Rob Parsons OBE | Extraordinary Life Stories
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
And he said to me a phrase, John, that I've heard hundreds of times from him. It was a hangover for his time in care when he was a child. He said, have I done a bad thing? I said, no, you haven't done a bad thing. It's just Dan and I wondered, well, perhaps it was time. And suddenly Diane burst into the room. And she said to me, have you? I said, no. She said, Ronnie, can I borrow Rob a moment? Sure. And she dragged me downstairs into the kitchen, burst into tears. And she said to me, we can't do it. I can't do it.
Who is Rob Parsons?
My life has been a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest, including being here with you now, John. So brought up in a little terraced house with no inside toilet, no running hot water, no toilet paper. Hopeless at school. My teacher wrote when I was 14, he's making no use of what little ability he had. I believed that, that I was rubbish. And then a few people came into my life That changed everything.
Ronnie knocks on your door at home, homeless, and ends up living with you for, have I got this right, 45 years? 45 years, yeah. You know, without even having got close to what you've achieved and recognized as well, you know, OBE, and we'll come to that, but the point is that that kid that was put in that box, how did you climb out of it? What did you do to break out of that box?
How did Rob Parsons overcome being labelled 'thick' at school and change his life trajectory?
Do you know, it's remarkable how things happen. I think if we've known a measure of success in life, the truth is most of us have had a couple of breaks.
Rob Parsons, thank you for joining me. No, lovely to be here, John. I've been so enjoying reading, researching all about you. So now this conversation. Thank you. Who is Rob Parsons?
My life has been a bit of a surprise to me, to be honest, including being here with you now, John. So brought up in a little terraced house with no inside toilet, no running hot water, no toilet paper, don't even ask, except even now I can't look at a copy of the South Wales Echo without a million memories flooding back. Hopeless at school. My teacher wrote when I was 14, he's making no use of what little ability he had. And so until I was about 18, I believed that, that I was rubbish. And then a few people came into my life That changed everything. So I ended up being a senior partner of 11 office law practice. I formed one of the biggest legal consultancies in the country. I used to take the London Hilton ballroom and fill it with 300 lawyers and talk to them about practice expansion.
I've spoken to a million people, governments sometimes, and more blue chip companies across the world you can shake a stick at. And so it's all been a bit of a surprise. I sometimes pinch myself. I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but it has. So it's been an interesting life.
I find it fascinating that you were effectively told at school that you're thick. So then what you've just done, and that includes being a lawyer, which you can't beat thick. There's an academic element to that, let alone then the fact that you captivate people from being an author or from standing on stage to a thousand people that are learning from you. When you reflect on that particular period where someone effectively labelled you thick and then you carried that through, how do you feel?
I feel both happy that I've managed to come through that and terribly sad at the things we do to people. You know, when my form teacher, WP Lewis BA, as he used to sign my report, wrote those words in my report, no use of what little ability he had. He thought he was just writing with ink on paper, but he wasn't. He made for me a little wooden box called academic achievement. And the bottom was rubbish and the side was no hope and the top was no ability. And because he was a teacher and I was a kid, I climbed in that box and I lived there. This is where I belonged. I had just come 34th out of 34 in my class. And I remember that just two names left. I used to read them out, John, beginning with the top.
It was a system designed to both honor and humiliate. And we're down to the last two names. I look across at Bernard Harris and Bernard looks at me and Bernard shrugs his shoulders.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:10
2
How did Rob Parsons overcome being labelled 'thick' at school and change his life trajectory?
1:10–14:14
3
Which early mentor taught Rob public speaking and how did that shape his career?
14:14–23:47
4
Why did Rob and his wife decide to invite a homeless man (Ronnie) to stay and what happened next?
23:47–32:15