[MUSIC PLAYING]
HASHI MOHAMED: Thank you
very much for coming.
I will tell you a
little bit about me
and how, effectively,
the book came about
in the first instance.
Then I will touch upon the
themes of the book, which
have been, if you've been
following the press, quite
provocative and controversial.
I know what it feels like to
be chased by trolls on Twitter
now.
And so I'll be very
keen on finding out
whether there are some real
life trolls here today.
And then thirdly, I want
to just get your thoughts
from your own experiences,
because what I have found
is that in writing
this book, that there's
a lot of what I'm saying that
resonates for a lot of people,
no matter where
they've come from
and no matter what kind of
life experience you've had.
So that's essentially what
I hope to do in the first 25
minutes, and then
we can open it up,
and then I will gladly sign
your book as well afterwards.
So a little bit about me.
I was born in Kenya
to Somali parents.
And we were growing
up in a semi-slum
called Eastleigh in Nairobi.
And my parents met in
Kenya about late 1980.
And my mother-- bless her--
has given birth to 12 children.
So I'm number eight
in that long list.
I was glad she didn't
stop after number seven,
but I wish she did
after number eight.
And she had got married and
had the first six children
with her first husband,
and the second six
children with my father.
And one of my siblings, the
youngest [? siblings, ?]
had died when he was
very, very small.
And so they met in
Kenya, where they
were living throughout the '80s,
when I was growing up there.
And roughly, when the
war broke out in 1991,
'92 in Somalia, so many of my
family had moved over to Kenya,
seeking some sort
of refuge and help.
And it was roughly
around the time
when the Dadaab Refugee
Camp had opened up in Kenya.
And for my father, we were
always now settled in Kenya,
where he had lived, and
he had started his life
and had established himself.
And we were going to stay
there, certainly his children
and my mother.
And what was
interesting about that
was that I was the first person
in my whole family's history
to be born outside of Somalia,
so to be born in Kenya.
And for my father, that
meant that our future
was going to be in Kenya for
all intents and purposes.
But when his mother, his
sisters, and his other siblings
all were fleeing the war from
Somalia and came to Kenya,
there was a choice to be made.
There was a choice to be
made as to whether or not
they were going to seek
asylum outside of Africa,
or stay in Kenya, or as
most people were thinking
at that time, the war is just
going to die down in a bit,
and we'll just go back over,
and it's going to be fine.
But then a lot of my
siblings then sought asylum.
And I have brothers and sisters
who ended up in America.
Some ended up in Canada.
I have cousins who ended
up in Sweden, and Norway,
and all sorts of
different countries.
And for my father, we
were going to stay.
And by this point,
it's like '92, '93.
And then in '93, when the
vast majority of my family
had sought asylum
where they could,
my father died in a
car crash in Kenya.
So then that meant there was
another choice to be made.
At this point, my
father's brother
was given a full scholarship
to study and then
work in Italy, where he was
starting to establish himself
and maybe start his own family.
And he came back to Kenya to
bury his brother, my father.
And then there
was another choice
to be made there
because he had to have
a conversation with
my mom and say,
do you stay here
with these kids?
And my mom and father never
learned to read and write.
They never were
formally educated.
And they had to
decide what to do.
My uncle's advice was,
you're here with no income,
with no real way of
feeding these children.
Either you follow this wave of
people who are seeking asylum
somewhere else in the
world, and try and find
a new place to start again
with help, or you stay here,
and nobody knows
what's going to happen.
You now have with you five
children under the age of 12.
And my mother said,
well, OK, well, I
think I could make it here,
but leave the youngest one
and take the rest.
Which meant that
we, the elder ones,
ended up in London
without our parents,
having just helped
to bury our father.
So you could just imagine
for a moment being
a nine-year-old boy, or as my
sisters, a six-year-old girl,
or a five-year-old girl, turning
up in a place like London
without your mom,
without your dad,
not understanding the language.
I'd like to think I've mastered
the English language now
a little bit.
Not understanding the culture,
not understanding anything
about what's happening.
Such was the shock for us that
I still remember to this day--
and I talk about
it in the book--
walking down the street.
And where I'd come from in
the semi-slum in Nairobi,
there were no street lights.
When walking down the
street, and literally walking
into a lamppost, and knocking
myself out as a child.
That's just how different and
new the environment was to us.
And settling into a place like
this when you don't understand
the culture and
the customs, when
you don't have an
adult to explain
to you what's
happening, why it's
happening, what it means to be
here, how it's going to work,
all of those things can be
really, really difficult.
But here's the key
point about that.
That kind of beginning
and that kind of start,
for a lot of people like
me, especially Somalis
who came and sought asylum in
this country, that was a really
remarkably unremarkable thing.
In fact, in many
ways, we were lucky
because we hadn't seen war.
My father's sister,
who had come to Kenya
and then the UK to seek asylum,
she had six kids of her own.
But her husband had
been killed in the war.
And all of her children
had experienced the war.
At least with us, we hadn't
experienced the war directly,
but we were victims
of the war indirectly.
And so in that sense,
the starting point
was remarkably unremarkable.
In that sense, there was nothing
special about the difficulties
that we were facing
at that time.
Then what happens after that?
Well, then my mom
comes four years later,
and we're having to get to
know your mom all over again
because we now
all speak English,
she doesn't speak any English.
You're trying to
communicate with her.
She's speaking to us
in Swahili and Somali,
which we understand
but not very well.
And you can imagine
all the difficulties
that then that causes.
I try and talk about it in
the book as detailed as I can,
but it was quite painful,
as you might imagine,
to dig all that up, and think
it through, and what it meant,
and why certain
choices were made,
and why certain choices
were not made, and so on.
