WEBVTT 00:00:19.439 --> 00:00:21.259 Ten years ago, 00:00:21.259 --> 00:00:23.439 I quit my job as a bookseller, 00:00:23.439 --> 00:00:25.319 I packed my luggage, 00:00:25.319 --> 00:00:28.549 and I left Paris to live in Los Angeles. 00:00:29.398 --> 00:00:31.508 I didn’t know anyone there 00:00:31.508 --> 00:00:33.668 but I knew that I wanted to make movies 00:00:33.668 --> 00:00:37.658 so it made sense to go to Hollywood. 00:00:38.674 --> 00:00:41.764 After a few years I came back to France, NOTE Paragraph 00:00:41.764 --> 00:00:44.464 and when people would ask me: 00:00:44.464 --> 00:00:46.014 “What do you do in life?” 00:00:46.014 --> 00:00:47.034 I would reply, 00:00:47.034 --> 00:00:49.604 “I’m a filmmaker. I make movies. 00:00:49.604 --> 00:00:53.214 I’m just back from a few years in L.A.” 00:00:53.214 --> 00:00:56.994 I would often see a sparkle in their eyes 00:00:56.994 --> 00:00:58.724 as they'd say, "That's amazing! 00:00:58.724 --> 00:01:00.014 What films do you do? 00:01:00.014 --> 00:01:01.494 Can we see them at the movie? 00:01:01.494 --> 00:01:04.154 Have you worked with famous people?” 00:01:04.595 --> 00:01:05.545 And I would reply, 00:01:05.545 --> 00:01:06.995 “I direct mostly fiction." 00:01:06.995 --> 00:01:09.205 My films don't play at the movie theatre 00:01:09.205 --> 00:01:11.245 - not yet. And no... 00:01:11.245 --> 00:01:13.735 I haven’t worked with anyone famous.” 00:01:14.861 --> 00:01:16.911 At that moment there would be a silence 00:01:16.911 --> 00:01:20.201 long enough for their enthusiasm to go down a few inches 00:01:20.201 --> 00:01:22.391 And then we would keep on talking about 00:01:22.391 --> 00:01:23.991 Los Angeles. 00:01:25.788 --> 00:01:26.628 Little by little, 00:01:26.628 --> 00:01:33.128 tired of seeing people’s reaction going from curious to disappointed 00:01:33.174 --> 00:01:36.004 when they would realize that I was a "wannabe" 00:01:36.004 --> 00:01:40.804 I started lying about what I was doing. 00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:43.950 I stopped saying "I'm a filmmaker" 00:01:43.950 --> 00:01:46.660 to say “I work as a freelance.” 00:01:46.900 --> 00:01:48.740 I stopped saying "I make films" 00:01:48.740 --> 00:01:52.410 to say “I make videos for clients.” 00:01:52.740 --> 00:01:54.810 It sounded less dreamy 00:01:54.810 --> 00:01:56.520 but it was useful and practical. 00:01:56.520 --> 00:01:58.440 We would talk about how to find clients, 00:01:58.440 --> 00:02:00.940 how to bill them, about gear. 00:02:01.330 --> 00:02:02.930 And more importantly, 00:02:02.948 --> 00:02:08.158 I stopped feeling like I had to apologize for my lack of success. 00:02:08.158 --> 00:02:10.538 I began to feel a bit weird about it though. 00:02:10.538 --> 00:02:13.583 I started to wonder: "Why do you lie about what you do?" 00:02:13.593 --> 00:02:18.013 And why do you feel compelled to diminish people's expectations 00:02:18.013 --> 00:02:21.963 so they won’t think you’ve failed? 00:02:22.793 --> 00:02:25.863 It’s at that point that I really started to become interested 00:02:25.873 --> 00:02:28.343 about the concept of “success”. 00:02:28.343 --> 00:02:31.353 And at how it has evolved in the last few years, 00:02:31.353 --> 00:02:36.183 especially with social media's arrival in our lives that reminds us daily 00:02:36.183 --> 00:02:38.653 how we rank on the graph of success 00:02:38.653 --> 00:02:41.533 compared to the other 8 billion. 00:02:43.037 --> 00:02:46.657 This ranking on the “success graph” explains why sometimes, 00:02:46.657 --> 00:02:49.557 when we talk with people, a contest starts 00:02:49.557 --> 00:02:52.657 to find out who has the most impact. 