me
and positioned me for purpose and the
main purpose
of impacting the world with my unique
and refreshing
you print so what is a uprint and why
does that matter
now in order for me to explain the
inextricable link
between self-awareness self-acceptance
and the art of skillful you printing i
would like to tell you a little bit
about my story
you see i was fourth of five children in
a very prominent
well-respected high-achieving family
and that put me in a position very early
of understanding that performance
was the currency of the day i had to
find
my place in life can anybody relate to
that
i and but i quickly found out that when
i won the weekly in-house
maths and english quizzes yes we had
them
it not only gained me the coveted
prize of the tin of peanuts but for one
brief
moment i was sent a stage
i was no longer the little runt i i
mattered
but you know what guys what i was doing
then and i started to do until i
learned was i was basing
who i was on what i did
how many of you are still doing that
you see it’s not about performance
and i had to learn really really quickly
you know i didn’t want to hear what my
mother was saying i was like oh come on
now mommy
can’t listen no seriously didn’t they
teach you anything in modern 101
you know like did you skip the troubled
teen phase because i’m going through it
right now when i really need your help
but all she had for me was know yourself
and because
i didn’t know myself or take time to
even understand what she meant
i went through high school being
top of the class teachers but i found my
place in that i couldn’t run with the
cool kids
because i was brought up sheltered so i
even if they wanted me i couldn’t go
i was bullied i had inordinately um
long legs or disproportionately long
legs so they call me filming
legs i had big eyes which i’ve grown in
to know but i was called frog eyes i had
knobbly knees it’s called horses you
take your pick
i had it but i used to take confidence
in the fact that i was top of the class
and i was teachers pet but we know what
happens
best laid plans don’t usually work or do
they and when we set our foundation on
shifting sands you know what happens
it shifts so because i did not have
an awareness of who i was i found myself
falling free getting pregnant
and dropping out of university in my
first year
you can imagine what that did
to a little girl who based all of who
she was
on being the good girl
pleasing her family accolades
that sent me into a spiral
of self-loathing shame and
self-isolation
but do you know what also happens in
life guys in the same way the suns can
shift the very things that come to
harm us can also serve to shape us
and what i found in life from then and i
continue to find is that
when we let experiences
tell us who we are by how we respond to
them and we pay attention to not
other people’s voices but the voices in
our heads like i did
i remember clearly today as it was
yesterday as it was today i remembered
looking at myself in the mirror and
saying to myself
you are not going to
fall you’re gonna pick yourself up you
are worthy
because my daddy told me i was worthy
when i when i got pregnant i said listen
you’re not the first girl and you won’t
be the last
pick yourself up i picked myself up but
i also
learned that i should value people and i
and it’s not about who what i was but it
was what i did but it was about
who i was that experience served me so
well
that when i landed in united kingdom
after successful legal career because
i dropped out of university yes but i
got picked myself back up and i
qualified as a lawyer i had an
incredibly professional
career and i moved to united kingdom but
you know what happened then
i got tested again i was faced with
homelessness
joblessness in the united kingdom
kingdom because the best laid plans that
i had
fell apart and you know what happened
then
i did not spend one night on somebody’s
couch
because my you print the thing that i
found out about myself
where i loved people i cared for people
i was always generous
that kicked in and when i was in jamaica
at the height of my career
i helped out a family in the youth who
well
at the time i didn’t know where they
were from but they came they were
let down by their travel providers and
i house them in my pool house free of
cost
fully catered when i was in the united
kingdom and i found myself in a position
of homelessness i never spent one night
on a couch
when i also was looking around trying to
find a job
couldn’t find a job another one of my
uprints kicked in
because i care have you ever wondered
why you might
not be able to walk past somebody who is
in need or walk past a problem
but other people walk past it is because
it’s showing you who you are
and i discovered i’m a person who cares
so at the time in bradford
when i couldn’t find a job i saw
refugees and asylum seekers
needing to circumnavigate the social
welfare system
i decided to set up a charity and that
charity
landed me my most prestigious speaking
engagement to date at the united nations
geneva switzerland fully paid for by
bradford council
just imagine that my you print also
kicked in when i moved from bradford to
wales in 2006 at the head of property
at new law solicitors this jamaican lady
knowing nowhere else knowing no one i
had to run a department
and build it but you know i’ve always
taken for granted
the fact that i greet people people say
they they
love the way i greet them they feel so
special i leave them feeling so special
i give them a bernie hug they call it
and they look forward to it now
that endearing quality of mind opened so
many doors to me
that within six months of me trying to
build that convincing department i was
invited to speak at the national
conveyancing congress
not about conveyancing but how you build
your business through relationships
i was and still am the darling of the
media i wasn’t still i’m sought after as
to to head any kind of
activity or initiative that has to do
with inspiring people
and helping people because i had learned
very early in life
how important it was to inspire
encourage and help because
i was inspired i was encouraged and i
was helped
now full circle when
i in 2012
was scheduled to speak i had three
seminars
at capital cardiff which was an annual
event by the
cardiff council and it was held at the
city hall so not so bad for horse knees
or flamingo legs yes i had three
seminars to deliver what happened
that morning i got the news my mother my
dear mother passed away
and that my other you prince showed up
when something goes wrong if people are
depending on me i’m going to show up
and i showed up i delivered the three
seminars and then my world fell apart
i’d lost my true north because what
you’ll understand is that when you
understand who you are you own your
unique qualities
and you go about purposefully and
intentionally
imprinting your unique imprint it
becomes
self-replicating people actually
benefit are inspired and encouraged to
do the same
so when my mother passed away i realized
but you know her you prince showed up
her euphemism showed up when we went to
the funeral home
and the owner of the funeral home said
is that your mother
that woman saved my life he said when i
was in high school
i was going off the race and she said to
me come on you know bet you are better
than that
and i listened to her and here i am he
put a tribute he put a tribute in her in
her program
and he also gave us the top package
bottom price
her european showed up in the delegation
of school children
who came in uniforms at her funeral at
the university chapel
because she had talked to the ranks
straight up to being a university
professor
her you print also showed up when she
was flown to the university
hospital and she was welcomed that the
returning queen mother
the medical practitioners deemed her to
be
because when they were first-year
students medical students
she taught them their composer’s course
abuse of english
and she made them feel so special she
died
like a royal she was treated like a
queen by them and died like a royal
it showed up in the country preacher who
she asked to preach at her funeral
and he got up before all the dignitaries
and he said when i look around at all
you
dignitaries i wonder why dr thompson
would ask me to speak
we said dr thompson did not make what
she did
affect how she felt about others and how
she esteemed herself and i said to
myself
if dr thomas thought i could speak i
will and he got up and he did her proud
and if that did not tell me and if i
didn’t understand
when i turned to my daughter and i said
to her i’m so proud
of the legacy my mother has left behind
where she
has made people feel so special
when they have an encounter with her she
looked at me
straight in the eye and she said mommy
that’s how i feel about you
and that’s what you are so all i can do
right now is invite you
i invite and implore you know yourself
embrace your you print embrace the
circumstances
that make these you print self-evident
be intentional about impra implant
imprinting and cleverly making a
difference
to your world the world needs it thank
you