1 00:00:19,439 --> 00:00:21,259 Ten years ago, 2 00:00:21,259 --> 00:00:23,439 I quit my job as a bookseller, 3 00:00:23,439 --> 00:00:29,389 I packed my luggage and I left to live in Los Angeles. 4 00:00:29,398 --> 00:00:33,708 I didn’t know anyone there but I knew I wanted to make movies 5 00:00:33,708 --> 00:00:38,178 so it made sense to me to go to Hollywood. 6 00:00:38,674 --> 00:00:41,764 After a few years I came back to France, 7 00:00:41,764 --> 00:00:46,024 and when people would ask me: "What do you do in life?" 8 00:00:46,024 --> 00:00:49,614 I would reply: "I'm a filmmaker, I make movies." 9 00:00:49,614 --> 00:00:53,214 "I’m just back from a few years in L.A.” 10 00:00:53,214 --> 00:00:56,924 At that moment I would often see a sparkle lit in their eyes 11 00:00:56,924 --> 00:00:59,904 as they'd say, "That's amazing! what kind of films do you do? 12 00:00:59,904 --> 00:01:01,814 Can we watch them at the movie theater? 13 00:01:01,814 --> 00:01:04,154 Have you worked with famous people?” 14 00:01:04,595 --> 00:01:07,005 And I would reply: "I direct mostly fiction." 15 00:01:07,005 --> 00:01:09,275 You can't watch y films at the movie theatre... 16 00:01:09,275 --> 00:01:10,260 not yet! 17 00:01:10,260 --> 00:01:11,245 And no... 18 00:01:11,245 --> 00:01:14,825 no, I haven’t worked with anyone famous.” 19 00:01:14,841 --> 00:01:18,531 At that moment there would be a silence long enough for their enthusiasm 20 00:01:18,531 --> 00:01:20,631 to go down a few inches. 21 00:01:20,631 --> 00:01:23,851 And then we would keep on talking about Los Angeles. 22 00:01:25,788 --> 00:01:26,628 Little by little, 23 00:01:26,628 --> 00:01:33,128 tired of seeing people’s reaction going from curious to disappointed 24 00:01:33,134 --> 00:01:36,004 when they would realize that I was a "wannabe" 25 00:01:36,004 --> 00:01:40,804 I started lying about what I was doing. 26 00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:43,950 I stopped saying "I'm a filmmaker" 27 00:01:43,950 --> 00:01:46,660 to say “I work as a freelance.” 28 00:01:46,900 --> 00:01:48,740 I stopped saying "I make films" 29 00:01:48,740 --> 00:01:52,410 to say “I make videos for clients.” 30 00:01:52,740 --> 00:01:54,810 It sounded less dreamy 31 00:01:54,810 --> 00:01:56,520 but it was useful and practical. 32 00:01:56,520 --> 00:01:58,440 We would talk about how to find clients, 33 00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:00,940 how to bill them, about gear. 34 00:02:01,330 --> 00:02:02,930 And more importantly, 35 00:02:02,948 --> 00:02:08,158 I stopped feeling like I had to apologize for my lack of success. 36 00:02:08,158 --> 00:02:10,538 I began to feel a bit weird about it though. 37 00:02:10,538 --> 00:02:13,583 I started to wonder: "Why do you lie about what you do?" 38 00:02:13,593 --> 00:02:18,013 And why do you feel compelled to diminish people's expectations 39 00:02:18,013 --> 00:02:21,963 so they won’t think you’ve failed? 40 00:02:22,793 --> 00:02:25,863 It’s at that point that I really started to become interested 41 00:02:25,873 --> 00:02:28,343 about the concept of “success”. 42 00:02:28,343 --> 00:02:31,353 And at how it has evolved in the last few years, 43 00:02:31,353 --> 00:02:36,183 especially with social media's arrival in our lives that reminds us daily 44 00:02:36,183 --> 00:02:38,653 how we rank on the graph of success 45 00:02:38,653 --> 00:02:41,533 compared to the other 8 billion. 46 00:02:43,037 --> 00:02:46,657 This ranking on the “success graph” explains why sometimes, 47 00:02:46,657 --> 00:02:49,557 when we talk with people, a contest starts 48 00:02:49,557 --> 00:02:52,657 to find out who has the most impact. 