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Ten years ago, I quit my job as a bookseller

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I packed my luggage

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and I left Paris to live in Los Angeles.

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I didn’t know anyone there

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but I knew that I wanted

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to make movies

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so it made sense to go to Hollywood.

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I came back to France

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after a few years

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and when people would ask me:

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: “What do you do in life?”

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I would reply:

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: “I’m a filmmaker. I make movies.

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Actually, I’m just back from a few years in Los Angeles.”

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I would oftentimes see a little sparkle

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in their eyes as they'd say:

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“That’s amazing!

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What type of films do you direct?

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Can we see them at the movie theatre?

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Have you worked with famous people?”

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And I would reply:

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: “I direct mostly fiction.

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You can’t watch my films at the movie theatre

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- not yet.

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And no...no, I haven’t worked with anyone famous.”



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At that moment

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there would be a silence

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long enough for their enthusiasm

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to go down a few inches

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And then,

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we would keep on talking about Los Angeles.

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Little by little,

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tired of seeing people’s reaction

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going from curious to disappointed

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when they would realize

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that I was a “wannabe”,

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I started lying about what I was doing.

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I stopped saying 


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“I’m a filmmaker”

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to say “I work as a freelance.”

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I stopped saying

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to say “I make videos for clients.”

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It sounded less dreamy

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but it was useful and practical.

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We would talk about how to find clients,

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how to bill them, about gear.

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And more importantly,

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I stopped feeling like

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like I had to apologize for my lack of success.

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I began to feel a bit weird about it though

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, so I asked myself

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“Why do you lie about what you do?

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And why do you feel

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feel compelled to diminish people's expectations

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so they won’t think you’ve failed?”

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It’s at that point that I really started

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to become interested

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about the concept of “success”

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and how it has evolved

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in the last few years,

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especially with the social medias’ arrival in our lives

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that remind us daily

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how we rank on the graph of success

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compared to the other 8 billion.

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This ranking on the “success graph”

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explains why sometimes,

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when we talk with people,

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a contest starts

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to find out who has the most impact.

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It’s conveyed through innocent words:

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“I know X person”

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“X number of people follow me”

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“I travelled through X number of countries”,

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“I was a speaker at X event”.

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Giving a TED Talk is great

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to win an impact contest.

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Thank you TED.

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Power and Success have always existed.

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And they’ve always been a fuel

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for some people

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and obstacles for others.

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But in the last few years,

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things have become so intense

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that I’ve found myself listening to 24-year-olds

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explaining that they had abandoned a dream

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or an idea before they had even started.

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And the reason why

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they had given up before trying

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is that they were paralysed by the success

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of people younger than them

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that they were witnessing daily on social media.

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I’ve listened to 24-year-olds explaining

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to me that if they really had something

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to achieve on this planet

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they should have had their breakthrough by now.

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At 24 they didn’t feel old, they felt expired. 


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We have developed a surprising relationship

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with what we could call our “expiration date”.

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We used to have one expiration date:

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: our death.

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Today we have a second expiration date in our lives,

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and it’s our social expiration date.

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The idea that what we do must

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be recognised and measurable to have value

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And if we don’t receive immediately

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a positive feedback about what we do,

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or worse, if what we do is deemed useless,

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ridicule, or a failure

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, then we feel socially expired.

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And that’s how some 24-year-olds

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prefer to go sit on the bench

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to watch History create itself without them

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rather than risking to do something

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and not receive immediately a positive feedback.

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While I was looking into

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what “success” means today

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and into our date of social expiration,

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I’ve realised that my job

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is not to write screenplays or direct films,

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, my job is to fabricate stories.

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It’s a job that might

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seem useless but actually,

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, storytelling is the best way that we,

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humans, have found to survive. 



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Tonight,

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if we’ve all come onto this stage

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to talk to you for 15 minutes one after the other

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it’s because the best way

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to convey an idea is to do it with a story.

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In 2018 we could have made

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a pdf with each TED Talk’s main idea

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summed up in one sentence

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and we could have emailed it to you.

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Really, we could have done it.

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It would have cost you less money,

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and it would have taken us less time. 



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But the power of messages

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we are trying to share

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would have evaporated.

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We know it and you know it.

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And that’s why you are here tonight

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, to listen to stories that might open

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a world of possibilities.

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In 1944,

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Professors Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel

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conducted a test.

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They showed a video

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to a group of students

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and asked them to answer

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a series of questions

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to describe what they had seen. 



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I’m going to show you 15 seconds of the video,

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it’s going to be quick

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but I invite you to try

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to answer this question:

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“What am I seeing on the screen?”

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That was 15 seconds.

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When they reviewed the questionnaires,

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Heidel and Simmel discovered

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that 33 out of the 34 students

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had fabricated a story.

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They had imputed motives,

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emotions, and behaviours

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to the geometrical figures

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that were randomly moving

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through space that you just saw. 



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This study was

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one of the first scientific study

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study that confirmed that our brain 


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understands the world through stories

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We cannot help but give meaning

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to the world that surrounds us

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And to give meaning to the world that

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that surrounds us,

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we fabricate stories.

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Knowing that,

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that stories are essential

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to our survival and to our life

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I want to tell you

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another story about success.

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An alternative to the current notion

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that paralyses so many people today.

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Earlier I said that

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that we had two expiration dates:

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the date of our death and the date of our social expiration

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that we give to ourselves sooner and sooner.

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What I did not tell you…

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is that a phone is ringing right now.

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What I didn’t tell you is

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that we all have a joker.

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We all have the possibility to become a good story.

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We all have the possibility to become

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a good story that is going to inspire

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other human beings and help them move forward.

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And there’s one group of people

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whose job is to distribute jokers:

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the story fabricators.

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Lucky me: it’s my job.

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My job is to hunt, to imagine,

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and to share the stories

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of people with a surprising,

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innovating and impactful destiny

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who are representing strong ideas.

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And currently we are living through

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interesting period.

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Just like archeologists,

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we are digging out new stories,

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different stories.

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Stories of people who often didn’t receive

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immediate and positive feedback

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about what they were doing

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and who,

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5, 50, 100, 200, 500 years later

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end up at the center of the stage to help us,

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the new generations,

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to better understand the world and to move forward.

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For example,

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some of you might recognize

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the name of Georgina Reid.

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A textile designer who decided, in 1971, when she was 63

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, that what she really wanted to do

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was to save her little town’s lighthouse

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that was at risk of falling down

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due to the cliffs’ erosion.

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Georgina created a whole system

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that she patented.

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She presented her project to the coast guards,

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they listened and told her

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“We won’t prevent you from doing it

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but we won’t help you out either.”

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Okay, no problem.

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For 15 years, helped by her husband and volunteers,

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Georgina used her knowledge

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and her time for free

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to prevent the lighthouse from falling down.

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And she succeeded.

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Georgina died in 2001

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but the lighthouse is still here.

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And then 3 years ago

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a French story fabricator,

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Pénélope Bagieu, gave a joker to Georgina. 


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She shared Georgina’s story

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in a graphic novel dedicated to several women

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who’ve changed their story

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and sometimes History in unexpected ways.

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It’s thanks to a story fabricator

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that 200,000 French people

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and myself have been inspired

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by Georgina and her determination

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to fight for something that mattered to her

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even though officially she was told it didn’t.