[Music]
so who here has a career plan hands up
master plan any sort of plan okay a lot
of you that’s pretty good and now I’m
gonna tell you why that probably won’t
matter
so today I’m talking about career path
uncertainty how to deal with it and why
it’s not necessarily a bad thing
When I was your age and in high school I
had the whole plan I knew every step I
had actually written down my entire life
story for ten years and this is what I
thought it would look like I would
graduate from school with a business
degree get a job in finance and slowly
work my way up until I was going to be
the head of a large investment fund nice
clean sequential steps the entire way
but as you may have guessed from the
title of my talk that’s not exactly how
it turned out
this is what my career path actually
looked like I did graduate with a
business degree I got an incredible job
at a school but wasn’t quite enough so I
moved to London helped my firm build an
office there but then jump to an even
more prestigious investment fund with
even bigger ambitions and even with the
dream job I had that wasn’t quite what I
wanted so out of whim I quit my job I
traveled the world and I came back to
Toronto I started a company charge spot
I was of starving entrepreneur living on
ramen you guys will soon know the
feeling
we raise money we grew really fast
we failed we struggled we recovered we
grew again and Here I am standing right
here in front of you guys today
and you guys are all probably thinking
man that’s really messed up it is a
super disjointed career path but what I
want to share with you is that it’s
actually quite normal everybody has a
plan every successful person has a
vision of how things are supposed to
turn out but they also face uncertainty
missteps unexpected events the whole way
in fact the only constant throughout any
number of career paths will be you
guessed it uncertainty and so when I
graduated from university got my first
job my peers would sit around the
lunchroom table and we would all
strategize on how we would achieve our
goal of becoming a partner at a really
large investment fund and do you know
what they’re doing today the first one
is a partner at a large investment fund
he actually made it the next one is a
CEO of a chicken transportation company
the next one runs a Chocolate Factory in
California and one buys and sells
software companies out of Florida none
of these none of my friends would have
guessed that this is where they ended up
but each one of them is really
successful and very happy in their own
right career path uncertainty permeates
all sectors roles walks you cannot avoid
it so if everybody faces it why am I
here talking about it to you guys today
well it’s because startups are a case
study in uncertainty and let me
illustrate this for you this graph shows
that nearly 90% of 22,000 startups faced
uncertainty hurdles and failures along
the way 90%
and remember behind each and every one
of these statistics is a person not so
indifferent for myself they’re smart
ambitious and they had a plan a plan so
compelling they were given millions of
dollars to execute on it but yet 90% of
them didn’t go to plan I was actually
told by my CEO coach just about about a
month ago dealing with uncertainty is my
job as a start-up founder and so good
thing uncertainty is a constant because
now I will always have a job so let’s
talk really quickly about some of the
causes of this uncertainty the first one
is external factors some of them could
be as simple as one company buying
another company your role being made
redundant and all of a sudden you’re out
of a job maybe it’s a new job maybe it’s
a different career but you’re not on the
same path it could be as severe as war
war change is not just careers guys
divorce changes lives people’s countries
right completely out of your control
so let’s illustrate this with the last
one how many of you guys in the audience
remember the recession of 2008 hands up
Wow that was way more than I expected
that was at the start of my career so I
probably seem like a dinosaur to you
guys but I saw my peers rising stars
people with 4.0 GPA s the first picks
when people were hiring lose their jobs
overnight like this why because a few
bankers were too reckless with their
money at the time in fact during the
recession nearly 1 in 8 people lost
their jobs the average Joe had no role
to play in this except getting screwed
and it was completely out of their
control so ok kind of dire but don’t
worry you’ll get better
next internal factors your values how
you perceive the world will change over
your life and that is going to redefine
your definition of success and if you
have a new goal a new definition of
success your career path is going to
change so you can achieve it it’s really
simple and over the next four years as
you guys go to university you will set
out on a very different path than the
one you’re thinking about today the
interactions you have will alter how you
see the world let’s take a very simple
example if you are in a classroom that
prioritizes openness acceptance of
different opinions those values will
form and you will carry those forward on
the other hand if you are in a class
where the prof prioritizes undemanding
respect authority you’re going to
develop values of conformity and you’ll
take that onwards you can’t change that
to further illustrate this guy’s who
here has an idea of what they want to be
right when they get out of university
hands up okay
quite a lot of you this is how many of
you will want to change your career path
in just the first years that you’re out
let alone if that is the path that you
stick to over the next four for me I had
the job I had dreamed about when I came
