Commencement Speech at the Marist School

Hi!
Good evening and Congratulations!

I am hugely excited to be standing here tonight because I am essentially looking at the FUTURE. And that’s very cool and very, very exciting!

(1) So I actually vividly remember my own high school graduation. Which must mean I have a very good memory because it was in the 90’s. But I remember, we were all very excited and after all the formalities were over, my friends and I – I went to an all-girls school, also by the way – we made two promises to each other. One was that we would remain friends forever. And you know, “forever” is one of those words whose meaning changes with the passage of time. So as time goes by, “forever” actually gets shorter. But when I was as young as I was, as young as you all are now, forever was a really long time. So we promised to remain friends forever, that was the first promise. And the second promise was that we would never get involved in any love dramas with boys. And as it turned out, we more or less, all failed spectacularly on the second promise, but I’m very pleased to say that we – more or less – all managed to keep the first. And this is the first message Id like to give you tonight. Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask you not to get involved in love dramas with boys. You’re probably going to do regardless of what I tell you, so I’ll leave that one for you to figure out. No, what I’d like to talk to you about is the importance of female friendships. This is something I wish someone had told me when I was a young girl. Because I cannot emphasise enough, the value of shared experiences. And what I mean by shared experiences is someone who is going through exactly what you are going through at the same time you’re going through it. This is what we call empathy in the truest sense of the word, and empathy is a very different kind of sentiment than support or understanding. Support you can get from other people in your lives – your parents, your husbands, your kids. But empathy only comes from having experienced the same thing and that you can only truly get from your friendships with other women. So cherish those friendships. Really cherish them. The thing is, as women, there’s so much that’s expected of us. Get married, have kids, take care of our kids, go out and work either for financial reasons or because we might want to. But when you’re juggling so many balls, you’re bound to drop one or two, and more often than not, it’s our female friendships that get left by the wayside.
It’s different with guys. I’ve noticed this, you know, with guys – they meet after 10 years, they play a bit of golf, they drink a few beers, they make some jokes that are not even that funny and they are the best of mates. Until the next 10 years. And then they do it all over again.
Our friendships need work. But I’m here to tell you that it’s worth that work. It’s worth the investment. And you’re lucky. Like I was. You’re in an environment where you already have this set up for you. You don’t need to go out and make friends, you already have friends. All you need to do is keep them. So, do that. Please. Nourish them, grow them, sustain them, treasure them. Make that promise to be friends forever. Make it tonight.

