I was raised on a small farm in
Australia some two and a half thousand
sheep six hundred head of beef and a lot
of chores to go around but I actually
enjoyed them my favorite chore was
trimming the old heads to protected the
homestead it was two stories high and
about football field long and when I
remember when I was ten I stand on top
looking over trim and mums in the
kitchen and I was moving from branch to
branch then all of a sudden I was
falling through the hedge and my lending
was soft then I realized that I was
entangled in the barbed-wire fence as
the spikes of the car barbed wire carved
into my back I didn’t do that chore
again 15 years later I’m in Special
Forces and I’m about to start a
parachute course that we’ve all got to
do and for the first part of the
training is to do your landings and
rolls so I hop up on the three foot box
now I know it’s only three foot but it
just doesn’t feel safe and I don’t want
to jump and all I can see is myself
falling through that hedge and those
barbed wire spikes the same was true for
the 15 foot pole fan tower and the
hundred foot polish tower how could this
be happening to me I’m Special Forces
and I’m terrified of heights I’m so
terrified that I devise interesting in
special ways of jumping out of a
perfectly safe aircraft four times a day
every day at twelve and a half thousand
feet and one of those was simply to sit
on the noisy old plane as it gained its
height got higher and higher and get
bounced here as it moved through the
clouds and it also got colder and colder
and all the time I just force a smile
then to me
I’d have to stand up with my combat pack
strapped to my leg that weighs a hundred
pound and I’d shuffle down the back of
the plane to the ramp and on the command
go I jump up into the air and I’d watch
the plane fall off and fly off into the
distance now I’m falling fairly fast
already but I’ve got to reach terminal
velocity so that I can actually get some
stability meanwhile my stomach and its
contents are trying to come here my
throat my chin straps whacking me wildly
on the side of the face and I’ve just
passed through a cloud and all that rain
is now on the outside of my goggles and
I can’t see a thing make it worse I
actually started to spin so I can direct
it and spent the other way faster and
faster and faster then everything
started to turn gray and that’s all I
could see as I felt towards her that
over a hundred and sixty miles an hour
nine thousand feet six thousand feet I
seen my hand coming in to grab my
reserve chute and I had fights in
trivial force to pull the main chute
otherwise I would not survive four
thousand feet I’m only 25 and I didn’t
plan to go this way 2,000 feet all my
Special Forces training kicked in and I
managed to pull my chute just in time to
set myself up for a very hard landing oh
oh oh I had to hide the pain and I
pretended to brush off the dirt as I
searched for broken bones and out of the
corner of my eye I could see sergeant
Dave Quinn he’s my instructor and he’s
heading straight for me now sergeant
Quinn is a very hard man and nothing
fazes him and yet there he stands as
white as a ghost
spike we couldn’t look we had to turn
away we all thought you were going to
die they need looked me straight in the
eye I knew he was back to normal and he
said now you know firsthand why each and
every day we do those drills until
they’re perfected before we even get in
the plane get on that
plus you’ve got three more drills to do
ah but that is when I know knew that
safety saves lives even in the myths of
chaos that near-death experience was
thirty years ago and even with 15 years
of Special Forces I’m gonna tell you I
was still scared of heights that hasn’t
left me and also those 15 years of
Special Forces has left me with a deep
appreciation of the value they placed on
life unlike a lot of organizations I’ve
trained around the world they all share
one thing common sense is not common
practice and people get hurt for reasons
that just don’t make any sense at all
and they don’t even train for safety
safety is dangerous people are so
insulated from the dangers of work and
life that they have forgotten to use
this certain their risk and safety
muscle they’ve also taken a view of
being reluctant to embrace safety it
costs too much it’s over the top or we
just haven’t got enough time this
thinking is actually dangerous and then
there’s so many rules procedures or
meetings that they’ve got to go to
before they even get to work that they
just tick the box without any review or
verification and when we tick that box
without review of verification we’re
opening the door to the arch enemies of
safety complacency ignorant and
stupidity every year 2.3 million people
die at work through a work-related
accident such as falling from height
being squished by a piece of equipment
or livestock or a disease such as cancer
or work a related asthma that’s one
every 15 seconds
that someone being killed every 115
seconds people shouldn’t have to go to
work to die and what they don’t tell you
is in that 15 seconds there are over a
hundred and fifty other people that get
injured people being killed and injured
at work is an issue that affects all of
us our families our communities and if
we are going to build stronger leaders
safer households communities businesses
workplaces we’ve got to do something
