5 ways to kill your dreams

I dedicated the past years
to understanding

how people achieve their dreams.

One would think about the
dreams we have,

and the dent we want to leave
leave in the universe.

It is striking to see how big of
an overlap that is

between the dreams that we have and
projects that never happen.

So I'm here to talk to you today about
five ways How Not to Follow Your Dreams

One: believe in overnight success.

You know the story, right?

The tech guy built a mobile app and
sold it very fast for a lot of money.

You know, the story may seem real,

but I bet it's incomplete.

If you go investigate further,

the guy has built 30 apps before

and he has done a masters
on the topic, a Phd.

He has been working on the topic
for like 20 years.

This is really interesting,

I myself have a story in Brazil
that people think is an overnight success.

I come from a humble family,

and two weeks before the deadline
to apply for MIT,

I started the application process.

I got in.

People may think it's an overnight success ,

but that only worked because for
the 17 years prior to that,

I took life and education seriously.

Your overnight success story
is always a result

of everything you've done in your
life through that moment.

Two: believe someone else has
the answers for you.

Coincidentally, people want to
help out, right?

All sorts of people, your family,
your friends, your business partners,

they all have opinions on
which path you should take.

"And let me tell you, go through
this pipe."

But wherever you go inside,
there are other ways

you have to pick as well.

And you need to make those
decisions yourself.

No one else has the perfect
answers for your life.

And you need to keep picking
those decisions, right?

The pipes are infinite and you're
going to bump your head,

it's a part of the process.

Three, and it's very subtle
yet very important:

decide to settle when
growth is guaranteed.

So when your life is going great,

you have put together a great team,

and you have growing revenue,
everything is set.

Time to settle.

When I launched my first book,

I worked really, really hard to
distribute it everywhere in Brazil.

With that, over 3 million
people downloaded,

over 50,000 people bought
physical copies.

When I wrote a sequel, some
impact was guaranteed.

Even if I did little, sales would be okay.

But okay is never okay.

When you're growing towards a peak,

you need to work harder than ever
and find yourself another peak.

Maybe if I did little, a couple hundred
thousand people would read it,

and that's great already.

But if I work harder than ever,

I can bring this number up to millions.

That's why I decided, with my new book,
to go to every single state of Brazil.

And I can already see a higher peak.

There's no time to settle down.

Fourth tip, and that's really important:

believe the fault is someone else's.

I constantly see people saying,

"Yes, I had this great idea,

but no investor had the vision to invest.

Oh, I created this great product,

but, you know, the market is so bad,
the sales didn't go well."

Or, "I can't find good talent, my team
is so below expectations."

If you have dreams, it's your
responsibility to make them happen.

Yes, it may be hard to find talent.

Yes, the market may be bad.

But if no one invested in your idea,

if no one bought your product,

for sure there is something there
that is your fault.

(Laughter)

Definitely.

You need to get your dreams
and make them happen.

And no one achieved their goals alone.

But if you didn't make them happen,
it's your fault and no one else's.

Be responsible for your dreams.

And one last tip, and this one is
really important as well:

believe that the only things that matter
are the dreams themselves.

Once I saw an ad, and it was
a lot of friends,

they were going up a mountain,
it was a very high mountain,

it was a lot of work,

you could see that they were sweating
and this was tough

and they were going up,

and they finally made it to the peak.

Of course, they decided to celebrate,

I'm going to celebrate, so,

"Yes! We made it, we're at the top!"

Two seconds later, one looks
at the other and says,

"Okay, let's go down."

(Laughter)

Life is never about the goals themselves.

Life is about the journey.

Yes, you should enjoy the goals themselves,

but people think that you when
you have dreams,

and whenever you get to reaching
one of those dreams,

it's a magical place where happiness
will be all around.

But achieving a dream is a
momentary sensation,

and your life is not.

The only way to really achieve
all of your dreams

is to fully enjoy every step
of your journey.

That's the best way.

And your journey is simple

--it's made of steps.

Some steps will be right on,

sometimes you will trip.

If it's right on, celebrate, because
some people wait a lot to celebrate.

And if you tripped, turn that
into something to learn.

If every step becomes something
to learn or something to celebrate,

you will for sure enjoy the journey.

So, five tips:

Believe in overnight success,

believe someone else has
the answers for you,

believe that when growth is
guaranteed, you should settle down,

believe the fault is someone else's,

and believe that only the goals
themselves matter.

Believe me, if you do that,
you will destroy your dreams.

(Laughter)

Thank you.

(Applause)