(2) I want to take a moment to thank you all for having me tonight on your special evening. You know when Mr. McCloskey sent me the email inviting me to speak, a few weeks ago, I remember it was quite late in the evening, the first thought that crossed my mind was – yeah he’s got the wrong person, because I don’t do this. I’m not a speaker, I’m just a writer. And those are completely different things. You might think, because the coinage is words that it’s a similar skillset, but at least for me, I’m much braver when Im writing than when Im doing almost anything else. But, before I had a chance to even process all of this, I had already forwarded the email to 5 friends. And I’m really sorry Karl, I should have asked for your permission before doing that instead of springing it on you in front on 350 people in your school, on your stage!
But yeah, I have this thing – when I’m unsure of anything, I ask 5 people. Always 5 people. Those 5 people change around, but it’s always 5. See, 1 is tricky because if theyre wrong, you’re stuck. 2 is no good because one could say yes and the other could say no, its impasse. 3 is good because you could potentially get a majority. But 5! 5 is amazing because you could get a large majority (3) which feels safe. And we all know that a large majority that reflects the opinions of a large number of people, is safe and always leads to the right answer. Like Brexit. Just kidding!
So I sent it to 5 people. I’m going to go through them very quickly. The first was Lizzie, who you know better as Mrs Guinea who has been a tremendous friend to me and is really my connection to the Marist – she is the one who invited me to speak here the first time. You’re all very lucky to have her, she’s an incredibly inspirational woman, so much so that one of the character’s in the book I’m working on right now, is loosely based on her…and I’m looking at her face right now and that face is telling me that this is the first she’s hearing of it. Oopsie. Moving on!
The second person was a high school friend of mine – that’s 20 years of forever friendship for you, and she said said, ‘gosh, you gotto do it and wish I could be there. So that was 2.
The third person I sent it to was the protagonist of my first book. So my first book, called Centaur, is the story of a former elite sportsperson called Declan Murphy. And actually I’m going to digress a little here, because I think it’s worth talking about. So something very dramatic happened to Declan and he never wanted to talk about it. He’d been approached three times to have his story told, he’s had a movie producer who wanted to have a movie made on his life and he said no each time. And this is the thing, he took a chance on me – I’d never written a book before in my life, but he believed in my writing enough to take that leap of faith. You will meet people like this in life. Look out for them. There aren’t many of them around, but there are enough. And these are the champions you need to support you through life. There are many things we can do alone, but we can’t do everything alone, we need people. People are our shelter and people are our correction. We will always need people. And Declan’s been a huge champion of my career and he wrote back and said – wonderful, you‘ve got to do it and he’s here to support me tonight.
The 4th person I sent it to was my husband Sid who is also here. So I send everything to my husband not only because he’s really clever but because he usually doesn’t say very much which means when he says something, its actually really meaningful? And I think this is probably what attracted me to him when we were dating, cause here I was, you couldn’t shut me up, and there was this tall, handsome, enigmatic man who basically went through life saying yes, no, ok. I mean, I must have thought back then, wow, that’s pretty cool, Im really digging this. So, he replied quite promptly to the email and his reply was ‘Wow. OMG.’ (SHRUG) Which knowing what you now know, was a pretty massive thumbs up.
My 5th and final reply, I’m going to read out to you, because there’s a message in there that was intended for me, but it’s one that I’d like to pass on to you – it’s the second major point Id like to make this evening. But before I do that that, just to put this in context, number 5 is a new friend. And as wonderful as old friends are, new friends can also be wonderful. You’re never too old to make new friends. People who challenge the way you think, and teach you new things and help you grow – this is what gives us the space to continue. Number 5 is also very relevant in this context because he happens to be an “international keynote” speaker. So basically, this is what he does for a living. He goes from country to country and stands on a stage and speaks to 500 or 1000 people. Everyday. Sometimes many times a day.
I forwarded him Karl’s email and I prefaced it with ‘Yikes!? What should I say? This is your forte, not mine. Can you just pretend to be me and go in my place?’
I’m going to read out his reply. He ignored that last bit by the way, mostly because he’s a 49 year old Caucasian male, with a really posh accent so I think even if he had tried really hard, that might have been kind of tricky to pull off. This was his reply:
‘Clearly Mr McCloskey believes, with great conviction, that it is your forte also. Very rarely do we get an invitation with this much passion, admiration and love contained in it. To decline it is to turn down the herald himself and all he stands for. And the herald is not a frequent visitor.’
There’s a REALLY important point in here. Which is that opportunity sometimes presents itself at unexpected times and in unexpected ways. Grab it. It might seem uncomfortable. It might seem scary. You’re probably going to think you are not good enough.
Sometimes: It’s good to do things that are uncomfortable, it’s good to do things that are scary. And trust me, whether or not you think so – you’re good enough.
(3) I’ve also realised that the scarier something seems, the more rewarding it can be. This, for example. Standing here speaking to you. This is so different from what I do day to day. I think a lot of people think that writing is some kind of glamorous thing. It’s really not! My life basically involves locking myself in a small room and staring at a computer monitor from morning till night. And at the end of the day, I measure myself, my whole sense of self-worth on: A WORD COUNT.
500 words is a good day. 1000 words in a champion day, for that I deserve 1 square from a bar of dark chocolate. 2000 words, I get a glass of wine. If I ever get drunk on this reward scheme, I’ll let you know and we’ll have a mini celebration, okay? Don’t worry, it’s never happened.
So yeah, it’s great being up here, seeing faces. I don’t usually see faces. But, my writer’s life, did earn me my first book. And when we published it, on the day of the book launch, someone came up to me and asked me how many times I had done that before. And I said, I don’t understand the question, how many times have I done what before? And he said, written a book and tried to publish it. And I said, never. And he said, are you telling me this is the first time you’ve tried to write a book and you got it published?
And I said, yeah.
So then, he told me that he’d recently published his 1st book which was essentially his 10th book because before that he had written 9 books over 9 years. And I don’t know about you, but that just boggled my mind. I mean, that was a seriously scary statistic.
So, what’s my point?
If you want to do something, do it.
Don’t worry about what other people have done or not done. If it’s never been done before, or if it’s been done before, who’s failed and why and how many times. Who cares?
If you think you can do it, if you believe you can do it, if you’re willing to put in the hard work, if you’ve got the passion to see it through, do it.
Nobody cares.
And I don’t mean Nobody Cares in a bad way or a sad way or a negative way. Nobody cares because everyone’s too busy doing their own thing. No one’s watching you, no one’s judging you, there’s no pressure. Nobody cares!
What you never want to have happen is to look back and think – I didn’t do that thing I really wanted to do, because I was afraid. And I wasn’t afraid because I thought I would fail. I was afraid because somebody else, had failed.
If you want to do something, do it. Nobody cares.

(4) So, at a book event recently, there was a reporter or a journalist or someone and he asked me a question I couldn’t really answer. He asked me if I always knew I was going to be a published author. And I really didn’t know how to answer that. So I was chatting with my mum about it recently and she said I hope you don’t mind, but I went through your drawers the other day, in your bedroom – this is the house I grew up in – and I found all this love poetry to all these boys. And then she said, don’t get me wrong, the poems were really beautiful, but I had no idea you had so many boyfriends!
So, I said, actually, I really do mind you going through my stuff so can you never do that again please. Oh and all those boys – don’t worry, none of them were real.
Basically, we established that I spent most of my teenage years writing love poetry to imaginary boyfriends. So I think the answer to the reporter’s question was that yes, on some level, I must have always known that I was going to write. The thing is sooner or later, we all know what we are good at. You feel it. Don’t be afraid to go for it. Even if it comes later on in life, follow your heart, follow that passion. If you have a talent, you’re probably meant to do something with it.

