[Music]
whatever your goals may be you can
achieve success by building your vision
brick by brick it’s that simple that’s
the end of my talk goodbye no of course
not it’s not that simple because life is
not a fairy tale where you get to live
happily ever after you can build your
vision brick by brick but there’s a good
chance that it’ll come crashing down and
hitting you on your head or perhaps
worse you get to watch it slowly crumble
away as you desperately try to piece
things back together with futility I’m
sorry for the bad news but most of what
we do exist in a middle part of a normal
curve some things are on the right-hand
side and they are truly great some
things are on the left-hand side and
there well quite terrible like my
cooking but we’re not gonna talk about
that why is it that most of what we do
exists in a middle part of the normal
curve well you might try something that
you’re interested in and you’ll find
that you’re not passionate about it
this isn’t your passion so you try it in
and you drop it halfway like a dusty
guitar that you might have sitting
around in your house or you might not
even try anything you might be too lazy
to pick anything up or you might think
that it is very difficult what you’re
trying whatever your endeavor may be it
is way too difficult and you’re just too
scared to fill so you don’t try
or perhaps you think that the people who
achieve things on the right hand side of
the normal curve those people well
they’re weird
they straddled the line between
greatness and madness and that’s not you
you’re a normal person well normal
person enjoy being in the middle of the
normal curve in other words why do we
exist in this middle part we’d like to
stay in a place that I like to call calm
place and sea resort this resort is good
enough it’s not bad and it’s adequate
of course I’m not talking about an
actual resort or if you say calm place
and see quick ten times it sounds like
complacency you see what I did there I’m
talking about complacency we tend to
stay within our comfort zones and not
venture out so how do we increase our
chances of success with both magnitude
and longevity and get to the right-hand
side of the normal curve well we can
take a look at historical examples like
the wonders of the world some of which
were literally built brick by brick for
more recent and relevant examples I like
to turn to entrepreneurs I believe that
whatever your goals may be whether it’s
an academic goal a career goal maybe
it’s a fitness goal entrepreneurs can
teach us many lessons about how to
achieve success in magnitude and
longevity
why because like our favorite Instagram
fitness model or that career role model
that we have or that friend who’s always
at the top of the class there are
misconceptions about entrepreneurs you
might see these people as visionaries
leaders geniuses and oftentimes
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is
romanticized you might think that
entrepreneurs get to wear whatever they
want to work like Mark Zuckerberg whose
favorite outfit at work is a great
t-shirt and blue jeans or you might
think that entrepreneurs love what they
do and they have impacted the quality of
lives of so many people like Sara
Blakely from Spanx or you might think
that entrepreneurs are highly respected
and seen as experts in their field like
Elon Musk but how did these people get
there to preface what I’m about to tell
you I started my first business as an
undergraduate student at the University
of Waterloo I’ve been to innovation
spaces all over Ontario and in
California and currently act as a bit of
a coach to startup businesses at the
University of Guelph essentially helping
startups startup
what I’m about to tell you is drawn from
my own experiences and from the
observations of many entrepreneurs that
I’ve had the privilege of meeting I find
that there are three things that
separate the people who achieve success
in magnitude and longevity from the ones
who do not these three things are
habitual effort dedicated attention and
unwavering conviction so like I said I
started my first business as an
undergraduate student and it was called
you frizz what we did was we promoted
physical activity to youth through
Ultimate Frisbee workshops we would go
into elementary schools and summer camps
and teach Ultimate Frisbee with the hope
that we would get more kids more active
and I’ll never forget my first sales
meeting I was meeting with the vice
principal at an elementary school and I
have prepared a cheap plastic
duel-taining of an information package I
went into her office dropped it on her
desk and said hey what do you think how
about you give me some money of course
she did not give me some money and if I
actually did not even flip through the
information package and after five
minutes of awkward small talk
I walked out of that school and I felt
like a boss of course I quickly realized
that I was indeed not like a boss and
this was actually a terrible sales
meeting and I had no sales but I believe
that what I was doing had value and that
there were people who were willing to
say yes to me all I have to do is put in
the effort in a habitual manner every
single day however small I have to move
forward so I did that and eventually I
got to her yes by believing that each no
that I would get through would get me
closer that yes all I had to do was give
habitual effort a friend of mine Lexi
she also started a business as an
undergraduate student and her idea was
to start a community garden what this
community garden would do it would
promote local and sustainable food
systems she would grow the food in a
garden
and this was on campus at University of
Waterloo she’ll grow to food and give it
to the cafeterias and cafeterias were
feed it to the students now there’s
transparency within the whole system you
know where your food is being grown
you know how it’s being grown so she
would promote local and sustainable food
systems the challenge was that there
were significant health and safety
regulations that prevented this from
happening and despite the fact that the
food was being consumed 50 meters
perhaps away from where it was being
grown this was not possible of course
Lexie put in the habitual effort kept
pushing kept pushing and eventually her
10 foot by 24 foot garden changed
national policy now everywhere this
could be possible you can grow the food
and feed it to the students on our
