An open letter to my Level 5s: The real shape of a learning journey

In sport, education, and life, we’re often told the same story:

Work hard → Move forward → Reach the next level.

It sounds neat. Linear. Upward. Motivational.

But the longer I’ve been in this field, the more I’ve realised something:

The most powerful journeys aren’t straight lines. They are loops.

Because progress isn’t just about where you go. It’s about what you bring back.

In sport, everything is circular.

Seasons repeat. Game plans evolve. Training cycles loop.

Feedback leads to growth… which leads right back to new learning.

Performance isn’t a straight road. It’s a spiral.

Every loop takes you deeper.

Education works the same way.

Students don’t just collect knowledge and leave. The best ones live it, apply it, question it… and eventually return with new insight.

That’s when the magic happens. Not when someone graduates. But when someone comes back changed.

This month, Cardiff Met sees the loop complete in the most powerful way.

Former students, Ryan and Alfie, are returning to Cardiff Met as members of staff.

They once sat in our classroom. Now/soon, they’ll be standing at the front of it.

It tells me: ✅ The pathway works ✅ The environment mattered ✅ The culture retained them ✅ Their journey has come full circle

That is the highest compliment any programme can receive.

And it hit me… I’ve been on the same loop.

The loop has pulled me through different phases, from student to practitioner in elite sport to pracademic helping to shape future analysts.

Years ago, I was fascinated by the tools analysts used. For example, when students wanted to learn how to create an iBook, I learned how to teach it by writing an iBook.

Now, having previously featured in MacFormat magazine in 2011, another loop closes by having an app approved on the App Store. I never set out to be a developer. It happened because the challenge and the opportunity led me there…

That’s where HighLightIt! came from.

It came from 30 years of living full cycles of:

Using tools → Breaking tools → Creating workflows → Building tools

HighLightIt! isn’t the point of the story. It’s just an example of what happens when a loop fully completes.

You return… with something to give back.

This is what I want students and graduates to understand:

Your career will not move in a straight line. It will twist. It will stall. It will surprise you. It will loop back on itself.

And that’s not failure. That’s growth.

You will leave. You will evolve. And one day, you may return — not as who you were, but as who you became.

An analyst, a manager, a teacher, an innovator…

Full circle doesn’t mean starting over.

It means coming back with more:

• More perspective
• More skill
• More purpose
• More to offer

That is the real mark of mastery.

My hope?

That you realise the learning opportunity early in your studies, and that you will one day complete your own loop.

Like Ryan and Alfie, other new staff members, and other graduates I have re-connected with recently…

… But in your own way…

And one day return to a space you once occupied…

…with new eyes, equipped with new tools, and the ability to shape the journey for others.

The truth is simple:

The goal of learning isn’t to just graduate. It’s to return stronger.

Because when we come full circle, we don’t just close the loop…

We start a better one.

If you’ve stayed with me to this point, you’re part of this story.

So here’s my question to you:

If you could speak to your Level 5 self again, what one message would you pass on to the Level 5's of today?

LivinginChaOS #FI