Gloriously Ordinary Sundays - 12th July 2026

Quick one this week.

Ciaran worked for me last Thursday, sharing how his life works. He was a superstar as always and shared lots of lovely stuff about school, friends, having his own place and work.

He knows that not all bits of his life are going how he wants them to. Some of that’s Gloriously Ordinary… McDonald’s is shut for refurb, and he has no shifts. Bummer, but ordinary. He misses John Nicoll and tells me that every day. I tell him every day that I do too – painfully ordinary. He told the group that he has support staff who are ‘not funny’ (funny trumps everything for Ciaran), and we need to work on that. There are a few other things.

I asked people on the call to suggest what has helped Ciaran to have the life he has, and there were three key themes.

Firstly, the idea of what I call ‘giving it a go’….

Taking chances

Trying things

Taking risks

You didn’t risk assess him out of things

Being brave enough to try - not all of us can

Secondly, being believed in…

People believed in him

That someone believed in him, and then he believed in himself

Believing that he can and will do it

Believing

Making it happen

Me and Bryony have been using the fabulous ‘Assume That I can’ video lots recently, and it sums it up beautifully. Until he was 10, people assumed lots of things about Ciaran, all of them now proved to be baloney.

The third key theme was people…

The types of people recruited

PA's that support what's important to him

Being surrounded by a great team

He has been listened to

Amen to that.

So, the keys to Gloriously Ordinary Lives are taking chances, believing in people and getting good folk around us all. That works for me.

PS: Ciaran chose the photos and, when I was going through this with him, agreed that people are important. He was less interested in the taking chances and believing in people – I think because that’s just how he is wired now. It’s how life works ❤️