00:02:52.657 --> 00:02:54.627 It’s conveyed through innocent words: 00:02:54.627 --> 00:02:55.967 “I know X person” 00:02:55.967 --> 00:02:57.937 “X number of people follow me”, 00:02:57.937 --> 00:02:59.917 “I visited X number of countries”, 00:02:59.917 --> 00:03:02.397 “I was a speaker at X event”. 00:03:02.397 --> 00:03:05.277 Giving a TED Talk is great to win an impact contest. 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:08.239 Thank you TED. 00:03:08.984 --> 00:03:12.384 Power and Success have always existed. 00:03:12.384 --> 00:03:15.491 And they’ve always been a fuel for some people, 00:03:15.491 --> 00:03:17.461 and obstacles for others. 00:03:17.461 --> 00:03:20.941 But in the last few years, things have become so intense 00:03:20.941 --> 00:03:25.571 that I’ve already found myself listening to 24-year-olds 00:03:25.571 --> 00:03:28.921 explaining to me that they had abandoned a dream or an idea 00:03:28.921 --> 00:03:31.421 before they had even started. 00:03:31.421 --> 00:03:34.621 And the reason why they had given up before even trying 00:03:34.621 --> 00:03:38.481 is because they were paralyzed by the success of people younger than them 00:03:38.481 --> 00:03:42.231 that they were witnessing daily on social media. 00:03:42.231 --> 00:03:46.741 I’ve listened to 24-year-olds explaining to me that if they really had something 00:03:46.741 --> 00:03:51.831 to achieve on this planet, they should have had their breakthrough by now. 00:03:52.600 --> 00:03:59.860 At 24 they didn’t feel old, they felt expired. 00:04:01.150 --> 00:04:04.770 We have developed a surprising relationship with what we could call 00:04:04.770 --> 00:04:06.870 our “expiration date”. 00:04:06.870 --> 00:04:10.770 We used to have one expiration date: it was the date of our death. 00:04:10.782 --> 00:04:14.352 Today we have a second expiration date in our lives, and it's 00:04:14.352 --> 00:04:17.573 our social expiration date. 00:04:17.573 --> 00:04:23.433 The idea that when we do something, its value must be recognized and 00:04:23.443 --> 00:04:25.433 measurable to exist. 00:04:25.433 --> 00:04:30.463 And if we don’t receive immediately a positive feedback about what we do, 00:04:30.463 --> 00:04:40.833 or worse, if what we do is deemed useless, ridicule, or a failure, 00:04:40.833 --> 00:04:44.873 then we feel socially expired. 00:04:44.873 --> 00:04:47.853 And that’s how some 24-year-olds 00:04:47.853 --> 00:04:51.693 prefer to go sit on the bench to watch History create itself 00:04:51.693 --> 00:04:55.063 without them, rather than risking to do something 00:04:55.063 --> 00:04:59.983 and not receive immediately a positive feedback. 00:05:00.733 --> 00:05:03.123 While I was looking into what "success" means today 00:05:03.123 --> 00:05:04.978 and into our date of social expiration, 00:05:04.978 --> 00:05:07.818 I’ve realised that my job is not 00:05:07.818 --> 00:05:12.078 to write screenplays or direct films. 00:05:12.078 --> 00:05:15.818 My job is to fabricate stories. 00:05:16.146 --> 00:05:20.766 It’s a job that might seem useless, but actually, 00:05:20.766 --> 00:05:27.616 storytelling is the best way that we, humans, have found to survive. 00:05:28.516 --> 00:05:29.736 Tonight, 00:05:29.736 --> 00:05:33.536 if we’ve all come onto this stage to talk to you for 15 minutes, 00:05:33.536 --> 00:05:37.826 it’s because the best way to convey an idea is to do it 00:05:37.826 --> 00:05:39.856 with a story. 