about this crucial issue now safety is
dangerous but it doesn’t have to be
there were three critical mission
critical elements in my training that
saved my life that we can all put into
practice and the world will be a safer
place and the first one is trained for
stupid imagine a giant oil rig in the
middle of the South China Sea the
company that owned it wanted to improve
its production so it sent out a team
with all its equipment and there they
set for four days doing the work
beautiful sunshine not a cloud in the
sky and the sea was as calm as anything
– every horizon say for the last two
days they didn’t tie down the equipment
one little right wave rolled through the
ocean just gently nudged the rig next
thing you knew there was columns of oil
erupting into the air clouds of
explosive gases engulfing the platform
the oil that had gone into the air it is
now starting to come down on the people
the equipment making it nearly
impossible for them to escape as the
equipment itself started to fall then
three lone gentlemen left there on the
rig were running towards their lifeboat
only to see it drop to the sea and go to
safety they were later saved
however that all happened simply because
someone decided that they didn’t have to
tie down the equipment when they were
supposed to those people barely escaped
with their lives the company lost
millions of dollars or because of what I
call stupid now
many companies have that plaque on the
wall you’ve seen it right you know the
one safety is our number one priority
when safety is a priority you are taking
a bigger risk than if it wasn’t because
priorities changed like that it needs to
be a value because when values are
instilled people become proactive safety
becomes stops being stupid and people
naturally go out of their way to do a
better job and safer job now training
for stupid is no more than just looking
at what could happen and being prepared
for it and you’d be surprised how many
companies don’t do that what was the
last task you did that you looked at
every variable before you took on the
job
exactly
we can’t leave safety to charge and a
person who does this the most that would
most of us would know is Michael Phelps
his trainer used to flick off the light
while he was training and then mess with
his goggles so that every variable would
be there during his training and when he
came to the Olympics he would be
prepared for it he won more gold medals
than anyone else in the history of the
Olympics now we’ve looked at training
for stupid and it’s critical but you
can’t leave it there on its own and if
we are going to live safer and
fulfilling lives we need to give safety
the respect that actually deserves and
so therefore the second element is take
calculated risks
now my own kids I seen what it was like
in the Special Forces to actually take
risks all the time and they were
calculated they were shared and you
could see the development Ignace in the
soldiers so I decided to give my
children little dad bites of calculated
risks and so they come to me and they go
dad
can we climb that tree okay figured out
how to get out of it yet okay no and off
they’d go they come back five minutes
later dad have you figured out how to
get out of the tree and I’d go that’s
your job and they go right this is here
we get up this is how we get down and
that’s the branch we’ve got to stay off
sure go have some fun and remember be
safe then I’d teach him ninjutsu and so
in the middle of class I’d have a big
stick and I’d be wheeling it around and
they’d be ducking down and they’d be
jumping up and they are having the time
of their lives and as long as they were
smiling I would actually go faster and
faster and faster then you always have
in the back of your head am i doing the
right thing but one says once that one
Saturday there we were we went to a
barbecue and all the kids there were
about seven and nine and so my kids fit
it in really well except there was one
boy there who was 12 and he was you know
he’s pushing and prodding and tripping
and so it was a right little pest so I I
went outside I went outside to dad give
some adult supervision and just as I was
going out the door I could see my son
being pushed off the slide all the way
down to the ground and then he did a
ninja backward roll sprang up on his
feet and ran away without missing a beat
that’s when I knew that I’d actually
instilled the right thing into my
children and nowadays you actually hear
it on the radio and you hear parents
talking all the time you know we got to
make our kids stretch them make them
develop and give them their full
potential that’s actually true the thing
the thing is you’ve also got to do it to
adults adults need to be stretched as
well we’ve got to stop wrapping them in
their bubble wrap
and have them take risks so they can
exercise their safety and risk muscle
what was the last thing you did that you
took a risk at took a calculated risk at
because it’s not about whether we win or
we’re successful it’s about the lessons
that we learn along the way so that we
can use them in later life a person who
actually went through this whole process
most of us know again went from PayPal
took a giant calculated risk to SpaceX
and Tesla Elon Musk now as we look at
the foundations of the three
mission-critical elements we’ve listened
to train for stupid and we’ve looked at
taking calculated risks
