#016 - KEYNOTE: Clarity, Resilience and Doing What You Love

A keynote I did at the Popup Business School in Westminster.

In November of 2018, I was invited to speak to 100 students at the PopUp Business School in Westminster, London.

The founders of Popup created it as a response to traditional startup advice, because they felt that stuff was completely inaccessible to some of the people they wanted to inspire...

- Unemployed people - People doing jobs they hated - People who were trapped in the benefit system - People who were struggling with addiction, mental health and other issues

Basically, people who were traditionally excluded from the kind of support that helps when you're starting up. Not only that, but they’re people who often don’t get to experience the kind of work I do.

They run their programmes in partnership with Housing Associations and Local Authorities, to help their constituents get a handle on their financial situations by creating their own income streams.

Popup help people start their own business, fast!

I was talking with one of the founders, Simon Paine, (Simon was personally impacted after reading my books and listening to this podcast, and we’ve ended up becoming friends), so we were having lunch and I asked him this question:

"What's the number one thing that stops people taking action and creating the business they want to?"

He thought about it, then he said "It's the psychological stuff"; confidence, motivation, resilience.

- Believing they were broken - that past experiences had damaged them

- Thinking that they couldn't change - that their lives couldn't transform

- Feeling like they lacked the qualities they would need to deal with the ups and downs of doing their own thing

When he asked if I could do a talk to help his students with that stuff, I instantly said "YES".

You see, my team and I believe the most valuable thing a person can discover is how their mind works and who they really are.

We want to share this far and wide and reach people in every walk of life.

We want to inspire and educate a generation about what they've got going for them, so this means reaching the kinds of people who would rarely get the chance to hear about this sort of thing, in fact one of the audiences we want to be reaching is the very people that popup business school are working with.

As you can imagine, I was really excited to see how the simple message of the principles behind clarity landed with the Popup audience.

It was a big experiment for me AND for Popup.

So in this recording, you’re going to hear what happened when I shared this understanding with a group of people who were hearing about it for the first time. Enjoy!