Backstage Pass

CHAPTER 1

BAT OUT OF HELL

Mr. Clough, my sadistic music teacher, held me by my wrist and gave me one strong swipe on my fingertips per word.

“I (swipe) said (swipe) no (swipe) talking (swipe) in (swipe) class (swipe). Okay?” He raised the slipper higher, and it came crashing down on the full palm of my hand.

Other times it was my arse. This was the worst and one feared amongst the class. He used the cane and the sadistic streak was evident. He was relishing, revelling in the act itself.

How did we know? You’d be told to bend over the large, black grand piano in the corner of the music room and lift the back of your school blazer (sports coat). You knew what was coming, and that’s why most of the class clenched their fists and buttocks and looked at the floor.

He’d hold up the cane above and behind his head, start a long-crazed run up from the other side of the room akin to a long jumper, and whack! He’d hit you so hard that both of his feet would lift off the ground. Then, almost to emphasise his seemingly proud sadism, he’d put on some classical music on the record player, sit back and listen in silence. All he needed was a cigarette.

We’d all have to sit there in silence until he collected his composure and continued with the class, ignoring whatever carnage he’d caused on his victim. Smoking in school was banned. But beating the crap out of the pupils was not.

I did love music, just not the kind Mr. Clough approved of. I had been days away from my twelfth birthday when AC/DC released their seminal album Back in Black on 25th July 1980. No one knew then that it would be the best-selling rock album of all time and the second best-selling album of all time, only eclipsed by Michael Jackson’s Thriller. No one had any idea. Not even the band themselves.

Looking back, it seems such an abstract concept that a single album could have shaped my life so much. An album of such importance to the band after tragically losing their singer Bon Scott, just when they had broken through internationally in 1979. It carried so much emotion from deep inside the band that you couldn’t ignore the statement they made with this record. They had a point to prove, and it’s hallmarked on every track on this landmark album.

A couple of years later, I saw AC/DC live in concert on October 3rd 1982, at the Apollo Theatre, Manchester. It left me breathless (and slightly hard of hearing!), and for the first time, I’d felt what motivation felt like – not being told what to do but knowing what I wanted to do.

I’d wanted to be in a band and feel that raw electric power in my own hands. Slight problem, though, I couldn’t play an instrument and had no proven talent. So, that’s why I’d signed up for music class at school and put myself at the mercy of Mr. Clough.

I did put the effort in, stayed after class, tried instruments (including the triangle!), made a dismal racket, and gave this avenue up. There’s only so far trombones and kettle drums will get you if you want to be in a rock band.

The one good thing about music class was Jimmy Taylor. He was cool. He had long hair, played the drums, and looked like Tommy Lee from Motley Crüe, the new hot band on the scene. We chatted about AC/DC and Twisted Sister, another band we nerded over, and he invited me to his house one day. Jimmy only lived a 15-minute walk away, and I made two monumental discoveries on my first visit. He played in a band and his parents had converted half their garage into a rehearsal room. His bandmates were Paul Yung, a lanky guitar player who looked like he belonged in an LA big-hair metal band, and Loz on bass, who, to be frank, was more conventional. A bit like me. They invited me to sit in and played through semi-recognisable versions of Twisted Sister songs from the Under The Blade (1982) album. Something was missing… singing! No one was singing, even though there was a microphone there. I saw my chance and said, “Hey, I can hold a tune!”

(Really? Could I hold a tune? In reality, I’d sang in the school choir when I was much younger, but that’s about it. Fake it till you make it!)

One quick audition of ‘Shoot’em Down’ by Twisted Sister and I was in! Admittedly, with modest talent and limited ability, we never played to anyone else or left the garage. But it didn’t matter to me. I’d found a way to make it happen and that was good enough for now.

And it was around this time, at 14, that my formal education started to go astray. Rock music, life around rock music, and smoking cigarettes were way more interesting than school.

As my apathy for school grew, the less the school seemed to care. It appears that pea-shooting my math teacher in class, looking up the skirt of my hot art teacher, or throwing a pencil eraser across an exam hall only to lodge in the ample cleavage of Mrs. Turner did my cause no good at all!

I’d spend my days on the playing fields, smoking with a newfound friend called Andy. We’d talk rubbish. As far as the school records were concerned, I was at school. I’d turn up morning and afternoon, be there for registration, and then brazenly walk out. It’s still a mystery to me that no one seem- ingly cared, or even tried to help. It felt like I was just written off, and I accepted it.

