If CVs Were Written Like Court Files, Michael P Lennon
If CVs Were Written Like Court Files
There comes a point in life when you look at your own CV and realise you've accidentally become a case study.
Not a career.
A case study.
Most people write a CV to explain where they worked.
Mine appears to explain why Environmental Health, the courts, funeral services, hospitality, GDPR, cloud computing, mental health recovery, and HACCP have all somehow ended up sitting at the same table arguing over who is responsible for the paperwork.
To be fair, it wasn't entirely planned.
I started where many of us start.
In kitchens.
The great training ground of life.
A place where you quickly learn three important truths:
- Time waits for nobody.
- Documentation matters.
- If somebody says, "It'll be grand," it probably won't.
Hospitality taught me structure.
Funeral service taught me dignity.
The courts taught me patience.
And GDPR taught me that nobody knows where anything is until you ask for it in writing.
Three times.
With a reference number.
And a reminder.
Then came Mindspire.
What started as a simple attempt to make sense of lived experience gradually turned into something bigger.
I realised something important.
The real problem isn't always the crisis.
The crisis usually announces itself.
The problem is the gap afterwards.
The period where everyone assumes somebody else is helping.
The period where forms arrive.
Emails multiply.
Reference numbers breed like rabbits.
And suddenly the individual becomes the integration department for half a dozen organisations that don't appear to speak to one another.
That observation became Mindspire.
Not therapy.
Not legal advice.
Not magic.
Just structure.
The same principle that keeps a commercial kitchen running.
The same principle that stops a funeral service becoming chaos.
The same principle that allows courts, hospitals, councils, and organisations to function when everyone knows what comes next.
Because if there is one lesson I've learned from twenty years of kitchens, funeral services, governance records, and public administration, it is this:
People cope remarkably well with difficult news.
What they struggle with is uncertainty.
A delayed answer creates more stress than a clear answer.
A missing process creates more anxiety than a difficult process.
A lost record creates more confusion than an honest mistake.
That's why I often joke that I didn't leave catering behind.
I simply started applying HACCP to life.
Identify the hazard.
Locate the control point.
Monitor the process.
Keep the records.
Review the outcome.
In truth, that's what Mindspire has always been.
HACCP for human systems.
A slightly unusual career path perhaps.
But then again, so is explaining to people that your CV contains professional cookery qualifications, funeral service experience, digital governance frameworks, cloud infrastructure projects, tribunal processes, and a public-interest mental health platform on the same document.
Most CVs tell employers what somebody has done.
Mine appears to be evidence that life rarely follows the menu.
And honestly?
That's probably the most accurate thing on it.
The Clear Takeaway
Life is rarely linear.
Skills learned in one environment often become unexpectedly valuable somewhere completely different.
A chef learns control points.
A funeral director learns dignity.
A litigant in person learns persistence.
A founder learns structure.
Eventually the thread connects.
The trick is keeping the records long enough to see the pattern.
Michael P. Lennon Jr
Mindspire | Where Lived Experience Finds Its Voice
HMW-AI-LIC-1984-NC-GOV
#Mindspire #MH84 #LivedExperience #Governance #Recovery #TheGap
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