out of school but experiences
volunteering in Kenya meeting to now
love of my life my wife helped me
prioritize relationships community
spending time with people that mattered
spending time with entrepreneurs made me
want to build something make a
difference and all of a sudden
everything that I had strived for worked
90 hours a week for didn’t matter now I
want to build something create something
and help people build their own careers
okay so I basically told you that you
can’t control what’s gonna happen in the
world and you can’t control what you’re
gonna change in the world it’s not all
dire
so what do you do up to this point I
told you that uncertainty is the only
constant in your career path but now I’m
gonna give you guys the power to add one
more constant into that and that is
learning and growth so each one of these
unexpected events the twists the
setbacks that you guys are going to
encounter provide an amazing opportunity
to learn so you don’t make the same
mistake again and you come out a better
person on the back of it this type of
mindset is called the growth mindset and
it was pioneered by Professor Carol
Dweck a Stanford University psychologist
professor Dweck doesn’t see the world in
terms of successes and failures she sees
the world in terms of learners and non
learners but it’s no coincidence that
the learners are the successful ones in
life and the fact that you guys are
sitting right here today signals me that
you’re probably learners and that is
super important because if you got 1%
better every day
from now until the time you finished
University in four years time you will
literally be 2 million times better do
the math it is not easy to learn develop
and maintain this mindset I struggled
for years doing it as you might have
been remembered during my career slide
the squiggly one I told you that we
struggle that charge spot and we did if
I had let those failures get me down
slow me down and I didn’t adapt and
learn we wouldn’t be here as a company
day we wouldn’t employ the people that
we do today I wouldn’t be standing on
this stage that ability to learn adapt
and grow is what’s going to keep you
light years ahead of your peers
ok guys so let’s wrap this up super
quick takeaways one always have a plan
the most successful people in the world
have a plan but 2x
fact that planned to change regardless
of how good you think your plan is it
will not survive first contact
remember the 22,000 startups it didn’t
survive first contact
but finally learn adapt and grow as this
plan changes that’s really important if
you guys can learn to do that today
you’ll be able to enjoy the journey and
I’m sure that for each and every single
one of you it will be a phenomenal
journey so guys thanks a lot for taking
our time I hope you have an amazing day
congrats on being here
[Applause]
so who here has a career plan hands up
master plan any sort of plan okay a lot
of you that’s pretty good and now I’m
gonna tell you why that probably won’t
matter
so today I’m talking about career path
uncertainty how to deal with it and why
it’s not necessarily a bad thing
When I was your age and in high school I
had the whole plan I knew every step I
had actually written down my entire life
story for ten years and this is what I
thought it would look like I would
graduate from school with a business
degree get a job in finance and slowly
work my way up until I was going to be
the head of a large investment fund nice
clean sequential steps the entire way
but as you may have guessed from the
title of my talk that’s not exactly how
it turned out
this is what my career path actually
looked like I did graduate with a
business degree I got an incredible job
at a school but wasn’t quite enough so I
moved to London helped my firm build an
office there but then jump to an even
more prestigious investment fund with
even bigger ambitions and even with the
dream job I had that wasn’t quite what I
wanted so out of whim I quit my job I
traveled the world and I came back to
Toronto I started a company charge spot
I was of starving entrepreneur living on
ramen you guys will soon know the
feeling
we raise money we grew really fast
we failed we struggled we recovered we
grew again and Here I am standing right
here in front of you guys today
and you guys are all probably thinking
man that’s really messed up it is a
super disjointed career path but what I
want to share with you is that it’s
actually quite normal everybody has a
plan every successful person has a
vision of how things are supposed to
turn out but they also face uncertainty
missteps unexpected events the whole way
in fact the only constant throughout any
number of career paths will be you
guessed it uncertainty and so when I
graduated from university got my first
job my peers would sit around the
lunchroom table and we would all
strategize on how we would achieve our
goal of becoming a partner at a really
large investment fund and do you know
what they’re doing today the first one
is a partner at a large investment fund
he actually made it the next one is a
CEO of a chicken transportation company
the next one runs a Chocolate Factory in
California and one buys and sells
software companies out of Florida none
of these none of my friends would have
guessed that this is where they ended up
but each one of them is really
successful and very happy in their own
right career path uncertainty permeates
all sectors roles walks you cannot avoid
it so if everybody faces it why am I
here talking about it to you guys today
well it’s because startups are a case
study in uncertainty and let me
illustrate this for you this graph shows
that nearly 90% of 22,000 startups faced
uncertainty hurdles and failures along