But the underlying reason wasn’t a mystery to me. I was being bullied, a victim of violent antisemitism in a school of indifference, and hundreds of Christian kids. It started with being excluded, name-called, and then getting badly beaten up in the playground. Regularly.

The bullying only stopped after I eventually snapped and fought one kid back on the playing field. Surrounded by a circle of 30 kids chanting “fight, fight, fight,” egging us on as they all relentlessly spat on us to tease us out of our standoff. I dodged the first punch and then took the fight to him; he came off worse.

Even though I had my ‘Rocky’ moment, I didn’t feel victorious, despite the cheers of the baying crowd. I was done. I was done with school, done with not having any support from those who were supposed to be providing safeguarding; I figured no one cared, and it shaped my irreverent attitude at the time. Rather than make a complaint, the illogical shame of being a victim of bullying led me down a different path.

I had bunked off school for two years, and no one noticed.

My poor parents had no idea this was happening until I left school. My school leaving report was a damning indictment of my lack of achievement.

“Harvey hasn’t taken advantage of the opportunities available to him,” it said. C, D, and E are hardly grades you or your parents would be proud of. I wasn’t ashamed because I didn’t even care.

The scale of my indifference led me to light up a cigarette on the school campus on my last day as I went around to collect signatures from my teachers to acknowledge that I’d handed all the relevant books back before I left. The Deputy Headmaster Mr. Peters caught me, grabbed me by the collar, and for the first time, contacted my parents.

He threatened to withhold my leaving report. Great, I thought, it’s terrible anyway, better we don’t read it! Typical of my Dad, he got on the phone and sorted it out, and when the school leaving report arrived, nothing good happened from there on in. I’d been antagonising my parents off and on for a couple of years and had generally been a terrible teen. They might’ve hoped that my school report would’ve been reasonable as I wasn’t stupid, and they saw me leave each morning to go there.

Only you know I didn’t, and if they’re reading this, so do my parents!

And so, I left school aged 15, parents steaming over a school leaving report that lacked any silver lining at all. The thing I latched onto was a comment from the Headmaster, which has stuck with me all this time.

“Harvey has not reaped the opportunities available to him… but he does get on well with others, particularly those who have a real interest in rock music.”

I didn’t know at the time that this was to be the basis of my future career path.

As an unqualified school leaver in 1980s Britain, I had limited options regarding where to look for work. I could write speculative letters to big organisations, go to The Job Centre or reply to classified adverts in the local newspaper. I did it all. I also learnt quite quickly that my options were limited to a mixture of what I didn’t want to do, couldn’t do, or wasn’t qualified to do. The biggest issue was that I didn’t know what I did want to do.

The Job Centre was a grim place. A place where the lost went to see what they could find. In this place, £2 per hour seemed like a lottery win. Still, when a pack of cigarettes cost about

£1.35, your ‘winnings’ would slip through your fingers (or into your lungs) very quickly, and ‘bin man’, ‘driver’, or ‘waitress’ were occupations that were top of the aspirational ladder. It was a place of manual or administerial work only. I learned what I didn’t want to do here, but given my somewhat self-made circumstances, I kept visiting as the workforce authorities made school leavers attend.

Writing letters for advertised jobs was another new experience and a grounding one. All the jobs that looked good to me required a certain level of qualifications, and to a large degree, this has not changed over the years. Still, I’ll go into this in more detail later in the book, as there’s a tipping point where the requirements become less critical.

I got the help of my Dad on this one. My Dad was, as far as I was concerned, an expert letter writer. After all, he’d had enough practice. Every time there was something to complain about, the pen and paper came out, as if they were sword and shield, preparing for battle. And off went a well-crafted com- plaint that put the unassuming recipient on life support. He’d put them to the sword. The results were precise... usually, a full refund or voucher for something with an apology would turn up in the post by return. Occasionally, the response would be a phone call from a representative falling over themselves to apologise. Dad had an internal ‘grovel meter’; the more they grovelled, the more satisfaction he felt.

If the compensation value outweighed the original purchase value and the grovel meter scored high enough, then out came the Mick Jagger impersonation! Clapping hands and singing, yes, “I can’t get no… satisfaction!” Highly embarrassing to witness as a teenager.

But I did learn about the power of words.

