hello everyone it’s an honor to be here
today standing on this red dot and
hopefully together we can defy this
misconception of practicality but before
we begin let’s actually define what
practical means so according to Oxford
dictionary’s practical refers to
something that is likely to succeed or
be effective in real circumstances or a
person who was sensible and realistic in
their approach to a situation or problem
unfortunately the word practical is
often used in the wrong context today
practicality tends to be incredibly
useful when we use it for our daily
tasks but it can be detrimental when the
same mentality is used to set our
personal goals growing up a lot of us
wanted to be astronauts and others
wanted to be actors in mainstream media
but the misconception of practicality
convinced us that we should be more
feasible about our goals and rather
choose the ones that are likely to
succeed or be effective in real
circumstances Society makes her youth
believe that they should go into an
undergraduate program right after high
school or find a job and go into a
master’s program right after their
undergraduate degree in fact I’ve got so
many friends who take an incredible
amount of pressure on themselves if
they’re unable to find a position right
after their undergraduate degree I
myself have been victim to the
misconception of practicality growing up
I had a deep interest in the world of
finance and entrepreneurship but the
misconception of practicality convinced
me that being an Albertan it was most
feasible for me to get a chemical
engineering degree and contribute to the
oil industry around me I was 17 when I
had my first internship at shell which
was any engineering students dream
however with time I realized that I
wanted to explore avenues that were not
so feasible based on my background and
experience when I started to drop the
misconception of practicality everything
changed for example last summer I
rejected an offer from a world leading
energy company to be able to work on
Canada’s largest trading floor
and even more I launched my own business
with my co-founder and we’ve shipped
product all across North America and
been featured on Canada’s major media
outlets from my experience I’ve learned
that practice launching and exploring is
the best way to learn for example my
business taught me how to hire people
negotiate contracts work with suppliers
and be customer centric practicality is
a skill that is developed through
experience and enables you to as Mikey
says just do it it is an essential
element to climb every step in your long
ladder so the message I want to get
across to you today is be practical in
your actions
not your goals use practicality to bring
feasibility to your tasks not your
ambitions a lot of us are fearful of
launching into exploring something that
our current job or environment cannot
satisfy because there remains a threat
of losing that stable and sustainable
life that we currently have it is not
sensible to ditch what we have in the
hopes of achieving something more you
may be unconvinced to make that leap of
faith
so let’s seek a quantitative and
practical approach to the concept of
taking risk you defined this
misconception of practicality and
pursuing your dreams I’d like you all to
meet my friend his name is Joe now Joe’s
22 years old and he just graduated from
his undergraduate degree and yes Joe’s
an emoji because none of my friends
agreed to pose as Joe now Joe’s a pretty
frugal guy and when it comes to his
spending habits he’s very disciplined
and he expects that annually for the
rest of his life he’s gonna spend
$40,000 in terms of his expenses and
this could include things like a student
debt his living expenses but Joe’s
basically just trying to help us out in
our financial analysis that we’ll be
conducting around his life now Joe’s
always been passionate about the world
of business he’s always wanted to be an
entrepreneur but he’s afraid about his
chances of success in this world and Joe
often wonders what is the cost of him
taking out 5 years of his life
to try and establish that business of
his dreams so let’s help out Joe let’s
quantify the monetary cost and profit of
being non practical about Joe’s goals
because money is the most feasible
commodity we have today we’ll be looking
at four scenarios and comparing Joe’s
net worth at 65 or his bank account at
65 and today’s dollars to be able to
compare these different ways of going
about Joe’s life so what are the four
ways of going about Joe’s life well in
the first way Joe is the most practical
as our society defines it about his
goals and he goes into a high-end
corporate job right after his
undergraduate degree in the second case
Joe is pretty comfortable with the
concept of taking risk so he takes out
five years after his life to try and
establish that business of his dreams
but unfortunately the business fails and