But then I did enough
to get to the GCSEs,
enough to get to
the A Levels, enough
to get to an undergraduate
degree in law and French
at the University
of Hertfordshire.
I then got a full scholarship
to do my post graduate studies
at Oxford University.
Then I got a full
scholarship to study
for the bar exams in London.
Then became a barrister,
fully qualified, in 2012.
And then here I am now,
promoting this book
that is telling that story.
Now in many ways, it's
a shortened version.
And people say, well, now
it must mean that it's
smooth sailing from here.
Well, there's still plenty
of time to mess this up.
Let's not get carried away.
But it's that kind of
journey that I'm still
digesting in many ways,
and I will continue
to digest for quite some time.
Because there's no
shame in admitting that
the pain, and the sorrow, and
the grief will take a lifetime.
And one of the ways in
which a sociologist,
and a psychologist, and
a neuroscientist that I
interviewed for the
book and talked about
were explaining how
when grief, for example,
or a traumatic event,
it's really important--
come on in.
Trust you to be very late.
Just one of those things that--
I know him.
I'm not just picking up on him.
I'm not just picking on him.
It's one of those
things that people
talk about when
trauma or a death,
for example, people always
say, well, you'll get over it.
You'll get over it.
But actually, one of the
ways in which people explain
that is they say, well,
imagine your brain
is just this one, big circle.
When you're young, and something
very traumatic happens,
like death, that
particular event
will be also another big
circle within that brain
circle of yours,
because it will dominate
a huge part of who you are.
But as you grow older,
and as you mourn properly,
and as you digest that
trauma, that inner circle
that signifies and
represents that trauma
just gets slightly
smaller compared
to that part of your brain that
is there to be dealing with it.
So in other words,
you never get over it.
It just becomes a
smaller part of who
you are, the contours of
your life, the part of what
makes you a whole human being.
And that is, for me, the best
way in which somebody described
to me the way in which we
deal with trauma, and death,
and that kind of thing that
happens to you in life.
So it's quite important
that you don't always
come across to people,
or say to somebody, well,
you'll get over it.
It's fine.
Time will heal you.
That's just not the
right way to look at it.
Because if you do,
you're going to come up
against the wall that hits you,
and hits you, and hits you.
So what about the book
in terms of the themes?
Well, the themes that
I've looked into here
are quite varied and big.
So the book ranges from what
is happening to you as a child,
and what is happening to you
in the womb of your mother,
and the kind of diet
that your mother's having
in terms of what kind of
human being that you grow up
to become, all the way through
to whatever fulfilling career
you're looking for,
whatever fulfilling destiny
that you want, if you've ever
dreamt of ever being at Google
or whatever it is, what exactly
is happening at each stage that
allows you to be
able to succeed,
and how does it
all come together,
is the overall
thesis of the book.
So I touch upon this
idea, for example,
which is all the
things that people
talk about biological
determinism, for example.
Are you born with
your talents, or is it
part of your environment
that actually teaches you?
What does the science suggest?
How does it affect
me, personally?
How do I think that my
illiterate parents, who
were never formally educated,
are a part of who I am now?
And actually, does it mean
that your intelligence can
be measured by way
of formal education
as opposed to informal
education and life lessons?
And does it mean that your
destiny is determined purely
by virtue of the fact
that you may or may not
be born to people who actually
know how to read and write,
for example?
It's quite controversial,
but I tackle it in the book.
The answer is more
or less it's 50/50.
But equally, you may be
born with some talent,
but your environment
may well suppress it.
You may be born with
very little talent,
but the right environment
might really, really
accentuate that and make you
push whatever little talent you
were born with to a level
that it goes [? to. ?]
The way I put it is, how do
you make sure that somebody's
environment doesn't determine
their destiny in the same way
as somebody's environment
manages to protect them
from their destiny?
And that's the best way
to look at the nature
and nurture debate
in that context.
Education.
How many of you guys
have heard governments,
politicians, ministers, always
say, education's the answer.
Education, education, education.
You just get them
to school, and they
know how to write, and
get a university degree,
they will be fine.
How many times do
you always hear that?
You hear that so many times.
Well, I've got a
news flash for you.
The idea that education
is the answer or even
the main answer to the conundrum
of social mobility is nonsense.
Complete and utter nonsense.
And I'll tell you why.
Education for
education's sake is
fundamental to the
human progress.
You need to learn how to
be literate, and numerate,
and then be able to
communicate, and be
able to understand people.
You need to be able to
read a bank statement.
You need to be able
to fill out forms.
You need to be
able to understand
the mechanics of communicating
with human beings
both in writing and in speaking.
Of course, that's a given.
But the idea that more
exams, and more degrees,
and more qualifications
necessarily
equals a trajectory in which
you will become socially mobile,
it just doesn't follow.
It doesn't follow, and we've
got to tackle that head on.
Because the consequence
of not tackling
that is putting pressure
on our education system.
It's putting pressures
on our teachers.
It's putting crazy
pressure on the kids.
And it's putting forward
unrealistic expectations
on parents who are
desperately trying to do what
they can for their children.
And I set out what
that means in the book.
And then when you translate
that into what that looks like,
take this example that was
found by a couple of academics
at the London School of
Economics, Sam Friedman
and Daniel Laurison, who
wrote a book called "The Class
Ceiling."
They looked at two
individuals and made
sure they controlled for degree
classification, the subject
that they studied, the
kind of university they
went to, and then the kind
of entry job that they had.
The only difference
between these two people
is that one went
to a state school
and one went to
a private school.
Everything else is being
controlled for, OK?
