my name is Richard askin and and I am
one of those strange people that
actually enjoys doing this I actually do
this for a living so it’s a little bit
weird for me today to work on a Saturday
if I’m honest but I have been in America
recently and one of the things that I
love about the Americans is that the
legendary status that they afford their
sports stars and as a result those
sports stars future is completely sorted
for them they have no worries about what
their future looks like and that they
don’t have to give it any thought at all
because they are treated almost as
royalty does anybody know the picture
that is on the screen now is a legendary
ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky thank
you very much
and he is known universally as as the
great one and he was asked recently what
made him better and the hockey player
that’s ever lived and his art was quite
useful for today’s future topic he said
it’s not because I was the quickest and
it’s not because I was the strongest but
where everybody else skated to where the
puck was I skated to where the puck was
going to be he knew what the future
looked like and as a result he became a
legend and it got me thinking what does
the future look like and the worrying
thing for me was earlier on this year my
future became my present and I turned 50
on April the 1st this year the good news
is 50 is only 14 in Scrabble so in dog
years I’m only 14 but it forced me to
look back on the first half of my life
because let’s be honest 50 is only half
way so it’s what you do in the second
half that’s important as the first and
of course a wise man once said that the
only point in looking backwards is to
see where you’ve come from so I thought
this was an opportunity to potentially
change the way that my future could be
and perhaps possibly create a new future
for myself
and many years ago I found myself in
Australia and I spent quite a lot of
time there watching TV and there was an
advertising campaign for the northern
territories which if any of you have
ever been to Australia you’ll know that
the northern territories is effectively
a swamp and they were trying to create
it as a tourist destination and the
strap line for the TV commercial was if
you never ever go you’ll never ever know
and I’ve used that throughout my entire
working life as
reason to be in rooms night today
because what’s the worst that can happen
your future can happen if you let it and
that’s a maxim that I’ve lived by ever
since and occasionally you find
yourselves at those crossroads those
moments in time when you could either
choose to sit in the dark room in your
underwear eating rice krispies and
drinking vodka and let’s face it we’ve
probably all contemplated that at some
point in our time or you can choose the
pathway of hope which is to create a new
version of the story that you were
previously on and that’s something that
I found myself doing and I I’d take
tasks with the word entrepreneur
unfortunately apologies for earlier
speakers today because for me the word
entrepreneur makes no sense for anybody
that speaks French the word
entre means between and the preneur
means taker so if you describe yourself
as an entrepreneur you’re effectively
saying you are a between taker which to
me has no logical sense whatsoever
whereas the word risk apron er is of
course risk-taker and I’ve been in that
plane a few times I’ve jumped off that
cliff several times in my working life
and on the last occasion I did that I
actually invited somebody to join me on
that plane ride and rather annoyingly
and frustratingly for me
they chose halfway down that plane right
to throw me out of the plane and
actually didn’t afford me the privilege
of a parachute so what happened was that
I needed to find and create a new future
for myself and I decided that the time
was right at the age of 50 to build a
working life with no walls and become a
digital nomad and I’m quite fortunate
that my brain is connected to my mouth
in such an order that I can do this for
a living
on whether that’s by the spoken word or
the written word but did I have the
attributes that were necessary to be
able to do that as an individual was I
open minded I’m here today I think
that’s a fair assumption that’s a tick
am i friendly I’ll let you be the judge
of that
am i adventurous I sort of I’m probably
the world’s worst tourist if I’m honest
if I’m on my own I tend to stay around
the hotel so I’m not so sure that that
really fits the bill
I might tech-savvy absolutely not I’m
not really comfortable with a clicker
that only has one button if I’m honest
but it’s probably something
that I don’t need to worry too much
about because there are cleverer people
than me so the thing that I question
most of all was the discipline did I
have the discipline to have a freelance
working life with no structure
unfortunately for me one of the lucky
things that happened in my life was that
I met my beautiful wife nearly 20 years
ago and when I met her she worked in the
radio industry in London and she smoked
and she drank sand she generally had a
very nice time and I thought I’m on to a
good life here and then she retrained as
a personal trainer and my life
effectively ended but rather cleverly
she suggested to me a point that could
bring discipline into my working life
and her suggestion was to bring that
discipline forward in the form of
exercise no surprise from a personal
trainer so she challenged me she
challenged me to run a mile a day a mile
a day every day for a month and during
that time make that the focal point of
my day so that became the structure of
the life without walls that gave me an
anchor point in my working life that
every day I knew I had to run this mile
and whether it took me seven minutes to
run it which it did once or 10 minutes
to run it which he did most times
occasionally 11 which was a Sunday that
gave me a discipline point and a focal
point that allowed my working life as a
digital nomad to be possible and it’s
something that I will be forever
grateful for her to do and it’s
something that allows me to do events
such as this today so if anybody ever
really questions the future that you
wish to have for yourself I’ll give you
one piece of advice if they’re arguing
with you before you argue back run a
mile in their shoes because at the very
least you’ll be a mile away from them
and at the very least you’ll have their
shoes thank you very much
