- [Narrator] I realized in that moment
that the answer to the question
of who is living the right way.
And the answer is.
(water splashing)
Today I'm going to share with you a personal story
that changed the way I viewed the world.
(gentle music)
I was born in a city called Vancouver,
located in British Columbia, Canada.
I was raised in an environment where hard work
and results were really valued.
And it was expected that I worked hard in school,
I went to university, and I got a stable job.
My friends, family, and the peers around me
all thought that this was the correct way to live life
and that everybody else was wrong.
During a semester in university,
I went to school in Lisbon, Portugal.
I loved this so much that I decided
that I wanted to have more experiences like this.
I wanted to live in different countries around the world,
but also make a stable income.
So after university I spent six months
researching how to make money online.
And this was at a time where the whole
make money online trend was not nearly
as popular as it is now.
So there was a lot less resources.
So after I talked to about 20 or 30 people,
working endless hours, I had achieved my goal
of making money online and also building
a useful business skillset.
Despite this adventure side in me,
the core of me was still pretty much the same as before.
I still valued goals, ambition, and achievement.
When I was able to make money online,
I decided to pack my bags and move to Melbourne, Australia.
I read that Vancouver, Melbourne, and Vienna
were the top three most livable cities in the entire world.
So to me, it made logical sense
to live in all three of them.
I'd been living in Vancouver
for about six months up until this point.
Australia is truly an amazing place,
and I highly recommend any of you
to go there if you get the chance.
But the highlight of the trip for me
was when I got to spend some time
in a little beach town called Byron Bay,
located right by the Gold Coast of Australia.
It's a small town filled with surfers and friendly people.
I had the opportunity to stay at many different Airbnbs,
where I had the chance to really get to know the locals.
As I was getting to know them, it became obvious
that they had a completely different outlook
on how to live life compared to the people back in my home.
But more importantly, they had
a totally different value system.
They did not value results,
hard work, money, or achievement.
They did value friends, family, and enjoying the moment.
The really interesting concept for me
was the fact that they believed in their hearts
that the way they were living life was the correct way,
and they believed their value system was the correct one
and that everyone else around the world
was living the wrong way, exactly like how my community
back in Vancouver thought that their way was the right way.
So near the end of the trip I was walking along the beach,
asking myself the million dollar question, who is right?
Should I live my life for results and performance?
Or should I live my life for family and relaxation?
As I am thinking this, I see a man playing guitar
in front of about 10 to 20 locals.
It looked like the people there didn't have much money
and they probably were a lot less educated than me.
And I'm not proud to admit this,
but I kind of felt this feeling of superiority
when I first saw them, because I was raised to think
that money, career, achievement was the correct way to live.
And up until this point I had achieved those things.
So as I'm thinking this, I notice how happy they were
and how much they were laughing,
how much they were enjoying themselves.
I saw couples holding hands with each other,
friends singing along together.
It was honestly one of the happiest
groups of people that I had seen in a long time.
But as I saw this, I also remembered a Snapchat
that I had received earlier in the week
from an old friend of mine who had always been
very career and money driven.
It was a video of him walking out of his corporate job
in a nice suit laughing and smiling with the caption,
officially passed my CFA Level II exam,
which is an incredibly hard financial exam
that usually takes six to eight months to study for.
And over half the people
who take this exam actually fail it.
There's no question in my mind that my career driven friend
was truly happy in that moment after completing his exam.
And there is no question that these laid-back people
listening to the guitar were also truly happy.
But these two parties represented two
completely opposite ends of the spectrum.
They both believed in their hearts that the way
they were living was right, and that the way
they were living is the only road to true happiness.
I realized in that moment that the answer
to the question of who is living the right way,
and the answer is, is that there is no answer.
It depends on you.
It depends on what you value in your life
and what experiences you want to get out of life.
If you are someone who values family, relaxation,
and no stress, then the people in Byron Bay are right.
If you are someone who values results,
hard work, getting things done,
then my community in Vancouver would be right.
There is no point of judging other people
and trying to project your own
belief system onto other people.
It all comes down to what makes you happy.
So if you are watching this and you are in an environment
where you don't think you belong,
you should take yourself out of that environment
and put yourself in the correct environment
where the people there have the same values as you do.
As always, it all comes down to self-awareness.
You need to figure out who you are.
And when you expose yourself to different people,
to different environments, and you do things
like travel around the world, it puts you
in different and unique situations.
And doing this helps you understand
what kind of person you are.
If you enjoyed this video, please leave it a like and,
of course, subscribe to the channel.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.