When they get into
that same entry job,
it turns out that the person
who went to private school,
within 3 and 1/2 years,
is earning 16% more.
How do you account for that?
These are two individuals
who more or less have
the exact same
trajectory when you
control for everything else,
except for what school they
went to.
And yet, 3 and 1/2
years later, one
is earning 16% more based
on what school they went to.
How do you explain that if
education, and especially
tertiary education,
were supposed
to be this great equalizer?
Was supposed to be this
moment that everybody
becomes equal in terms of
equality of opportunity?
Again, there are no easy answers
to this, but I delve into it,
and I try and figure
out what it could mean,
and what are the kind
of unwritten rules,
the social capital, connections,
the cultural capital, how
you understand the culture
in which you're going into.
The barrister profession,
where I am now as a barrister,
cultural capital is huge.
Being able to understand
how people communicate.
When they talk about what
school and what college you went
to, rather than saying, what did
you [? study, ?] they will say,
what did you read?
And that's the kind of lingo
that Oxbridge types will
understand and maybe
others wouldn't.
And that cultural capital
can make a difference.
And again, what
does that mean if we
keep banging on about the fact
that education is the answer?
Another big theme in the
book is the role of luck.
How many of you guys believe
you're lucky in life?
OK.
And for those of you who
don't put your hand up,
do you think it's all you?
Put your hand up.
You worked hard to be here.
One person.
That's good.
I hope you're being ironic.
Because if you're not, you
really need to read the book.
Luck is important because
especially successful people
tend to tell a story
that it's all them.
That they worked hard.
That it was all down to them.
And I give about four or
five examples of that,
but I'll share with
you two examples.
Jeff Bezos-- am I allowed to
mention the names of competitor
organizations?
Jeff Bezos talks about--
and many of the founding
fathers or individuals
who start up tech companies--
always tell this story of I
founded my company in a garage.
You know what I mean?
It was in my garage.
I sat there, and I worked
hard, and it came together.
This nonsense that they
tell people about it
all began in this garage.
Have you see that image of Jeff
Bezos sitting in his garage
with Amazon written on
fountain pen and sitting there,
hunched in front
of his computer,
and he built this
billion dollar--
well, here's the footnote.
The footnote is in 1995,
Jeff Bezos' parents
gave him $250,000 for free
to start up his company,
and all of the connections and
people that he needed to know,
and all of the
things that he needed
to push to be where he is.
And of course, things
picked up in a way
that has been exponential
and arguably in a way
that we will never see
happen again in the way
that it happened at that
particular moment in time.
Now if that's not lucky,
I don't know what is.
But that's not the
story we tell, right?
That's not the story we tell.
The story we tell is he
worked hard in this garage,
and look at this guy now.
He deserves to be there.
And the reason why
that's a problem
is because we set then
unrealistic expectations
about what success looks like.
We then set people
up for failure.
We then tell people
the kind of stories
that I consider to
be irresponsible
when it comes to people's
expectations of what you're
worth, of what's
possible, and what's
probable in your set
of circumstances.
And that's the kind
of thing that I'm
talking about in the book,
and I try and layout.
Another example is
Bill Gates, who we all
know about how he came about.
The natural story is he
dropped out of Harvard,
and he's amazing,
look at him now.
What they don't tell you is that
he's one of the very few people
who had access to the early
computer in a way that was
unprecedented, and learnt hours,
and hours, and hours of coding,
and programming, and being able
to do it in such a way that his
parents, in that context, in
that environment in Seattle,
allowed for him to grow in
a way that, again, arguably,
we'll never see again.
But when you hear
about his story,
you hear he dropped
out of Harvard, right?
Dropouts are good.
Dropouts can succeed too.
I won't get to the
big guys of yore.
That's for another time.
Don't bite the hand
that feeds you.
But luck, luck is an example--
there's a really good
professor, briefly,
I'll mention, by the
name of Robert Frank
at Cornell University, who's
written a really fantastic book
about luck, success and luck.
And the way he describes
luck is actually--
[? interestingly, ?]
[? Cage and I ?] we're talking
about bikes earlier in
a different context.
But you're riding a bicycle.
And when you're
riding your bicycle,
and you're riding
it really strongly,
and the wind is blowing at you,
you're fully aware of the wind
because it's pushing at you.
You're struggling.
Your feet are pedaling away.
You're feeling that
the wind, that current,
is pushing back at you.
That's you being fully
aware of your bad luck.
Because it's there.
It's constant.
It's consistent.
But say you take a left, and
now you're going downhill
in a slight incline.
And now the wind
is in your back.
And you're cycling
fast, and you're flying.
You will only notice that
the wind is in your back
and you're on the incline
for the first 10 seconds.
After that, you're more
likely to say it's all me.
You're much more likely
to say it's all me
because look how fit I am.
That's you hardly ever
noticing good luck.
You will always be
aware of bad luck,
but you are less likely
to notice good luck.
And again, I set
that out in the book.
Now don't get me wrong,
I'm no shrinking violet.
I do think I'm special too.
And I don't want to
undermine my own talents
and what I'm good at.
But it would be a complete
nonsense and a folly
to not acknowledge
the number of times
I've had help, the
number of mentors who've
shown me the way, the number
of second chances I've had,
the number of opportunities
that people have given me,
that I then recognized,
that I then worked on,
that I then pushed.
And that's important
because otherwise,
another different story
is both irresponsible
and sets people up for failure.
It's really important
that I impart that to you.
The next themes in the
books are in relation
to concepts like confidence.
Where does this idea of
confidence come from?
What does it take for you
to be confident enough
to be in a room like this,
and address people, and talk
in a big meeting, and hold
your own, and be confident?
What does that
actually look like?
