Ambition Unlimited: The Story of Deng Adut

In the last two consecutive weeks, we hosted The Life Course with young people, students and recent graduates in Liverpool. We had over 40 in attendance each week. It was an awesome experience.

The Life Course is an initiative aimed at inspiring people to reflect on their purpose and actively commit to not wasting their lives.

A series of open, intense and collaborative discourse, at The Life Course we challenge the audience to think deeply about their lives and commit to living out their God-intended purpose. In essence, it’s about becoming the change you want to see.

What’s your game plan for life?

In the first week, we explored four fundamental pillars for living a truly fulfilled life. We asked the audience a simple but soul-searching question:

What does success mean to you? What does success look like? What’s your personal game plan to achieve true success? Why do a few people succeed where many others fail? What’s your game plan to win in life?

Unsurprisingly, not many in the audience had a genuine game plan for their lives. Everyone wanted to be successful and make lots of money. But the longer the discourse went on, the more it became apparent that our means and measures of success are flawed.

For many, the means of success is always defined about what we do outwardly: work hard, know the right people, learn to say the right things and have an excellent IQ. For some, the measure of success is by how much we have and acquire.

Make no mistake, networking, excellent communication skills and hard work are crucial to achieving some level of personal success. But it takes more to sustain true success.

The success that leaves a strong legacy and brings true fulfilment must be built from inside out, not the opposite. It’s from that perspective we’ve developed the 4+1 Winning Formula for a Truly Fulfilling Life. I will explore this concept in the coming weeks.

Ambition Unlimited: The story of Deng Adut

During The Life Course, we explored the true life story of Deng Adut, a former Sudanese child soldier and refugee. Deng’s video has been viewed over 2million times on YouTube and you can see why; it’s simply inspirational.

Deng had everything against him:

• Illiterate.
• Kidnapped from his family at age 6.
• Forced to become a child soldier.
• Shot at in the back at age 12.
• Narrowly escaped Sudan under a UN-led operation and became a refugee in Australia.

From every angle, Deng had no chance of success. The odds were completely against him. If anyone should earn the right to give up, he’d top the list. But he didn’t!

What’s your excuse?

As a refugee, rather than be content with his new freedom and take life as it comes, Deng chose a different path to what many would have done:

• He taught himself to read at age 15.
• He lived in a car while studying law.

Today, Deng is an accomplished Defence Lawyer helping other Sudanese refugees receive legal advice before entering the court system in Australia.

What’s your excuse?

Image courtesy of Google Images