I am a sophomore at Michigan I’m a
self-proclaimed mad scientist and
inventor of molecules and I really
really wanted to come out here today and
lecture you guys about my scientific
research but I was told that that would
be a little bit boring so lucky for you
guys I’m actually here to talk about my
long term goals and more specifically
why I stopped setting them okay I’m
sorry I lied this is a little bit of
chemistry so in chemistry we have
something called a limiting reagent and
in a chemical reaction the limiting
reagent is the substance that is
completely consumed by the time the
reaction is complete so basically it
just limits the entire reaction and
without it the reaction cannot continue
so then we’re left with something called
an excess reagent but the excess reagent
is the substance that is left over after
the reaction is complete so let’s think
of our long term goals as the limiting
reagent and let’s think of our potential
as the excess reagent why settle for
making for hotdogs if you could arguably
make an infinite amount of hotdogs and
just for the record I don’t really like
hotdogs but it was the easiest example
that I could find
visually anyways the issue with setting
long term goals is that it causes us to
be practical conventional wisdom tells
us to set goals that are mark they’re
specific measurable achievable realistic
timely
and many highly successful people over
the course of their careers have
realized that setting SMART goals is
really effective for the short-term but
they also realized that to have a real
impact they need to chase dreams and I
know that sounds like a cliche like
dream yeah we get it but I’ve been to a
few speeches in the past couple of years
and some of the things that they’ve said
have really inspired me so there are
some caveats to dreaming and a few rules
that go along with it
for example you can’t just wake up one
day and say okay my new goal is to
become a billionaire as self-made
billionaire john d rockefeller said if
your only goal in life is to become a
billionaire then you’ll never achieve it
and jason silva
also has a very dream where the approach
to life i was at one of his speeches and
he says something that really stuck with
me
he said to be a billionaire is not to
make billions of dollars but to affect
the lives of billions of people and the
most important thing to me something
that Michael Dell says because it’s
happened to me a lot and it kind of
justifies my actions he says that if
people are not laughing at your goals
then they’re not big enough to ever
evolve into a dream I’m gonna say that
again it’s just it’s so important to me
if people are not laughing at your goals
they’re not big enough to ever evolve
into a dream and if you don’t take
anything else away from my talk I want
you to remember that so the last
the last rule to dreaming and I’ve
already said it avoid setting SMART
goals at all costs otherwise you might
wake up ten years from now and you might
say where the rest of my buns were
similarly why did I settle for making
four hot dogs when I could have made an
infinite amount of hot dogs no I’ll tell
you a story about someone who set SMART
goals me sophomore year of high school I
was going to be the first person in my
immediate family to attend a four-year
university
so I started preparing pretty early
early sophomore year I went to my family
I think it was over dinner I don’t
remember and I said guys I have my plan
I am going to attend Texas A&M
University to study petroleum
engineering and then I’m going to go on
and become a Drilling Engineer at
Chevron and I’m going to climb up the
corporate ladder
just like Chevron’s the CEO did and I
lived in New Orleans and so the oil
industry is very big there so that’s why
that was my specific goal but here’s
where I went wrong I went to my family
and I said that and they didn’t laugh
instead my mom said okay great let’s
plan a road trip let’s let’s go to Texas
A&M and that burgundy tank top isn’t a
coincidence and I loved it
but that’s where I went wrong I I fell
into the trap of security I loved the
idea of knowing where I would be in four
years my goal was it was so smart it was
specific it was measurable I had even
met with an advisor from Texas A&M to
figure out how I could get into their
Honors Program by the time I was a
sophomore not in high school in college
I was planning ahead to be a sophomore
in college so that’s where I went wrong
fast-forward
to the end of sophomore year and I got
an idea I was watching the news it
wasn’t this specific one I just really
like Bill Nye I was watching the news
and the news anchor was discussing the
BP oil spill in the aftermath
specifically they were talking about
their cleanup efforts and I don’t know
why my 16 year old mine drifted towards
the idea that they’re not getting