49 00:02:52,657 --> 00:02:54,627 It’s conveyed through innocent words: 50 00:02:54,627 --> 00:02:55,967 “I know X person” 51 00:02:55,967 --> 00:02:57,937 “X number of people follow me”, 52 00:02:57,937 --> 00:02:59,917 “I visited X number of countries”, 53 00:02:59,917 --> 00:03:02,397 “I was a speaker at X event”. 54 00:03:02,397 --> 00:03:05,277 Giving a TED Talk is great to win an impact contest. 55 00:03:05,719 --> 00:03:08,239 Thank you TED. 56 00:03:08,984 --> 00:03:12,384 Power and Success have always existed. 57 00:03:12,384 --> 00:03:15,491 And they’ve always been a fuel for some people, 58 00:03:15,491 --> 00:03:17,461 and obstacles for others. 59 00:03:17,461 --> 00:03:20,941 But in the last few years, things have become so intense 60 00:03:20,941 --> 00:03:25,571 that I’ve already found myself listening to 24-year-olds 61 00:03:25,571 --> 00:03:28,921 explaining to me that they had abandoned a dream or an idea 62 00:03:28,921 --> 00:03:31,421 before they had even started. 63 00:03:31,421 --> 00:03:34,621 And the reason why they had given up before even trying 64 00:03:34,621 --> 00:03:38,481 is because they were paralyzed by the success of people younger than them 65 00:03:38,481 --> 00:03:42,231 that they were witnessing daily on social media. 66 00:03:42,231 --> 00:03:46,741 I’ve listened to 24-year-olds explaining to me that if they really had something 67 00:03:46,741 --> 00:03:51,831 to achieve on this planet, they should have had their breakthrough by now. 68 00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:59,860 At 24 they didn’t feel old, they felt expired. 69 00:04:01,150 --> 00:04:04,770 We have developed a surprising relationship with what we could call 70 00:04:04,770 --> 00:04:06,870 our “expiration date”. 71 00:04:06,870 --> 00:04:10,770 We used to have one expiration date: it was the date of our death. 72 00:04:10,782 --> 00:04:14,352 Today we have a second expiration date in our lives, and it's 73 00:04:14,352 --> 00:04:17,573 our social expiration date. 74 00:04:17,573 --> 00:04:23,433 The idea that when we do something, its value must be recognized and 75 00:04:23,443 --> 00:04:25,433 measurable to exist. 76 00:04:25,433 --> 00:04:30,463 And if we don’t receive immediately a positive feedback about what we do, 77 00:04:30,463 --> 00:04:40,833 or worse, if what we do is deemed useless, ridicule, or a failure, 78 00:04:40,833 --> 00:04:44,873 then we feel socially expired. 79 00:04:44,873 --> 00:04:47,853 And that’s how some 24-year-olds 80 00:04:47,853 --> 00:04:51,693 prefer to go sit on the bench to watch History create itself 81 00:04:51,693 --> 00:04:55,063 without them, rather than risking to do something 82 00:04:55,063 --> 00:04:59,983 and not receive immediately a positive feedback. 83 00:05:00,733 --> 00:05:03,123 While I was looking into what "success" means today 84 00:05:03,123 --> 00:05:04,978 and into our date of social expiration, 85 00:05:04,978 --> 00:05:07,818 I’ve realised that my job is not 86 00:05:07,818 --> 00:05:12,078 to write screenplays or direct films. 87 00:05:12,078 --> 00:05:15,818 My job is to fabricate stories. 88 00:05:16,146 --> 00:05:20,766 It’s a job that might seem useless, but actually, 89 00:05:20,766 --> 00:05:27,616 storytelling is the best way that we, humans, have found to survive. 90 00:05:28,516 --> 00:05:29,736 Tonight, 91 00:05:29,736 --> 00:05:33,536 if we’ve all come onto this stage to talk to you for 15 minutes, 92 00:05:33,536 --> 00:05:37,826 it’s because the best way to convey an idea is to do it 93 00:05:37,826 --> 00:05:39,856 with a story. 