MERCURY SERIES - Making A Difference
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A lot has been written about Sebastian Terry since he started working his way through a 100-item bucket list after leaving university and feeling lost and unhappy.
He has now done 61 of the things he would like to do before he dies.
They have included growing a beard, walking on a red carpet, living like a homeless person for a week, walking across France with a shopping trolley, delivering a baby, taking part in a boxing match, visiting an inmate on death row and setting a world record for crushing the most number of eggs with his big toes in 30 seconds.
But along the way, his journey has changed him and this week he impressed everyone at an Illawarra Connection black-tie National Youth Week dinner in Wollongong.
Mr Terry started his presentation by kicking off his thongs and speaking in bare feet.
He spoke about what had happened to him since he initially set out backpacking through Europe and North America.
The first image he put up was of him nude skydiving in France.
But an hour later, he left everyone in the room feeling they had heard one of the most interesting speakers in two decades.
He spoke of how, as a 24-year-old drifter, his life began to change when he received a phone call in Canada saying one of his close schoolmates had died.
He questioned his life and wondered what the point of it all was.
Mr Terry wondered, if his mate knew he was to die at 24, would he have changed anything?
"I then turned that question on myself," he said.
"If I was to die today, would I be happy? I was travelling but there was nothing to it. There was no purpose and no meaning. It struck me that I was not happy and I thought, if I had another chance what would I do?
Mr Terry said when he started his 100 things, some people thought he was self-indulgent.
But continually pushing himself outside his comfort zone had given him the strength to do more to help others.
And that, in turn, gave him more fulfilment and purpose in life.
Mr Terry is well on the way to achieving his 100 things but the focus has changed.
He is still raising money for Camp Quality but a global community of followers online are now helping him to help others.
It is the people he has met on the way and the impact he has made on them that has changed him.
And that has encouraged him to get more people to share the things on their wish list on his website, such as a quadriplegic man, named Mark, who asked him to shave his head and then asked Mr Terry to help him complete a half marathon.
"That changed my journey entirely ... and it was because of that simple act of helping someone else," he said.
"Now my own journey has become a catalyst for others to think about the things they want to do."
Then Mr Terry was contacted by someone who had a friend with a 15-year-old daughter, named Bridget, who suffered from an undiagnosed digestive disorder that meant she was on a drip 21 hours a day but whose goal in life was to meet Taylor Swift.
He encouraged people following his journey online to all write the same thing in a 25-word-or-less competition to meet the US singer.
When he heard how a lady in Western Australia had won the competition and was donating the prize, he burst into tears.
He then managed to get her on a flight to Perth with a drip.
"After the concert, I got to see the best thing I have seen on my journey when Bridget got to meet Taylor Swift," he said.
"That is what 100 Ideas is all about. I think we have all got that ability. I'm not special. Please take the time to consider what is important to you as an individual. Because that has the potential to affect other people in the most amazing way."