COMMENT
Business Buzz
with Harry Pearson
The art of blowing your own trumpet
Elsewhere in this issue you can read about the career of Stephen Robinson, the founder of Outrank – an award-garlanded digital marketing company.
One thing that struck me reading the interview was not just Mr Robinson’ s persistence when doors were – literally – being slammed in his mug, but his humility in the wake of success.
As much as toughness, grit and ability to laugh in the face of adversity, modesty is one of the great characteristics of Teessiders. We don’ t like show-offs.
Our greatest sons and daughters, from Captain Cook to Bob Mortimer via Florence Bell and Stanley Hollis, have all been self-effacing people who shook off praise like a dog does bathwater. There is, of course, one exception, but the biggest bighead of them all, Brian Clough, was forgiven on account of genius and decent jokes.
Growing up, we were taught early on not to get any fancy ideas about ourselves. If there was the slightest sign of success changing us, we’ d soon hear about it.
If I came back to my grandparent’ s house after school proudly showing off a gold star in my primary school news book, my grandad would inevitably respond by saying,“ Go in the kitchen and get yourself some pop,” before adding“ And mind you don’ t get that head of yours wedged in the door.”
To be boastful was a terrible crime, up there with theft, Morris dancing and cheering Malcolm Macdonald.
My relatives regarded vanity with the same horror a millipede does an outbreak of athlete’ s foot.
“ You could get three stone of potatoes in his hat,” my mother would say of some bloke she’ d heard boasting in a cafe of his success in business.“ I’ m not saying he’ s got a swollen head,” my dad would comment of a new colleague who had been flaunting his qualifications,“ but when he went in to a shop to buy a cap, the salesman said,‘ We haven’ t got one in your size, but we can put a peak on an umbrella, if you like’.”
Teessiders are not the only ones who actively shun those who are as familiar with singing their own praises as they are the national anthem.
Show-off – memories of being brought back down to earth. This AI image depicts a young Harry Pearson being taught a lesson in humility by his grandad.
I have spent a lot of time in Belgium. The Belgians are so unassuming they make Michael Palin look like Cristiano Ronaldo. Once I was in a delicatessen in Ghent and commented to the owner on the amazing array of Belgian cheese he sold.
“ Yes,” he replied.“ In Belgium, we make hundreds of fantastic cheeses and nobody has heard of them. Meanwhile, in Holland, they make two tasteless rubbery cheeses and all the world knows their names. This is the difference between the Belgians and the Dutch – they shout about whatever they do and we say nothing.”
I like the Belgians’ modesty but in business, a refusal to talk about yourself and the quality of your product is often not the best policy( 30 years after that conversation in Ghent, Edam and Gouda are still far and away more famous than any Belgian cheese).
We might mock those who give the impression of wanting to die in their own arms, but often they are the folk who get the public’ s attention.
I guess it is a case of striking a balance. As the brilliant American journalist Jimmy Breslin wrote of his period of greatest success in the 1950s:” Now, when I think of those days, I am so delighted with myself that I could sing a song. And you’ d better do the same thing. For if you do not blow your own trumpet, often there is no music.”
Harry Pearson’ s latest book The Farther Corner – A Sentimental Return to North-East Football is out now.
150 | Tees Business