I wasn’t prepared for this. Just as the session was about to begin, he threw me the PowerPoint clicker and said it was over to me. With a room full of students, there was nowhere to escape to.

This is where my education took off.

Last week I met up with one of my first training teachers to thank him for a huge lesson.

Around 3 years ago I started working with MyBnk to deliver Enterprise Education programmes to students.

After the initial in house training day that covered all of the content, the second part of the training was observing it in action – we were in a Youth Centre in North London.

I turned up ready to watch and learn. To see a master at work and fill in the gaps in my knowledge. But little did I know, James’s theatrical background and love for learning on the spot, meant he’d throw me a little into the deep end and watch me swim.

And as the expression goes, ‘thrown in the deep end’ I was forced to learn to swim, and quickly! Acting as a supportive lifeguard, James was by my side should I need any support. But importantly he didn’t intervene at all, he had complete faith and knew this was the best way to learn.

What I expected to be a passive day of observing, turned in to an opportunity to grow quickly. It was still a lot of fun, I felt challenged but not panicked and together we delivered a great session!

So thanks to James, I was ready to do it my way.

I was ready to swim on my own.