Tim Minchin. Smart guy.
His UWA speech has been doing the rounds, so I thought I’d add my 3 big points that stood out for me the most:
1. Be pro-stuff, not just anti-stuff.
Tim: “Define yourself by what you love. We have a tendency to define ourselves in opposition to stuff. Try to express your passion for things you love.”
I love this. Everyone has that mate who’s thing is to hate something. Meat, religion, raisins, whatever. The concept of being that guy for being passionate for something appeals way more to me than the opposite. I must admit, I’m very outwardly in opposition of raisins, bad grammar and social media overshare, however, I’d love to work toward more people knowing me for being passionate about something. That’s a pretty awesome place to be.
2. Respect. Everyone.
Tim: “I don’t care if you’re the most powerful cat in the room, I will judge you on how you treat the least powerful.”
So often I have to use the line “we’re all adults here” to get people I meet with to understand that, even though they may be in a lower order of the food chain, everyone eats, sleeps and shits, just like everybody else. When you’re standing in a line-up, no-one cares where you’re from or how much money you make, they care about what you did. Do amazing things, and make sure that when others do amazing things, wherever they sit on that big fat corporate ladder, they get praised accordingly.
3. Never stop learning.
Tim: “Life is best filled by learning as much as you can about as much as you can.”
I’m a big advocate of knowing lots about lots. I was luckily always an inquisitive kid, and would watch my dad fix lawnmowers, toasters, whatever one of his 4 children broke. He was a DIY legend. His philosophy, as I understood it, was “A man without a drill and full toolkit was a man who was probably on his way to buy a drill and full toolkit.” Men fixed things. And so do it, thanks to my dad. One thing he taught me was to never give up, and figure it out. I try my best to do that not only in all the DIY around my house, but in other things too. The sense of accomplishment is phenomenal, and something I will with no doubt in my mind share with my kids one day.
Tim Minchin. Smart guy. 🙂
If you haven’t seen the video, check it out below.