because he’s got to be able to sustain
his expenses he has to go back and find
a high-end corporate job in the third
case Joe tries to establish that
lifestyle business of his dreams so this
could be that coffee shop or that yoga
studio and in the fourth case Joe goes
for an all-or-nothing approach where he
tries to innovate a disruptive
technology some of the best value
investors in the world today make some
assumptions about a company’s cash flows
to be able to forecast the cash flows
into the future to be able to find the
company’s value today and similarly
we’ll be making a set of assumptions
about each one of these paths and
forecast the cash flows into Joe’s life
to be able to find the monetary worth
today of each of these different ways of
going about Joe’s life I want to walk
you through this financial analysis
because I want to prove to you with
numbers that exploration into what may
seem non feasible is in fact worth it
because we hear messages like pursue
your passion and follow your heart but
then we look around us and we say ah
that’s not practical so let’s talk about
our first case as part of the first case
Joe is the most practical about his
ambitions he says you know what I
we won’t be able to succeed in the world
of business so I might as well find a
high-end corporate job right after my
undergrad degree so let’s assume that at
22 Joe finds a $50,000 job and because
Joe’s so hardworking he’s able to grow
that compensation within the corporate
at five percent annually and this growth
could come in the form of him getting
some promotions and doing well in his
job so using these assumptions if we
forecast Joe’s cash flow into the future
this is the cash flow diagram that we
come up with as you can see by the time
Joe’s 22 he starts making $50,000 and
because he’s able to grow that
compensation by 5% annually by the time
he’s 65 that compensation turns into
roughly $400,000 which is a pretty
high-end corporate job the orange bars
on this graph show you Joe’s net savings
after he pays for his taxes and his
expenses but the takeaway from this
graph is that by the time Joe 65 he’ll
have one point four million dollars in
the bank which is amazing that he can
become a millionaire by just working a
job throughout his life but let’s talk
about our next case as part of case two
let’s assume that Joe is more
comfortable with the concept of taking
risk so let’s assume he takes out five
years of his life after his undergrad
degree to try and establish that
business of his dreams
and to be able to sustain as expenses
during that time he takes out a $200,000
loan and unfortunately the business
fails to generate enough cash flows for
Joe so he failed in the world of
business
he calls it quits and he has to find a
high-end corporate job at the end of the
five years to be able to sustain his
lifestyle so let’s assume that he finds
a corporate job at 27 that starts paying
in $50,000 and again because Joe such a
hard working individual he’s able to
grow that compensation by 5% annually so
now using these assumptions let’s
forecast Joe’s cash flow into the future
and we see this is what it looks like as
you can see he’s only able to start
saving by the time he’s 42 because he’s
got a pay back that $200,000 loan that
he took out to be able to sustain his
lifestyle during the five years of
exploration
and because his career shorter in this
case he doesn’t really reach that
$400,000 mark in terms of his
compensation by 65 so by the time Joe’s
65 you’ll have $900,000 in the bank
which you may say is pretty sad and
Akash you’re not doing a good job of
explaining to us as to why we should be
exploring but hang on let’s talk about a
third case so in this case let’s assume
Joe takes out five years after his
undergrad degree and again a $200,000
loan to try and establish that lifestyle
business of his dreams so this could be
that coffee shop or that yoga studio and
at the end of the five years he succeeds
let’s assume that the business starts
generating for Joe a hundred thousand
dollars by the time he’s 27 and Joe set
up the business in a way that it’s
self-running and he’s got managers in
place so he can focus his time and
effort on growing his businesses
earnings and so let’s assume that every
year he’s able to grow his company’s
earnings by five percent and this could
come in the form of him opening more
branches of his coffee shop or reaching
more ecommerce channels so this is what
his cash flow looks like in the third
case this time he’s only able to start
saving by the time he’s 32 because again
he’s got a pay back that $200,000 loan
that he took out but what we calculated
in this case is that by the time Joe 65
his savings actually equal two point
eight million dollars so now you start
seeing the benefit of exploration and
Joe certainly does is he’s got a nice
tan on his face he’s got a big smile and
he’s got nice shade he’s probably