94 00:05:39,856 --> 00:05:46,286 In 2018, we could have made a pdf with each TED Talk's main idea 95 00:05:46,286 --> 00:05:49,446 summed up in one sentence, and emailed it to you. 96 00:05:49,446 --> 00:05:51,106 Really, we could have done it. 97 00:05:51,106 --> 00:05:55,196 It would have cost you less money, and it would have taken us less time. 98 00:05:55,546 --> 00:05:58,626 But the power of the messages we are trying to share 99 00:05:58,626 --> 00:06:01,286 would have evaporated. 100 00:06:01,286 --> 00:06:03,336 We know it and you know it. 101 00:06:03,336 --> 00:06:07,596 And that’s why you are here tonight, to listen to stories that might open 102 00:06:07,596 --> 00:06:09,966 a world of possibilities. 103 00:06:10,448 --> 00:06:12,178 In 1944, 104 00:06:12,188 --> 00:06:16,868 Professors Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted a test. 105 00:06:16,868 --> 00:06:20,058 They showed a video to a group of students 106 00:06:20,058 --> 00:06:23,158 and asked them to answer a series of questions 107 00:06:23,158 --> 00:06:25,348 to describe what they had seen. 108 00:06:25,348 --> 00:06:27,538 I’m going to show you 15 seconds of the video, 109 00:06:27,538 --> 00:06:29,498 it’s going to be quick 110 00:06:29,498 --> 00:06:31,828 but I invite you to try to answer this question: 111 00:06:31,828 --> 00:06:33,878 “What am I seeing on the screen?” 112 00:06:49,383 --> 00:06:51,523 That was 15 seconds. 113 00:06:51,523 --> 00:06:53,823 When they reviewed the questionnaires, 114 00:06:53,823 --> 00:06:58,073 Heider and Simmel discovered that 33 out of 34 students 115 00:06:58,073 --> 00:07:00,567 had fabricated a story. 116 00:07:00,567 --> 00:07:02,527 They had imputed motives, 117 00:07:02,527 --> 00:07:04,957 emotions, and behaviours 118 00:07:04,957 --> 00:07:07,557 to the geometrical figures that were randomly moving 119 00:07:07,567 --> 00:07:10,147 through space that you just saw. 120 00:07:11,021 --> 00:07:14,311 This study was one of the first scientific study to confirm 121 00:07:14,311 --> 00:07:19,761 that our brain understands the world through stories. 122 00:07:20,841 --> 00:07:25,361 We cannot help but give meaning to the world that surrounds us. 123 00:07:25,361 --> 00:07:29,001 And to give meaning to the world that surrounds us, 124 00:07:29,001 --> 00:07:31,681 we fabricate stories. 125 00:07:31,681 --> 00:07:34,241 Knowing that, that stories are essential 126 00:07:34,241 --> 00:07:36,521 to our survival and to our life, 127 00:07:36,521 --> 00:07:41,101 I want to tell you another story about success. 128 00:07:41,101 --> 00:07:45,911 An alternative to the current notion that paralyzes so many people today. 129 00:07:46,455 --> 00:07:49,679 Earlier I said that we had two expiration dates: 130 00:07:49,679 --> 00:07:53,769 the date of our death and the date of our social expiration 131 00:07:53,769 --> 00:07:56,049 that we give to ourselves sooner and sooner. 132 00:07:56,337 --> 00:07:58,797 What I did not tell you… 133 00:07:58,797 --> 00:08:01,720 is that a phone is ringing right now. 134 00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:04,970 What I didn’t tell you is that we all have a joker. 135 00:08:05,818 --> 00:08:10,758 We all have the possibility to become a good story. 136 00:08:10,758 --> 00:08:15,748 We all have the possibility to become a good story that is going to inspire 137 00:08:15,748 --> 00:08:19,532 other human beings and help them move forward. 138 00:08:19,532 --> 00:08:25,652 And there’s one group of people whose job is to distribute jokers: 139 00:08:25,652 --> 00:08:28,245 the story fabricators. 140 00:08:28,245 --> 00:08:30,365 Lucky me: it’s my job. 141 00:08:30,365 --> 00:08:35,897 My job is to hunt, to imagine, and to share the stories 142 00:08:35,897 --> 00:08:40,361 of people with a surprising, innovating and impactful destiny, 143 00:08:40,361 --> 00:08:42,871 and who embodies strong ideas. 