I returned from a pretty epic adventure
of flying around the world solo to break
the world record as the youngest person
to ever do it it was a crazy dream it
was something that was really not
expected by my family and it’s a trip
that really blew my expectations right
out of the water both in the really good
regards because I have certainly loved
loved it at times but at times it was
more challenging than I ever thought it
would be and that’s something that you
would expect of a journey like this but
it never ceases to amaze me what
actually happened it was a journey that
I did not just because I wanted to fly
around the world or just because I
wanted to have a world record but
because I wanted to send a message
particularly young people that it
doesn’t take an extraordinary person to
undertake an extraordinary achievement
I’m a normal teenager from here on the
Sunshine Coast and over two and a half
years I planned this journey to become
the youngest person to fly around the
world and you go well lucky why would
you do that and it all started in the
warm October night of 2013 when I was
sitting on the lounge with my mother at
in our house at the end of the
cul-de-sac and onto the television came
an episode called fly and Ryan now in
2013 Ryan Campbell became the youngest
person to fly around the world solo and
I thought well you know that’s pretty
cool I’ve started flying and I really
love aviation I’m gonna do it so I
turned to my mom on the lounge I say mom
I’m gonna fly around the world and she
goes okay lucky you know in a way that
only mothers can do with that see me
condescending and I said you watch me
and you know it wasn’t that mom didn’t
believe in me or didn’t think I was
capable of achieving this it’s just
that’s a crazy thing for a
fifteen-year-old to say and the thing is
we normally leave crazy to other people
we just want to be normal people but I
said no I’m going to embrace the crazy
anything that’s a bit of a funny saying
welke and it was and so that’s exactly
what I did I wanted to embrace the crazy
and I wanted to prove again it doesn’t
take extraordinary people to have to
take extraordinary achievements it takes
someone with a crazy dream in the
tenacity to follow it through to be a
world changer now this trip
it wasn’t easy and there were many
setbacks even at the beginning of the
flight these three photos were taken
while I was in the middle of the Pacific
Ocean between American Samoa and
Christmas Island in the care of our
island group it was a time when I was in
some pretty bad storms I’d lost all
communications on radios satellite phone
you name it I didn’t have it I was
running out of fuel in my wing tanks
because my main tank wouldn’t transfer
the fuel and I was feeling pretty
stressed but I know I would have been
feeling even more stressed if I hadn’t
have had a setback earlier on in the
trip see I like to say set back to the
foundations to assess because every time
that we think we have a failure we can
really see it as a win because we can
learn from it and we’re going to know
what to do next time if we come into
this situation again so in preparation
for my flight around the world I decided
you know let’s start smaller let’s try
flying around Australia first and so I
did that and on this journey I covered a
lot of different places I flew from the
Sunshine Coast out to our Springs and I
started heading south and on the third
day I was going to fly from Bendigo
across the Bass Strait to Tasmania and
then fly back again the weather wasn’t
looking to crash on so I took off the
weather was okay for a while until I
reached the north coast of Tasmania and
and when I hit there I hit a big band of
storms and when I say a big band of
storms I mean there was no way for me to
really go around them I have to go
pretty much through them now I and it as
best I could
I I went around and I clipped the edge
of one storm and as I entered this storm
its Ibis get pretty mumfie when I say
pretty bumpy I mean to the point where I
lost alternators in the aircraft
I lost the autopilot my engine
instruments the outside air temperature
gauge and I got quite uncomfortable to
the point where I was in complete cloud
flying off a little instrument called
the artificial horizon now while I was
in this situation I was thinking what’s
causing all my instruments to dropped
out why am I in this scary situation
when the aircraft should be able to
handle it when I eventually landed the
aircraft in in Tasmania it was pretty
windy there were jets that were having
second attempts at it I managed to get a
lucky break in and cop it when the wind
sort of dropped down to about 65
kilometres an hour and I got out of the
plane and I started ringing engineers
said what
happening why is my plane losing all
these things it shouldn’t be losing
instruments and they said to me you’ve
had a buildup of static electric
aircraft and you need to discharge it
and that’s what happened when you got
the refueling truck to touch it here in
Tasmania so I said okay that’s all right
how can I fix it in flight if it happens
again and I said to me okay will you
just pull a circuit breaker you do this
and this and this and you’ll reset that
great so now when I got into this
situation it’s now about a year later
I’m a little I’m on my third flight of
the journey I lose my instruments again
this time it’s a bit more serious I’m
further away I don’t have air traffic
control right there I’ve lost my
communications but I thought back and I
think hang on I had that setback and I
had that failure of my equipment we go
when I was in Tasmania thank you and so
I decided I would apply the knowledge
that I had and I did that pop the
circuit breaker and I managed to get
that back it was a setback that had
turned into a success for me and it was
a setback that was the foundation for my
success look this is not the only thing
we need to remember when we’re striving
to achieve our goals we need to embrace
the crazy I said we need to embrace
those setbacks as they’re the
foundations to us success but the third
thing I want to talk about today is the
fact that we have a responsibility for
change and it’s a little concept that I
like to call social infectivity who here
can relate that when they see one person
succeed or do something pretty cool or
crazy we think maybe I can do something
just like that – well anyone agree yeah
that’s what I like to call social
infectivity if we can motivate someone
else to achieve something that we wanted
to achieve or that we have achieved then
I think we’re doing well because if you
look back through history there have
been so many times where other people
have achieved incredible things and
inspired a wave of change some of those
people didn’t get it right the first
time for example dr. Zeus he went
through 26 publishers before he found
someone who would actually publish his
book he went on to sell 600 million
copies and have a 75 million dollar net
worth our second one is mr. Henry Ford
he’s there on the bottom right he bent
went back round bankrupt twice before he
actually managed to get his company off
the ground the Ford Motor
company his net worth if he was still
alive now is a hundred and ninety nine
billion dollars these people embrace the
setbacks and they learned from their
setbacks and saw them as the foundations
to their success but I don’t like to see
money as a true measure of their value I
like to see what they did for society
and the people they motivated as more of
a measure of their value and if you have
a look you can look through history and
you can see some pretty cool achievers
who embrace their dreams embrace the
crazy dreams that they had who were
motivated by these people so I want to
put a challenge out to you because I
think it’s our responsibility and I set
out to hopefully lead the way with this
flight around the world to show other
young people that anything is possible
even if it seems crazy at first if we
can embrace the crazy if we can learn
from our setbacks and if we can socially
infect other people to achieve more so
my challenge to you is to embrace the
crazy
don’t be afraid of those dreams because
these amazing achievements we’ve seen
from people in the past and these world
changes all started because someone had
a crazy dream and the tenacity to follow
it through imagine if we could see a
generation of change a generation where
we all embrace the crazy we we band
together and we collate our ideas work
together to not be known as Generation Z
or whatever our generation is now known
as but instead we history can look back
and say hey that was the generation of
change these people came together they
embrace their crazy ideas as we’ve heard
all night tonight we’ve had some pretty
incredible talks and some pretty
incredible programs that have been
started in this school imagine if we
could implement that not only
australia-wide but nationwide and start
this social infectivity movement see
other young people getting out there and
actually embracing their crazy dreams
let’s see where this world can go thank
you [Applause]