(5) Alright, Im going to turn this to a slightly more serious topic, one that is very close to my heart and also very apt I think given the audience. Which is, that this is a time of sweeping change for women. We have a self-proclaimed misogynist in the White House, a man who sadly has no respect for women’s intellects, their abilities, or their bodies. And this was no secret to any of us. He made it quite clear how he felt about lots of things during his campaign and we STILL chose to elect him.
2017. Let’s talk about 2017.
July 2017, the BBC Gender pay gap – women at the BBC get paid 9.3% less than men for the same work. Those last two words are really important – for the SAME WORK.
October 2017, Hollywood’s sex scandal swiftly followed by our very own Made in Britain Westminster version.
Closer to home, the book is published in April. July 2017, the height of the BBC gender pay gap, Declan and I are invited in writing to a BBC London radio show to speak about the book. 5 minutes before we go on air, the producer of the show comes out to tell us that the presenter only wants to speak to my co-author – my white, male co-author – would I mind? That same white male co-author threw a small tantrum on my behalf and we both went on, but the humiliation had sunk pretty deep into my psyche.
September 2017. A man came up to me at a book event, ran his hand down my back and said, No wonder Declan wanted you to write his book. You can write my book anytime darling.
This is the first time I’ve spoken about this publicly. And do you know why? Because it’s easier not to. Who wants to get dragged into the gutter of nastiness and pettiness and shame? It’s easier just to pretend nothing happened and carry on.
The thing is, I did mention this in broad terms to a few people in the industry, people I thought I trusted and I was told that if I said anything about it publicly, I would be perceived as a “difficult woman” that it could jeopardise my career. So why don’t I just CHILL OUT.
I came home that evening and I picked up a copy of Jane Austen’s Emma and I realised that all these women in the 19th century, literally all of them were told that if they dissented, if they expressed an opinion that went against the conventional wisdom of the time, they would be perceived as unfeminine. ‘No one will marry you, you will not be loved.’ That was the ultimate way of silencing women – you will not be loved.
And it struck me that what I’d been told was simply a modern rewrite of the same thing. ‘Your career will be at risk’ is the 2017 version of ‘you will not be loved.’ The age old method of silencing women.
And I was done with that. I was done with being silenced. I think we’ve all chilled out long enough.
It’s very tempting to get bullied into submission, but weve got to realise that everything that’s happening around us is happening because too many of us have been too silent for too long. We need to break this silence. YOU need to break the silence. Generations are defined as what we do collectively, rather than what we do individually, and as a generation, you have lot of work to do together because YOU ARE BOTH THE WOMEN OF THE FUTURE AND THE FUTURE OF WOMEN.

(6) Im going to say one last thing before I leave you to enjoy this special evening with your family and friends and your teachers – your educators. I want to tell you how privileged you all are to have these people in your life, this support system around you. An institution like the Marist, your teachers, a Principal like Karl McCloskey – I spoke a bit earlier about champions. These are the kind of champions we need as women: fair, just men who realise that if one half of the population squashes the other half, there’s no way forward, there’s no hope. So you should feel very lucky that these are the people who have shaped your thinking as you to go out into the world and make some part of it your own.
Right – don’t laugh, but my last point comes from Spiderman.
I have two boys, 7 and 4 and they’re very smart, much smarter than I was at that age. For example, they came up to me the other day and told me that they are sceptical about the existence of Santa Claus. This was an actual conversation – “we are sceptical about the existence of Santa Claus” so we agreed that they are going to give it till this Christmas to decide if he’s real.
But Spiderman and Superman – they’re real. Oh, they’re definitely real. So this is from Spiderman, and it really struck me, these words. With great power, comes great responsibility.
With great power, comes great responsibility.
And I wanted to leave you with that, as you hold the pen that writes your story. You have the power to write your story. Use that power responsibly.
Take some time to think about the big things before you go and do them.
We are really lucky, we live in a legal and social system that allows us to make mistakes. Take comfort in that. There’s actually very few things that we can do that cannot be reversed, that you don’t get second chances for. So if you’ve written your story and you realise you’ve made a mistake, you can erase it, you can tear out those pages, but that usually comes at a cost. Mostly it’s time, but sometimes it’s heartache. So, if you can, try and avoid these mistakes or at least minimise them.
Take time to think the big things through. Who you are, who you want to be, what you want to do with your life, how you wish to be remembered.
With great power comes great responsibility. You have the power to choose who you WANT to be.
And as I leave you tonight, I want to share some words that I say to myself at the start of every day – well, at least most days. I find these words hugely empowering, and I hope they empower you too, not just tonight but through life. So, as Im saying them out loud, can you all just say them to yourselves in your own minds.
I am my greatest celebration. Never forget it. I am my greatest celebration.
Thank you for having me. Goodnight and goodluck.