My advice for 17/18 year olds facing exam pressures (and how I nearly joined the French Foreign Legion) 🔥

I see lots of people talking about A Level exam results for their kids. Here’s my admittedly extreme prescription that no one will do… 😂

Not many people know this, but when I was performing poorly in my final A Level year, I had made a pact with myself that if I didn’t get what I wanted on results day, I would sign up for the French Foreign Legion.

I had put the plan in place and everything was in motion if I got below my required grades. I saw this as a punishment to myself if I failed. And, obviously, a form of extreme motivation.

I had always placed these bets with myself from an early age, but this was a slightly more extreme version.

Fortunately, I didn’t need to join the French Foreign Legion!

I achieved fairly good grades, despite an admittedly dismal 61% attendance rate (with the exception of drama which I think I attended everything and did all the plays), and not reading any of the required texts in English Lit (I just read what I wanted).

I read things like ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ instead of the required texts.

To pull this off in exams, you certainly need to be an above average writer at a baseline, you need a rough idea of the text and key talking points and then essentially just be great at fluffing passages and writing quickly.

I realized early on at school that there was a direct correlation between amount of words written and higher grades received in ‘essay-based’ subjects.

For me, A Level was Law, English Lit, Media Studies and Drama & Theater. (I was kicked out of History, but that’s another story, or should I say, history!)

I admit I did have to read some passages of law in order to memorise cases, etc! But the teacher was super charismatic and overlooked my truancy.

I wouldn’t recommend this for any kid (or parent) to truly implement. You have to be pretty extreme as a human being.

Still, this kinda illustrates the point that you maybe don’t need to take things like A level exam results too seriously.

I’m doing well, despite having a pretty wild academic career that vacillated between straight As and almost flunking subjects.

Still got to university in both the UK and USA, and attended one of the best film schools in the United States.

So all this is to say: kids, don’t stress your exam results. Exams don’t test for real world application of skills. They can be “gamed,” “hacked” and otherwise manipulated.

The people who get ahead in life are those with a truly independent spirit, determination and ambition.

Reading a lot is the 4th leg on the foundational chair, in my humble opinion. And taking action is, of course, everything.

And, hey, you can still be an entrepreneur and choose your own story.

Now that I’m in the middle of giving unsolicited advice to 17/18 year olds, I would advise this as the most important thing you can do in life when young:

– Open a notebook (or excel document)

– 2 pages.

– One page on the left: everything you want in life. Goals, dreams, ambitions. Because so many people go through life never knowing what they want from their lives.

– Right hand page: everything you won’t put up with in your life. Because so many people go through life having no boundaries and getting screwed over by people.

If you do this early and truly hold yourself accountable, I believe it’s super powerful.

End of advice. Peace 😃👌