the last one is essential and the third
one is let them fail when I was 24 I was
heading out into one of the remotest
deserts in Australia so arid so barren
that maps are hand-drawn we were
trialing to brand new vehicles military
vehicles machine guns front and rear
state-of-the-art satellite navigation
system when we just went over halfway
and the satellite started talking to the
sat-nav system bbb-baby beep beep and
the young officer sitting in the front
turned around and said spy what was it I
said oh that’s the point of no return
hey point of no return yes sir the
satellite navigations worked out that
we’ve only got enough fuel to get back
from here where we started and we
haven’t got enough for the rest of our
mission spike I’ve been doing this for
years now I know what I’m doing and I
reckon we’ve got a full drum spare now I
can actually go home because I had the
data right in front of me
do I let him fail and learn the lesson
or do I fight so I looked at all their
scenarios and went through what could
happen and went something like this
food six months worth check
water one month’s worth check ammunition
for wild animals check beer for kids
medical supplies and not for a small
Hospital tick so then I sat back and
watch this less and unfold and sure
enough two days later there we were
sitting on a sand dune looking all the
other hundreds of sand dunes for miles
it took four days for a special special
forces Pathfinder team to actually come
in find us in the first place then
resupply us now that young officer
actually went on to be one of the better
officers in the unit and why is that
it’s because now his library is starting
to fill up with what worked and what
didn’t work and when it called upon at
the right time he was able to use it and
if we are going to grow our own leaders
for the futures we’ve got to let them
fail as well when was the last time you
let someone you loved your children a
colleague fail because it’s in that
failure they learn the lesson they learn
the growth and where would we be today
if Thomas Edison with all those hundreds
of failures gave up we wouldn’t have the
lightbulb and we wouldn’t have the
battery now look safety is dangerous and
lives are at risk and you have a choice
you can be with the status quo or you
can put these mission-critical elements
into your life now for you imagine if we
all every one of us took or looked at
training for stupid in everything we did
and imagine if we took calculated risks
in the things we do that’s just who we
are and imagine if we let them fail
a world I’d like to live in so make
safety a value and be safe thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
Australia some two and a half thousand
sheep six hundred head of beef and a lot
of chores to go around but I actually
enjoyed them my favorite chore was
trimming the old heads to protected the
homestead it was two stories high and
about football field long and when I
remember when I was ten I stand on top
looking over trim and mums in the
kitchen and I was moving from branch to
branch then all of a sudden I was
falling through the hedge and my lending
was soft then I realized that I was
entangled in the barbed-wire fence as
the spikes of the car barbed wire carved
into my back I didn’t do that chore
again 15 years later I’m in Special
Forces and I’m about to start a
parachute course that we’ve all got to
do and for the first part of the
training is to do your landings and
rolls so I hop up on the three foot box
now I know it’s only three foot but it
just doesn’t feel safe and I don’t want
to jump and all I can see is myself
falling through that hedge and those
barbed wire spikes the same was true for
the 15 foot pole fan tower and the
hundred foot polish tower how could this
be happening to me I’m Special Forces
and I’m terrified of heights I’m so
terrified that I devise interesting in
special ways of jumping out of a
perfectly safe aircraft four times a day
every day at twelve and a half thousand
feet and one of those was simply to sit
on the noisy old plane as it gained its
height got higher and higher and get
bounced here as it moved through the
clouds and it also got colder and colder
and all the time I just force a smile
then to me
I’d have to stand up with my combat pack
strapped to my leg that weighs a hundred
pound and I’d shuffle down the back of
the plane to the ramp and on the command
go I jump up into the air and I’d watch
the plane fall off and fly off into the
distance now I’m falling fairly fast
already but I’ve got to reach terminal
velocity so that I can actually get some
stability meanwhile my stomach and its
contents are trying to come here my
throat my chin straps whacking me wildly
on the side of the face and I’ve just
passed through a cloud and all that rain
is now on the outside of my goggles and
I can’t see a thing make it worse I
actually started to spin so I can direct
it and spent the other way faster and
faster and faster then everything
started to turn gray and that’s all I
could see as I felt towards her that
over a hundred and sixty miles an hour
nine thousand feet six thousand feet I
seen my hand coming in to grab my
reserve chute and I had fights in
trivial force to pull the main chute
otherwise I would not survive four
thousand feet I’m only 25 and I didn’t
plan to go this way 2,000 feet all my
Special Forces training kicked in and I
