My daughters presentation night was last night, where all sixty of the children in the final year met to celebrate their seven years in primary school – the longest time you spend at any school or university (so why can’t I remember any of it?).
Jemma Redgrave was the special guest, which was quite a coup for a small state primary school. She was lovely and she gave a great speech. She told them that she was so nervous she felt sick and that standing in front of sixty children and their parents was far more scary than acting, but that in life it was OK to feel nervous and don’t think that other people, who may perhaps look more confident weren’t feeling nervous too.
She told them to “be bold, be brave, be scared, that it’s almost always worth it”. I thought that was a great message for life. Obviously managing successfully to bring it btm – back to me, trying to extract myself from a marriage that was wrong was more scary than anything else I have ever done, terrifying in fact, but it’s OK to challenge yourself. Be scared. It’s the only way to learn about yourself, to grow. If you do something every day that scares you (not necessarily going Black Mamba hunting you appreciate), something that gets you even slightly out of your comfort zone then you can be the best that you have to offer and the person you didn’t know you could be.
July 30th, 2007 at 7:03 am
Even at the time I was keen to fast-forward through school, so I can’t remember much of it either. How thoughtful of Jemma Redgrave to say that about confidence.