A Keynote Delivered to the Graduating Group from the John Curtin Leadership Academy of 2018
Uni’s are a funny place. I mean that in a nice way of course – they can be the making of people, or they can also be the breaking of people.
For me, they are a place where nice ideas go to die.
My nice idea was to go to university to study a degree in Banking and International Finance and I gave it everything I had…for about a week, until I discovered that I didn’t know anything about economics and even less about accounting. This was not fatal, but my problem was that I didn’t care about those things. This was the start of the death march of my nice idea.
So I left uni after a term and went to work in a bank, can you believe. I spent 5 years working my way up and ended up selling financial products to financial planners. My recollection of that time was that I would meet with people and they would tell me how many millions of dollars they had in funds under management and I would pretend to be impressed and understand what that really meant. One day I woke up and realised that I didn’t care about that either. So I left the bank to find something that I could find purpose in. The nice idea finally died.
There is a difference between nice ideas and world changing ideas. Nice ideas are normally ones that others may suggest for you, or ones that you think will be okay mostly because you have nothing better to do. World changing ideas are the ones that grab you by the scruff of the neck and throw you into a place completely out of your comfort zone. They change your life, the lives of those around you and potentially the world as you know it.
My world changing idea came from a casual job. From the bank I went into community radio for a while, then went back to study at Bible College. At that point I needed a casual job to keep some money coming in, and somehow landed a role with World Vision in their Youth Team. I’m not entirely sure how I got it, I have it on good authority that I wasn’t in the top 8 applicants. (That’s in the top 10, so that is still good…right?)
I spent 9 years engaging young people in the fight against poverty and my world changing idea was created. I studied my Masters of International and Community Development and now with Opportunity International, I continue to find my place and my purpose in the world. The more I learn about development and empowerment, the greater purpose I find in overcoming poverty. You see, poverty has such a devastating effect on people – it makes it impossible to see past your immediate needs today to be able to plan ahead, or hope for a future keeping people trapped and unable to reach their full potential.
There is poverty of the non-poor too. This is where too much creates poverty. This kind of poverty, where there is excess, creates greed, corruption, health issues from too much food, and slavery to the idea of a bigger and better house, a newer car, a faster boat. Somewhere in the middle of nothing and excess there is a balance where we are neither a slave to survival nor a slave to possessions.
Overcoming poverty of the non-poor requires generosity; learning to master the excess and become skilled at giving money away. This also, is how we overcoming the issue of financial poverty. It creates a place where people can reach their full potential. But potential is hard to measure so knowing whether or not we reach it is a little difficult – except to say this, you drastically underestimate what you are capable of and you drastically underestimate what the people around you are capable of. Although to reach your full potential requires good people.
Like Jim Rohn says, you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with. So find some amazing people that challenge you and push you beyond your comfort zone and make them your people, because we were designed for growth.
So, do you have a nice idea that needs to die so you can discover your world changing idea?
The Generosity Guy 