Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present.
You build your future. You’re just about to leave formal education, you’ve got your qualification, and you’re about to go into the next phase of your life. But what I really want to challenge you to think about is what do you want to build? It’s so easy to get caught up in the river of life. When I left education, I went out and I got a job. And I started doing the job. And I followed my career path. And I just got caught up in following the career path. I didn’t actually spend that much time thinking about where am I going? And what do I want to build. And that is, the key message I want you to think about is what do you want to build in your future? Because the extraordinary belongs to those that created. That’s an expression that has driven me for the last decade or so the extraordinary belongs to those that create it. If you want an extraordinary life, you need to build it, that stuff doesn’t just happen to you. It doesn’t just appear you don’t just like stumble into an extraordinary life. You have to create it. It’s up to you. So the question is, what do you want to build?
Today, I’m the co founder of Popup Business School, which is a multinational company that travels around the world inspiring people to build businesses and do something they love. I’ve built with my wife, our finances up to the stage, where we never have to work again, if we don’t want. We travel the world. We have a huge amount of fun. We write movies, I’ve launched a podcast that changing entrepreneurship around the world. And I’ve built all of these things over the last decade. But it all started with an idea of what I wanted to build. And that’s the question for you. What are you going to leave education and build? What are you going to create? Because the extraordinary belongs to those that create it? If the job you want doesn’t exist? Why don’t you create it? If the home you want to live in doesn’t exist? Why don’t you create it, if the Life You Want to Build doesn’t exist, create it, it’s up to you to decide what you’re going to do next, and what you’re going to create. And that’s my challenge for you. As you leave education now, I want you to start to journal each day about what you’re actually going to create. Time is your ultimate weapon. But we all understand the power of compounding for money. You put money in gradually over time, and then eventually the compounding takes effect. And it grows at an incredible rate. What we don’t realise is that compounding has the same effect on your daily habits and your daily actions. We don’t really see that when we start. You know, you start and you do things for the first five or 10 years and you’re like, why is nothing happening? Why is nothing happening? Why is nothing happening? And then all of a sudden, it goes crazy towards the end.
I remember working hard for my 20s I felt like I was working incredibly hard. And I got to 30 years old. And my net worth was basically zero. I’d worked for a decade. What did I have to show for it. But what I didn’t realise was the compounding effect of my actions were going to take effect over the next decade. I remember one particular day in my early 30s, where I’d spent all day trying to build my business. I was making continual phone calls all morning, over 100 phone calls I’d made and I got rejected. Every single time. I went outside, I sat on the wall. And I remember putting my head into my hands and crying. Because I thought I’d never make it. How life has changed over the last 10 years. Because I kept on going. And as you leave education today, I want you to remember that you just need to keep going. You need to keep focusing on learning finance and sales and business and building your career and doing what you can and you put those energy and those actions in over the coming decades. You cannot fail to get to where you want to get to. The only way you fail is if you stop and give up. You have to do the work, the energy, the effort, the things the habits you’re going to do over the next 10 years are going to create The future you want. The question I want you to leave here with today is What are you going to build? Because you design your life, you can build anything you want to. You just need to decide and extraordinary belongs to those that create it out into the world and create