chillin in the Bahamas but if you think
that’s good let’s talk about her last
case as pert a case for Joe decides to
go for an all-or-nothing approach so
let’s assume again that he takes out
five years after his undergrad degree
and a $200,000 loan to try and disrupt
an innovative technology and he succeeds
he launches a Kickstarter campaign and a
market leader in the industry wants to
buy out his technology because they see
value in it so let’s assume that Joe
gets a 5 million dollar check at the age
of 27 to be able to buy out his
technology and with the large amount of
money that’s sitting in Joe’s Bank he
just decides to make fibers
or whatever is left in his bank account
for the rest of his life
and again this 5% could come in the form
of real estate investments or stock
investments but using these set of
assumptions a fee forecast Joe’s cash
flow into the future this is what we
come up with
obviously he gets a pretty big paycheck
at 27 and he gets taxed heavily on it
then he just decides to make five
percent on that savings for the rest of
his life and what we calculated in this
case is that Joe’s savings by the time
he’s 65 will actually equal eight
million dollars so now Joe’s got an even
better ten he’s got nicer shades and
he’s got a bigger smile as he’s chilling
in the Bahamas so in summary we met our
friend Joe and Joe’s a 22 year old who
just graduated from his university
degree and Joe had four different ways
of going potentially going about his
life and the first way Joe was the most
practical about his goals and he went
into a high-end corporate job right
after his undergraduate degree and
worked there till he was 65 and in that
case he saved up 1.4 million dollars by
the time he was 65 in the next case
Joe is more comfortable with the concept
of taking risk so he tries to establish
that business of his dreams but
unfortunately he fails in doing that and
has to end up in the corporate world to
be able to find and sustain his life and
in this case he ends up saving $900,000
in our third case Joe was successful in
establishing that lifestyle business
that he’s always wanted like that coffee
shop or that yoga studio and in this
case his savings by the time he’s 65 is
in fact 2.8 million bucks and in the
fourth case in our last case where Joe
goes for an all-or-nothing approach or
soar like the the Elon Musk approach
maybe and disrupts an innovative
technology his net worth or his savings
by the time he’s 65 is in fact 8 million
bucks here’s a graph that shows the four
cases we just looked at the main
takeaway from this analysis is that even
in the worst case if Joe fails at
exploration and ultimately ends up
wasting the five years of his life his
downside in terms of the savings that
time he’s 65 it’s 35% but if he’s able
to establish that lifestyle business
that he’s always wanted something with
more guaranteed cash flows like that
coffee shop his upside is a hundred
percent or basically he’s able to save
up twice the money that he was by just
working a corporate job in our last case
if joy was successful with innovating a
disruptive technology and he gets a
successful early exit his upside is five
hundred percent the best investors in
the world today look at the downside vs.
the upside an opportunity brings to them
I just proved to you that taking five
years of Joe’s life to explore his non
feasible goals was in fact worth it
because it brought limited downside but
significant upside just from a monetary
perspective obviously this analysis did
not take into account intangibles such
as increased self-worth and recognition
that Joe would get by pursuing his
passion and while this analysis focused
on a 22 year old and just graduating
from university the takeaways from this
analysis apply to you no matter what
stage of life you are ad not taking the
risks in life to get to what you really
want is in fact the most impractical
thing you can do if practicality is
about minimizing your losses and
maximizing your returns you will most do
that when you try out that two three or
ten different things that you want to
try out people are actually taking the
biggest risks in their life when they
continue doing something they don’t
completely enjoy they’re taking the
risks of not fulfilling their dreams and
ultimately having a sense of
dissatisfaction towards the end of their
lives
live the life that you want to live not
the life Society wants you to live in
conclusion don’t let practicality limit
your dreams try for that dream job go
for that political role or try to
establish that business of your dreams
because the downside is limited but the
upside is unlimited dream big and start
to get there through small practical
steps be practical interactions not your
ambitions
as I stand here in the city of Champions
I’d like to end my talk with the wise
words of mr. Wayne Gretsky you miss 100%
of the shots you don’t take
thank you [Applause]
