Use the Mills Matrix™ to explore your greatest joys, setbacks, strengths, and purpose

Lesson 2: The Mills Matrix™ [transcript]

So in the last video, we talked about the golden thread – having a look at some of the themes or some of the passions that go through all the sort of different bits of the story of your life. What we’re going to talk about today and in this session is what I call the Mills Matrix™. Mills, because that’s me; Matrix, because it’s how I think about constructing stories when I go and interview celebrities, politicians, thinkers, you know, all that kind of thing, which is what I’ve been doing for the last 30 years.

So the matrix that we’re going to put together is comprised of three important themes. So the first is professional, the second is personal, and the third is your purpose. So in all those timelines that we did, and also looking at the golden threads, I want you to go 

back through them and we’re going to end up with three nuggets under each of those topics. So let me just say those again: professional, personal, purpose. 

So I’m going to talk you through a bit about what those nuggets might look like for me in my own matrix about my own life. 

So if we kick off with personal, a huge thing which has shadowed all of my life was my parents divorcing when I was five. I talked in the previous video about achievement and how that’s been a really massive thing for me. And that came from this split when I was young, which made me feel, I think, a sense of lack and a sense that I really needed to achieve in order to kind of get people’s attention. 

So if I was putting together any story about my life, that story of my parents’ divorce when I was only five years old is a really important part. It kind of cascades down into so much of the other things that have happened to me. So that would definitely be part of my personal matrix. 

So, have a look back through your own life story, your seven-year chunks, your timelines, your golden threads, and have a think about what those three really important pivotal moments are for you in terms of your personal life. Probably something that happened to you in your childhood, maybe something to do with your own relationships or kind of personal life since. It could be a death, it could be something, a pivot – the three things which maybe define who you are and how you’ve got to this point. So have a think about that. 

And then we’re going to do the same thing under the label ‘professional’. So for me, my professional life started when I was the youngest features editor on the biggest English newspaper when I was only 26, I was an interviewer. I worked for The Sunday Times as a big journalistic honcho for 25 years. And then I was suddenly made redundant out of the blue, just as I hit 50. And that’s been a really pivotal professional moment for me because it was what made me then reinvent, set up my community for women, basically has led me to be sitting here now talking to you about reinvention in midlife. So that’s a really important part of my own professional story, my professional bit of the matrix.

So have a think about for you what three really pivotal moments are within your professional career. When things change, when you made a big decision, three nuggets which are really, really important to how you’ve ended up where you are. So that’s the first two bits of the matrix.

And then the third bit of the matrix is what I call purpose. So what are your defining passions or what’s really driven you on your journey this far? What are the kind of golden threads in terms of your own inspirations which have got you to this point? 

So I’ll give you an example, a personal example to me, I’ve always been passionate about women, supporting other women. I was chair of something called Women in Journalism for 10 years, which I did for, for free, because I really believe in really helping women express their voices. 

I’ve now set up a community for women. I have two daughters who are, you know, both girls. And I’m really interested in what happens to them in the future. And I was brought up by a constellation of working women, which wasn’t so perhaps so normal in the 70s and 80s. So I’ve always been really driven by the sense that women can have it all – we can have a fulfilling, purposeful, professional life and have a family. And I want more women to be able to do that and to make their own choices. So that, for me, has been a really strong guiding purpose in everything that I’ve done within my life. 

So let’s go back over that again. You’re trying to put together a Mills, what we call the Mills Matrix™. It’s going to end up, think about a Noughts & Crosses board. So that has nine squares in it – one layer is purpose, professional, personal. You’re going to have three nuggets under each of those headings. Don’t worry if you find it hard to whittle it down to three. You can have four or five at this point because we’ll make it work as we go on. 

But that’s what you’re going to go and do now. You’re going to go back through all those timelines, all that wonderful juicy stuff about your seven-year chunks, and thinking about your golden threads. And we’re going to narrow it down to nine nuggets under those three headings: personal, professional, purpose. 

Good luck!