Do you ever feel as if you’re losing touch with the modern world? As if everyone – or at least, everyone younger – is suddenly speaking some mysterious new language you don’t understand?
That, at any rate, is how I felt yesterday, as I read about the Duke of Sussex’s two new jobs.
Don’t get me wrong here. I wish the Duke all the very best. Now that, by his own account, he’s been “cut off financially” by the Royal Family, it’s wonderful that he’s found work, and will be bringing home an honest wage. Good for him. He’s got mouths to feed, bills to pay and a refuge for ex-battery chickens to support.
All I’m saying is, for the life of me, I can’t make head nor tail of what he or his new employers are on about.
First, the Duke will be working for BetterUp Inc, a Californian firm (est. 2013) that specialises in a kind of corporate life-coaching. Here’s how it describes itself: its aims, apparently, are to “help people become the best version of themselves”, “pioneer growth for the whole person”, and to “reframe how we think about human flourishing”. Its stated values, meanwhile, include “courage (dare often and greatly)”, “zest (what sets you apart makes us unique)”, and “craftspersonship”.
What craftspersonship is, I’m afraid I’m not entirely sure. It sounds like a PC form of pottery, or gender-neutral knitting.
The Duke, we learn, can look forward to joining “an authentic workplace where people bring their full…