today standing on this red dot and
hopefully together we can defy this
misconception of practicality but before
we begin let’s actually define what
practical means so according to Oxford
dictionary’s practical refers to
something that is likely to succeed or
be effective in real circumstances or a
person who was sensible and realistic in
their approach to a situation or problem
unfortunately the word practical is
often used in the wrong context today
practicality tends to be incredibly
useful when we use it for our daily
tasks but it can be detrimental when the
same mentality is used to set our
personal goals growing up a lot of us
wanted to be astronauts and others
wanted to be actors in mainstream media
but the misconception of practicality
convinced us that we should be more
feasible about our goals and rather
choose the ones that are likely to
succeed or be effective in real
circumstances Society makes her youth
believe that they should go into an
undergraduate program right after high
school or find a job and go into a
master’s program right after their
undergraduate degree in fact I’ve got so
many friends who take an incredible
amount of pressure on themselves if
they’re unable to find a position right
after their undergraduate degree I
myself have been victim to the
misconception of practicality growing up
I had a deep interest in the world of
finance and entrepreneurship but the
misconception of practicality convinced
me that being an Albertan it was most
feasible for me to get a chemical
engineering degree and contribute to the
oil industry around me I was 17 when I
had my first internship at shell which
was any engineering students dream
however with time I realized that I
wanted to explore avenues that were not
so feasible based on my background and
experience when I started to drop the
misconception of practicality everything
changed for example last summer I
rejected an offer from a world leading
energy company to be able to work on
Canada’s largest trading floor
and even more I launched my own business
with my co-founder and we’ve shipped
product all across North America and
been featured on Canada’s major media
outlets from my experience I’ve learned
that practice launching and exploring is
the best way to learn for example my
business taught me how to hire people
negotiate contracts work with suppliers
and be customer centric practicality is
a skill that is developed through
experience and enables you to as Mikey
says just do it it is an essential
element to climb every step in your long
ladder so the message I want to get
across to you today is be practical in
your actions
not your goals use practicality to bring
feasibility to your tasks not your
ambitions a lot of us are fearful of
launching into exploring something that
our current job or environment cannot
satisfy because there remains a threat
of losing that stable and sustainable
life that we currently have it is not
sensible to ditch what we have in the
hopes of achieving something more you
may be unconvinced to make that leap of
faith
so let’s seek a quantitative and
practical approach to the concept of
taking risk you defined this
misconception of practicality and
pursuing your dreams I’d like you all to
meet my friend his name is Joe now Joe’s
22 years old and he just graduated from
his undergraduate degree and yes Joe’s
an emoji because none of my friends
agreed to pose as Joe now Joe’s a pretty
frugal guy and when it comes to his
spending habits he’s very disciplined
and he expects that annually for the
rest of his life he’s gonna spend
$40,000 in terms of his expenses and
this could include things like a student
debt his living expenses but Joe’s
basically just trying to help us out in
our financial analysis that we’ll be
conducting around his life now Joe’s
always been passionate about the world
of business he’s always wanted to be an
entrepreneur but he’s afraid about his
chances of success in this world and Joe
often wonders what is the cost of him
taking out 5 years of his life
to try and establish that business of
his dreams so let’s help out Joe let’s
quantify the monetary cost and profit of
being non practical about Joe’s goals
because money is the most feasible
commodity we have today we’ll be looking
at four scenarios and comparing Joe’s
net worth at 65 or his bank account at
65 and today’s dollars to be able to
compare these different ways of going
about Joe’s life so what are the four
ways of going about Joe’s life well in
the first way Joe is the most practical
as our society defines it about his
goals and he goes into a high-end
corporate job right after his
undergraduate degree in the second case
Joe is pretty comfortable with the
concept of taking risk so he takes out
five years after his life to try and
establish that business of his dreams
but unfortunately the business fails and
because he’s got to be able to sustain
his expenses he has to go back and find