everything I didn’t even know what I
meant by that I didn’t know where where
my thought process was taking me I
didn’t know what everything was but this
is the image that popped into my head so
we’ve got UV rays coming out of the Sun
coming from the Sun and they’re hitting
this layer of oil and that oils on top
of the seawater and I remembered
learning something it’s a very basic
chemistry concept called a photo product
a product of something reacting with
light something has to be forming and
it’s going into the ocean but what is it
so I thought okay well obviously like my
16 year old brain like can’t really
conceptualize this but I’m sure
someone’s got it handled right so I
googled it I typed in BP oil spill photo
chemicals toxic and first of all it
didn’t even pick up on photo chemicals
it said did you mean phytochemicals no
that’s something completely different
thank you and then if you notice here
the word missing and all of the results
the word photo chemicals I thought okay
this is not a new word I mean they
taught us about photo chemicals in like
middle school science so why isn’t it
popping up there’s obviously a reaction
happening between the Sun and the oil
what’s going on so I said all right
maybe I’m just missing something maybe
I’m really not in the twilight zone I’m
just
gonna verify so I called emailed about
30 professors and my emails went
something like hi I’m Keanu cavae I’m 16
I’m a sophomore in high school I was
wondering do you guys know anything
about the photo chemicals that happened
after the oil spill 28 of them responded
I wasn’t laughing I was pretty sad but
two of them two out of the 30 they took
me under their wing and I actually ended
up working under one of them for so long
that not only did I become acquainted
with lab technique how to explore a
hypothesis if I have one I ended up
publishing my first paper this was about
one and a half years after this this
cold email incident and this was the
title of my paper a method for
identifying the photo products the rest
doesn’t matter keyword photo products
thank you very much this is what I found
in the research the picture that popped
into my head that one day that I was
watching the news I filled in the blanks
and that’s what I found in the paper
people laughed but that was the first
time that I realized that maybe it’s a
good thing to have people laughing
because if your idea is so crazy and so
far out of this world
maybe maybe it’ll revolutionize an
industry maybe it’ll change the way that
people conduct research in a specific
field maybe you could introduce a new
vocabulary word photo products to the
world of oil spills and my mind really
opened up after that I started coming
home and saying things like hey mom
today I’m gonna learn how to fly a plane
she almost had a heart attack that day
or hey mom today I think I’m gonna cross
a log with alligators beneath me in the
middle of the Panamanian rainforest and
every time I would I would tell my mom
things like this
I got a reaction something like this I’m
sorry for using this photo mom I have to
and then the calls started to get a
little bit more intense hey mom
NASA just named a planet after me to
[Music]
hey mom I made it in Forbes all of this
crazy stuff and one day I called my mom
and I was really serious it wasn’t like
I was trying to make her laugh kind of
thing because after a while I really did
I thought okay well whatever try it
makes my mom laugh it must be a good
idea but this was I called her and I was
so serious and I said mom I’m going to
invent or develop this molecule and it
targets these toxins these photo
chemicals that I found in my research
those toxins that cause cancer I’m going
to take them and invent a molecule that
turns them into water and it’s going to
affect the lives of millions if not
billions of people mom and then one day
I called my mom and I said hey MA I did
it and all of this it just makes me
reflect on the time when I wanted to
just go to college
I just wanted to graduate I just wanted
to go work for Chevron and now I’m
working with Chevron and it just reminds
me that had I stayed so closed minded
about that one goal to attend that one
University and go do that one job for
the rest of my life had I stayed close
minded and not said yes to the research
opportunities or said yes to anything
else because it didn’t align with my
goal then I would be there yeah I would
probably graduate from Texas A&M and do
do the thing I had planned to but I’m a
lot happier where I am now
so I have one advice or one piece of
advice for you guys and that is to
eliminate yourselves from a reaction
containing a limiting reagent
well technically all reactions do but
make an infinite amount of hotdogs
don’t settle for four thank you
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