Memorable moments: The 0.1 percent predicament

When Ally and I first arrived in Sydney, we stayed with our friends Doug and Claudia while we navigated the daunting task of finding a home and work. I soon spotted an opening at Agency Fusion—a firm specializing in web strategy and marketing. It felt like a perfect fit, but there was one hurdle: a mandatory online aptitude test.

I’ve never been a fan of the artificial pressure of these assessments, so I decided to level the playing field. I recruited a "dream team" to tackle the link. I handled the verbal sections, Ally—with her creative, visual eye—mastered the pattern recognition, and Doug, the engineer, tore through the numerical data. Working as a single unit, we were unstoppable.

A few days later, I sat down for an interview with the founders, Louise and Warren. We clicked immediately; the conversation flowed, the skills aligned, and the vibe was perfect. As the interview wound down, they looked at me with genuine awe.

"Well," they said, "we love your experience, and personality-wise you’re a great fit. But goodness gracious, Graeme—your aptitude test results came in the top 0.1 percent of the global population. You’re at a genius level."

I got the job on the spot. It was a triumph, but as I walked out of the office, the weight of the "Genius" tag began to settle on my shoulders. I realized I hadn't just secured a position; I had committed myself to an impossible standard. For the duration of my time there, I lived with the quiet, nagging stress of trying to live up to the combined brainpower of an engineer, a creative director, and a strategist. In retrospect, I probably should have just done the test myself—it would have been far less stressful to be "merely" competent than to spend every day pretending to be a one-in-a-thousand prodigy.

Memorable moments: The literal holiday

When I was an English teacher in Sydney, I taught young adults at a local college. Every lesson began with a high-stakes ritual: marking the attendance roster. For these students, those checkmarks weren't just about grades; they were the lifeline for their visas. If they weren't in their seats, their right to stay in Australia was at risk.

Because the subject matter could sometimes be dry, I prided myself on making my lessons as inventive and creative as possible. I wanted to pull them out of their textbooks and into the world.

One day, I launched into a particularly ambitious speaking exercise. "All right, everyone," I announced with a flourish, "let’s pretend you have all won a wonderful prize: an all-expenses-paid week-long holiday to anywhere in Australia! In your groups, I want you to discuss where you want to go."

I fanned out a collection of glossy brochures featuring the Great Barrier Reef, the Red Centre, and the rugged coastlines of Tasmania. "Get those creative juices flowing!"

The room buzzed with excitement—except for one girl. She sat perfectly still, looking deeply concerned. As I moved around the classroom, monitoring the "trips" being planned, I passed her desk. She leaned in and whispered urgently, "Teacher, when we go on this trip for a week, will we still get marked off on the attendance roster?"

I stopped in my tracks. I realized in that moment that she hadn't seen the brochures as a prompt for a fantasy; she had seen them as a travel itinerary. To her, this wasn't an exercise in speaking—it was a looming logistical crisis.

Memorable moments: Automated aggression

During my time at Volvo in Duxford, I made frequent business trips to the corporate heartland of Gothenburg. I usually stayed at the Radisson, a hotel that catered to the brisk, efficient schedules of visiting executives. Because our meetings often started at the crack of dawn, I relied heavily on the hotel’s wake-up call service.

It was a standard, automated system: you’d speak your requested time into the phone, and the next morning, a computerized voice would chime, "This is your wake-up call." It was cold, functional, and perfectly Swedish.

One morning, after a particularly early set-up and a night of restless, fragmented sleep, the phone rang at 5:00 AM. I was in a foul mood—irritable, exhausted, and ready to lash out at the inanimate technology that was dragging me into the light.

I snatched up the receiver and, before the "machine" could even get a word out, I snarled into the mouthpiece: "Fuck off!!"

There was a long, horrifying silence. Then, instead of the expected robotic tone, a very small, very shocked female voice whispered back:

"Oh... I am so sorry, sir. I hope I didn't get your wake-up call wrong!"

I felt the blood drain from my face as I sat bolt upright in the dark. It turned out the automated system had gone on the blink overnight, and the front desk staff were manually calling every room to ensure the guests weren't late.

