ADAPT #31 - Dare To Be Unrealistic

Hey!!!!

Read this:
For new realities to emerge someone needs to dare to be unrealistic. 

Now read it again.

Okay, let me tell you a little story and connect it to your career, your life, your kids and our future.

Let's go!

A few days before heading to Japan, 9 amazing humans from Cohort #1 of our Career Ownership program graduated and are now building and evolving their portfolio careers.

In a few weeks (April 30th at 11AM AEST) I am going to be running another 1-hour FREE SESSION about career and life ownership (sign up here!), and in June we will run Cohort #2 of the full program.

Doing that program confirmed for me why I like helping people with their careers.

Most of you have heard me say that I run a parallel education system at home to protect my kids from the dangerous flaws of school.

Remember, the damage school unintentionally causes in the development of our kids is invisible in the short term but profound in the long run. 

When I stand in front of audiences or groups of humans like Cohort #1 to help them own their careers or think outside of the box or be more adaptable, I see the tangible impact, the conditioning, the blunt chisel the school system used to shape their lives.

A few years ago when my oldest boy arrived home from school, I followed my usual process of unlearning and relearning everything they hear so I started asking questions….

He explained how they had to google the income of various professions they were interested in and add it to a cell, deduct expenses like rent, food, transport etc and savings would appear at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Me: Cool! So what did you google?

Neylan: I googled NFL player (he was into American football then) and put $20m income… decided not to rent and bought the house, Dad.

Me: Ha! Good boy! Makes sense, you may as well buy it. What did the teacher say?

Neylan: She came and asked me for something else I like doing, so I told her that I like cooking, so she asked me to google “chef income” and put that on the cell.

My son now has figured that if he owns three restaurants across Australia he would make about $5m a year, so he adds that to the cell and adjusts expenses and figures his savings.

Me: So what happened next?

Neylan: The teacher came over and told me I didn’t understand the exercise, that I wasn’t being REALISTIC, so she forced me to put $60,000 income and do the exercise again.

At this point my face changes from enquiry to frustration, disappointment, despair.

I had just captured the very moment in which, perhaps without malicious intent, the school system conditioned a room full of kids and set their lives in a certain trajectory.

Probably most of the other parents didn’t catch it, and the kids themselves didn’t even realise it happened to them but subconsciously their dreams had just been shaped.

I stopped, grabbed my other two kids and told them:

“Neylan, kids, do not listen to anyone who tells you to be realistic. We need you to be as unrealistic as you possibly can.
Don’t ever let anyone’s realistic expectations destroy your unrealistic dreams!
Someone needs to be unrealistic enough for new realities to exist. We won’t fix the climate by being realistic. Someone was unrealistic enough to say women should vote, to fix polio, to stop a war.
Stay unrealistic, always”

So I made them little t-shirts with “Unrealistic” written on the front and sent them back to school with their middle fingers up in the air!
Fu** the system, be unrealistic! Hahaha.

Since then my kids have been immunised against anyone telling them to be realistic. 

Anyway, how does this connect with your career?

Your career being: the task that takes up the majority of the most precious resource you have….time!

As I mentioned above, one of the many things we confirmed in our first career program is that there is an underlying conditioning we all share that starts at school and is then reinforced by business.

I like to help people rebuild self-belief and rekindle the exploration of what seems incredibly unrealistic at this point in time but will inevitably become business as usual at some stage if you drive it. 

There are enough processes, systems, KPIs in place to keep you realistic but not enough to encourage you to be unrealistic.

You must build more novelty and unrealism into your life.

I know this may sound reckless but I am trying to turn your rebellious thoughts, the ones we all have, into a thoughtful rebellion. 

Into a career portfolio that points in the direction you want to go not in the direction you’ve been conditioned to go.

This week your challenge is to think:
Did I let someone’s realistic expectations kill my unrealistic dreams?
Is there a system around me, that maybe I contributed to build, stopping me from being more unrealistic, from exploring new potential realities?

Come join me on the 30th of April to talk about this and more, that relates to your career or your kids future! 
SIGN UP HERE.

Love

Gus 

My recommendations:

Already mentioned it twice, but here it goes again:
We’re launching our 2nd Career Ownership Workshop group, so we’re doing a FREE SESSION to talk about career, life, family, and how to regain ownership of our unrealistic (and also realistic) future.

Come join me for FREE on the 30th of April at 11 AM AEST

SIGN UP HERE!

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