RULE TO BREAK

“It’s where you’re going that matters, not where you came from”

I grew up on the edge of Brixton, a notoriously insalubrious part of London. Whenever I was asked where I lived my mother would hiss at me, ‘Say Dulwich’ (Brixton’s better appointed neighbour). This isn’t an unusual attitude – many people are ashamed to admit where they come from. Plenty of people work to disguise a regional accent, or change their dialect, all to ensure that no one realizes where they grew up.

Of course you can go too far the other way. I had a good friend when I was younger who came from a rough part of Manchester. She was the first in her family to stay at school until she was 18, and then got a good job in the city centre with a decent salary. ...

Get The Rules to Break, 3rd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.