The High Achiever

The 1990s

Garrie Miller was successful – financially secure and professionally well-established as a top corporate advisor and public speaker on business – but it hadn’t been an easy route to the top.

Take his name, for example. 

Garrie, not even Gary, so spelt because his parents had severe difficulties with reading and writing; they couldn’t do either. The name chosen by them for their only son, even in its strange form, is one of those odd ones that you think are shortened versions of a longer name, in the same way Harry is. But it’s not Garrold reduced to Garry or Garrie, just as Barry or Barrie isn’t short for Barrold. 

But, Garrie! What a burden to carry through school, guaranteed to make him the butt of a bit too much ribbing.

And, as if that wasn’t tricky enough for him to handle, he had been born with cerebral palsy, although he’d managed, through continuous supreme effort, to confine its effects to a slight limp and reduced use of his right hand.

The Miller part of the name was truly historic and his father still worked in the bread industry, admittedly only humping heavy sacks, but he lived up to the heritage of his name, just about, if spending most of his days covered in flour counted as such.

At that time, the 1940s, children like Garrie were sent off to special schools, more to keep them out of the way of mainstream education rather than to ensure they had the proper attention in a caring and learning environment.

The letter informing the Miller family of the sensitive decision to remove him from his parents and his own home arrived one morning. It was Garrie’s job to open and read the post and that day was no different. 

In fear and disbelief, he read that he was being offered a place at an establishment many miles from where he lived. When his parents asked what the letter said, Garrie, taking matters into his own hands, made the most important decision of his life.

‘It says that I can continue at my current school because I don’t qualify for a place, after all, at the special school.’

‘That’s good,’ said his father. ‘I don’t know how we’d manage without you.’ 

That was the most loving thing he had ever said to his son.

Garrie wrote a letter and signed it – all in his father’s name – turning down the kind offer from the institution and he posted it off on his way to school. That was the last of that.

With his two poorly educated parents more dependent on him than he was on them, Garrie applied himself to his studies. He was top of the class in the academic subjects all the way through, but next to bottom of his class in PE, one up from his only friend, the polio-surviving, calliper-wearing fellow scholar, Michael. At least that meant the other children, rather than use it as an excuse for bullying them, could ignore their brainyness, valuing brawn far more.

The will to succeed was strong in Garrie and took him from a science degree to accountancy and a fast-path route to the top of a multinational company as financial director. Buying and selling companies became bread and butter to him and he was soon in demand to share his trade secrets.

The world of consultancy beckoned and Garrie set to it with a will. Public speaking courses boosted his lecturing skills that soon matched his priceless ability to write clearly and concisely on the most technical of matters.

He was witty in presenting his thoughts in both the spoken and the written word and his super-charged time management expertise meant his participation in conferences and his output of books and articles was epic on every level.

When you work to your strengths and you know exactly what they are. When you can ignore what other people think and, better still, forget about what others are doing with their lives, you can develop yourself into a high-performing individual. That was Garrie.

Everything that he did served the god of goal-driven achievement. Not forgetting the enjoyment side of things in his well-calibrated days, the finer things of life like gourmet dining and luxury foreign travel were scheduled in, so long as they didn’t interfere with his business activities. 

Two wives, in quick succession, somehow formed part of well-drilled domestic set-up, but regime change at home meant that, eventually, he was left on his own when each woman in turn had chosen to opt out of his strictly controlled and compartmentalised way of conducting everyday life and work.

Garrie would say in his lectures, ‘Work:Life Balance. The only people who have to worry about that are tightrope walkers.’

He threw himself into his work and kept up a hectic pace of travel and business deals, relaxing (!) by writing books and articles on his annual ten day holiday in Cannes.

It was after a particularly gruelling few months that, during one of his seminars at a five star country hotel towards the end of his career, Garrie was asked what he meant by marginal profit.

‘I’ll get some coloured pens from the shop in the village at coffee-break, and I’ll show you how to draw it and colour it in.’

This drew laughter, but it perturbed the conference organiser who was seated at the back of the room.

Further questions followed from the delegates, and more and more surreal answers were provided by Garrie, until the organiser went out to the hotel lobby to ask the concierge to interrupt the session and call Garrie to reception for an urgent phone call.

Once Garrie was out of the room, the organiser explained to the room full of perplexed attendees that ‘clearly our lecturer is experiencing some difficulties this morning, so let’s take an early coffee break whilst I investigate further.’

Garrie, meanwhile, had headed off into the village, where he proceeded to buy a colour tv, a toaster and kettle in the electrical shop. He was negotiating a last-minute deal on a foreign holiday – a fortnight Barbados – when the conference organiser eventually caught up with him in the local travel agency.

Senior colleagues rallied round, in the way they usually do, and he was shuffled off into early retirement, quicker than you say Garrie Miller.