One of my favourite lines from ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ is when a guest arrives at church for a wedding and is asked by an Usher: ‘Bride or Groom?’  The character promptly retorts, with a hint of indignation: ‘It should be perfectly obvious I’m neither.’

I remember the wedding season so accurately depicted in ‘Four Weddings’: all those weddings blurring into one.  During that time of my life I was a resting actor temping at Goldman Sachs.  When my dinner companion would inevitably ask me ‘And what do you do?’, depending on my mood, I would choose whether or not I wanted to be an ‘actor’ or assumed ‘banker’ for the night.  Both of those labels could pigeon hole me – for better or for worse.

In coaching sessions, I often hear clients choosing to live up to their labels.  It can be a cultural label (such as ‘the guilty working mother’ or ‘the breadwinner’) or it can be a bespoke label (such as ‘the quiet or loud one’, ‘the smart or stupid one’ or ‘the creative or logical one’).  For better or for worse.

As Madonna celebrated her 60^th birthday this week, and whatever the label you might give her or the opinion you may have of her, let’s consider the gift she has given us all: reinvention.

If we can drop our labels we discover our genius.