What does it taste like?
How do you teach it?
Can you teach it?
Can you learn it?
Can you unlearn it?
What are the kind of contexts
that give it a boost?
And what are the kind of
contexts that undermine it?
It's all there.
I delve into that.
Imagination is another chapter,
which is about this idea
that if you're coming from
one of the most deprived
areas of the country,
and you have never
met a barrister,
or a programmer,
or somebody who works
in an environment
that you hope to
aspire to one day,
how do you have the
imagination to, first of all,
picture yourself there and
then actually work towards it?
How does that happen?
It's a big question,
and I try and tackle it.
And then there's
another question,
which is often
quite controversial,
and I get in trouble for it.
This is a country, in
particular-- how many of you
guys grew up in the UK,
just out of interest?
Good.
So those of you who
grew up in the UK
will recognize this
instantly, perhaps
less so the ones who didn't,
but you might recognize it now
that you're living here more.
This is a country that is
obsessed with a lot of things,
but one of the things that it
is really deeply obsessed with
is accents.
And how you speak, and
how you communicate,
can in so many ways
determine whether or not
you will be successful
in this country.
Despite what your
qualifications show
and despite how competent you
might be and despite how gifted
you might be.
I am not ashamed of saying it,
English is my third language.
I didn't speak like this
when I was growing up,
and my accent has
undoubtedly changed.
I speak in different
ways depending
on different
languages, depending
on who I'm talking to,
depending on where I am,
and depending on what
I'm trying to achieve.
That's the reality of
understanding the world
as it is rather than the world
as you would like it to be.
And so if it occurs to you,
very early on in your life--
it turns out that they say
that it's very hard for you
to change your accent
after the age of 25,
so for some of you it's too
late, so don't worry about it--
if, very early on,
it occurs to you
that this is a
fundamental issue--
for example, not me saying
this, but the statistics
show that if you have a
Scouse accent from Liverpool,
a Geordie accent from
Newcastle or the Northeast,
or a Brummie accent
from Birmingham
and the black
country, you will be
significantly and
disproportionately
discriminated against.
28% of people believe that they
have been discriminated against
based on their accents.
And they are right,
because 80%--
[? 8-0%-- ?] of employers say
they have discriminated against
people during interviews
based on their accents.
Now, if you're faced
with that kind of fact,
do you still keep your accent
or do you change how you speak?
I'll ask a different question.
How many of you still speak
how you spoke when you were 15?
Put your hand up.
Exact same how you
spoke when you were 15?
Two people out of the
rest of the other people
who are in this room.
Oh, sorry, I didn't see you
guys might have said the same--
ish.
For me, if you still
speak in that accent,
I would argue that that
suggests that in some ways
that you were born into
a particular accent that
allows you to be able to keep
it in one way or another.
Has to be.
And those who say to
you, oh, you're changing,
and you're not being yourself,
you're being inauthentic,
just be yourself-- it's guff.
It's nonsense.
It sets you up for failure and
I am not ashamed of saying so.
Just gotta read the book.
[LAUGHTER]
Now, the last thing
I'd add is there's
a lot more about employment,
what employers should be doing,
how to improve
employment practices,
and just generally about
my reflections of how
and where things are going.
I thought I'd read for you
then a slight, short bit,
in the book before we open
it up to question and answer.
I've spoken for a bit longer--
hope this is not single use.
Good.
SPEAKER: It's sustainable.
HASHI MOHAMED: I like it.
I'll read you this
small passage here,
that just sort of encapsulates
the book in a nutshell for you,
so that when you
are reading it you
can more or less know what it's
about, based on this bit here.
"The reality remains
that for a young refugee
boy who buried his father
at the age of nine,
arrived in Britain
without his mother,
and was brought up in poverty,
and among profound deprivation,
the chances that you would be
writing a book like this one
are minuscule.
Not impossible, but
highly improbable.
In that context, what
politicians should really
be saying is this--
the chance of you
succeeding in Britain today
is down to many factors--
the wealth and profession
of your parents,
the kind of school you attended,
your mental and physical
health, and the quality of
your early environment in terms
of stability and attention.
You will need to work harder
than you have ever imagined--
and hope that whatever
talents you have,
given the fast-paced
development of automation,
you are still going to be
needed when you grow up.
You will need a lot
of luck as you go;
and let's hope
that, along the way,
someone explains to you the
unwritten rules of the world
you want to join.
And you'll need to make
it through all of that
with your belief in yourself--
and your vision in your future--
still intact.
And then-- maybe--
you'll make it."
It's a bit of a mouthful.
But it's certainly
better than people
that say we live in a
meritocratic society.
Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen.
[APPLAUSE]
SPEAKER: OK, so opening
up to questions.
I'm going to ask mine
first, for I am selfish--
please wait until you
have the mic, because it
is needed for the video--
so, my question, which
I know the answer,
but I'd also like to
hear the detail behind it
is, would a child arriving
from a similar situation
now to Britain have a
better experience than you,
or a worse experience?
And why that might be.
HASHI MOHAMED: It's
a very good question.
A child arriving today
would almost certainly not
have the best experience
that they might
have had when I was growing up.
Partly because things have
hardened in society these days.
I don't think we've become more
racist or more intolerant--
I personally don't
think we have--
I think we've more or less been
as racist and as intolerant
as normal, it's just we're
more aware of it now because
of social media and all of
the things that are out there.
So in some ways I
think it's harder
because it's all
in your face and it
can be quite demoralizing.
But I think your life is easier
because now more than ever
we're more aware, generally.
Now, that doesn't
mean that we're
more aware because people
are aware because they're
kind of curious.
I think we're more aware because
the information is out there.
