We were delighted to be joined by Old Viking Simon Ekin (85W) in our online Whole School Assembly this morning to talk to pupils about being the best they can be, and that it is never too late to get started.
Called 'The Mojo Coach' Simon is a life coach who helps men to get their 'mojo back', however his words and advice can help anyone! On leaving school Simon joined the Army where he served for five years as an Infantry Platoon Commander. He has done many things since then including cycling 8,000 miles from Cape Town to the UK and has written book entitled "The Act of Courage".
In his address today, Simon focused on reliving his own experiences of being at Shiplake and getting in the shoes of pupils particularly around exam time. He shared some ideas that he hoped would make a difference to pupils going through exams this week.
Following the talk, he said: "Shiplake was enormously informative to me. When I arrived at Shiplake in 1980, I had just started to find my feet and grow and nurture the candle that was my confidence. In 1977 my family immigrated from South Africa and moved to England. My confidence ability and self belief were low. I had spent three years at a rather horrific Spartan-like prep school in South Africa, where bullying, intimidation and thuggery was the primary culture.
"Shiplake gave me the room to grow, explore and be myself in a safe environment and to this day I'm hugely grateful for the education that I had. My abiding memory, and in many ways where everything changed was, when I went to a residential sailing school in 1983 aged 14 and one day an instructor came and asked a group of us if we would like to join him for a run.
"There was a collective sigh of resistance but something in me said yes. I never looked back. Earlier that year I had come in ranked about 250th in the school cross country race. the next year I came first and the year after that as well. I was like Forrest Gump I just ran, and this running energy spilled out into my academic sporting and social life. So as the saying goes, hit the road it will help you to workout where you are going!"
"The gist of my message was an attempt to encourage pupils to do their best during exam week and trust that it is never too late to get started. I shared and centered the talk around one of my favorite quotes which is: “Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life,” by Jerzy Gregorek, which has made an enormous difference in my life and those I work with.
"I shared how I used my mother’s phrase: “Go and work in the pub,” as a maxim for life: go and be where people, and opportunities are and trust that things will happen, rather than being on your own, in your head and waiting for ‘perfection’. I encouraged pupils to consider that spending just one minute extra on studying could make all the difference as our lives function on those tiny moments that we all have that shape our future in decades to come."
At the end of the talk, Simon told pupils a story about a general called Chuck Yeager, a test pilot who became the first pilot in history to exceed the speed of sound in flight. On the day of the test there was (what was thought) a massive explosion. However, this was what we now call the sonic boom and once he had burst through the sound barrier he felt like he was floating on glass.
In closing he said: "My invitation to you is to pull back the joystick, give it everything you have got and trust that those moments will determine your future."
