Misfit to Maven. Ebonie Allard

than most business books I’ve read and far less business, but if it was just the mechanics of business that were important to you, you’d buy a different book. If you have or want to have your own way of making a living and a life, that is as extra-ordinary as you are, you are in the right place. For too long there has been a notion that to be spiritual means to give away your gifts and live a life without financial gain and material reward. I am proud to be living in an age that is redefining the status quo. It is your duty to make money and to create value and to recognise your own worth and the worth of others. It is your duty to look after yourself first and foremost and then to look after those who cannot look after themselves. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift, the new matrix is one of heart and love, or honesty and transparency, of value and information. The world of work is changing, relationships are changing – we are moving from an overtly masculine modality into one that marries both masculine and feminine energies and ways of being.

      If I haven’t yet scared you off, I actively encourage you to tweet me with any questions you might have, or any gems that really resonate with you or even bits that you just don’t get. I love a conversation. Let’s chat.

      Use #misfit2maven and @ebonieallard.

1. http://www.dominican.edu/dominicannews/study-backs-up-strategies-for-achieving-goals.html

2. Write It Down, Make It Happen, by Henriette Klauser http://www.henrietteklauser.com/_books/_writeitdown/index.htm

      MISFIT/MAVEN

      MISFIT: A PERSON NOT SUITED IN BEHAVIOUR OR ATTITUDE TO A PARTICULAR SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT – SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT FIT OR FITS BADLY.

A person who is too innovative, too creative, too geeky and/or too full of heart to clock in and clock out of a job and/or life.1

      A person who doesn’t naturally conform, who is awake enough to not want to be a sheep, but not completely accepting of or able to embrace, surrender to and trust their uniqueness, difference and vulnerabilities.

      A person who feels like they don’t belong.

      MAVEN: A TRUSTED EXPERT IN A PARTICULAR FIELD, WHO SEEKS TO PASS KNOWLEDGE ON TO OTHERS.

      The word maven comes from Hebrew, meaning ‘one who understands’, based on an accumulation of knowledge.

A person who is innovative, creative, geeky and full of heart.2

      A person who walks to the beat of their own drum, who is awake and accepting of themselves and others.

      A person who makes daily practice of embracing, surrendering to and trusting their uniqueness, difference and vulnerabilities and those of others.

1. This is my definition, not necessarily a recognized and shared definition

2. This is my definition, not necessarily a recognized and shared definition.

      PART ONE:

      MYSTERY

      LET’S START AT THE BEGINNING

      Before I was seven years old I had lived in a house truck, on a commune, in France, in New Zealand, in Ireland, and in several homes in England. I had been bathed in a sink, had a pet goose called Lucy, and had police in two different countries looking for me – I think it would be fair to say that my parents gifted me with a curiosity for the world.

      I was born in France on 23rd July 1980. I was supposed to be born at the end of that September but I arrived early – a trait that has for the most part remained with me.

      My parents, both British, were living in Hyères in the South of France in a place I only really know as The Cabanon. At the time of my birth the place had no electricity, running water or roof... I think the plan was to finish up before I arrived.

      But I arrived before they were ready for me. 12 weeks before.

      I weighed 3lbs and my head was the size of a small orange. I was put into an incubator in a hospital in Toulouse and cared for by French nurses. Money was tight and the 60km distance was too great; they couldn’t afford the petrol to come and see me. For the first 6 weeks of my life I was pretty much alone in my little glass box; a place I have returned to many times metaphorically.

      Although medically there is no rhyme or reason why babies are born so prematurely, for most of my childhood I believed that it was my desire for drama and attention that led to my early arrival rather than perhaps the circumstances or any number of other factors. In those days 28 weeks was really very early, and I was lucky to be so healthy.

      For a while, like many children, I was convinced that I was adopted or that my parents married because my mum was pregnant with me. Neither assumption was founded on anything other than my feelings of difference and disconnect. (In fact I remember my dad enjoying trying to tell a young and easily embarrassed me with passion and conviction about the night I was conceived. I ran out the room with my fingers in my ears yelling ‘La la la – I can’t hear you!’)

      I’d like to tell you about both of my parents in detail as they are both hugely fascinating people for whom I have so much respect and who have impacted me significantly. However, if I am honest there is so much about their lives before me that I don’t know and cannot share with the accuracy that they deserve. What I do know is that they are both very private people who, whilst respecting what I am trying to do with this book, would be happier to remain anonymous. Their lineage, the secrets and patterns of their past form a part of my story, but it is also part of theirs and so in respect for them I have chosen carefully what I share.

      Every family has stories and patterns and secrets. Stories from either side of mine were not always handed down with pride, instead I got snippets here and there and as I grew up I got the sense that there were important reasons for the secrets being kept. So I stopped asking. There were often hints of dramatic events and emotional scars on both sides but very little detail was given. The events were always referred to in a very matter-of-fact way, no drama, no great and entertaining stories. I am a storyteller, it is my predisposition to make everything into an entertaining tale. I love the phrase ‘never let the facts get in the way of a good story’. But in our house the bare facts were what I got if I asked a question about the past. From a very early age I felt that there were things one shouldn’t talk about. I felt a pressure of required secrecy that, because it was unnatural for me, left me feeling suffocated and fearful that I may upset someone accidently by sharing a story.

      I feel strongly that emotional DNA is a thing; that the wounds of the elders are passed on to be healed. I think that the study of epigenetics will eventually find that emotional trauma impacts and is stored in our cells. I believe that in families there are patterns and histories that repeat themselves over and over, passed on not just by nurture, but also by nature. Passed on with or without the explicit telling of the stories. I share this because I wonder about the stories our DNA would tell.

      In 1980, when I was born, my father was 23 and my mother 21. I was the first grandchild in both their families. After I was well enough to be released from the hospital we travelled by car first to Paris to visit my dad’s aunt, then on to Switzerland to his grandmother. I was still so small that they bathed me in the sink and dressed me in dolls’ clothes. After Switzerland we came back to England and I was shown off to both my grandmothers.

      Between 18 months and