The data is out there.
The opportunities are out there.
People are talking
about this issue.
Everywhere I go,
everyone's talking
about diversity and
inclusion and diversity
and all this, that,
and the other.
Now I talk about in the book
how a lot of organizations
are doing this in a
very cack-handed way.
And actually some of them are
causing more damage than good,
but at least it's out there.
At least we're talking about it.
And I gave an interview to the
"Guardian"-- or the "Observer,"
I can't remember-- where I said
I wish I had a book like this,
where I'm talking about what
it feels like to be growing up
lonely without
information, without data,
without understanding how
to sort out my homelessness
situation, without getting
somebody to help you with
the application form
or just anything.
Any sort of information out
there, how do we find it?
So in a way, things are worse,
because of the kind of climate
that we're living in.
But actually, things
are a lot better,
because of the fact that
so much of this information
now is available to you in a
way that it's never been before.
AUDIENCE: Hi, thanks Hashi,
this is an incredible story.
A lot kind of resonates a little
bit with some of the stuff
that I've [? gone through-- ?]
I guess it's advice really.
So people, like from my
community, come and say look,
you know how do I crack this
puzzle of British society?
HASHI MOHAMED: And now you can
say to them, buy this book.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Yeah, and what you've
articulated really
well is the facts of life.
And so, I struggle
sometimes with what
I would aspire the
culture to be versus
what the culture actually is.
And perhaps what
my experience was,
was perhaps not the experience
that you will be having.
So I can give the
experience that--
so my question, I
suppose, is how do we
give advice without being
too cynical, or too--
perhaps it's changed?
HASHI MOHAMED: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean that's
a very good question,
because my experience growing
up as a young black kid
with a Muslim name
is not going to be
the same as a young Asian
kid growing up in inner city
London, in similar or a worse
set of circumstances, right?
And for me, the best
advice I tell them--
and there is some
cynicism in that--
is that it's
really, really basic
and it's really fundamental.
It is critical that you treat
the world as you find it,
rather than some utopia
of what you hope it to be.
And the sort of advice
that people give--
especially in my profession--
just be yourself,
you'll be fine,
it is such poisonous crap.
That for somebody
who doesn't have
the information, the
wherewithal, the understanding,
the context, the
ability to actually
question that, it is
such poison for you.
Because what then
happens is that you
be yourself without
understanding
that the world doesn't
work like that.
And pretty soon
you get to a point
where you're in
conflict with yourself.
Because when you realize that
the world doesn't accept you
as you are, where are
you going to turn to?
Because what you've
been told to believe is,
be yourself because the world
is fair, and you'll be fine.
Because soon, when you
realize that doesn't work,
but you still believe
the world is fair,
then the logical conclusion
is that the world that is fair
won't accept me for who I am.
And that's the trouble.
And so you have to
be cynical in the--
you have to understand that
the world, as it is, rather
than as we would like it to
be, isn't the same thing.
But then the question
then becomes--
when you do make it, and
when you do get to the point
where you are successful,
whatever success looks like
for you, it is important that
you tell a responsible story
of your rise.
And that's what I'd like
to say I'm doing now.
Yeah, I knew what I was worth.
I know what my
talents are worth.
I knew that if I sat the
same exams at the bar school,
I knew if I did the
same assessments when
I was being interviewed to
be a barrister, that I'd
be as good as anyone else.
But what I didn't know
was if I walk into a room,
and one of the softer
skills is that--
did you get to see Richard
III's performance last weekend?
Or, which is the longest
Shakespearean play--
turns out it's "Hamlet"--
and you don't have that kind
of cultural capital, that you
didn't learn in inner city
London, that kind of feel that
people have in a profession
like mine, where--
we all do, it's not just my
profession, every profession,
people recruit in
their own image.
You recruit with people like us.
You recruit in a way of--
do I like this person?
Can I work with this person?
Dare I say it
happens right here.
And so, when you
realize that, and you
realize that it's not
just about your grades--
although that's a good start--
it's not just about your
performance and competence.
But it's a lot what sociologists
call the homophily, which
is the idea of you recruiting
people who are just
like you because you are
effectively then creating
a tribe, once you appreciate
that, that's the key.
And so, the ideal world is I'd
like to think-- for example,
just on the point
about accents--
of course I'd like
to live in a world
where people judge me based
on what I have to say,
rather than how
I have to say it.
But when you realize
that there is
a deeper social
conditioning, that
means that what I have to say
will basically become muted
after the first couple
of words that they've
heard you speak in
a particular accent,
you'd be mad to ignore that.
You'd be mad.
That's my view.
People might disagree,
but that's my view.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much for
coming and sharing your story
with us, it's fascinating.
And, I mean your point, I
think it's a very good point.
I'm just struggling with it
a little bit because I've
been here for just over a year.
And I am a member of
the Gayglers, which
is one of the ERGs,
it's an employee group,
and we work really
hard as volunteers
to make sure that
people like me can
come here and be themselves.
And I've always felt that
at Google I can be myself.
I am gay, I am
Latino, and I talk
to people at work about
everything that I do,
about who I am.
Yes, I have an accent, and
sometimes I feel the accent
thing, and I agree with you.
And I work in the
legal department.
I know that people like me,
if they want become barristers
like yourself, it would be
much, much harder, but--
HASHI MOHAMED: Not the
coffee makers, though.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, exactly.
So my question to you is,
how do you change that?
I mean, if it is so difficult,
how do you change that?
Because I think it's a
little bit unrealistic
to expect that we will all
try to become something
else so that we can fit in.
HASHI MOHAMED: No I
completely agree, in the sense
that it's not easy.
I talk about it in the book.