I spent the next several minutes in a state of profuse, stuttering apology, trying to explain that I wasn't actually a monster—just a man who had mistakenly declared war on a computer.

Memorable moments: The fifty-hour silence

Between 2010 and 2012, I taught English at an adult college in Sydney. My classrooms were a vibrant, global crossroads, and I was always fascinated by the predictable "nationalities" of conversation. The Brazilians were the life of the party—outgoing, loud, and happy to butcher every rule of grammar as long as the story was moving. The Koreans, by contrast, were the quiet architects; they were masters of the written rule but notoriously reserved when it came to speaking.

When the school asked if I’d take on a private Korean student for fifty hours of one-on-one conversation, I thought, Why not? I’ll never forget our first meeting. Merry was twenty, bright-eyed, and painfully shy. I arrived armed with an arsenal of conversation starters, "ice-breakers," and deep philosophical prompts. I leaned in and asked a simple, gentle question about her life.

She whispered a single monosyllable in a voice so tiny it barely disturbed the air.

A cold wave of "imposter panic" washed over me. I looked at the clock. There were forty-nine hours and fifty-nine minutes left. In that moment, I wished with all my heart for a boisterous Brazilian—someone who would talk over me, ignore my corrections, and fill the silence with a thousand cheerful errors. Trying to get a sentence out of this girl felt like trying to draw blood from a stone.

Slowly, however, things began to shift. Over the first few hours, I stopped pushing and started simply being the aware space for her silence. Bit by bit, the stone cracked. She began to trust the environment, her confidence grew, and the monosyllables turned into sentences, then stories, then profound insights into her culture.

By the end of the fifty hours, we weren't just practicing English; we were having some of the most amazing conversations of my teaching career. It was a powerful reminder that while some students lead with an immediate, exuberant energy, the quietest ones often hold the deepest truths—if you are willing to provide the space and patience for them to finally emerge.

Me and Merry

Memorable moments: The vowels of doom

During my time at Volvo’s UK headquarters in Duxford, I was part of a high-pressure team tasked with redesigning the global corporate website. One morning, in our hushed, open-plan office, I prepared to pull up the live site at volvo.com for a quick reference check. My fingers flew across the keys, but just as I hit "Enter," a phone call distracted me.

I looked away to answer, leaving the page to load in full view of the room. A few seconds later, my colleague Andre Pocock leaned over, his eyes nearly popping out of his head.

"My goodness, Graeme," he hissed, "what on earth are you looking at?"

I turned back to my screen and felt a jolt of pure, corporate-grade horror. Instead of the safe, Swedish lines of a family station wagon, I was staring at a giant, high-definition, and very explicit anatomical image. 

In my distracted state, my fingers had betrayed me. I hadn't typed the home of the "Iron Mark"; I had swapped the two vowels in volvo with other letters and navigated directly to a site that was much more "biological" than "automotive."

The contrast between Volvo’s brand values and the screen in front of me was absolute. I managed to kill the window before the rest of the department could wander over, but for the rest of my tenure, I never hit the "Enter" key again without the realization that you can't navigate life—or the internet—without a great deal of care.

Memorable moments: The Tel Aviv revelation

I have spent much of my life accompanied by a quiet, persistent shadow: Imposter Syndrome. Even when I was at the top of my class at school, I dismissed it as a lack of innate ability; I convinced myself I was simply working harder than the other kids. The anxiety was a constant hum during exams—the terrifying certainty that this was the time I’d finally bomb out and be "found out."

This pattern followed me into my professional life. At Old Mutual, I was singled out as a high-potential trainee, yet I waited daily for the mask to slip. By 2001, I was in the UK, working for a renowned branding agency with a vibrant culture and iconic clients. Despite excellent feedback, the syndrome was stronger than ever. Branding wasn't my specialty, and I felt like a guest who had snuck into a high-society party.

Then came the Israeli bank project.

Our team of three—including the Managing Director and our colleague Anita—flew from London to Tel Aviv every week. The MD was a powerhouse, a charismatic genius who had single-handedly formulated the brand identities for some of the world’s most iconic companies, including Apple. Watching him work was like watching a master conductor; I was in absolute awe of his confidence.