University campus how of course Lexi
gave habitual effort but she also
understood that the end result is a
summation of its parts so you have to
dedicate the utmost attention to each
and every detail if you can’t do the
small things right how do you expect to
do the big things right and if each
detail each small component you’re
working on you’re not giving it you’re
not giving it the attention that it
deserves then it will only be average
and if you do the math all the small
components are average and the end
result is the sum of all the average
components carry the one then your end
result is well just average and you’re
right back in the middle of the normal
curve so you have to dedicate to each
detail the attention that it deserves my
friend John started a business using
artificial intelligence and machine
learning to help content readers write
better and write faster at the time when
John started where it’s like artificial
intelligence machine learning natural
language processing
they weren’t the buzzwords that we know
of today the only players who were in
that space where perhaps a small company
called Google and you don’t know
you can go ahead and google it John took
his idea and he told a respected
professor of his and his professor shot
him down his professor said John this is
a terrible idea go work on something
else John took his idea to his family
and friends and he say you know what
John I think you’ve had better ideas in
the past despite all the negativity John
kept pushing and pushing and eventually
somebody came up to him and said you
know what this is perfect for me what
you’re working on is perfect
I am your ideal customer and after three
long years John got to his first sale of
course he gave habitual effort and he
gave dedicated attention he also had
unwavering conviction despite the lack
of immediate results John believed in a
value that he was providing and he
believed that no matter what he could
figure things out the thing is the time
it takes to see results is in direct
correlation with the size of your
ambition so the further you try to go on
the right-hand side of normal curve the
longer it’s going to take so be
unwavering in your conviction and
believe that you can become great and
you can build something magnificent how
does this apply to you well whatever
your goals may be whether it’s fitness
career academic define success start by
defining what greatness is work
backwards and piece together all the
tiny parts that you need to put together
to create something magnificent and
great and then dedicate your attention
to each detail dedicate the attention
that it deserves and as you build
believe that what you’re putting
together will amount to something
wonderful it will be difficult it will
be challenging and you will want to quit
but if you apply these three things
habitual effort that
attention and unwavering conviction
conviction you can reach the right-hand
side of the normal curve and you can
become great if you continuously
practice these three things and you stay
away from complacency you can remain
great so dream big at small and build
your vision brick by brick thank you
[Applause]
you
whatever your goals may be you can
achieve success by building your vision
brick by brick it’s that simple that’s
the end of my talk goodbye no of course
not it’s not that simple because life is
not a fairy tale where you get to live
happily ever after you can build your
vision brick by brick but there’s a good
chance that it’ll come crashing down and
hitting you on your head or perhaps
worse you get to watch it slowly crumble
away as you desperately try to piece
things back together with futility I’m
sorry for the bad news but most of what
we do exist in a middle part of a normal
curve some things are on the right-hand
side and they are truly great some
things are on the left-hand side and
there well quite terrible like my
cooking but we’re not gonna talk about
that why is it that most of what we do
exists in a middle part of the normal
curve well you might try something that
you’re interested in and you’ll find
that you’re not passionate about it
this isn’t your passion so you try it in
and you drop it halfway like a dusty
guitar that you might have sitting
around in your house or you might not
even try anything you might be too lazy
to pick anything up or you might think
that it is very difficult what you’re
trying whatever your endeavor may be it
is way too difficult and you’re just too
scared to fill so you don’t try
or perhaps you think that the people who
achieve things on the right hand side of
the normal curve those people well
they’re weird
they straddled the line between
greatness and madness and that’s not you
you’re a normal person well normal
person enjoy being in the middle of the
normal curve in other words why do we
exist in this middle part we’d like to
stay in a place that I like to call calm
place and sea resort this resort is good
enough it’s not bad and it’s adequate
of course I’m not talking about an
actual resort or if you say calm place
and see quick ten times it sounds like
complacency you see what I did there I’m
talking about complacency we tend to
stay within our comfort zones and not
venture out so how do we increase our
chances of success with both magnitude
and longevity and get to the right-hand
side of the normal curve well we can
take a look at historical examples like
the wonders of the world some of which
were literally built brick by brick for
more recent and relevant examples I like
to turn to entrepreneurs I believe that
whatever your goals may be whether it’s
an academic goal a career goal maybe
it’s a fitness goal entrepreneurs can
teach us many lessons about how to
achieve success in magnitude and
longevity
why because like our favorite Instagram
fitness model or that career role model
that we have or that friend who’s always
at the top of the class there are
misconceptions about entrepreneurs you
might see these people as visionaries
leaders geniuses and oftentimes
entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship is
romanticized you might think that
entrepreneurs get to wear whatever they
want to work like Mark Zuckerberg whose
favorite outfit at work is a great
t-shirt and blue jeans or you might
think that entrepreneurs love what they
do and they have impacted the quality of
lives of so many people like Sara