I say, look, there is a tension.
There is a tension
between saying
you need to adapt to the
set of circumstances you're
in to be able to get
on, and the tension
on the other side
of that is, well,
how are we going to
change everything
when we're all aspiring
to join this monoculture?
Which is true.
It's a very good point.
I accept that.
But then, the attack, in my
judgment, has to be twofold--
the attack has to be
on an individual basis
and on a systematic basis.
On an individual basis,
I've made the choices
that I've made, and
I am not suggesting
that everyone else should.
And on a systematic basis, I
am putting the feet to the fire
by talking about it.
The trouble with
expecting an individual
to go up against the system
is that you will always lose.
The game is rigged.
And as an individual,
you will lose.
But then, if there is a
critical mass of people like me
and you who are then hopefully
sitting at the top table,
slowly but surely we will
get some sort of progress.
It probably won't
happen in our lifetime,
but we will get there.
But the trouble of insisting
that an individual remains
who they are is to pit two
different individuals--
you're pitting an individual,
a giant, against a matchstick.
And the giant will always win.
And so I accept that there
is that tension, of course
there is, but it's
not reconcilable
within our lifetime.
And that's the
conclusion I've come to.
And the final thing is that we
won't be able to reconcile it
within our lifetime.
And the insistence
that individuals
be themselves with all
that that comes with that,
is that you end up
dying-- what I consider,
what I say in the
book, you end up dying
at the altar of authenticity.
And it's not worth it.
I want to hear if you
disagree with me, come on man,
I want people who
disagree with me.
Because I want to write
it in the next book.
[LAUGHTER]
AUDIENCE: I was interested to
hear about luck and accents.
Do you feel like that's a
particularly British construct?
Because I grew up in Australia,
similar private schooling
system, I've spent a
lot of time studying
in Germany and Holland,
where they don't have as much
of that--
HASHI MOHAMED: Yeah,
I think it does
exist in Australia as well.
AUDIENCE: --yeah, I mean the
Australian system is directly
geared from the British system.
But in places like
Germany, they're very--
by comparison to me, you have
to submit your like high school
grades when you
go for a job, they
try to be as
objective as possible.
If you were to say there's like
200 countries in the world,
just for round sake,
where would you put the UK
in terms of like meritocratic?
HASHI MOHAMED: I did a
quiz last night, turns out
that the UN recognizes
193 countries, but yeah--
the UK, where
would I put the UK?
That's a very good question--
AUDIENCE: So for example,
like China is known as quite
meritocratic,
[INAUDIBLE] in Germany,
you have less of this
old boys' system--
HASHI MOHAMED: Very good
question, very good question.
I'll take another question there
and then the guy over there,
and then I'll answer
three of them together.
Yes?
AUDIENCE: You spoke
about confidence,
and but I'm also interested
in your take about motivation.
If it's ever a real
thing actually.
HASHI MOHAMED: You mean the
ability to motivate yourself?
AUDIENCE: Yeah, correct.
Especially when things
are extremely hard.
And if you have
concrete examples.
And the other thing is you
spoke at the very beginning
about controversial things
that you write and trolls
and what is it about?
HASHI MOHAMED: It's on Twitter,
just people who write to me
about-- especially
on the accent thing.
The accent thing is a
big-- is a big problem
for a lot of English people.
Trust me.
Right there.
I'll take last one on there.
So motivation on there,
and accents and Australia
and the question about
meritocracy in the world,
I'll come to that.
AUDIENCE: Sir,
thank you very much.
This may be covered in
your book but my question
was an aspiration like
us as a society aspiring
to be better than who we are.
And I want to get your thoughts
on that, given the fact--
given your arguments
around, I guess
accepting the world as it is,
as opposed to as it should be.
And if we are doing that,
aren't we setting ourselves up
to just remain just as we are?
Or, evolve slower?
I don't know--
HASHI MOHAMED:
Very good question.
So in other words, if you
accept the world as it is,
does that limit your aspiration?
OK, good question.
So just dealing with the
question about accents.
Australia, and even
America to some extent,
have borrowed a huge part
of the class structures.
It just manifests itself
in a different way.
I'd slightly disagree
with you in Germany,
because Germany has got a
similar issue in one sense,
because actually if
you're from Bavaria,
as opposed to another
region of Germany,
there is a slight snobbery
depending on which
part of Germany you're in.
So they have their
own bits as well,
but you're right in
the sense that they
are trying a little bit harder.
The only problem with the
German education system,
and I've been
looking into this, is
that they make
people choose very
early on what they want to be.
So you pretty much
by the age of 14, 15,
you pretty much have
to decide whether you
want to go down the vocational
route or a professional route.
At 15 I could barely
speak much English.
So the idea that
my destiny could
have been determined at the age
of 15, you know what I mean.
And in terms of-- there's
all these different indexes
about where the UK
is on this thing.
And it turns out that
the UK and the US
are right at the bottom--
right at the bottom--
in that index of what it
means to be socially mobile.
But having said that, I gave an
interview to the "Guardian"--
my wife is Swedish,
and she always
bangs on about how the
Scandinavian countries are
super meritocratic, and
that's also nonsense.
Because what you find
is that the Swedish,
and especially Scandinavian
countries like Denmark, Norway,
and Sweden--
Finland is part of
the Nordic countries,
it isn't Scandinavian--
they spend a huge amount
of money on education
and really training
people early on.
And so they make sure that by
the time you get to 15, 16,
you have really made
huge amount of progress
in terms of basic education.
But then, when you
look at what we
call absolute mobility,
in other words,
are you doing better
than your parents
when it comes to the kind
of progress that you make,
Sweden isn't doing
that much better.