00:05:39.856 --> 00:05:46.286 In 2018, we could have made a pdf with each TED Talk's main idea 00:05:46.286 --> 00:05:49.446 summed up in one sentence, and emailed it to you. 00:05:49.446 --> 00:05:51.106 Really, we could have done it. 00:05:51.106 --> 00:05:55.196 It would have cost you less money, and it would have taken us less time. 00:05:55.546 --> 00:05:58.626 But the power of the messages we are trying to share 00:05:58.626 --> 00:06:01.286 would have evaporated. 00:06:01.286 --> 00:06:03.336 We know it and you know it. 00:06:03.336 --> 00:06:07.596 And that’s why you are here tonight, to listen to stories that might open 00:06:07.596 --> 00:06:09.966 a world of possibilities. 00:06:10.448 --> 00:06:12.178 In 1944, 00:06:12.188 --> 00:06:16.868 Professors Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted a test. 00:06:16.868 --> 00:06:20.058 They showed a video to a group of students 00:06:20.058 --> 00:06:23.158 and asked them to answer a series of questions 00:06:23.158 --> 00:06:25.348 to describe what they had seen. 00:06:25.348 --> 00:06:27.538 I’m going to show you 15 seconds of the video, 00:06:27.538 --> 00:06:29.498 it’s going to be quick 00:06:29.498 --> 00:06:31.828 but I invite you to try to answer this question: 00:06:31.828 --> 00:06:33.878 “What am I seeing on the screen?” 00:06:49.383 --> 00:06:51.523 That was 15 seconds. 00:06:51.523 --> 00:06:53.823 When they reviewed the questionnaires, 00:06:53.823 --> 00:06:58.073 Heider and Simmel discovered that 33 out of 34 students 00:06:58.073 --> 00:07:00.567 had fabricated a story. 00:07:00.567 --> 00:07:02.527 They had imputed motives, 00:07:02.527 --> 00:07:04.957 emotions, and behaviours 00:07:04.957 --> 00:07:07.557 to the geometrical figures that were randomly moving 00:07:07.567 --> 00:07:10.147 through space that you just saw. 00:07:11.021 --> 00:07:14.311 This study was one of the first scientific study to confirm 00:07:14.311 --> 00:07:19.761 that our brain understands the world through stories. 00:07:20.841 --> 00:07:25.361 We cannot help but give meaning to the world that surrounds us. 00:07:25.361 --> 00:07:29.001 And to give meaning to the world that surrounds us, 00:07:29.001 --> 00:07:31.681 we fabricate stories. 00:07:31.681 --> 00:07:34.241 Knowing that, that stories are essential 00:07:34.241 --> 00:07:36.521 to our survival and to our life, 00:07:36.521 --> 00:07:41.101 I want to tell you another story about success. 00:07:41.101 --> 00:07:45.911 An alternative to the current notion that paralyzes so many people today. 00:07:46.455 --> 00:07:49.679 Earlier I said that we had two expiration dates: 00:07:49.679 --> 00:07:53.769 the date of our death and the date of our social expiration 00:07:53.769 --> 00:07:56.049 that we give to ourselves sooner and sooner. 00:07:56.337 --> 00:07:58.797 What I did not tell you… 00:07:58.797 --> 00:08:01.720 is that a phone is ringing right now. 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:04.970 What I didn’t tell you is that we all have a joker. 00:08:05.818 --> 00:08:10.758 We all have the possibility to become a good story. 00:08:10.758 --> 00:08:15.748 We all have the possibility to become a good story that is going to inspire 00:08:15.748 --> 00:08:19.532 other human beings and help them move forward. 00:08:19.532 --> 00:08:25.652 And there’s one group of people whose job is to distribute jokers: 00:08:25.652 --> 00:08:28.245 the story fabricators. 