one of those strange people that
actually enjoys doing this I actually do
this for a living so it’s a little bit
weird for me today to work on a Saturday
if I’m honest but I have been in America
recently and one of the things that I
love about the Americans is that the
legendary status that they afford their
sports stars and as a result those
sports stars future is completely sorted
for them they have no worries about what
their future looks like and that they
don’t have to give it any thought at all
because they are treated almost as
royalty does anybody know the picture
that is on the screen now is a legendary
ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky thank
you very much
and he is known universally as as the
great one and he was asked recently what
made him better and the hockey player
that’s ever lived and his art was quite
useful for today’s future topic he said
it’s not because I was the quickest and
it’s not because I was the strongest but
where everybody else skated to where the
puck was I skated to where the puck was
going to be he knew what the future
looked like and as a result he became a
legend and it got me thinking what does
the future look like and the worrying
thing for me was earlier on this year my
future became my present and I turned 50
on April the 1st this year the good news
is 50 is only 14 in Scrabble so in dog
years I’m only 14 but it forced me to
look back on the first half of my life
because let’s be honest 50 is only half
way so it’s what you do in the second
half that’s important as the first and
of course a wise man once said that the
only point in looking backwards is to
see where you’ve come from so I thought
this was an opportunity to potentially
change the way that my future could be
and perhaps possibly create a new future
for myself
and many years ago I found myself in
Australia and I spent quite a lot of
time there watching TV and there was an
advertising campaign for the northern
territories which if any of you have
ever been to Australia you’ll know that
the northern territories is effectively
a swamp and they were trying to create
it as a tourist destination and the
strap line for the TV commercial was if
you never ever go you’ll never ever know
and I’ve used that throughout my entire
working life as
reason to be in rooms night today
because what’s the worst that can happen
your future can happen if you let it and
that’s a maxim that I’ve lived by ever
since and occasionally you find
yourselves at those crossroads those
moments in time when you could either
choose to sit in the dark room in your
underwear eating rice krispies and
drinking vodka and let’s face it we’ve
probably all contemplated that at some
point in our time or you can choose the
pathway of hope which is to create a new
version of the story that you were
previously on and that’s something that
I found myself doing and I I’d take
tasks with the word entrepreneur
unfortunately apologies for earlier
speakers today because for me the word
entrepreneur makes no sense for anybody
that speaks French the word
entre means between and the preneur
means taker so if you describe yourself
as an entrepreneur you’re effectively
saying you are a between taker which to
me has no logical sense whatsoever
whereas the word risk apron er is of
course risk-taker and I’ve been in that
plane a few times I’ve jumped off that
cliff several times in my working life
and on the last occasion I did that I
actually invited somebody to join me on
that plane ride and rather annoyingly
and frustratingly for me
they chose halfway down that plane right
to throw me out of the plane and
actually didn’t afford me the privilege
of a parachute so what happened was that
I needed to find and create a new future
for myself and I decided that the time
was right at the age of 50 to build a
working life with no walls and become a
digital nomad and I’m quite fortunate
that my brain is connected to my mouth
in such an order that I can do this for
a living
on whether that’s by the spoken word or
the written word but did I have the
attributes that were necessary to be
able to do that as an individual was I
open minded I’m here today I think
that’s a fair assumption that’s a tick
am i friendly I’ll let you be the judge
of that
am i adventurous I sort of I’m probably
the world’s worst tourist if I’m honest
if I’m on my own I tend to stay around
the hotel so I’m not so sure that that
really fits the bill
I might tech-savvy absolutely not I’m
not really comfortable with a clicker
that only has one button if I’m honest
but it’s probably something
that I don’t need to worry too much
about because there are cleverer people
than me so the thing that I question
most of all was the discipline did I
have the discipline to have a freelance
working life with no structure
unfortunately for me one of the lucky
things that happened in my life was that
I met my beautiful wife nearly 20 years
ago and when I met her she worked in the
radio industry in London and she smoked
and she drank sand she generally had a
very nice time and I thought I’m on to a
good life here and then she retrained as
a personal trainer and my life
effectively ended but rather cleverly
she suggested to me a point that could
bring discipline into my working life
and her suggestion was to bring that
discipline forward in the form of
exercise no surprise from a personal
trainer so she challenged me she
challenged me to run a mile a day a mile
a day every day for a month and during
that time make that the focal point of
my day so that became the structure of
the life without walls that gave me an
anchor point in my working life that
every day I knew I had to run this mile
and whether it took me seven minutes to
run it which it did once or 10 minutes
to run it which he did most times
occasionally 11 which was a Sunday that
gave me a discipline point and a focal
point that allowed my working life as a
digital nomad to be possible and it’s
something that I will be forever
grateful for her to do and it’s
something that allows me to do events
such as this today so if anybody ever
really questions the future that you
wish to have for yourself I’ll give you
one piece of advice if they’re arguing
with you before you argue back run a
mile in their shoes because at the very
least you’ll be a mile away from them
and at the very least you’ll have their
shoes thank you very much
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