Are You Crazy Enough to Change the World?

People ask me all the time what I do.

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with my father in 1982. I told him I had decided to become an author. He responded, “You can’t do that. That’s not a job.” At the time, I wasn’t confident enough to say, “But bookstores are full of books written by people we call authors. That really looks like a job.”

For better or worse, I accepted his advice and went on to become a successful finance guy, running my own SEC- and FINRA-registered investment bank and later becoming the CFO of a global food and beverage company that became the third largest company on the 2009 Inc. 500 list.

When I got fired from that job, I launched my new career as an author, a journalist and a speaker. I call myself a champion of social good. I write and speak about people who are changing the world for good.

BATH, UK – OCTOBER 06, 2011: Close-up of an Apple iMac computer displaying the www.apple.com front page tribute to former chief executive Steve Jobs, who died on 5th October 2011 aged 56

I’ve learned one thing. Steve Jobs was right. He famously shared the following in an advertisement:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

On my show, I’ve spoken to more than 800 people who are changing the world. Most of them are not changing the world in the way Steve Jobs did. With apologies to him, they are changing the world in more meaningful ways. Ending climate change. Eliminating extreme poverty. Eradicating disease. And they all have one thing in common. They are crazy enough to believe that what they do matters. They believe that the world will bend to their will. They believe they can change the world. And they have.

How crazy are you?

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