144 00:08:42,871 --> 00:08:46,776 And currently, we are living through an extremely interesting period. 145 00:08:46,776 --> 00:08:48,176 Just like archeologists, 146 00:08:48,176 --> 00:08:52,296 we are digging out new stories, different stories. 147 00:08:52,296 --> 00:08:59,386 Stories of people who often did not receive immediate and positive feedback 148 00:08:59,386 --> 00:09:02,356 about the worth of what they were doing and who, 149 00:09:02,356 --> 00:09:06,266 5, 50, 100, 200, 500 years later 150 00:09:06,266 --> 00:09:09,966 end up at the center of the storytelling stage to help us, 151 00:09:09,966 --> 00:09:12,776 the new generations, to better understand the world 152 00:09:12,786 --> 00:09:14,636 and to move forward. 153 00:09:14,636 --> 00:09:18,566 For example, some of you might recognize the name of 154 00:09:18,566 --> 00:09:20,226 Georgina Reid. 155 00:09:20,226 --> 00:09:26,246 A textile designer who, in 1971, when she was 63, decided that 156 00:09:26,246 --> 00:09:32,246 what she really wanted to do was to save her little town's lighthouse 157 00:09:32,246 --> 00:09:35,705 that was at risk of falling down due to the cliff's erosion. 158 00:09:35,705 --> 00:09:38,935 Georgina created a whole system that she patented. 159 00:09:38,935 --> 00:09:42,775 She presents her project to the coast guards, 160 00:09:42,775 --> 00:09:44,835 they listen to her and say: 161 00:09:44,835 --> 00:09:47,945 “We won’t prevent you from doing it but we won't help you out either." 162 00:09:47,945 --> 00:09:50,065 Okay, no problem. 163 00:09:50,065 --> 00:09:54,385 For 15 years, helped by her husband and volunteers, Georgina used 164 00:09:54,385 --> 00:09:58,115 her knowledge and her time for free, to prevent the lighthouse 165 00:09:58,115 --> 00:10:01,085 to prevent the lighthouse from falling down. 166 00:10:01,085 --> 00:10:03,145 And she will succeed. 167 00:10:03,145 --> 00:10:07,445 Georgina died in 2001, but the lightouse is still here. 168 00:10:08,370 --> 00:10:12,317 And then, 3 years ago, a French story fabricator, 169 00:10:12,317 --> 00:10:16,193 Pénélope Bagieu, gave a joker to Georgina. 170 00:10:16,193 --> 00:10:19,923 She shared Georgina’s story in a graphic novel dedicated 171 00:10:19,923 --> 00:10:25,467 to several women who changed their story and sometimes History 172 00:10:25,467 --> 00:10:27,687 in unexpected ways. 173 00:10:28,637 --> 00:10:31,917 It’s thanks to a story fabricator 174 00:10:31,917 --> 00:10:36,057 that 200,000 French people and myself, have been inspired 175 00:10:36,057 --> 00:10:40,527 by Georgina and her determination to fight for something 176 00:10:40,527 --> 00:10:45,747 that mattered to her even though officially she was told it didn't. 177 00:10:46,957 --> 00:10:49,927 Georgina was able to become a good story because she was 178 00:10:49,927 --> 00:10:54,287 an active actress of her story. 179 00:10:54,287 --> 00:10:58,766 She didn’t settle for wishing that the lighthouse wouldn't fall down. 180 00:10:58,766 --> 00:11:02,606 No, she did what she had to do to make sure the lighthouse 181 00:11:02,606 --> 00:11:04,439 wouldn’t fall down. 182 00:11:04,550 --> 00:11:06,780 And this word, “doing”, 183 00:11:06,780 --> 00:11:10,920 is one of the three steps to become a good story. 184 00:11:11,211 --> 00:11:14,066 In reality, the recipe to become a good story is simple. 185 00:11:14,066 --> 00:11:16,796 Well, it fits into three steps. 186 00:11:17,906 --> 00:11:20,146 First, you have to listen to your intuition, 187 00:11:20,146 --> 00:11:23,777 to hear what each one of us individually, really want to do. 188 00:11:23,777 --> 00:11:26,199 And once you’ve listened to it, 189 00:11:26,199 --> 00:11:30,439 you need to muster the courage to go for it, and do it. 190 00:11:31,219 --> 00:11:33,541 And once you’ve had the courage to do it, 191 00:11:33,541 --> 00:11:35,131 you need to repeat. 