Ep.109 When You Don't Feel Alive Because You've Been Trained To Play Small

What if you don’t feel alive because you’ve been trained to play small, not because you’re failing at life? Ordinary might look tidy from the outside, but it can be a cage when it’s built from other people’s comfort.

I share a story from my brother’s teenage years that still makes me laugh and wince in equal measure. At sixteen he wanted to study computing, was brilliant at it, and still got a blunt “no” before being pushed into woodwork instead. The twist is perfect: when the school’s systems broke, they called the very kid they’d refused to teach.

From there we zoom out to the real point: many of us are carrying an old redirect, an early message that said you’re too intense, too curious, too fast, too much. We explore how that shows up in work, relationships, creativity, and confidence, and I leave you with two questions to sit with: where were you pressured into conforming, and what would you finally finish if your hands weren’t tied?

If this lands, subscribe, share it with someone who’s been dimming their light, and leave a review so more quiet rebels can find the show. What’s your version of that “no”?

Transcript

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When Life Feels Quietly Off

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You've done everything right. The job, the relationship, the life that looks exactly like you should. And yet something's off. No crisis level off. Just quietly, persistently off. Like a song playing in another room that you can't quite make out. But you can't stop hearing it either. If that's you, welcome. You found the right place. I'm Sylvie. And this is for supportage. Will we talk about what it actually means to feel alive? Not the Instagram version, the real one. This is for the quiet levels. The ones who love the small. They're just not sure they're allowed to want it. Ordinary is optional. Let's get into it.

A Brother’s Story Begins

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Hey, welcome back to the House of Voltage. Pull up a chair. I've got a bit of a story for you today, and for once it's not actually mine. It belongs to my brother, and he might well kill me if he ever finds out that I've transformed his life into uh this week's article and podcast. But I'm hoping he probably won't listen anyway. And by the end of it, I think you might see why it could be your story too. So last week I was staying with my brother and his partner and my two nieces. You know, the scene, full house, kids everywhere, trying to work in between all the chaos. But a couple of nights, once the kids were down, my brother and I um just kind of sat talking, um, properly talking, and we had those kind of conversations that you don't really plan. They just kind of happen. This one just happened because his partner um teaches A-level students, and it got us reminiscing about sixth form college. So here's the thing, my brother and I went to the same sixth form, same building, but we had completely different experiences, different years, different friendship groups, different subjects. Um we were a few years apart, so there's stuff about this time there that I genuinely never knew. I mean, I've had my brother for the 40 years, and there's a story from when he was about 16 that I only heard for the first time last week.

Blocked From Computing At School

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Here's what happened. When he was choosing his O levels, so he must have been about 16, the subjects that were meant to set the direction for the rest of his life that's what this is about, the ones you do before you go to uni. There was one thing that he wanted more than anything, and it was computing, information systems. Because he was obsessed with it, and he was actually really brilliant at it too. So he asked to study it, and they said no. Not we don't think you're capable, not your grades don't support it, just no, you're not doing that. Now he doesn't actually know the official reason, nobody sat him down and spelled it out. But you don't need someone to spell something out when the subtext is actually loud enough. Because this is a kid who, um we'll get to this, had already made it very clear to the school that when he sat down at a computer, normal rules stopped applying to him. So instead they offered him design technology and he asked hopefully if he could at least do some sort of electronics. Yeah. He got put on the woodwork course. He hated it. He designed this games table. I love this detail, a games table that could convert

Forced Into Woodwork And Stalled

SPEAKER_00 3:58

between different games, and it had an electric dice built into it. It was genuinely clever. Exactly the kind of thing that you'd expect from a kid with that brain. But the tutors wouldn't let him anywhere near anything electrical. The course technician didn't really help him either, and so it never got finished and never worked. He built something brilliant with his hands tied behind his back, and it just sat there and finished. Now he told me that part almost flatly, but I could definitely hear it even now. That one still stings a bit, because it was a letdown that he carried. But here's where it gets good.

Rebellion, Hacking, And Pride

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Because while all this was happening, and while the school was busy deciding he wasn't allowed near a computer in a classroom, outside the classroom, he'd already hacked into one of his teacher's accounts, and he'd been using the school's internet bandwidth to stream music for the school's own radio station. I know, right? And when he told me this bit, this wasn't the flat, disappointed voice from the woodwork story. This was a proper giggle. This was actual pride, you know, all these years later. Because in his words, it made him feel like a bit of a rebel. They couldn't control him, they couldn't confine him. And on some level, I think that felt better than permission ever would have. But here's the twist, because here's the bit that made me actually laugh out loud

They Need The Kid They Denied

SPEAKER_00 5:31

when he taught me. At some point the school ran into a computer problem. Something had gone wrong. They needed someone who really understood their systems to fix it, you know, quietly, a bit discreetly, make the whole thing go away. And who did they call? Him. Of course it was him. The same kid that they didn't want studying the subject. The same kid they sent to do a woodwork course. Um and when it actually mattered, when they actually needed the thing they'd spent two years telling him he wasn't allowed to be good at, is the first name on the list. It's basically catch me if you can, if Leonardo DiCaprio's character had grown up in West Midlands. The thing I keep coming back to though, is that they didn't shut him out because he was bad at it, they shut him out because he was too good at it, unfiltered, on his own terms. A little bit dangerous, I think. And a kid like that is genuinely harder to manage than a kid who just quietly fails. It's so much easier to say no to brilliance you can't control than to figure out how to hold it.

The Adult Version Of No

SPEAKER_00 6:49

And I don't think that stops at 16. I don't think that stops in a classroom actually. I think a lot of us are still carrying a version of that no. Somewhere along the way, someone, whether that's a school, a boss, a parent, an ex, a version of how things are done, decided for us that we were a bit too much or a bit too sharp, too fast, too curious, too unwilling to just colour inside the lines they're drawn for us. And instead of being asked, how do we make room for that? We were quietly redirected, handed the equivalent of a woodwork course, and told this, not that. Sit here, behave. And some of us are still sitting in that woodwork room, aren't we? Building something clever with our hands tied and wondering what never quite gets finished.

Where Were You Pressured To Conform

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Here's my question for you this week, and I want you to actually sit with it, not just nod along. Where in your life were you pressured into conforming? Not because you weren't good enough, but because you were too much of yourself for someone else's comfort. And what would it look like to finally finish that thing? I'm not talking about the woodwork room anymore, but on your own terms, with your hands untied.

Share Your Story And Switch On

SPEAKER_00 8:37

That's it from me this week. My brother has no idea I've turned his teenage hacking scandal into a house of voltage episode, so if you do know him, don't tell him. Actually, absolutely tell him, he'll love it. Anyway, if this one landed for you, I'd genuinely love to hear your version of it. Hit apply on the Substack or drop it in the house hotline because that's what the voice notes are there for. Until next time. Ordinary, of course, is optional. And who would you be tomorrow if you turned your voltage on