Blakely from Spanx or you might think
that entrepreneurs are highly respected
and seen as experts in their field like
Elon Musk but how did these people get
there to preface what I’m about to tell
you I started my first business as an
undergraduate student at the University
of Waterloo I’ve been to innovation
spaces all over Ontario and in
California and currently act as a bit of
a coach to startup businesses at the
University of Guelph essentially helping
startups startup
what I’m about to tell you is drawn from
my own experiences and from the
observations of many entrepreneurs that
I’ve had the privilege of meeting I find
that there are three things that
separate the people who achieve success
in magnitude and longevity from the ones
who do not these three things are
habitual effort dedicated attention and
unwavering conviction so like I said I
started my first business as an
undergraduate student and it was called
you frizz what we did was we promoted
physical activity to youth through
Ultimate Frisbee workshops we would go
into elementary schools and summer camps
and teach Ultimate Frisbee with the hope
that we would get more kids more active
and I’ll never forget my first sales
meeting I was meeting with the vice
principal at an elementary school and I
have prepared a cheap plastic
duel-taining of an information package I
went into her office dropped it on her
desk and said hey what do you think how
about you give me some money of course
she did not give me some money and if I
actually did not even flip through the
information package and after five
minutes of awkward small talk
I walked out of that school and I felt
like a boss of course I quickly realized
that I was indeed not like a boss and
this was actually a terrible sales
meeting and I had no sales but I believe
that what I was doing had value and that
there were people who were willing to
say yes to me all I have to do is put in
the effort in a habitual manner every
single day however small I have to move
forward so I did that and eventually I
got to her yes by believing that each no
that I would get through would get me
closer that yes all I had to do was give
habitual effort a friend of mine Lexi
she also started a business as an
undergraduate student and her idea was
to start a community garden what this
community garden would do it would
promote local and sustainable food
systems she would grow the food in a
garden
and this was on campus at University of
Waterloo she’ll grow to food and give it
to the cafeterias and cafeterias were
feed it to the students now there’s
transparency within the whole system you
know where your food is being grown
you know how it’s being grown so she
would promote local and sustainable food
systems the challenge was that there
were significant health and safety
regulations that prevented this from
happening and despite the fact that the
food was being consumed 50 meters
perhaps away from where it was being
grown this was not possible of course
Lexie put in the habitual effort kept
pushing kept pushing and eventually her
10 foot by 24 foot garden changed
national policy now everywhere this
could be possible you can grow the food
and feed it to the students on our
University campus how of course Lexi
gave habitual effort but she also
understood that the end result is a
summation of its parts so you have to
dedicate the utmost attention to each
and every detail if you can’t do the
small things right how do you expect to
do the big things right and if each
detail each small component you’re
working on you’re not giving it you’re
not giving it the attention that it
deserves then it will only be average
and if you do the math all the small
components are average and the end
result is the sum of all the average
components carry the one then your end
result is well just average and you’re
right back in the middle of the normal
curve so you have to dedicate to each
detail the attention that it deserves my
friend John started a business using
artificial intelligence and machine
learning to help content readers write
better and write faster at the time when
John started where it’s like artificial
intelligence machine learning natural
language processing
they weren’t the buzzwords that we know
of today the only players who were in
that space where perhaps a small company
called Google and you don’t know
you can go ahead and google it John took
his idea and he told a respected
professor of his and his professor shot
him down his professor said John this is
a terrible idea go work on something
else John took his idea to his family
and friends and he say you know what
John I think you’ve had better ideas in
the past despite all the negativity John
kept pushing and pushing and eventually
somebody came up to him and said you
know what this is perfect for me what
you’re working on is perfect
I am your ideal customer and after three
long years John got to his first sale of
course he gave habitual effort and he
gave dedicated attention he also had
unwavering conviction despite the lack
of immediate results John believed in a
value that he was providing and he
believed that no matter what he could
figure things out the thing is the time
it takes to see results is in direct
correlation with the size of your
ambition so the further you try to go on
the right-hand side of normal curve the
longer it’s going to take so be
unwavering in your conviction and
believe that you can become great and
you can build something magnificent how
does this apply to you well whatever
your goals may be whether it’s fitness
career academic define success start by
defining what greatness is work
backwards and piece together all the
tiny parts that you need to put together
to create something magnificent and
great and then dedicate your attention
to each detail dedicate the attention
that it deserves and as you build
believe that what you’re putting
together will amount to something
wonderful it will be difficult it will
be challenging and you will want to quit
but if you apply these three things
habitual effort that
attention and unwavering conviction
conviction you can reach the right-hand
side of the normal curve and you can
become great if you continuously
practice these three things and you stay
away from complacency you can remain
great so dream big at small and build
your vision brick by brick thank you
[Applause]
you
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