Mick Jagger impersonations aside, we sat at the kitchen table, and he gave me advice on how to write an excellent basic letter. English was one of the subjects at school that I was good at, and there were two good reasons for this:

It was something creative; I found I could use words cre- atively to communicate how I felt or thought, and

My teacher was excellent.

How do I qualify this? Yes, he knew his stuff, but so did all the other teachers. The difference here was his relationship with the pupils. He was much younger than most of the other teachers. He had empathy and awareness, he visibly cared, and with me, he saw someone who was somewhat lost in the system (you could claim failed by the system) but, critically, had the ability. He knew where my interests lay and where he could, he would base work around my interests and get the best out of me. It was no accident that English was my best subject at school and the only subject where I got a decent exam pass. I’m grateful to him for taking the time to give me some focus and realising that one-size-does-not always fit all.

So, back to the kitchen table. Rules around paragraphs, addressing people, signing off, the rules, the exception to the rules, structure, we went through it all. And at the end of it, I became quite a good letter writer.

But it didn’t achieve its objective. Straight-A rejections, citing lack of experience and qualifications. It was disheartening, but hardly surprising.

I lowered my sights and started to apply for jobs in the local papers. There were plenty listed; however, given the nature of these listings, it was a game of lucky dip. You had no idea who the job was with or that, given the ‘help wanted’ nature of the ads, there was limited space to put many details, so you applied somewhat blindfolded.

I applied for a few and quickly learnt that you can’t take these at face value. I got a callback or letter from one application with an ‘interview’ at a prime location in the city centre. Suit on, I thought, this is it! It wasn’t. I was in a room with 50 other ‘suits’, and they were selling to us! The ‘company’ was operating a dodgy sales scheme that paid commission only. I think I was asked for money as a deposit for something too. So, I went through a few of these and learnt to sniff them out before I bothered putting a suit on.

But I did get one bite from a company I’d heard of. Would this be my first job?

KEY LESSONS IN LIFE AND BUSINESS

MOTIVATION IS SO IMPORTANT

I had yet to learn what motivated me academically while at school, but I discovered rock music and AC/DC certainly inspired me emotionally. It made me driven.

Scott Galloway at NYU Stern School of Business says in his book ‘The Four’, “Don’t follow your passion; follow your talent. Determine what you are good at (early) and commit to becoming great at it. You don’t have to love it; don’t hate it. If practice takes you from good to great, the recognition and compensation you will command will make you start to love it. “And, ultimately, you will be able to shape your career and your speciality to focus on the aspects you enjoy the most. And if not – make good money and then go follow your passion.”

Knowing what you don’t want to do can be as valuable as knowing what you want to do.

Rock music was what I was passionate about, but I wasn’t good at it. And I knew it. I knew I wasn’t a very good guitar player. And I wasn’t a great singer. But 15-year-old me wanted to be a rock star.

As I’ve learned more about myself over the years, I’ve realised that when I’m motivated about something, I’m highly motivated. I’ll do it better than anyone else. I’m not about breadth; I’m about depth, but with quite a narrow focus. This could be why I’ve ended up in product marketing.

ALWAYS HAVE A POINT TO PROVE

I always have a point to prove; maybe it’s impostor syndrome. My teachers used to talk down to me and ridicule me, and I left school feeling demoralised. I could either let them beat me and accept it and get a dull, low-grade job forever, or I could come out fighting. I didn’t know how to do it, as I was only 15, but I learnt.

Even today, in every job I’ve had in big companies, I’ve always had a point to prove. I’ve got a remit in every position (includ- ing currently as VP at the Product Marketing Alliance). And I’ll consider myself unsuccessful if I don’t prove to myself that I can do it. I am a success despite my education.

LEARN THE POWER OF WORDS

In a world of emoticons, the art of writing is a dwindling skill but still remains a key communication tool and an asset if you can do it well.

When I was out of school and looking for work, my dad taught me the power of words and the importance of being a good communicator. I still put what he taught me into practice today, and I consider that this book would not have been possible without my dad’s guidance when I was a teen.

From these lessons with my dad, I realised I had to be realistic. Yeah, I wanted to be a rock star, but my first job would be a tedious, standard, entry-level job.

Learning to deal with rejection is a crucial part of life, as is having the persistence and tenacity required to overcome that rejection and overcome challenges. You have to try, try and try again.

I’ve been made redundant twice in the past five years, and my friends and family always say the same thing, “Harvey, you always land on your feet.” I don’t think this happens by accident or because of luck, but maybe I land on my feet because I work hard at it.