By Sean Grace

A Blessing and a Course

I have a new theory. I need to live like a Gesamtkunstwerk – a unified work of art governed by a set of aligning principles – if I’m to pull off a life in advertising. 

It was the break when I knew something had to give. 

First the similar student accounts: dirty flats, pummelled relationships, and neglected life admin. Collateral of the unrelenting demands of the course. 

Then a one page wiki on strategy. It summarised seven pages of my notes and made more sense. 

So what to do? This all rang a bell…

Before SCA I learned to speed read, a technique as counterintuitive as it is effective. My method is to start and finish reading in from the edge of each line and jump down through swathes of text to the main gist and arguments. All at a speed quicker than you think possible. 

The first time I did this, a thought jumped into my head at the end of a chapter: “Oh it means that!” Readily grasping the meaning, rather than revering the sanctity of every word, was a revelation. Wow! You can jump to what’s really relevant and nothing bad happens. 

The wiki showed I could apply the same exactitude elsewhere. My inner stenographer had too much respect for the mentors and too little for myself and thought it’ll be better if I write this all down and sort it out later. Now I see where mentors have done the thinking for me, I don’t need to document every step of the journey that got them there. There’s no time – just focus on what’s important. That’s why they’re here to help us do that. 

I know what it means to work full throttle and feel your efforts and the universe are aligned. It takes energy and exacting focus as you know you don’t have the luxury of getting caught up in the unessential which is incredibly freeing. I switched out my old job for advertising exactly because I wanted more of that in my life. 

Returning to my dirty flat I see I need to apply these principles to my personal life – speed living if you like, for all this to work. For my flat to be clean, my bills paid, my marriage intact, my sanity preserved, my work to overdeliver and my career on track, I need to curate and focus on what’s important. Getting into school was the blessing, and this is the course.