One night, after a long day of strategy, the three of us met in a hotel bar in Tel Aviv. After a few drinks, I finally confessed my admiration. I told the MD how much I respected his genius and, more than anything, his unshakable confidence.

He looked at me and said something that shifted my entire world view.

"You know," he said quietly, "I have a huge imposter syndrome. Every time I stand up in front of a board, I feel totally nervous. I think, 'Oh no, they’re going to find me out this time.'"

I was stunned. If the man who branded Apple felt like a fraud, what hope was there for us mere mortals?

It was a moment of profound self-compassion. I realized then that Imposter Syndrome isn't a sign of inadequacy; it’s a nearly universal human experience. It might even be the very thing that makes us a driven species. It’s the friction that motivates us to be better, to prepare more deeply, and to reach further.

The goal isn't to kill the imposter; it's to understand him, be kind to him, and then—like the MD in Tel Aviv—stand up in front of the board anyway.

Memorable moments: The sexy beast of Old Mutual

One morning, I walked through the Old Mutual marketing floor on the way to my desk, sensing a shift in the atmospheric pressure. As I moved past the cubicles, I noticed a series of amused, knowing smiles from colleagues, as if the entire floor was in on a secret I hadn't been invited to.

I wondered if I was imagining things until I passed David from Agency Marketing. He gave me a supportive nod and a wink.

"You go, stud," he chirped. "We're all rooting for you."

I reached my desk, confused and increasingly wary. Sitting there, face-up for the world to see, was a thermal-paper fax. It didn't contain a marketing brief or a strategy update. Instead, it was a bold, typed declaration:

"I can't wait to get my hands on you later, you sexy beast."

It was from Ally. In an era before private messaging, she had mistakenly assumed that the office fax machine was a private, direct line to my desk. Instead, it had spent the morning sitting in the communal tray, being enjoyed by every "gregarious" marketer and agency staffer who had wandered by to collect their own documents.

In that single moment, I discovered a profound new psychological state: the ability for immense pride and agonizing embarrassment to coexist in the exact same heartbeat.

I walked in a "high-potential trainee" and left the "Marketing Stud" of the building. It turns out, no matter how hard you work on your professional brand, all it takes is one misplaced fax to permanently rebrand you as a "Sexy Beast."

Memorable moments: The Ryanair descent

They say airline travel is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror. In 2004, while working for Volvo, I learned exactly how "stark" that terror could be. I was on a Ryanair flight from Stansted to Gothenburg—the kind of extreme low-cost experience where you half-expect to be charged for the air you breathe.

Suddenly, the air decided to leave us.

The plane didn't just dip; it plummeted. We fell a staggering 1,000 metres in a matter of seconds. There was a violent, bone-shaking thump that sent luggage cascading out of the overhead lockers like plastic hail. Then, the nightmare trifecta: smoke began to coil through the cabin, the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling with a synchronized snap, and the screaming started.

Even the flight attendants, usually the stoic guardians of "tea or coffee," were white-faced with genuine panic. The man sitting next to me broke down completely. He whipped out a photograph of his wife and twin girls, staring at it with the haunted intensity of a man saying his final goodbye.

And me?

I have no idea why. Perhaps it’s some prehistoric, hard-wired glitch in the Myburgh DNA. Amidst the smoke, the screams, and the falling luggage, I got the giggles.

I tried to suppress it, knowing that a full-blown guffaw would be the height of social impropriety while my neighbor was mourning his own life, but I couldn't stop. I sat there, strapped into my seat, giggling uncontrollably into my yellow oxygen mask. It was as if my brain had decided that if we were going down, we might as well go down finding the whole thing ridiculous.

Eventually, the plane stabilized. The smoke cleared, the screaming subsided, and we landed without a word of explanation from the captain. That’s low-cost travel for you: you pay for the seat, but the life-altering trauma is complimentary.

For weeks afterward, I walked around in a state of pure, shimmering euphoria. I had stared into the abyss through a plastic mask while laughing like a maniac, and coming out the other side made the world seem impossibly bright. It turns out that a near-death experience is the ultimate "reset" button—even if your specific reaction to it is enough to make a grieving father think he's seated next to a psychopath.