There's a really good book
called "The Son Also Rises",
S-O-N. And it shows
different surnames,
it tracks social mobility
through surnames,
and it shows that
basically Sweden is
owned by about five families.
For a Millennium.
And that has just
meant that basically--
so, in absolute
terms they're trying
to galvanize and push people up.
But in relative
terms, I really don't
think that Sweden is
making as much progress
as people give them credit for.
I'll have to answer these guys
and I'll come back to you.
On the question of motivation,
it's a very difficult one.
If you're sitting there,
working hard, pushing yourself,
and then you have to get up in
the morning and it's raining
and it's cold, and you just
want to be under your duvet,
it's not easy.
And motivation is something
I looked into for the book,
and there's a lot in
there about what's
often described as
instant gratification
and delayed gratification.
So the idea that,
when I was growing up,
you walk around the
streets and all the guys
with the nicest cars are the
drug dealers or whatever,
but you have to believe that you
got to go to this crap school
and get the grades and that
one day I'll be something--
that's delayed gratification.
Instant gratification is
just like, forget this,
why don't I just
go there now and I
can have that car and
those nice trainers.
Which is not reality.
So, for me, what I
argue is that you've
got to find that
motivation for yourself,
wherever it comes from.
My own personal motivation
was always that I just
wanted better than what I had.
I was just like, I
want to buy a house,
because we've never
had our own place,
we've always lived
six to a room.
I was like, I want to be
able to buy whatever I want,
without ever asking anyone,
and just work towards that.
I mean, it was
materialistic to begin with,
but it's just that
visceral feeling
of being able to control more
of your own life, that has been
that huge motivation for me.
And I struggle with it even
now, sometimes we are all lazy,
we're all bored and
we're all trying
to find different ways
to motivate ourselves.
Trust me, even the most driven
people have their moments.
So don't ever believe that--
again, it goes
back to that thing
about I dropped
out of Harvard, I
started my thing in a garage,
it's complete nonsense.
We're all facing our
own deep challenges,
whatever that might be.
On the question of the
challenge and the tension
between accepting the world
as it is and to what extent
then does that limit
your aspiration.
My point about accepting
the world as it is
isn't necessarily
linked to aspiration.
It's simply a question of tools.
So whatever your aspiration
is, keep it there,
but don't expect that the world
is going to be kind to you,
generous to you, nice to you,
and treat you in good faith,
simply because you want to
aspire to that aspiration.
What I'm saying is, you have
to accept the world as it is,
because they're not
going to judge you just
based on your grades.
They're not just going to judge
you based on your raw talent.
They're not going to just judge
you based on your competence.
Which is what people
tell you, right?
People tell you just study hard,
work hard, do the right thing,
and it will come together.
And what I'm saying
is, that's not true.
There's a lot more deeper
that you need to dig.
That doesn't mean
lower your aspiration.
It just means that the routes
that you're going to take
is going to be a lot more
bumpier because you're
realistic about the world
as it is rather than
as you would like
it to be, which
is more likely to treat you
to a sort of instant failure.
Any other couple of
questions before we wrap--
I don't mind, I've
got time, so as long
as you guys got time I'm happy
to take whatever question.
I'll take a few together.
AUDIENCE: Thank you so much
for sharing your story,
I'm really looking forward
to reading the book.
You said at the beginning
that you ultimately
don't think education is
the key to social mobility,
yet you yourself are a
prime example of somebody
who's chose to pursue
higher education,
and whose ultimate career
and where you are now
is a result of that.
So if it's not
education, and we're
talking about young people
that maybe don't have parents
who can give them
the best advice,
what is the key mobility tool?
HASHI MOHAMED: A
very good question.
AUDIENCE: I'm really interested
in your definition of success.
My hunch is that--
you just said about being
able to buy what you want,
and that kind of sits very
much within a capitalist idea
of success, and how does
that sit against happiness?
And yeah, what is the measure of
being successful or making it,
as you refer to it.
HASHI MOHAMED: Very good.
Lady there, and then there's
one more here, I think.
Yeah, so I'll take
those two, and then--
I haven't forgotten.
Sorry, we can start
there and then go there.
AUDIENCE: I just--
I agree with you on the one
hand, where we have to conform.
But on the other hand,
we have to also push
HR departments to have
a different system where
they're not looking--
maybe they're not
allowed to look at people
or listen to people until they
make a certain judgment that
allows those people to
get to a certain degree.
So I just wouldn't
want to discount that.
But I totally agree
with you, what
you're saying seems
to fit in with,
yeah you've got to
dress a certain way,
it's not just accent, you've
got to dress a certain way,
you've got to-- it's
your mannerisms,
it's all sorts of things.
And I totally
agree that you have
to play the game, to a degree.
How do we best help children?
Or children and teenagers?
HASHI MOHAMED: Yeah.
Good question.
I'll take that last
one, to the lady there.
AUDIENCE: You haven't yet
mentioned like inclinations.
We talked about
motivation, but I'm
looking at it from a slightly
different perspective,
I work a lot with children
with cancer and teenagers
with cancer who miss
out on a load of school,
they can either-- they've
had a lot of bad luck.
You talk about cycling
against the wind and the wind
being behind you, their
choice when the wind is
behind them, sometimes
they don't even
want to be on the bike.
How do you instill
that inclination
to be hungry to look
for the opportunities?
Because that fits
with everything
you're talking
about, because you
start to look for
those opportunities.
How do you instill that
and what do you discuss
in the book about inclination?
HASHI MOHAMED: That's
a very good question
about inclination.
So just starting
out with education,
what I'm trying to say is that
education is not the answer.
