![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-592604222.jpg?w=2048\")
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It\u2019s no secret that Gen Z is struggling. They\u2019re unemployed in the millions, feeling anxious about the future, and getting told that their shot at building a career is about to get bleaker thanks to AI. But few understand what it\u2019s like to feel the odds are stacked against you before you even start, quite like Sir Mo Farah.<\/p>\n
And the Olympic legend has a no-nonsense message for young people: Don\u2019t let a bad hand stop you from playing the game. Life will knock you down, but your success is your responsibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven for myself, you would have said as a young boy, \u2018he\u2019s not gonna make, you don\u2019t have a chance,\u2019\u201d Farah told Fortune<\/em>. \u201cI was child trafficked into the U.K. with my own story struggle. But I never gave up on myself.\u201d<\/p>\n The former long-distance runner and four-time Olympic gold medalist was born as Hussein Abdi Kahin in what is now Somaliland. His father was killed in the Civil War when he was four, and he was separated from his family, including a twin brother, soon after. Around the age of nine, he was taken illegally to the U.K. by a woman he\u2019d never met, given fake documents under the name \u201cMohamed Farah,\u201d and then was forced to cook, clean, and change nappies while working as a family\u2019s domestic servant in west London.\u00a0<\/p>\n His lifeline came a few years later, when he confided in a PE teacher, and his situation improved\u2014the teacher nurtured Farah\u2019s talent, alerted social services, and helped him gain British citizenship. By the time Farah was 14, he was competing for England, and today he\u2019s Britain\u2019s most successful track athlete in Olympic Games history.<\/p>\n But despite his traumatic start, Farah told Fortune<\/em> in an exclusive off-stage chat at Web Summit Qatar. \u201cI never saw it as I didn\u2019t have a fair start.\u201d Ultimately, you don\u2019t get to choose the playing field.\u00a0What matters more, he insists, is how hard you choose to play.<\/p>\n \u201cGive yourself a chance,\u201d he advises young people who are struggling. \u201cJust keep believing yourself, keep trying your best every day, and keep being willing to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be hard, but if you overcome that, then you can overcome anything.\u201d<\/p>\n You can\u2019t control the economy. You can\u2019t control the job market. But you can control your effort. And you can control your mindset. That, Farah said, is the powerful differentiator between those who feel stuck and those who keep inching forward. It won\u2019t fix everything at once, but it\u2019s enough to start turning your ship.<\/p>\n \u201cUse my story as going, you know what? This<\/em> is the only thing that I can control,\u201d Farah added. For him, that looked like showing up to training day in, day out. For workers, that might look like applying for jobs despite already receiving countless rejections. Or reading books and upskilling. <\/p>\n He encouraged Gen Zers to look into even the smallest micro-moments in their life that they can influence\u2014and start there.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of us say, Oh, I can\u2019t do this job. Or I cannot control that. But there\u2019s a lot of stuff we can control. We might not control this amount,\u201d Farah said, while spanning his arms wide. \u201cBut you can control this<\/em> small part.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe bit that you can control, try to control it.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the few genuinely controllable aspects of life, Farah pointed out, is your emotional response. How you handle losses and how quickly you get back up after being knocked down often matter more than the setback itself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen things don\u2019t go well, how do you deal with emotions? What do you do to overcome them?\u201d he said, adding that when he was young, and a race didn\u2019t go well, it would have been easy to numb the disappointment by \u201cgoing out with the boys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s just temporary,\u201d he added. You might feel better for a night. What takes more effort, but delivers far bigger rewards, is learning to regulate your emotions, confront your shortcomings, and sit with uncomfortable truths.<\/p>\n Farah said that it\u2019s far more productive to turn the situation that\u2019s making you angry into a lesson.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you really need to do? So the race didn\u2019t go well, what could you fix? It\u2019s about learning, but really try and admit that to yourself. It\u2019s so hard for so many people to actually admit (why they failed)\u2014and that\u2019s courage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Olympic #runner #Farah #message #struggling #Gen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s no secret that Gen Z is s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[2710,7496,542,3954,14270,2709,304,300,14268,2707,7924,12744,10706,2708,14269,3412,4614,2591,56,829,2712],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24671"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gen Z: control what you can, says Mo Farah\u00a0<\/h2>\n