00:08:28.245 --> 00:08:30.365 Lucky me: it’s my job. 00:08:30.365 --> 00:08:35.897 My job is to hunt, to imagine, and to share the stories 00:08:35.897 --> 00:08:40.361 of people with a surprising, innovating and impactful destiny, 00:08:40.361 --> 00:08:42.871 and who embodies strong ideas. 00:08:42.871 --> 00:08:46.776 And currently, we are living through an extremely interesting period. 00:08:46.776 --> 00:08:48.176 Just like archeologists, 00:08:48.176 --> 00:08:52.296 we are digging out new stories, different stories. 00:08:52.296 --> 00:08:59.386 Stories of people who often did not receive immediate and positive feedback 00:08:59.386 --> 00:09:02.356 about the worth of what they were doing and who, 00:09:02.356 --> 00:09:06.266 5, 50, 100, 200, 500 years later 00:09:06.266 --> 00:09:09.966 end up at the center of the storytelling stage to help us, 00:09:09.966 --> 00:09:12.776 the new generations, to better understand the world 00:09:12.786 --> 00:09:14.636 and to move forward. 00:09:14.636 --> 00:09:18.566 For example, some of you might recognize the name of 00:09:18.566 --> 00:09:20.226 Georgina Reid. 00:09:20.226 --> 00:09:26.246 A textile designer who, in 1971, when she was 63, decided that 00:09:26.246 --> 00:09:32.246 what she really wanted to do was to save her little town's lighthouse 00:09:32.246 --> 00:09:35.705 that was at risk of falling down due to the cliff's erosion. 00:09:35.705 --> 00:09:38.935 Georgina created a whole system that she patented. 00:09:38.935 --> 00:09:42.775 She presents her project to the coast guards, 00:09:42.775 --> 00:09:44.835 they listen to her and say: 00:09:44.835 --> 00:09:47.945 “We won’t prevent you from doing it but we won't help you out either." 00:09:47.945 --> 00:09:50.065 Okay, no problem. 00:09:50.065 --> 00:09:54.385 For 15 years, helped by her husband and volunteers, Georgina used 00:09:54.385 --> 00:09:58.115 her knowledge and her time for free, to prevent the lighthouse 00:09:58.115 --> 00:10:01.085 to prevent the lighthouse from falling down. 00:10:01.085 --> 00:10:03.145 And she will succeed. 00:10:03.145 --> 00:10:07.445 Georgina died in 2001, but the lightouse is still here. 00:10:08.370 --> 00:10:12.317 And then, 3 years ago, a French story fabricator, 00:10:12.317 --> 00:10:16.193 Pénélope Bagieu, gave a joker to Georgina. 00:10:16.193 --> 00:10:19.923 She shared Georgina’s story in a graphic novel dedicated 00:10:19.923 --> 00:10:25.467 to several women who changed their story and sometimes History 00:10:25.467 --> 00:10:27.687 in unexpected ways. 00:10:28.637 --> 00:10:31.917 It’s thanks to a story fabricator 00:10:31.917 --> 00:10:36.057 that 200,000 French people and myself, have been inspired 00:10:36.057 --> 00:10:40.527 by Georgina and her determination to fight for something 00:10:40.527 --> 00:10:45.747 that mattered to her even though officially she was told it didn't. 00:10:46.957 --> 00:10:49.927 Georgina was able to become a good story because she was 00:10:49.927 --> 00:10:54.287 an active actress of her story. 00:10:54.287 --> 00:10:58.766 She didn’t settle for wishing that the lighthouse wouldn't fall down. 00:10:58.766 --> 00:11:02.606 No, she did what she had to do to make sure the lighthouse 00:11:02.606 --> 00:11:04.439 wouldn’t fall down. 00:11:04.550 --> 00:11:06.780 And this word, “doing”, 00:11:06.780 --> 00:11:10.920 is one of the three steps to become a good story. 00:11:11.211 --> 00:11:14.066 In reality, the recipe to become a good story is simple. 00:11:14.066 --> 00:11:16.796 Well, it fits into three steps. 