I used to get anxious about the future.  Whether I could get a good job, where I would live, if I would have enough money to survive.

But then I realised that I was spending too much time focusing on the far-away future, 10-years from now - something that I had no idea in the slightest about.

I was living into a future being scared and fearful.  When instead, I should have been living in the present and making the most of every moment now.

And that's when I started doing, rather than dreaming.

A lot of successful entrepreneurs dropped out of school (Richard Branson) or university (Bill Gates).  But Ogilvy, who went on to become a famous ad man, at 38, had "no credentials, no clients, and $6000 in the bank" and a below average IQ of 96.

I watched a documentary on Ogilvy a few years ago, and when it got to the bit about his IQ score, it said that Ogilvy had tested his IQ at the end of his career, after he'd retired.  He was expecting to be a genius, but his results showed him to be below average.  He was disappointed for a few days.  But then he realised that he'd actually done quite well for himself to have done so well with such a low IQ.

So you don't think you're as smart as everyone else, you've scored low on an IQ test, you're broke, you don't have a job, and you don't have a great education.  So what?  Other people have been in that position before and created amazing things for the world.  And you can do so too.

I used to think that someone with my character, with my determination, my ambition and my IQ would mean that I would be successful in life because people would realise that those things were special about me and give me opportunities in life.

That's not how the world works though.

Everyone has characteristics that could make them successful in life and that could make them special.

The ones that get the opportunities though, are the ones that seek them out.

When I became the Young Australian of the Year, I was so excited.  I had a glamorous ideal that my life would change completely!  It changed a lot – I gave heaps of speeches all around the country, and did heaps of media engagements.  But in many ways, it also stayed the same.  I always had it in my head that the people who won awards like this had meetings all the time with big CEOs in high-rise buildings.  That they lived glamorous and fancy lives.  That they had everything sorted.

But I kept living in my $500 a month share house.  I occasionally met big CEOs, but I didn’t spend all my time doing that - and I'd done that even before I was given the award.  I still would walk out my house to the tram stop, with my hair wet, in my shirt and jeans, to take the tram to uni, trying desperately not to be noticed (wet hair isn't the best look).  I still had to stay up late working on my final year project, cook my own dinners, and not to mention, contend with the day-to-day mundane of running my organisation.  I’ve been at events with the Prime Minister five times in the past year, including the exclusive Mid-Winter Ball at Parliament House in Canberra, but even then I stayed at a friend’s place in Canberra in her spare room.

People often compare other people’s highlight reel to their own backstage, but the reality is very different.

At the time I won, I had a big issue I was grappling with, which was that I didn’t know how to structure my organization when I handed it over to a successor at the end of 2012.  I thought that with the award, people would just give me the answer to my big issue, and everything was going to be easy!  I arranged to meet up with a CEO of another organization who said they would mentor me and give me advice about structuring my organization.  I thought I had struck gold!  She was going to give me the answers!

After meeting with her, I realized that that’s not how things work.  Even if you're Young Australian of the Year, doesn't mean that all your problems are solved, doesn't mean that someone will hand you all your solutions on a silver platter.  Having a title like Young Australian of the Year is like another badge of credibility which gives you a greater platform to share your message, and to make things happen.  You still have to be the one that goes out there to take the opportunity.  The world doesn’t owe you anything.

But by leveraging my new public profile, Robogals was able to increase its impact fivefold in Australia from reaching 563 girls in 2011 to 2,922 girls in 2012.

I learnt that even if you have all the opportunities in the world, you still need to be the one that seizes them to achieve your goals.

Outward success is not very glamourous but it does give you the opportunity to have a much bigger impact.  Stop comparing other people's success reel to your backstage, because it's not that glamourous underneath for them either.

People don't think about you.  They're too busy worrying about how you think about them.