192 00:11:35,131 --> 00:11:37,971 Every day, you need to do it again. 193 00:11:38,601 --> 00:11:42,271 Today we are under a lot of pressure when it comes to the projects 194 00:11:42,271 --> 00:11:44,254 we decide to pursue. 195 00:11:44,254 --> 00:11:45,796 They need to have a goal. 196 00:11:45,796 --> 00:11:49,226 If they don't have a goal, then they are not serious. 197 00:11:49,226 --> 00:11:52,454 And if they are not serious, then they are worth nothing. 198 00:11:53,656 --> 00:11:56,786 I completely disagree with this way of thinking. 199 00:11:56,786 --> 00:11:59,926 If there’s one thing I've learned this past decade, 200 00:11:59,926 --> 00:12:02,786 hunting and fabricating stories, 201 00:12:02,786 --> 00:12:07,793 it's that the value of what we do is not fixed in time. 202 00:12:07,793 --> 00:12:12,135 The value of what we do can have a surprising impact 203 00:12:12,135 --> 00:12:15,835 in five years, in fifty years, after our death or 204 00:12:15,835 --> 00:12:18,025 our great-grand-children’s death. 205 00:12:18,025 --> 00:12:21,065 So there’s no point to try picking something that will have 206 00:12:21,065 --> 00:12:25,190 an impact instantaneously. 207 00:12:25,190 --> 00:12:27,360 We can’t know if it will happen. 208 00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:29,835 We should just keep on doing. 209 00:12:31,365 --> 00:12:33,143 And these three steps: listening to yourself, 210 00:12:33,143 --> 00:12:35,393 going for it, and doing it again, 211 00:12:35,393 --> 00:12:39,890 they are crystallized in Carmen Herrera’s story. 212 00:12:40,554 --> 00:12:44,594 Carmen Herrera was born in La Havana in 1915. 213 00:12:44,594 --> 00:12:47,814 At a young age she realizes that what she really wants to do 214 00:12:47,814 --> 00:12:49,064 is paint. 215 00:12:49,064 --> 00:12:52,206 So she paints, every day. 216 00:12:52,206 --> 00:12:55,605 And then she realizes that she creates minimalist abstract paintings, 217 00:12:55,605 --> 00:12:58,635 exactly at the time when abstract minimalism is trendy. 218 00:12:58,635 --> 00:13:00,128 Perfect. 219 00:13:00,128 --> 00:13:03,968 She sells her first painting, and then nothing. 220 00:13:03,968 --> 00:13:08,407 She exhibits her work, the audience doesn't respond. 221 00:13:08,407 --> 00:13:12,657 She tries to find galleries that would exhibit her work, 222 00:13:12,657 --> 00:13:14,441 everybody says no. 223 00:13:14,441 --> 00:13:16,675 And then one day, 224 00:13:16,675 --> 00:13:20,615 Carmen is offered the opportunity to exhibit her work again, 225 00:13:20,615 --> 00:13:24,015 and this time people love it. 226 00:13:24,644 --> 00:13:29,314 We are in 2004 at that point, Carmen is 89. 227 00:13:30,595 --> 00:13:32,817 Today Carmen is 103. 228 00:13:33,347 --> 00:13:36,847 These past 14 years, her paintings have been exhibited 229 00:13:36,847 --> 00:13:40,707 presented in some of the most prestigious museums in the world. 230 00:13:41,096 --> 00:13:45,986 For 60 years Carmen Herrera has created daily, 231 00:13:45,986 --> 00:13:50,585 paintings that nobody thought had any value. 232 00:13:50,585 --> 00:13:52,277 And then one day, 233 00:13:52,277 --> 00:13:57,395 Carmen Herrera’s story has aligned with Art’s History. 234 00:13:57,395 --> 00:14:03,979 If I tell you this story, it is not to tell you that success always comes. 