00:11:17.906 --> 00:11:20.146 First, you have to listen to your intuition, 00:11:20.146 --> 00:11:23.777 to hear what each one of us individually, really want to do. 00:11:23.777 --> 00:11:26.199 And once you’ve listened to it, 00:11:26.199 --> 00:11:30.439 you need to muster the courage to go for it, and do it. 00:11:31.219 --> 00:11:33.541 And once you’ve had the courage to do it, 00:11:33.541 --> 00:11:35.131 you need to repeat. 00:11:35.131 --> 00:11:37.971 Every day, you need to do it again. 00:11:38.601 --> 00:11:42.271 Today we are under a lot of pressure when it comes to the projects 00:11:42.271 --> 00:11:44.254 we decide to pursue. 00:11:44.254 --> 00:11:45.796 They need to have a goal. 00:11:45.796 --> 00:11:49.226 If they don't have a goal, then they are not serious. 00:11:49.226 --> 00:11:52.454 And if they are not serious, then they are worth nothing. 00:11:53.656 --> 00:11:56.786 I completely disagree with this way of thinking. 00:11:56.786 --> 00:11:59.926 If there’s one thing I've learned this past decade, 00:11:59.926 --> 00:12:02.786 hunting and fabricating stories, 00:12:02.786 --> 00:12:07.793 it's that the value of what we do is not fixed in time. 00:12:07.793 --> 00:12:12.135 The value of what we do can have a surprising impact 00:12:12.135 --> 00:12:15.835 in five years, in fifty years, after our death or 00:12:15.835 --> 00:12:18.025 our great-grand-children’s death. 00:12:18.025 --> 00:12:21.065 So there’s no point to try picking something that will have 00:12:21.065 --> 00:12:25.190 an impact instantaneously. 00:12:25.190 --> 00:12:27.360 We can’t know if it will happen. 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:29.835 We should just keep on doing. 00:12:31.365 --> 00:12:33.143 And these three steps: listening to yourself, 00:12:33.143 --> 00:12:35.393 going for it, and doing it again, 00:12:35.393 --> 00:12:39.890 they are crystallized in Carmen Herrera’s story. 00:12:40.554 --> 00:12:44.594 Carmen Herrera was born in La Havana in 1915. 00:12:44.594 --> 00:12:47.814 At a young age she realizes that what she really wants to do 00:12:47.814 --> 00:12:49.064 is paint. 00:12:49.064 --> 00:12:52.206 So she paints, every day. 00:12:52.206 --> 00:12:55.605 And then she realizes that she creates minimalist abstract paintings, 00:12:55.605 --> 00:12:58.635 exactly at the time when abstract minimalism is trendy. 00:12:58.635 --> 00:13:00.128 Perfect. 00:13:00.128 --> 00:13:03.968 She sells her first painting, and then nothing. 00:13:03.968 --> 00:13:08.407 She exhibits her work, the audience doesn't respond. 00:13:08.407 --> 00:13:12.657 She tries to find galleries that would exhibit her work, 00:13:12.657 --> 00:13:14.441 everybody says no. 00:13:14.441 --> 00:13:16.675 And then one day, 00:13:16.675 --> 00:13:20.615 Carmen is offered the opportunity to exhibit her work again, 00:13:20.615 --> 00:13:24.015 and this time people love it. 00:13:24.644 --> 00:13:29.314 We are in 2004 at that point, Carmen is 89. 00:13:30.595 --> 00:13:32.817 Today Carmen is 103. 00:13:33.347 --> 00:13:36.847 These past 14 years, her paintings have been exhibited 00:13:36.847 --> 00:13:40.707 presented in some of the most prestigious museums in the world. 00:13:41.096 --> 00:13:45.986 For 60 years Carmen Herrera has created daily, 00:13:45.986 --> 00:13:50.585 paintings that nobody thought had any value. 00:13:50.585 --> 00:13:52.277 And then one day, 00:13:52.277 --> 00:13:57.395 Carmen Herrera’s story has aligned with Art’s History. 00:13:57.395 --> 00:14:03.979 If I tell you this story, it is not to tell you that success always comes. 