It’s bold. It’s inspiring. It shows, you have the power to change stuff…

What is thankyou?

Thankyou is a social enterprise based here in Melbourne which has challenged market leaders, inspired the public and changed thousands of lives through some of the most effective game changing, business strategies!

Thankyou was founded by 5 university students who came up with a concept to sell bottles of water in order to fund water programmes in developing countries. From the beginning their intention was to apply their 100% model. Yes, 100% of their profits go to helping people in communities where there is need.  This means that they are not offering opportunities to shareholders in order to fund their upcoming projects, nor are they asking the public for donations and have to raise the capital themselves… Some may say they are bold, others told them they were mad and many industry experts totally wrote them off as naive teenagers. The critics had only one thing right; they were indeed teenagers, just 19 when they started off.

If like many teenagers, you have ever had a dream of doing something pretty incredible with your life, you may have also have been told by an ‘adult’ that it’s not possible or my favourite response;

“You won’t make any money doing that“.

I say ‘adult’ because they have been the excuse that many people give when they were asked why they didn’t pursue their dreams. Adults have authority and knowledge, and in the thankyou story the team prove that previous knowledge and applying the status quo is not the only path to success.

If you go into something with the sole purpose of ‘making money‘ that may well be what you do but you will be limited in the amount of job satisfaction and internal happiness you experience in the process.  Working with young people day-to-day who are looking at the job market, and choosing their career path – there are too many ‘do not dos’ and we aren’t encouraging our young people to pursue passions and take enough risks (more on this later).

Last week I attended a conference titled; “Mental health and wellbeing of young people in education“. This was easily one of the most informative and enjoyable conferences I have attended in my professional career. The overwhelming messages that came from the 9 presentations across the day were:

1. Young people are experiencing less time in creative and practical subjects because of increased pressures on schools to improve on exam and league table results.

2. At a time when human touch, emotion and communication is being challenged with too much technology in day-to-day lives, young people need good role models.

3. If we do not prioritise happiness as the most important pursuit in life we will be dealing with dependant, mentally unstable adults who do not have resilience and self-confidence to try, fail, pick themselves up try again and work out (for themselves) who they are and what they want to do with their lives.

How can we learn from what the guys and girls at thankyou have done? You can start by watching their Coles and Woolworth’s campaign video to see how they apply creativity and imagination to raise brand awareness. Granted they have used technology to achieve many of their outcomes but in the process they are making people the centre of all that they do. They exist to positively improve the lives of others’ can you imagine walking out the your office knowing that was your day job!

Now if you are thinking, I bet that they got an early lucky break, try asking them how many emails they sent and received in their third year leading up to their first big retail deal… 25,000! They failed more times than you can count and they picked themselves up every single time until they succeeded. The team did not stop and rest when they had their first breakthrough with their bottled water idea. As you can see on the video they have gone on to launch food and body care ranges.

On a personal level we are so incredibly inspired by this story and last week were lucky enough to meet 2 of the co-founders Daniel and Justine at their baby care launch event. Chris has met them before and has been incredibly drawn to their business philosophy and priorities both on personal and professional level. After watching the thankyou journey we know that we are part of the many people who want to make a difference.

There is a lot of work behind making a dream become reality and this is a message that young people need to hear especially when they live in a world where disappointment and despair surrounds them in the news. I actually limit myself to the amount of ‘news’ I view on a weekly basis otherwise you find yourself being pulled down by the over saturated news feeds that constantly update us about the worlds disasters.

As a very wise friend (who does not waste his words) told me;

“This is actually the quietest time in human civilisation but we believe it not to be because we are constantly updated on our phones and TVs.”

This point was reinforced when I turned on my phone to a ‘live news broadcast’ during the Grenfell tower tragedy, thought to myself this is sickening as the cameras are pointing towards this burning building people are dying inside! News has been turned into entertainment at the expense of those most in need and I was not willing to add myself to the millions of viewers feeding this market! (rant over)

I have recently thought to myself why do we feel the need to be inspired by people who have defied death, been abused or beaten a deadly disease? Maybe because it resonates with us that these people must be superhuman – there must have been something special about them that helped them to succeed. Now, not for one minute am I writing off the incredible feats of people who have overcome adversity or beaten illness, we all know and are proud of these people in our lives!

What I am saying though is that we need everyday, healthy and informed role models to inspire us to pursue our passions and follow through on our dreams so we don’t look back on life thinking; I wish I had…(insert unfulfilled dream).

The co-founders at thankyou could have followed their classmates and completed their degrees thinking that they will give their dream a shot later in life.

Go to uni. Graduate uni. Get a job. Again I am not here to offend, downgrade or say that this is not admirable – it truly is, and it takes hard work and drive to achieve the above. I am appealing to those out these who do not need a university degree in their career or those that have a dream they want to pursue. We need inspiration from relatively ordinary people who aim to achieve something extra-ordinary using the same hard work and determination seen from those who complete a degree.

More and more young people are seeing the benefits of completing internship, bridging programmes, apprenticeship or industry related training, which offers them skills they need for work that an academic degree cannot. There was no better training for the thankyou team than being chucked in at the deep end of the bottled water market and pitching to companies with their idea. They were told what wouldn’t work and what they needed to improve on which was better than any seminar they could have attended. No degree could have prepared them for how to run their business, not only because of the practical experience they gained but because they had not been conditioned to think inside the box of ‘how it has always been done’, they had no limits which worked in their favour.

The team challenged hundreds of industry experts at their own game much like the other household names; Albert Einstein, Sue Campbell, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson did at the beginning of their careers. What do all of these people have in common, apart from unlimited determination to succeed? They all made use of creativity, imagination and humility. None of these soft skills can be tested on paper or quantified – they can however, be felt. Think about how you feel in the presence of your favourite people, how good it feels to be respected or have your ideas listened to and taken seriously. These soft/ interpersonal and cognitive skills, I believe, can be nourished and built. If we kill them off in school we are teaching our young people that academic and propositional knowledge is the only measure of success. Many of our parents, friends and family members have achieved great things without academic skills and are successful because of their attributes and attitudes.

You will be reading this and thinking, what about you and me and other people my age who have degrees in the bag? Yes, there are many occupations out there (teaching included) which requires regulation and education for safety and consistency of standards, which is provided by universities for good reason. I also know that passionate teachers can have a profound influence on your life and if you have had the pleasure of being taught by Dr William Kay at Stirling University you will agree that he is one of those educators who pushed us in the pursuit of excellence both professionally and personally. I can categorically confirm that my experience and drive to follow my passion has had the biggest influence on my career and has led to every extra opportunity I have ceased and squeezed.

There are teachers all around us in life, we just need to look for the lessons other people can teach us from their experiences – good or bad. Chapter One is the name of the first book released by Daniel Flynn from thankyou and it shows that they are not just a social enterprise, they are a beacon of light to the individuals who know that there is more unused fuel in the tank. They prove that with enough passion, people and support you can achieve anything you set your mind to, as they aimed to educate the public and fund the future. As my parents always told me when I came home with ideas for my future;

“No matter what you pick, it must make you happy – do whatever makes you happy and you will never work a day of your life.”

There are days in teaching when it is hard work and there are other days when I think I cannot believe that I get paid to do this! The main thing is that I am doing something I love and have passion for.

That is the feeling that you should get working at your dream instead of clock watching and counting down to Friday, then 2 days later feeling the Sunday night dread slowly creep in. There will of course be people out there who say;

Well to them I say, just as Daniel did to his critics;

Thankyou.