the way 90%
and remember behind each and every one
of these statistics is a person not so
indifferent for myself they’re smart
ambitious and they had a plan a plan so
compelling they were given millions of
dollars to execute on it but yet 90% of
them didn’t go to plan I was actually
told by my CEO coach just about about a
month ago dealing with uncertainty is my
job as a start-up founder and so good
thing uncertainty is a constant because
now I will always have a job so let’s
talk really quickly about some of the
causes of this uncertainty the first one
is external factors some of them could
be as simple as one company buying
another company your role being made
redundant and all of a sudden you’re out
of a job maybe it’s a new job maybe it’s
a different career but you’re not on the
same path it could be as severe as war
war change is not just careers guys
divorce changes lives people’s countries
right completely out of your control
so let’s illustrate this with the last
one how many of you guys in the audience
remember the recession of 2008 hands up
Wow that was way more than I expected
that was at the start of my career so I
probably seem like a dinosaur to you
guys but I saw my peers rising stars
people with 4.0 GPA s the first picks
when people were hiring lose their jobs
overnight like this why because a few
bankers were too reckless with their
money at the time in fact during the
recession nearly 1 in 8 people lost
their jobs the average Joe had no role
to play in this except getting screwed
and it was completely out of their
control so ok kind of dire but don’t
worry you’ll get better
next internal factors your values how
you perceive the world will change over
your life and that is going to redefine
your definition of success and if you
have a new goal a new definition of
success your career path is going to
change so you can achieve it it’s really
simple and over the next four years as
you guys go to university you will set
out on a very different path than the
one you’re thinking about today the
interactions you have will alter how you
see the world let’s take a very simple
example if you are in a classroom that
prioritizes openness acceptance of
different opinions those values will
form and you will carry those forward on
the other hand if you are in a class
where the prof prioritizes undemanding
respect authority you’re going to
develop values of conformity and you’ll
take that onwards you can’t change that
to further illustrate this guy’s who
here has an idea of what they want to be
right when they get out of university
hands up okay
quite a lot of you this is how many of
you will want to change your career path
in just the first years that you’re out
let alone if that is the path that you
stick to over the next four for me I had
the job I had dreamed about when I came
out of school but experiences
volunteering in Kenya meeting to now
love of my life my wife helped me
prioritize relationships community
spending time with people that mattered
spending time with entrepreneurs made me
want to build something make a
difference and all of a sudden
everything that I had strived for worked
90 hours a week for didn’t matter now I
want to build something create something
and help people build their own careers
okay so I basically told you that you
can’t control what’s gonna happen in the
world and you can’t control what you’re
gonna change in the world it’s not all
dire
so what do you do up to this point I
told you that uncertainty is the only
constant in your career path but now I’m
gonna give you guys the power to add one
more constant into that and that is
learning and growth so each one of these
unexpected events the twists the
setbacks that you guys are going to
encounter provide an amazing opportunity
to learn so you don’t make the same
mistake again and you come out a better
person on the back of it this type of
mindset is called the growth mindset and
it was pioneered by Professor Carol
Dweck a Stanford University psychologist
professor Dweck doesn’t see the world in
terms of successes and failures she sees
the world in terms of learners and non
learners but it’s no coincidence that
the learners are the successful ones in
life and the fact that you guys are
sitting right here today signals me that
you’re probably learners and that is
super important because if you got 1%
better every day
from now until the time you finished
University in four years time you will
literally be 2 million times better do
the math it is not easy to learn develop
and maintain this mindset I struggled
for years doing it as you might have
been remembered during my career slide
the squiggly one I told you that we
struggle that charge spot and we did if
I had let those failures get me down
slow me down and I didn’t adapt and
learn we wouldn’t be here as a company
day we wouldn’t employ the people that
we do today I wouldn’t be standing on
this stage that ability to learn adapt
and grow is what’s going to keep you
light years ahead of your peers
ok guys so let’s wrap this up super
quick takeaways one always have a plan
the most successful people in the world
have a plan but 2x
fact that planned to change regardless
of how good you think your plan is it
will not survive first contact
remember the 22,000 startups it didn’t
survive first contact
but finally learn adapt and grow as this
plan changes that’s really important if
you guys can learn to do that today
you’ll be able to enjoy the journey and
I’m sure that for each and every single
one of you it will be a phenomenal
journey so guys thanks a lot for taking
our time I hope you have an amazing day
congrats on being here
[Applause]
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