18 | How Dreams Become Reality: Maxime Chaury – Founder of Upworth

How to Bridge Cultures, Build Great Startups & Make Discipline a Craving.

Maxime Chaury has grown startups in more countries than I’ve visited.

He’s the co-founder of Upworth, is in the Forbes 30 under 30, and has both short stories and a play available on Amazon.

He’s also rapped in a mixture of French, Indonesian and English.

Today I kick off a new Q&A newsletter for ex-vicarious – “How Dreams Become Reality”.

It’s only fitting that I do so with a legend.

Q&A

Across your diverse roles, a commonality I noticed was communications and bridging cultures. Where did the passion for this start? 

It started early during my childhood as I had the chance to grow up in a very diverse family, with origins spanning across Western and Eastern Europe (doing DNA test years later I also discovered North African, and even 1.4% Nigerian genes!).

My paternal grandma spoke fluent Polish, Russian, English, French and Italian for instance. I was fascinated by this and eager to guess which language she was speaking when answering the phone. Then when I was around 5 years old, I fell in love with flags and geography – I couldn’t help searching for details about countries around the world.

When I was 9, my family and I welcomed one brother and sister adopted from Ethiopia, which further grew my curiosity and interest for other lands. On top of this, I grew up with a father who was changing jobs and city every few years, so I had the chance to live in very different environments, small cities and large metropolises, and places with different accents, peoples and cultures.

It is really energising for me to meet new people, learn new things, discover new environments – there are so many ways to experience what it means to be human!

What’s helped you thrive every time you’ve moved into a new role, new sector, or new country?

Well, for any skill practice makes perfect. The more you do it the better you become at it. You build the approach, knowledge, and habits that make you ramp up fast. But I would say what makes it possible in the first place is the courage to jump in the unknown (i.e. avoid overthinking) and the natural curiosity/taste for this kind of challenge.

Typically, I think the #1 reason I did pretty well on this is that I have a genuine passion and interest for people, their cultures, languages and religions; as well as a taste for business and growth. It makes the work of learning a pleasure and does not feel like work!

No rocket science as you can see, but very few people do it properly/take it seriously. I am always amazed to see expats or people who have stayed in a country for years without knowing anything about its language, culture or religion. Some people have their mental boxes and categories and stay in their comfort zone without trying to understand others. It is really frustrating for me to see that.

A classic test I like to ask people: if you consider yourself from a given religion (or school of thought), how many times have you read about another religion? How many times did you go to a religious site that is not from yours? You will be surprised by how many people pretend to be human and yet have no idea about what is structuring the life of billions of their contemporaries!

So, whenever you can, go out of your comfort zone, meet new people, learn about others, and suddenly the concept of ‘foreigner’ or ‘stranger’ loses its meaning. We are all one!

What’s the dream you had as a child that has stayed with you to this day?

As a child I wanted to be president of the European Union and a writer.

I have already written quite a lot, whether it is poems, short stories (I have an anthology of short stories, Stories from around the world available in both English and French on Amazon), plays (my short play, The Sound of Peace is on Kindle too in English) or other formats like rap or one man shows (I did a few in France).

For the presidency of the European Union there has been less progress. I initially studied politics in Sciences Po (#2 worldwide in 2024 in the QS ranking, after Harvard, equal with Oxford, and before LSE, Stanford, Cambridge, Princeton and Yale), but later realised the slow pace, vertical hierarchy and low levels of innovation in the public sector did not match with my ambition, curiosity, impatience and personality.

Hence I figured out I could bring a positive impact at scale in the private sector, and most specifically in startups.

What were early barriers to pursuing that dream, internal or external?

I have always been pretty determined and stubborn. So when I set my mind to something, I usually don’t get too carried away thankfully.

While I value tremendously building quality relationships with like minded people and while I am very close to my family, I have never felt much need to fit in or comply with social pressures. Those who are my real friends have always supported me in my decisions, and I don’t care much about what others think.

In terms of internal barriers, it is ultimately a matter of self knowledge and discipline. The more you learn about the world and yourself, the better decisions you make. Then, it is all about having the discipline to enforce those decisions in an efficient manner upon yourself.

What mindsets, habits and strategies helped you overcome the barriers and achieve your biggest dreams?

I consider that there is still much much more to achieve. But indeed, having the right mindset, habits and strategies is key.

In terms of principles, the most important is the growth mindset! Believing that with willpower and hard work you will be able to make it. Staying curious about everything and anything. Be always thinking about how you can bring more value to others; thinking and acting in the short term in ways that are consistent with your long term goals.

Strategies are pretty much dependent on which goals you set yourself to achieve. But being structured in your approach, trying to do things that enable you to achieve several objectives at the same time (kill two birds with one stone) and avoiding over reliance on one person or institution (diversifying your risk) are strategies that can be applied across a diversity of goals.

