Don't Listen to Your Parents if You Want to Be Successful
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Summary
In this episode, Dan talks about the biggest decision he ever made in his life and how it changed the course of his life. As a 20-year-old, he quit his job and left his hometown of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada.
Transcript
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If you're the type of person that does a little bit of adventure, like you decide to go travel
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some country by yourself, you'll notice that it just allows you to see the world in a different
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light. Hey everybody, Dan here. Today I want to talk about the biggest decision I ever made in
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my life. The one thing that I did at a young age that I think had the biggest impact long-term,
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one of those exponential decisions, and that is my decision to move out west as a 20-year-old.
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And I'll share with you the funny story because I was living in my hometown of Moncton, New
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Brunswick, Canada, a small town on the east coast of New Brunswick up in Canada. And there was always
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this desire to do more, to see more. And I just never felt like I was going to accomplish this
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living in that town, even though like I've now come to realize there's multi-billion dollar
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companies that have been built out of my little province in Canada. For whatever reason,
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I always had a desire to move. And I ended up working at this one company. The only job I've
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ever had, True Job, J-O-B, was working for this company, which at the time they were considered
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the best company to work for. They're called OAO Technologies. And I was making $60,000 a year as a
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20-year-old, which was a ton of money back then. I'm not that old, but it was a lot of money. It
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was my first job. And literally, my dad thought like, wow, my son went from getting in trouble
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with the law, drug addict, rehab, to teaching himself to code, getting a job, making 60 grand
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a year and working at one of the top companies in town. And after nine months, I remember I decided
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I got to get going. I got to move. And I quit my job. And I called my dad and I said, hey, dad,
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I just got to let you know that I quit my job. And the phone just went silent.
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And he just says, it's probably the worst decision you've ever made. Now, you got to remember,
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like i came from getting in trouble going to jail all these things and i'm thinking really dad like
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this is the thing out of all the stuff i've ever done growing up you're telling me you know lighting
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off fireworks inside of the house all that you're saying this is the worst decision i ever made i
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was like okay dad's just upset i'm still going i'm gonna make the move and it was scary because like
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i really wanted my family support i really wanted people to support me and and even in spite of all
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that quitting my job almost getting fired the next day that's for another day um i decided to pack up
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my 1987 volkswagen jetta with all my belongings literally i i didn't have a whole lot so i packed
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up my car and i left and what happened for me is there was a bunch of opportunities okay i was
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moving out west i didn't even know what city i was going to land in but i had a bunch of different
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job offers some in calgary some in vancouver but i just wanted to go to the big city i wanted to
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move i wanted to be in the mountains and along the way you know i left new brunswick september 7 2001
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and along the way september 11th happened and all of a sudden all the opportunities i'd ever had
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just dried up and when i look back at that journey the struggles i went through i closed my line of
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credit back home so that i was being financially prudent i'd saved you know five thousand dollars
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none of that lasted very long and it was it was tough i literally was running out of money month
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over month over month all the opportunities were gone there was no contract work there
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was no employment opportunities there was nothing and there was one of the biggest blessings that
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came out of the time that followed that that allowed me to capitalize and fund my company
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spheric technologies. None of that would have happened if I didn't go through that process.
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And I want to share with you the lessons that I learned that allowed that time of my life to be
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one of the biggest blessings. The first one is the belief that the world rewards courageous decisions.
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I truly believe that. I look at my life moving out west to all these things that have happened,
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walking away from an earn-out when I was building my company, Flowtown, we exited that company,
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and I eventually still got the earn-out. All these crazy things that I wanted to go build
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this other company, Clarity, all happened because I was willing to make a courageous decision in
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other people's minds. Even the fact when I moved out west, the first job I ended up getting was
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company working as a contractor at Syncrude. Two things from that job that most people don't realize
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is one, they weren't hiring full-time, so I had to become a contractor. So I started my
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first nine, what was it? 987739 Alberta Limited. I forget what the corporate number was, but that
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was the first company incorporation, even though I had Maritime Vacation and MB Host prior to that,
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I never incorporated those businesses, right? I just like started them with my brother. I never,
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you know, but this one 969735 Alberta Limited, right? Started. I don't like that. That made it
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official. I had gotten an accountant. I started a business and I learned enterprise portals. I
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learned plum tree software. I learned the technology, even though I had been taught it
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prior. I got two years of experience working with some incredible people deploying at one of the top
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oil companies in the world. And that experience laid the foundation for the business that became
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Sphere Technologies, you know, three years later. And I would have never learned those things if I
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didn't take that decision to try to find the courage to go against what my dad believed in
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and everybody else and my friends to move out there with no expectations, no understanding
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what my life was going to look like. And it was such an important lesson that's continued to play
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out in my life. The other one is ask for help. I see every day people struggle in their lives,
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and many of them, 95%, forget to ask for help. And I learned a lesson as a 20-year-old when I
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moved out west when i ran out of money and i couldn't afford to pay rent anymore and i needed
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a place to live i would reached out my buddy dan hansen let me sleep on his couch for weeks he let
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me sleep on his couch i felt so embarrassed i had a great job i had money saved up i thought i was
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making all the right financial decisions and here i was at a point where if i didn't have a place to
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sleep you know and it kind of one of those things where you like hey man i'm in town can i stay at
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your place yeah no problem i think he knew like i think he knew it was more than just a thursday