managed to pull my chute just in time to
set myself up for a very hard landing oh
oh oh I had to hide the pain and I
pretended to brush off the dirt as I
searched for broken bones and out of the
corner of my eye I could see sergeant
Dave Quinn he’s my instructor and he’s
heading straight for me now sergeant
Quinn is a very hard man and nothing
fazes him and yet there he stands as
white as a ghost
spike we couldn’t look we had to turn
away we all thought you were going to
die they need looked me straight in the
eye I knew he was back to normal and he
said now you know firsthand why each and
every day we do those drills until
they’re perfected before we even get in
the plane get on that
plus you’ve got three more drills to do
ah but that is when I know knew that
safety saves lives even in the myths of
chaos that near-death experience was
thirty years ago and even with 15 years
of Special Forces I’m gonna tell you I
was still scared of heights that hasn’t
left me and also those 15 years of
Special Forces has left me with a deep
appreciation of the value they placed on
life unlike a lot of organizations I’ve
trained around the world they all share
one thing common sense is not common
practice and people get hurt for reasons
that just don’t make any sense at all
and they don’t even train for safety
safety is dangerous people are so
insulated from the dangers of work and
life that they have forgotten to use
this certain their risk and safety
muscle they’ve also taken a view of
being reluctant to embrace safety it
costs too much it’s over the top or we
just haven’t got enough time this
thinking is actually dangerous and then
there’s so many rules procedures or
meetings that they’ve got to go to
before they even get to work that they
just tick the box without any review or
verification and when we tick that box
without review of verification we’re
opening the door to the arch enemies of
safety complacency ignorant and
stupidity every year 2.3 million people
die at work through a work-related
accident such as falling from height
being squished by a piece of equipment
or livestock or a disease such as cancer
or work a related asthma that’s one
every 15 seconds
that someone being killed every 115
seconds people shouldn’t have to go to
work to die and what they don’t tell you
is in that 15 seconds there are over a
hundred and fifty other people that get
injured people being killed and injured
at work is an issue that affects all of
us our families our communities and if
we are going to build stronger leaders
safer households communities businesses
workplaces we’ve got to do something
about this crucial issue now safety is
dangerous but it doesn’t have to be
there were three critical mission
critical elements in my training that
saved my life that we can all put into
practice and the world will be a safer
place and the first one is trained for
stupid imagine a giant oil rig in the
middle of the South China Sea the
company that owned it wanted to improve
its production so it sent out a team
with all its equipment and there they
set for four days doing the work
beautiful sunshine not a cloud in the
sky and the sea was as calm as anything
– every horizon say for the last two
days they didn’t tie down the equipment
one little right wave rolled through the
ocean just gently nudged the rig next
thing you knew there was columns of oil
erupting into the air clouds of
explosive gases engulfing the platform
the oil that had gone into the air it is
now starting to come down on the people
the equipment making it nearly
impossible for them to escape as the
equipment itself started to fall then
three lone gentlemen left there on the
rig were running towards their lifeboat
only to see it drop to the sea and go to
safety they were later saved
however that all happened simply because
someone decided that they didn’t have to
tie down the equipment when they were
supposed to those people barely escaped
with their lives the company lost
millions of dollars or because of what I
call stupid now
many companies have that plaque on the
wall you’ve seen it right you know the
one safety is our number one priority
when safety is a priority you are taking
a bigger risk than if it wasn’t because
priorities changed like that it needs to
be a value because when values are
instilled people become proactive safety
becomes stops being stupid and people
naturally go out of their way to do a
better job and safer job now training
for stupid is no more than just looking
at what could happen and being prepared
for it and you’d be surprised how many
companies don’t do that what was the
last task you did that you looked at
every variable before you took on the
job
exactly
we can’t leave safety to charge and a
person who does this the most that would
most of us would know is Michael Phelps
his trainer used to flick off the light
while he was training and then mess with
his goggles so that every variable would
be there during his training and when he
came to the Olympics he would be
prepared for it he won more gold medals
than anyone else in the history of the
Olympics now we’ve looked at training
for stupid and it’s critical but you
can’t leave it there on its own and if
we are going to live safer and
fulfilling lives we need to give safety
the respect that actually deserves and
so therefore the second element is take