00:14:03.979 --> 00:14:06.468 Because it’s not the case. 00:14:06.468 --> 00:14:09.708 But it’s because I'm convinced that Carmen Herrera would still 00:14:09.708 --> 00:14:13.468 be painting today, even if she had never found 00:14:13.468 --> 00:14:15.900 her audience while she was alive. 00:14:15.900 --> 00:14:19.441 Carmen Herrera didn’t paint to become famous. 00:14:19.441 --> 00:14:23.516 She painted because it was giving meaning to her life. 00:14:23.516 --> 00:14:27.415 It’s not success that gives meaning to our life 00:14:27.415 --> 00:14:30.927 it’s being self-expressed. 00:14:30.927 --> 00:14:33.457 And when we are fully expressed, 00:14:33.457 --> 00:14:37.927 our social expiration date vanishes. 00:14:37.927 --> 00:14:40.266 When we are fully expressed, 00:14:40.266 --> 00:14:43.106 our failures as well as our successes 00:14:43.106 --> 00:14:45.306 become simply steps, 00:14:45.306 --> 00:14:48.885 on the graph of our personal growth. 00:14:50.483 --> 00:14:54.945 Tonight what I want to suggest is to shift your focus 00:14:54.945 --> 00:14:58.658 away from what you cannot control. 00:14:58.658 --> 00:15:04.588 We cannot control how people are going to react to what we do. 00:15:04.588 --> 00:15:08.168 But we can control what we do. 00:15:08.168 --> 00:15:12.913 So, let’s stop paying attention to society’s feedback 00:15:12.913 --> 00:15:17.163 about the value of what gives meaning to our lives. 00:15:17.163 --> 00:15:22.652 Because we rarely can measure the value of what we do right after doing it. 00:15:22.652 --> 00:15:27.412 And more importantly because the value of what we do will evolve unexpectedly 00:15:27.412 --> 00:15:29.652 over time. 00:15:29.983 --> 00:15:34.440 Today, when I meet people and they ask me what I do in life, 00:15:34.440 --> 00:15:39.203 I tell them that I am a story fabricator. 00:15:39.203 --> 00:15:43.106 Nobody really understands what it means but it's okay, 00:15:43.106 --> 00:15:47.022 because if I have the chance to talk a little bit more with them, 00:15:47.022 --> 00:15:53.684 they understand that fabricating stories is my way to express myself fully 00:15:53.684 --> 00:15:55.794 and daily, doing. 00:15:55.794 --> 00:15:57.459 For the last ten years, 00:15:57.459 --> 00:16:04.739 I’ve been hunting and fabricating stories that I share as screenplays, films, lyrics 00:16:04.739 --> 00:16:07.945 drawings, podcasts or graphic novels. 00:16:08.365 --> 00:16:10.843 Sometimes, I doubt. 00:16:10.843 --> 00:16:14.676 I feel that what I’m doing is completely useless. 00:16:14.676 --> 00:16:20.153 And then I remember that my intuition is probably whispering something to me 00:16:20.153 --> 00:16:22.842 and that I should probably listen to it. 00:16:22.842 --> 00:16:28.567 So I listen to it, I go for it, and then I repeat the process. 00:16:28.567 --> 00:16:32.721 If tomorrow when you wake up you feel like doing something "useless", 00:16:32.721 --> 00:16:37.008 listen to yourself, go for it, and repeat the process. 00:16:37.008 --> 00:16:43.020 Because it’s by being active actors of our story that we will become 00:16:43.020 --> 00:16:44.991 good stories. 00:16:44.991 --> 00:16:49.311 Stories that other human beings will be able to use and share 00:16:49.311 --> 00:16:51.741 to move forward. 00:16:51.741 --> 00:16:54.095 Do what you have to do, 00:16:54.095 --> 00:16:56.856 never mind if it feels useless. 00:16:56.856 --> 00:17:02.274 If it’s important to you, then it's worth doing. 00:17:02.274 --> 00:17:03.909 Express yourself, 00:17:03.909 --> 00:17:06.159 and we, the story fabricators, 00:17:06.168 --> 00:17:07.608 we will find you. 00:17:07.608 --> 00:17:08.617 Thank you.