Remarkable Learning Stories: Meet Zaki transcript

Voiceover: We don't have to be what we’re always expected to. You always got to dream big... that's the key to everything.

Zaki: As a kid, I didn't hit the heights that were expected of me at school.

I had zero desire to do any homework, to do anything, really, because I thought something more has to be out there.

But at that age, it’s almost like a conveyor belt was expected of us, where we go to school, go to university, get a steady job, and just continue on.

That never appealed to me.

I was pushed very, very far away from academia, and I was not expected to achieve anything.

When everyone tells you one thing, you're bound to start thinking, actually, maybe they’re right.

Avatar: Hi. Do you know who I am? Do you recognise me?

Zaki: I do recognise you.

Avatar: Pretty crazy, right? I'm you at 15. Could I ask you some questions?

Zaki: Yeah, fire away.

Avatar: I'm struggling in the classroom. Am I just not cut out for school? Is there something wrong with me?

Zaki: There's nothing wrong with you. Life takes different routes, right?

Avatar: Like, I remember, we tried a lot to fit into that box, but the classroom wasn't always the best way for us.

People keep telling me that I’m never going to amount to much.

Honestly, part of me just wants to give them exactly what they expect and act up even more.

Zaki: It's easy to feed into it a bit, right?

But you’ll use that energy to turn it into something brilliant, and that's where we are right now.

That same fun, the same things that people called you troublemaker for, that's what got us into the career that we’re in today.

Avatar: How do I block out all that doubt?

Zaki: You keep going, you keep doing different things, and we go through all sorts of jobs before we get here.

We end up doing an apprenticeship at Pearson, and everything that didn't make sense about learning, it starts to make sense.

Your apprenticeship’s about what your job is.

So the moment you learn something, tomorrow, you're using it.

We're hands on. We want to be able to learn about things that matter to us.

And if it's something you're doing every day, it matters.

Avatar: Wow, looking at you now and hearing where we end up, we do prove them all wrong, right?

Zaki: Yeah we do.

We prove everyone wrong in ways that we couldn't have imagined.

And everyone is looking at us as we're the ones who made it.

Avatar: Would you write something down for me? A letter, something I can reread when that doubt starts to come up?

The following is a letter written by Zaki:

Zaki, you’re just at the start of life right now.

What you think you know is so, so far from where life will take you.

Your best bet is to take every chance and opportunity as it comes.

It's one of the opportunities we took that changed everything.

We travelled and we lived and we grew with every experience.

Now you have a successful career and a life we couldn't be happier with.

It does get tough at times.

There's plenty to contend with.

The biggest difference, though, the world's on our side now.

Avatar: You have no idea how good it feels to hear that.

But, one more question. Do the boys ever win the league?

Zaki: They do. They absolutely do. It was a beautiful day. It's one of the best times of our life.

Avatar: Really? That is so exciting.

So, are we happy?

Zaki: Of course. Of course.

Like, we're happy in ways that we didn't realise we could be before.

Avatar: You have no idea how good it feels to hear that. Seeing where we end up,

I'm not scared of the future anymore.

Zaki: Our plan was always to go on a different path.

And that's exactly what we did.