Memorable moments: The fountain of marketing

In 1999, during my final year at Old Mutual, we embarked on the annual Christmas pilgrimage—a high-stakes event where free beer and corporate hierarchies rarely mix well. The plan was sophisticated enough: a bus trip to Darling to watch the legendary Pieter-Dirk Uys perform, followed by a lunch where the booze flowed with alarming frequency.

By the time we boarded the bus for the hour-long journey back to Cape Town, the "festive spirit" had taken a firm hold of the passengers. Rodney, from Agency Marketing, was particularly well-lubricated. Finding the seats full, he decided to improvise, perched precariously on a ledge at the very front of the bus, facing the crowd like a weary king on a makeshift throne.

Halfway home, the unexpected happened. Without warning, and seemingly without moving a muscle, Rodney began to pee.

It wasn't a subtle leak; it was a high-velocity event. The stream was so powerful it acted like a literal fountain, erupting from his trousers and spraying the first four rows of the bus in a golden arc. The transition from "drunken commute" to "waterpark nightmare" was instantaneous.

Pandemonium erupted. People screamed, dove for cover, and tried to use their gift bags as shields, but the bus was a confined space and Rodney’s "marketing strategy" was remarkably wide-reaching.

Rodney didn't lose his job that day, but he did achieve a form of immortality. He became a legend of the infamous kind—the man who literally "poured" his heart and soul into the front row. While he remained on the payroll, it’s safe to say that whenever a promotion was discussed, the conversation probably ended with a very specific, damp memory of the Darling bus.

Memorable moments: The lift fiasco

Fresh out of university and armed with a brand-new suit and a "Trainee Marketing Consultant" title, I arrived for my first day at Old Mutual. I was a ball of nerves, ready to conquer the corporate world—or at least find the reception desk.

I stepped into the lift and pressed '1'. The car hummed upward and came to a smooth halt.

The doors didn't budge.

Panic set in immediately. Stuck. On my first day. I’m going to be late. I’m going to die in a life assurance building before my policy even kicks in. I began frantically eyeing the alarm button, bracing for a morning of claustrophobic humiliation.

Then, a calm voice drifted in from behind me.

"Can we help you?"

I spun around. It turns out the lift had doors on both sides. The "wall" behind me had slid open seconds ago, revealing the entire office—who were now silently enjoying the view of a terrified trainee staring intensely at a solid metal panel.

Needless to say, I made quite an entrance.

My Antarctic photos being used for art lessons

Nic's Hypnotherapy site

I helped a dear friend, Nic, create a web site for his new hypnotherapy business.  

See innerpeachypnotherapy.com.au

Email a few months after launch

Nic

The website is working great. I have a steadily growing number of clients. My supervisor (who knows a lot of starting practitioners) said I'm doing amazingly well, I'd say mostly thanks to you! The guys doing my SEO all commented on how good the website look and how much better that all the other hypnotherapy sites are!

Graeme

That warms my heart to hear. I’m so glad.  The web site was very much a joint effort and many of the best ideas were yours. But it was wonderful to be able to help.  If you decide you want to add functionality, just shout. 

Launch of Wisdom Trove

It's been a lot of work but every minute has been worth it. I've learned so much from this project, in terms of both life wisdom and web development skills. Hopefully others will also find the site useful.

View site

Branding suggestion for Nic's new business

I'm building a web site for my friend, Nic. Here is my suggested brand concept.

Aimee's web site

I helped Aimee create a simple but effective site to sell her book. I took all the photos, including the book cover.

https://aimeedavies.com

Site for Christina

I created a web site for my artist friend, Christina, to advertise her art lessons.

View site

Thank you poem

A beautiful poem Aimee wrote to say thank you for helping her with her site.

Web site for Aimee

I created a site  with Aimee for her spiritual poems and articles.  She writes so very beautifully.

See the site at aimeedavies.com

Helping Aimee with her poetry site

Web site for Brendan

Brendan has a new job working for an investment firm.  I created a simple web site for him.  Lovely to be able to help.