a high-end corporate job in the third
case Joe tries to establish that
lifestyle business of his dreams so this
could be that coffee shop or that yoga
studio and in the fourth case Joe goes
for an all-or-nothing approach where he
tries to innovate a disruptive
technology some of the best value
investors in the world today make some
assumptions about a company’s cash flows
to be able to forecast the cash flows
into the future to be able to find the
company’s value today and similarly
we’ll be making a set of assumptions
about each one of these paths and
forecast the cash flows into Joe’s life
to be able to find the monetary worth
today of each of these different ways of
going about Joe’s life I want to walk
you through this financial analysis
because I want to prove to you with
numbers that exploration into what may
seem non feasible is in fact worth it
because we hear messages like pursue
your passion and follow your heart but
then we look around us and we say ah
that’s not practical so let’s talk about
our first case as part of the first case
Joe is the most practical about his
ambitions he says you know what I
we won’t be able to succeed in the world
of business so I might as well find a
high-end corporate job right after my
undergrad degree so let’s assume that at
22 Joe finds a $50,000 job and because
Joe’s so hardworking he’s able to grow
that compensation within the corporate
at five percent annually and this growth
could come in the form of him getting
some promotions and doing well in his
job so using these assumptions if we
forecast Joe’s cash flow into the future
this is the cash flow diagram that we
come up with as you can see by the time
Joe’s 22 he starts making $50,000 and
because he’s able to grow that
compensation by 5% annually by the time
he’s 65 that compensation turns into
roughly $400,000 which is a pretty
high-end corporate job the orange bars
on this graph show you Joe’s net savings
after he pays for his taxes and his
expenses but the takeaway from this
graph is that by the time Joe 65 he’ll
have one point four million dollars in
the bank which is amazing that he can
become a millionaire by just working a
job throughout his life but let’s talk
about our next case as part of case two
let’s assume that Joe is more
comfortable with the concept of taking
risk so let’s assume he takes out five
years of his life after his undergrad
degree to try and establish that
business of his dreams
and to be able to sustain as expenses
during that time he takes out a $200,000
loan and unfortunately the business
fails to generate enough cash flows for
Joe so he failed in the world of
business
he calls it quits and he has to find a
high-end corporate job at the end of the
five years to be able to sustain his
lifestyle so let’s assume that he finds
a corporate job at 27 that starts paying
in $50,000 and again because Joe such a
hard working individual he’s able to
grow that compensation by 5% annually so
now using these assumptions let’s
forecast Joe’s cash flow into the future
and we see this is what it looks like as
you can see he’s only able to start
saving by the time he’s 42 because he’s
got a pay back that $200,000 loan that
he took out to be able to sustain his
lifestyle during the five years of
exploration
and because his career shorter in this
case he doesn’t really reach that
$400,000 mark in terms of his
compensation by 65 so by the time Joe’s
65 you’ll have $900,000 in the bank
which you may say is pretty sad and
Akash you’re not doing a good job of
explaining to us as to why we should be
exploring but hang on let’s talk about a
third case so in this case let’s assume
Joe takes out five years after his
undergrad degree and again a $200,000
loan to try and establish that lifestyle
business of his dreams so this could be
that coffee shop or that yoga studio and
at the end of the five years he succeeds
let’s assume that the business starts
generating for Joe a hundred thousand
dollars by the time he’s 27 and Joe set
up the business in a way that it’s
self-running and he’s got managers in
place so he can focus his time and
effort on growing his businesses
earnings and so let’s assume that every
year he’s able to grow his company’s
earnings by five percent and this could
come in the form of him opening more
branches of his coffee shop or reaching
more ecommerce channels so this is what
his cash flow looks like in the third
case this time he’s only able to start
saving by the time he’s 32 because again
he’s got a pay back that $200,000 loan
that he took out but what we calculated
in this case is that by the time Joe 65
his savings actually equal two point
eight million dollars so now you start
seeing the benefit of exploration and
Joe certainly does is he’s got a nice
tan on his face he’s got a big smile and
he’s got nice shade he’s probably
chillin in the Bahamas but if you think
that’s good let’s talk about her last