calculated risks
now my own kids I seen what it was like
in the Special Forces to actually take
risks all the time and they were
calculated they were shared and you
could see the development Ignace in the
soldiers so I decided to give my
children little dad bites of calculated
risks and so they come to me and they go
dad
can we climb that tree okay figured out
how to get out of it yet okay no and off
they’d go they come back five minutes
later dad have you figured out how to
get out of the tree and I’d go that’s
your job and they go right this is here
we get up this is how we get down and
that’s the branch we’ve got to stay off
sure go have some fun and remember be
safe then I’d teach him ninjutsu and so
in the middle of class I’d have a big
stick and I’d be wheeling it around and
they’d be ducking down and they’d be
jumping up and they are having the time
of their lives and as long as they were
smiling I would actually go faster and
faster and faster then you always have
in the back of your head am i doing the
right thing but one says once that one
Saturday there we were we went to a
barbecue and all the kids there were
about seven and nine and so my kids fit
it in really well except there was one
boy there who was 12 and he was you know
he’s pushing and prodding and tripping
and so it was a right little pest so I I
went outside I went outside to dad give
some adult supervision and just as I was
going out the door I could see my son
being pushed off the slide all the way
down to the ground and then he did a
ninja backward roll sprang up on his
feet and ran away without missing a beat
that’s when I knew that I’d actually
instilled the right thing into my
children and nowadays you actually hear
it on the radio and you hear parents
talking all the time you know we got to
make our kids stretch them make them
develop and give them their full
potential that’s actually true the thing
the thing is you’ve also got to do it to
adults adults need to be stretched as
well we’ve got to stop wrapping them in
their bubble wrap
and have them take risks so they can
exercise their safety and risk muscle
what was the last thing you did that you
took a risk at took a calculated risk at
because it’s not about whether we win or
we’re successful it’s about the lessons
that we learn along the way so that we
can use them in later life a person who
actually went through this whole process
most of us know again went from PayPal
took a giant calculated risk to SpaceX
and Tesla Elon Musk now as we look at
the foundations of the three
mission-critical elements we’ve listened
to train for stupid and we’ve looked at
taking calculated risks
the last one is essential and the third
one is let them fail when I was 24 I was
heading out into one of the remotest
deserts in Australia so arid so barren
that maps are hand-drawn we were
trialing to brand new vehicles military
vehicles machine guns front and rear
state-of-the-art satellite navigation
system when we just went over halfway
and the satellite started talking to the
sat-nav system bbb-baby beep beep and
the young officer sitting in the front
turned around and said spy what was it I
said oh that’s the point of no return
hey point of no return yes sir the
satellite navigations worked out that
we’ve only got enough fuel to get back
from here where we started and we
haven’t got enough for the rest of our
mission spike I’ve been doing this for
years now I know what I’m doing and I
reckon we’ve got a full drum spare now I
can actually go home because I had the
data right in front of me
do I let him fail and learn the lesson
or do I fight so I looked at all their
scenarios and went through what could
happen and went something like this
food six months worth check
water one month’s worth check ammunition
for wild animals check beer for kids
medical supplies and not for a small
Hospital tick so then I sat back and
watch this less and unfold and sure
enough two days later there we were
sitting on a sand dune looking all the
other hundreds of sand dunes for miles
it took four days for a special special
forces Pathfinder team to actually come
in find us in the first place then
resupply us now that young officer
actually went on to be one of the better
officers in the unit and why is that
it’s because now his library is starting
to fill up with what worked and what
didn’t work and when it called upon at
the right time he was able to use it and
if we are going to grow our own leaders
for the futures we’ve got to let them
fail as well when was the last time you
let someone you loved your children a
colleague fail because it’s in that
failure they learn the lesson they learn
the growth and where would we be today
if Thomas Edison with all those hundreds
of failures gave up we wouldn’t have the
lightbulb and we wouldn’t have the
battery now look safety is dangerous and
lives are at risk and you have a choice
you can be with the status quo or you
can put these mission-critical elements
into your life now for you imagine if we
all every one of us took or looked at
training for stupid in everything we did
and imagine if we took calculated risks
in the things we do that’s just who we
are and imagine if we let them fail
a world I’d like to live in so make
safety a value and be safe thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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