235 00:14:03,979 --> 00:14:06,468 Because it’s not the case. 236 00:14:06,468 --> 00:14:09,708 But it’s because I'm convinced that Carmen Herrera would still 237 00:14:09,708 --> 00:14:13,468 be painting today, even if she had never found 238 00:14:13,468 --> 00:14:15,900 her audience while she was alive. 239 00:14:15,900 --> 00:14:19,441 Carmen Herrera didn’t paint to become famous. 240 00:14:19,441 --> 00:14:23,516 She painted because it was giving meaning to her life. 241 00:14:23,516 --> 00:14:27,415 It’s not success that gives meaning to our life 242 00:14:27,415 --> 00:14:30,927 it’s being self-expressed. 243 00:14:30,927 --> 00:14:33,457 And when we are fully expressed, 244 00:14:33,457 --> 00:14:37,927 our social expiration date vanishes. 245 00:14:37,927 --> 00:14:40,266 When we are fully expressed, 246 00:14:40,266 --> 00:14:43,106 our failures as well as our successes 247 00:14:43,106 --> 00:14:45,306 become simply steps, 248 00:14:45,306 --> 00:14:48,885 on the graph of our personal growth. 249 00:14:50,483 --> 00:14:54,945 Tonight what I want to suggest is to shift your focus 250 00:14:54,945 --> 00:14:58,658 away from what you cannot control. 251 00:14:58,658 --> 00:15:04,588 We cannot control how people are going to react to what we do. 252 00:15:04,588 --> 00:15:08,168 But we can control what we do. 253 00:15:08,168 --> 00:15:12,913 So, let’s stop paying attention to society’s feedback 254 00:15:12,913 --> 00:15:17,163 about the value of what gives meaning to our lives. 255 00:15:17,163 --> 00:15:22,652 Because we rarely can measure the value of what we do right after doing it. 256 00:15:22,652 --> 00:15:27,412 And more importantly because the value of what we do will evolve unexpectedly 257 00:15:27,412 --> 00:15:29,652 over time. 258 00:15:29,983 --> 00:15:34,440 Today, when I meet people and they ask me what I do in life, 259 00:15:34,440 --> 00:15:39,203 I tell them that I am a story fabricator. 260 00:15:39,203 --> 00:15:43,106 Nobody really understands what it means but it's okay, 261 00:15:43,106 --> 00:15:47,022 because if I have the chance to talk a little bit more with them, 262 00:15:47,022 --> 00:15:53,684 they understand that fabricating stories is my way to express myself fully 263 00:15:53,684 --> 00:15:55,794 and daily, doing. 264 00:15:55,794 --> 00:15:57,459 For the last ten years, 265 00:15:57,459 --> 00:16:04,739 I’ve been hunting and fabricating stories that I share as screenplays, films, lyrics 266 00:16:04,739 --> 00:16:07,945 drawings, podcasts or graphic novels. 267 00:16:08,365 --> 00:16:10,843 Sometimes, I doubt. 268 00:16:10,843 --> 00:16:14,676 I feel that what I’m doing is completely useless. 269 00:16:14,676 --> 00:16:20,153 And then I remember that my intuition is probably whispering something to me 270 00:16:20,153 --> 00:16:22,842 and that I should probably listen to it. 271 00:16:22,842 --> 00:16:28,567 So I listen to it, I go for it, and then I repeat the process. 272 00:16:28,567 --> 00:16:32,721 If tomorrow when you wake up you feel like doing something "useless", 273 00:16:32,721 --> 00:16:37,008 listen to yourself, go for it, and repeat the process. 274 00:16:37,008 --> 00:16:43,020 Because it’s by being active actors of our story that we will become 275 00:16:43,020 --> 00:16:44,991 good stories. 276 00:16:44,991 --> 00:16:49,311 Stories that other human beings will be able to use and share 277 00:16:49,311 --> 00:16:51,741 to move forward. 278 00:16:51,741 --> 00:16:54,095 Do what you have to do, 279 00:16:54,095 --> 00:16:56,856 never mind if it feels useless. 280 00:16:56,856 --> 00:17:02,274 If it’s important to you, then it's worth doing. 281 00:17:02,274 --> 00:17:03,909 Express yourself, 282 00:17:03,909 --> 00:17:06,159 and we, the story fabricators, 283 00:17:06,168 --> 00:17:07,608 we will find you. 284 00:17:07,608 --> 00:17:08,617 Thank you.