case as pert a case for Joe decides to
go for an all-or-nothing approach so
let’s assume again that he takes out
five years after his undergrad degree
and a $200,000 loan to try and disrupt
an innovative technology and he succeeds
he launches a Kickstarter campaign and a
market leader in the industry wants to
buy out his technology because they see
value in it so let’s assume that Joe
gets a 5 million dollar check at the age
of 27 to be able to buy out his
technology and with the large amount of
money that’s sitting in Joe’s Bank he
just decides to make fibers
or whatever is left in his bank account
for the rest of his life
and again this 5% could come in the form
of real estate investments or stock
investments but using these set of
assumptions a fee forecast Joe’s cash
flow into the future this is what we
come up with
obviously he gets a pretty big paycheck
at 27 and he gets taxed heavily on it
then he just decides to make five
percent on that savings for the rest of
his life and what we calculated in this
case is that Joe’s savings by the time
he’s 65 will actually equal eight
million dollars so now Joe’s got an even
better ten he’s got nicer shades and
he’s got a bigger smile as he’s chilling
in the Bahamas so in summary we met our
friend Joe and Joe’s a 22 year old who
just graduated from his university
degree and Joe had four different ways
of going potentially going about his
life and the first way Joe was the most
practical about his goals and he went
into a high-end corporate job right
after his undergraduate degree and
worked there till he was 65 and in that
case he saved up 1.4 million dollars by
the time he was 65 in the next case
Joe is more comfortable with the concept
of taking risk so he tries to establish
that business of his dreams but
unfortunately he fails in doing that and
has to end up in the corporate world to
be able to find and sustain his life and
in this case he ends up saving $900,000
in our third case Joe was successful in
establishing that lifestyle business
that he’s always wanted like that coffee
shop or that yoga studio and in this
case his savings by the time he’s 65 is
in fact 2.8 million bucks and in the
fourth case in our last case where Joe
goes for an all-or-nothing approach or
soar like the the Elon Musk approach
maybe and disrupts an innovative
technology his net worth or his savings
by the time he’s 65 is in fact 8 million
bucks here’s a graph that shows the four
cases we just looked at the main
takeaway from this analysis is that even
in the worst case if Joe fails at
exploration and ultimately ends up
wasting the five years of his life his
downside in terms of the savings that
time he’s 65 it’s 35% but if he’s able
to establish that lifestyle business
that he’s always wanted something with
more guaranteed cash flows like that
coffee shop his upside is a hundred
percent or basically he’s able to save
up twice the money that he was by just
working a corporate job in our last case
if joy was successful with innovating a
disruptive technology and he gets a
successful early exit his upside is five
hundred percent the best investors in
the world today look at the downside vs.
the upside an opportunity brings to them
I just proved to you that taking five
years of Joe’s life to explore his non
feasible goals was in fact worth it
because it brought limited downside but
significant upside just from a monetary
perspective obviously this analysis did
not take into account intangibles such
as increased self-worth and recognition
that Joe would get by pursuing his
passion and while this analysis focused
on a 22 year old and just graduating
from university the takeaways from this
analysis apply to you no matter what
stage of life you are ad not taking the
risks in life to get to what you really
want is in fact the most impractical
thing you can do if practicality is
about minimizing your losses and
maximizing your returns you will most do
that when you try out that two three or
ten different things that you want to
try out people are actually taking the
biggest risks in their life when they
continue doing something they don’t
completely enjoy they’re taking the
risks of not fulfilling their dreams and
ultimately having a sense of
dissatisfaction towards the end of their
lives
live the life that you want to live not
the life Society wants you to live in
conclusion don’t let practicality limit
your dreams try for that dream job go
for that political role or try to
establish that business of your dreams
because the downside is limited but the
upside is unlimited dream big and start
to get there through small practical
steps be practical interactions not your
ambitions
as I stand here in the city of Champions
I’d like to end my talk with the wise
words of mr. Wayne Gretsky you miss 100%
of the shots you don’t take
thank you [Applause]
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