At the habit level, let me share what I think are the 5 most important ones:

1) Have objectives for every single day

So that you have things to look up to when you wake up, things to be enthusiastic about during the day and things to be proud about when you go to sleep.

2) Make sure you feel uncomfortable every day

It is like for strength training, you need to feel the muscle pain in order for your muscle to grow, right? What risk did you take today? When did you expose yourself/when did you make yourself vulnerable? That is how you connect and that is how you grow.

It can seem so simple but I can tell you that most people are nowhere near there. On the contrary their whole life is built around staying within their comfort zone. So let it be your edge!

3) Get rid of conflict avoidance at all cost

I am a peaceful person and I seek peace. But I am totally fine to speak my mind and disagree with others because otherwise I am not being true to myself and I miss an opportunity to bring value/a different opinion to the table. Some people are so obsessed about avoiding conflict they lose any opportunities to grow and to connect with others.

On top of that, if you constantly agree with everyone and blend in whatever is being said around you, what is remaining of your personality and individuality? On another level, beyond the value of debate and genuine interaction as explained above, there is also some merit in standing up for your values and interests.

I am fine to go into open/frontal confrontation whenever needed/whenever I feel it is right or necessary. Some people don’t get respected because they submit without defending their interest or beliefs. Make sure people know there is a lot of value and utility in treating you well, and a high price to pay for messing up with you.

4) Get curious about others

I already explained this one earlier in this chat I think!

5) Make discipline a craving

This is the beauty of it. Instead of falling for unhealthy cravings (like eating one more junk food), you will see that there is enormous intellectual and emotional reward for admiring the beauty of self discipline. For instance, I have decided to do a dry 2024 (no alcohol in 2024), and I am having the equivalent of an adrenaline rush each time I share that I won’t be having alcohol and deliver on it (the pleasure of being master of one’s own ship is probably even more exquisite than the most delightful liquor).

Please describe your experience in being named in the Forbes 30 under 30, and your favourite learning from the community.

Obviously I was glad to be in the list, it is always helpful to get social signals of recognition, just like diplomas and previous achievements, it is a plus on the CV. Most people still use it as a heuristics in assessing you for a job opportunity or a business partnership for instance.

That said, in my opinion the main value by far is to join an extremely driven and inspiring global community with a solid growth mindset. Through this community I have met several friends, some business partners and even a current investor in Upworth. We have many online groups, as well as country chapters and yearly events.

To make it happen is never easy, it requires us to go out of our comfort, to struggle, to get rejection, disapproval, disagreement and much more. Only determination and courage can make you overcome all these hurdles and achieve your dream!

What do you want to tell audiences about Upworth? How can they join?

We have done a simple 5 minutes video tutorial to present the application here.

It is very easy to join: you click on Signup on the landing page and in 2 minutes you can create your free account! Then, you can connect assets and liabilities via open banking notably, and start taking control over your finances!

It is worth noting that, as we can’t offer all financial products from day 1, we specialised in helping people get their property financing sorted. In other words, my co-founder Alex and I are certified mortgage brokers in Australia and we help Australians with financing their property investments or their homes. We decided to start with this because we saw it was the #1 most impactful financial decision that people can make to build wealth in this country!

If you had to live your life off the philosophies of one single quote, what would that quote be?

The original French quote is ‘Impose ta chance, serre ton bonheur et va vers ton risque. À te regarder, ils s’habitueront.’

There are 4 parts to the quotes, all equally important:

1) ‘Impose your luck’

Luck is created by hustling till you make it. You fail 100 times and the 101st time you succeed.

2) ’Hold your happiness’

Happiness is enjoying the journey. What is the end of life? Death. What is life? The journey.

If you can’t learn to enjoy life, to feel grateful for it, to accept what you can’t change while fighting for what you can change, what is the point?

3) ’Go towards your risk’

The biggest of the risk in life is to do nothing, to be apathetic and to turn into a vegetable.

Life is constantly changing. Not changing and adapting is the biggest risk. And interestingly, a risk that brings no reward!

So going towards your risk is an invitation to go out there and try things out, take the risk of being alive, of creating, of loving, of building. Yes, it may feel vulnerable and challenging, but the reward is experiencing what it means to be truly alive, energised and thriving.

4) ’Looking at you, they’ll get used to it.’

People will get used to it: don’t focus too much on what people think. Do what you have to do. There will always be envious people, people who fear and dislike change, people who won’t like you anyway. There will be people complaining about everything. Don’t let them suck your vital energy; don’t pretend, don’t give up, be yourself, be daring, be bold – and make it happen!

In the end, the world will get used to you and accept you as you are. And it will respect your achievements, personality and courage.

Hey you, I’m glad you made it to the end.

Max’s biggest gems were down here.

If you want to connect with Max, check out his LinkedIn here, and try out Upworth here.

And if you want to know how legends like Max have made dreams into reality, sign up for my newsletter below.

You’ll get one action-packed Q&A with an awesome founder, creator or game-changer each week.

Til next time,

Keep dreamaking.