I'm not suggesting that
it's not part of the answer,
but it's not even the main
answer, I would argue.
Simply because if
we see education
as even having this relationship
with social mobility in the way
that politicians
talk about it, we're
setting kids up for failure.
What I'm saying instead
is that education
is just one of those life things
like breathing, sleeping, just
peace.
Think of anything that is
just a standard thing that you
do when you brush your teeth.
That's what education is.
The idea of constantly
obsessing over, then linking it
to people becoming
more socially mobile,
is where I am disagreeing.
And I talk about that.
And the other stuff that I talk
about, that comes with that,
is exactly--
as I've sort of
alluded to in the end--
the circumstances in which
you're growing up in,
the kind of aspirations you're
exposed to by your parents,
the fact that you can
have a decent diet
at home, to be able to
allow your brain to grow,
and not have anxiety, and not
have the kind of jittery ways
in which you're then going
to develop issues later
on in life, the kind of things
about mentoring that allows you
to-- the chapter on
mentoring is subtitled
"filling in the blanks."
So if you don't
know what you don't
know, having those people around
you to be able to show you.
Language.
So there's loads of
other things, I argue,
that make up the bigger
social mobility story.
But this intense
focus on education--
there was a famous Tony Blair,
former Prime Minister's speech,
where he said education,
education, education.
Again, that was
a classic example
of putting the emphasis, in my
judgment, in the wrong place--
that's what I mean.
So I don't want to undermine the
purpose and need of education.
Just plowing through a few
of the other questions.
On the question of what
it means to be successful,
you have to define
that for yourself.
And I do talk about
that in the book.
I talk about happiness.
I do talk about not
necessarily seeking out
the kind of happiness that means
that you are monetarily more
happy, but rather
that you are happy
and successful in the
sense that you have pursued
what you're good at and
what you're not so good at,
what you enjoy, what
you don't enjoy,
and the kind of
things that allow
you to grow as a human being.
Now, to ignore money
would be a folly.
To ignore money and
income is just nonsense.
Either it's nonsense, or you've
grown up financially secure
and independently
wealthy to which extent
it means nothing to you.
But I say in the
book, if you're going
to try to be, for example, a
lawyer, pick an area of law--
if you're a socially
mobile person,
pick an area of
law that will allow
you to earn a lot of money.
Why get obsessed
over human rights,
and I want to save
the world, when
you've come from a very
poor set of circumstances.
In those areas of law, you are
not likely to make much money,
and therefore not
likely to transform
the lives of your family.
Whereas, if you pick an
area that does give you
a decent income, then
you can change your life,
you can change that.
Don't be ashamed of that,
there's no shame in that.
The shame is when you make
it your sole, central goal.
Finally on that, it's really
interesting how football--
I'm a big football fan--
is a huge meritocracy.
If you think about it,
it's raw, raw, talent.
And it's no wonder that a lot of
the people who make it into it
are just dirt poor.
Dirt, dirt poor, most of them.
And then when you meet a lot
of these kids who are growing
up in inner city London today--
ask the vast majority of them.
Most kids, even if they grow
up in nice circumstances,
want to be footballers.
But disproportionately, poor
kids want to be footballers.
Why?
Because it's the
first opportunity
that they think they can
have through their own hard
work to change their lives.
There is something there.
On the question of inclination,
I'm not a scientist.
I don't know what
instinctively occurs to people.
But I do talk about how
much your early life
exposure can make a difference
to your inclination.
So for example, if you're
growing up in a household
where every morning everyone's
leaving for work at 6:00
in the morning, and getting
up and having breakfast,
as opposed to what is
often pejoratively termed
by different
governments waking up
in households where the curtains
are never drawn until midday.
I think that there is something
there about an inclination that
happens, for a child,
very early on, that
then sets the tone for
the rest of their lives.
But if you're somebody
facing cancer,
and lots of issues with
cancer and problems like that,
chances of your inclinations
being quite there is very hard.
Because you probably
believe, I don't know,
but you probably believe
and feel that life's
given you a pretty raw deal.
And so why are you going to be
more inclined to get up, if you
think I didn't deserve this.
And now I'm ridden with
this horrible disease
that I have no control over.
So, I haven't got
into too much detail,
but I do talk about
inclination to an extent.
On the final question,
I remember it briefly,
but you're going to have
to just tell me one word
and it'll come to me.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
HASHI MOHAMED: The HR.
The HR.
It's a very good point.
So the HR point is a
really interesting one.
So we have to do
more to help HR.
So I interviewed a lot of
HR people for this book,
and what was really fascinating
was they said to me,
she read this amazing young
lady, she was really talented,
she was so good.
But she had an Essex accent.
We can't put her.
You know what she said to me?
She said, I'd love to hire
her, but I can't put her
in front of the clients.
So think about that.
You get to a point where you've
managed to convince the HR
people to not judge
somebody based
on their mannerisms
or the way they speak.
But then another hurdle appears
out of nowhere, where she says,
but what are the
clients going to say?
I can't put her in
front of the clients.
So then I say we need to
move towards an environment
where if the HR
department is decided
this person is competent,
then you should be prepared
to put that person in
front of the clients
or tell your clients to take
their business elsewhere.
Now, what company is going to
do that on their bottom line?
Come on.
Come on, think about it.
Not many companies are going to
be prepared to take that hit,
right now.
But we're slowly moving
in the right direction.
And the point I'm
making is that what
I'm learning in this process of
writing is that every time we
seem to find a solution,
we seem to hit our heads
against a new problem.
That we may or may not
have noticed before.
That has always
been there, but has
become to the forefront
of where it is.
Anyway.
Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen,
I really appreciate--
[APPLAUSE]