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night place to sleep friday night it's the weekend now let's hang out he never kicked me out on monday
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it turned into a few weeks like i'll never forget how generous he was to allow me the space to try
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to like find opportunities and and that i think that's a big reason why today i've i've always
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opened up my doors for everybody it's just part of who we are as a family it's what i do because
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I always remember like I was that person back in the day and I just needed somebody to give me a
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chance to give me more time to see if any of these crazy ideas would work out and and I just think
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like the idea of asking for help a lot of people are scared too they're worried that the person's
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going to say no they're worried that you know they're going to come off as a as a mooch or
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you're going to come off as somebody that's taking advantage of the situation and what I've discovered
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is that if you're a good person people want to help you I know that's true for me I mean a lot
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of incredible people and i want to go out of my way to help them because i know that in their if
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the roles were reversed they would do the same and those are the kind of people you want to support
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so make sure you ask for help if you're struggling right now you're going through a tough time
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and and you haven't leaned into some of your friends because you don't want to be a burden of
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them or be troublesome i'm telling you you got to ask for help and then the last thing is that
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adventure is rewarded here's what i mean by that it's one of our core values as a family okay
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okay? Our core values, there's five of them, but one of them is adventure. And what I've realized
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is that the more adventure I go on, the more adventure shows up. It's rewarded. It's almost
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like an investment that compounds, right? And if you're the type of person that does a little bit
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of adventure, like you decide to go travel some country by yourself, you'll notice that it just
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allows you to see the world in a different light. And when I think of like moving out West and
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building that knowledge then i went to australia and i spent almost a year by myself in australia
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and then i decided to start a company and that was a crazy adventure and i built that and and
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had an incredible outcome third time it took me three tries to finally be successful in business
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and i exited that company and it transformed my life but then i moved to san francisco and i think
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of like even the idea of like going from canada you know that canada to out west same country
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pretty straightforward you know it sounds like a little thing today but like even moving from
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new brunswick to san francisco i didn't know a soul i didn't have a friend i wasn't going anywhere
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i i luckily had some money but it was it was lonely it was tough it was scary but again a
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venture is rewarded and and i can and like to me when i look again my line this through line of my
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life it continued to the point where like even in the last year deciding to take the family and
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move our whole lives to the other part of the world right and just that decision to go on
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adventure and see all of the incredible things that have come into my life from the businesses
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i've started to the businesses i've invested in to the people i've met literally one of my good
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buddies nico new friend in the last year asked me the other day he said who's who's one of the most
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impactful people you met in the last year because he sees the group of people i've built in this
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this new city in kelowna bc and i thought of it and like he's on that list nico's on that list
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and there's a handful of others betty who who takes care of our house is on that list she's
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an incredible soul and like literally i'm like reflecting back the people that had the biggest
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impact on my life in the last 12 months people i didn't know 12 months prior and to me i just feel
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like they've been part of my life forever but the only reason they showed up in my life is because
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i was called to adventure and adventure is rewarded so anytime you know somebody asked me
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to do something that feels a little kind of like outside of the norm i always have to give myself
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a second kind of glance to my answer and ask like am i being adventurous it's again why it's one of
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our core values as a family so i just want to share those because the philosophy i have around
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making courageous decisions and asking for help and and that adventure is reward is the idea of
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not listening to your parents and that might sound crazy maybe your parent i apologize if
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this comes off the wrong way but the truth is is your love for your child will never give them the
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freedom to make the decision that they probably should make because you don't want to see them
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hurt. You don't want to see them stumble. You don't want to see them make a bad decision.
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But what I believe in is we got to allow our children to take risk in a safe environment.
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And what I've discovered for myself and for my kids is there's so many times where they're
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behaving risky in a safe way that it's easy for me to want to stop it but i know i gotta let them
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do it and if you have one of your kids come to you and and ask you if they should make a decision
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that sounds on the surface kind of crazy for you because you didn't do it but i want you to ask
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yourself like if the roles were reversed would i have wish i've done that in my life is that an
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area of potential regret you know i know my family's from this town but like would wish
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would i have wished that i at least tried or gone to explore more or whatever it is and make sure
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that you give that guidance to your child because the truth is the reason i say don't listen to your
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parents is because your parents don't want to see you hurt so you have to find mentors people have
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done things in life to give you a completely different perspective because if you don't then
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don't be surprised in 25 years if you wake up and you're living the same life your parents lived
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because all the big decisions on where you should live what school you should go to etc were based
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on their filter and they're giving you the advice that got them their outcomes and that's
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that's the big idea not listening to your parents even though i love my dad and i love my mom and
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And my dad is my hero and my mom is my best friend.
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I also realized that one of the biggest moves I ever did in life
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was not listening to them and following the call to adventure.
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It's a big, important part of my life and the story and some big lessons
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I hope it might serve you in making those courageous decisions
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And as per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life