The One and Gnome-ly
By Isabel Stordy
The famous @Gnomeegnome came in last week at the end of the day to provide us with her very own “SCA survival guide”. It’s always great to have former SCA students come back in to assure us that things will only get harder, and of course that the worst days are still ahead of us! I’m joking, of course… However, if I took a drink every time someone said the word “resilience”, I’d need my stomach pumped.
Gnome is a bit of a living legend around SCA so I was very excited to hear her speak and although she kept her presentation snappy, she did not disappoint!
I now present to you, Gnome’s 10 commandments:
- Be selfish
- Be nice
- Do more
- Do listen
- Do do
- Do hustle
- Do hassle
- Do experiment
- Do you
- Don’t give up!
In response to a question, Gnome talked about one of her favourite things she’s gotten to create which just so happened to be alongside the brilliant SCA mentor, and former comedian, Pete! This was for a Spectra campaign that celebrates the skills and resilience of people leaving the care system and to help them find jobs. The strapline they came up with is “Care Leavers Wanted”. I hope that one day I am able to do work that is both creative and meaningful, like this campaign.
Gnome is someone that you can’t help but admire. Not simply because of the hurdles she’s faced in her life, or her obvious talent, but because she is a hustler and she makes her own luck. One of my favourite parts about the talk she gave us was when she spoke about all the things she did to make connections and further her career. She snuck into award shows and networked with the people there. She contacted people and then when they didn’t reply she followed up, and followed up again because pestering people really works– as the youngest sibling in my family I already knew this. And if they still don’t reply, just show up at their agency. Most impressive of all, she would actually GUESS people’s contact information when she didn’t have it. Apparently most email addresses are not actually that hard to guess and I can’t wait to test that theory.
Now, thanks to Gnome, I will always send that double text, double email, and if you don’t reply to me I will show up at your house.
Cheers
