Irrelevant? Not me. I have loads of 'Kenergy'

Do you ever worry about becoming irrelevant?

I do. I worry that I'll wake up and no longer have any idea what makes the world tick or what the world requires of a training provider.

To help address this I took my granddaughter, Abigail, to see 'Barbie' last week. When I'd put up a fuss and tried to explain to her that I'd rather see Indiana Jones, she said that I should "chill and channel my inner 'Kenergy' ". So I did. As a result, I now have a deep insight into the psyche of the younger generations. It’s pink. And scary.

One of my best friends once asked me "can you imagine driving down a motorway and taking your hands off the steering wheel? What would happen?" I replied "You'd crash". "Yes" he replied, "but not straight away. You would gently, almost imperceptibly, begin to drift, then over time the drift would become more pronounced until you ended up in a ditch. If you knew you were drifting you could put your hands back on to the wheel and avoid the crash. Becoming irrelevant is just like that".

That stuck with me. I worry I'll take my hands off the wheel and not realise it.

However, all is well. I've realised that even with zero self-awareness I'll still avoid the ditch.

How? You lot will tell me. You see I get regular audits. Every. Single. Day. After every training session I receive feedback. Graphs, Pie charts, Bar charts, Excel sheets. All pretty much asking the same question. 'How was Kevin?'. A group of people, who I have mostly only met once, are asked whether they like me.

This is no job for snowflakes.

If you are considering becoming my competitor then strap yourself in for some potentially serious damage to your self-esteem.

In fairness, I am exceptionally lucky. 99.99% of the feedback I receive is wonderful and ego inflating. Occasionally though, there is a tear in the fabric of the universe and an anomaly occurs. This happened a couple of weeks ago. On a scale of 'Excellent' to 'Very Poor' one person awarded me an 'Average'. The worst possible mark. Not good, not bad. Beige. Grey. Bland. Vanilla. Or as my granddaughter would say 'meh'. Someone scored me 'meh'! The other 11, normal people, scored me 'Excellent'. I'm over it now. Kind of.

It made me realise how much pressure there is to deliver. Trust me I feel it. I also realise that I'm privileged to always know where I stand. I always have a chance to grab that wheel. And I do. Frequently. Embracing data keeps you alert and focused.

And that would be that. Except a new, darker challenge has emerged. Beginning 12 months ago with a single request, it has now escalated into a trickle. I've had more than a dozen requests. People are asking if they can record my virtual training sessions. I've always politely answered 'no'.

Here's why. Training is a 'live' event. Things happen which you can't predict. Things go wrong. I may struggle to stifle a laugh at an inappropriate comment. Or accidently make one. Someone may swear (usually me). An argument could break out and it has. During one lunch break a delegate forgot to turn their mic off and proceeded to have a blazing row with their partner. Looks like he isn't getting that new car.

A cat could walk across a keyboard.

Anything could happen.

Worse, delegates who love to debate, discuss, ask for help, would be discouraged, knowing that anything they said was being recorded. Available for review. ?Permanently.

I could be circulating on 'YouTube' for eternity racking up 'likes' for my foibles.

No thanks. I'm audited every day. Let's leave it at that. It’s ‘Kenough’ (sorry).

We may be a long way past 1984 but I'm determined Big Brother will not be watching me.

One final thing, if you've ever attended one of my courses and have been kind enough to have left a nice comment, thank you. Sincerely, thank you. I read every single one. Usually braced and with a large whisky in my hand.