Comment devient-on une bonne histoire ? | Nathalie Sejean | TEDxReims

Ten years ago, I quit my job as a bookseller

I packed my luggage

and I left Paris to live in Los Angeles.

I didn’t know anyone there

but I knew that I wanted

to make movies

so it made sense to go to Hollywood.

I came back to France

after a few years

and when people would ask me:

: “What do you do in life?”

I would reply:

: “I’m a filmmaker. I make movies.

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

I would oftentimes see a little sparkle

in their eyes as they'd say:

“That’s amazing!

What type of films do you direct?

Can we see them at the movie theatre?

Have you worked with famous people?”

And I would reply:

: “I direct mostly fiction.

You can’t watch my films at the movie theatre

- not yet.

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

At that moment

there would be a silence

long enough for their enthusiasm

to go down a few inches

And then,

we would keep on talking about Los Angeles.

Little by little,

tired of seeing people’s reaction

going from curious to disappointed

when they would realize

that I was a “wannabe”,

I started lying about what I was doing.

I stopped saying

“I’m a filmmaker”

to say “I work as a freelance.”

I stopped saying

to say “I make videos for clients.”

It sounded less dreamy

but it was useful and practical.

We would talk about how to find clients,

how to bill them, about gear.

And more importantly,

I stopped feeling like

like I had to apologize for my lack of success.

I began to feel a bit weird about it though

, so I asked myself

“Why do you lie about what you do?

And why do you feel

feel compelled to diminish people's expectations

so they won’t think you’ve failed?”

It’s at that point that I really started

to become interested

about the concept of “success”

and how it has evolved

in the last few years,

especially with the social medias’ arrival in our lives

that remind us daily

how we rank on the graph of success

compared to the other 8 billion.

This ranking on the “success graph”

explains why sometimes,

when we talk with people,

a contest starts

to find out who has the most impact.

It’s conveyed through innocent words:

“I know X person”

“X number of people follow me”

“I travelled through X number of countries”,

“I was a speaker at X event”.