[Applause]
how many of you aid
or subway last month cannot see hands
but okay it’s pretty dark and how many
of you have eaten at McDonald’s or
subway outside of the u.s. pretty
healthy crowd I’m not going to judge but
there are tourists and there are
travelers the tourists are afraid of the
unknown the different you see them
eating at the McDonald’s or subway
that’s right next to the local food
market tourists usually don’t explore
the world at best they go on long
commutes nothing wrong with that but I
consider myself a traveler I adapt to
local customs eat what the locals eat
enjoy trying new things
embrace feeling uncomfortable and have a
blast getting lost see travelling to me
is like building a puzzle without a
reference image I have been to 61
countries so far
and nothing feeds my soul like
deciphering maps memorizing impossible
names and freezing time with my camera
now let me ask you a tougher question if
you had only one year left to live what
would you do and what wouldn’t you do I
don’t know how long I’ll live but this
question always inspires me and scares
me as we all know the older we get the
harder it is to forsake the familiar and
comfortable I also believe that our
biggest regrets are not our actions but
our in actions the things we wanted to
do but didn’t in addition to these I
randomly came across with three
seemingly unrelated concepts that when
put together made me understand a
beautiful quote by Pico Iyer sometimes
making a comfortable living and having a
good life move in opposite directions
the three concepts are are italic an
activity or creative work that has an
end or purpose in itself a key guy the
happiness of always being busy and this
beautiful quote by Ed Catmull the
president of Pixar craft is what we are
expected to know art is the unexpected
use of our craft with all of this in
mind I spent six years trying to
convince my wife to quit everything and
spend some time living like we only had
a year left giving your material life
away to travel extensively is certainly
a tough decision for anyone but some of
you probably know a few Americans or
Europeans who have done it before the
stakes are a bit higher for a Colombian
architect who moved to the u.s. in the
late 90s to fulfill his dream of
becoming a photographer then many years
later moved to New York to become a
filmmaker won an Emmy and then had to
convince his wife to quit her job as an
architect in Manhattan and donate all of
so about 18 months ago we sold our car
donated 90% of our belongings that’s a
nine zero closed our beautiful rent
control Brooklyn apartment and embarked
upon a journey around the world hoping
to accomplish three simple goals spend
more quality time together recharge our
creative Souls and for myself improve my
craft as a storyteller
we have lived in 20 countries worked in
almost 200 cities and slept in more than
a hundred different beds on the road we
learn in the gap between knowing and
doing for example most of my friends in
New York love wine they can tell you
everything about the best Bordeaux
vintages and the subtle differences
between the French and American oak but
not a single one has actually made wine
while photographing wine harvest in
Italy Spain and Portugal I asked Don
Francisco so what do you grow here and
he said grapes yes I know but is that
castelao or drink Adada and he replied I
don’t know surprised I insisted so you
have been making wine for 45 years and
you don’t know the name of your grapes
nope he said I just know how to make
good wine Don Francisco also taught me
that contra Ballia pour gosh – now Kansa
who enjoys work doesn’t get tired that’s
a good one
traveling is a great way to test the
strength of your relationships some of
my best memories where my wives were
nightmares like that week in Bali living
in the middle of a rice field surrounded
by nothing but silence and nature now if
you ask her
we were only surrounded by giant spiders
millions of ants and flying cockroaches
traveling also allows us to confront our
own belief systems and learn about
tolerance and humbleness in Myanmar we
spent two weeks with tudi the happiest
person I have ever met
juda volunteers full-time at a monastery
that doubles as an orphanage he barely
makes enough money to cover his living
expenses and yet donate half of his
salary for my birthday my wife and I
provided lunch for the hundred and fifty
children at the temple seeing the
children’s faces while eating chicken
soup made me feel blessed and incredibly
upset with myself for not doing similar
things more often I’m still upset while
circling the globe for a year and a half
we noticed four interesting cultural
trends the first trend is that online
content is pointing toward more of line
local experiences soon I believe the
most successful brands will be those
that can bridge online and offline
delivering seamless experiences
throughout the consumer journey in
getting better not only at reach but
relevance the second trend is how people
increasingly care about where their food
comes from in an age of industrialized
food more than ever people crave local
organic and sustainable farm goods a
third trend is a growing preference for
Han
goods over those that are mass-produced
and I’m not talking just about shoes or
furniture but the range extends from
bread to experiences when there is a
human story or a familiar face linked to
a product or more likely to make a
connection
the fourth trend is a rebirth of local
pride in local cultures and in
preserving traditions this is amazing in
a world where conglomerates and
monopolies seem to own everything and
get bigger by the week winner is this
wonderful local pride in Portugal
Espania italia morocco malaysia
australia new zealand hawaii mexico in
colombia younger generations still look
to the US as the trendsetter when it
comes to pop music or urban fashion but
there is a coolness factor in
materials ideas and sounds when it comes
to technology and especially mobile
payments the world’s attention is
quickly shifting to the east but that’s
a whole other topic for another day or
another TED talk I shot hundreds of
hours of footage thousands of images and
recorded lots of sound scapes as our
journey ended my challenge as a visual
storyteller was how to use this content
and the many lessons learned assisted by
a team that includes composers in
Brooklyn and Morocco video editors in
Charlotte and Lisbon a writer in Chicago
and a motion graphics artist in Hong
Kong we are developing an immersive
interactive project called visual
serendipity by showing the sites
sounds an energy of a place while
building a platform where the viewer
becomes part of the story the project
aims to show the many similarities we
all share with others in hopefully
increased tolerance amongst different
cultures here’s a trailer for visual
people also always want to know if we
achieved our original goals so let’s see
spend more quality time together
we actually spend 24/7 for 551 days
usually in tiny places and we’re still
together so let’s consider this goal
achieved recharge our creative goals our
creative souls absolutely
we saw wonderful landscapes and
buildings and had amazing experiences
but our best memories are of the people
we met and the many stories and meals we
shared them improve my craft as a
storyteller I do feel that today I can
parachute anywhere in the world and come
out with some decent images and a good
story people also want to know what the
key lessons are after such an amazing
journey and there are many but to finish
I would like to share four first a
spirit Drucker said life is a paradox in
order to build one most teardown or
paraphrasing the modern-day Explorer Ben
Saunders real inspiration and growth
only comes from adversity and challenges
in jumping out into the unknown second
we learned firsthand about Miller ISM
regardless of what you see in the news
every day I can assure you that most
people around the world are good and
generous by nature humans can and do
work together to improve our world we
all gain when we feel proud of who we
are in what we can become the third
lesson might seem obvious
even the technology offers us customized
news and entertainment and we can talk
to anyone in the world essentially for
free people seem less happy and more
disconnected I do loss technology use it
every day but as we become more
distracted we might be missing the time
to live our lives fully and in the
present and here’s the final and most
important lesson at least for me real
wealth is discretionary time and the
universal currency isn’t dollars euros
or bitcoins but smiles thank you [Applause]
how many of you aid
or subway last month cannot see hands
but okay it’s pretty dark and how many
of you have eaten at McDonald’s or
subway outside of the u.s. pretty
healthy crowd I’m not going to judge but
there are tourists and there are
travelers the tourists are afraid of the
unknown the different you see them
eating at the McDonald’s or subway
that’s right next to the local food
market tourists usually don’t explore
the world at best they go on long
commutes nothing wrong with that but I
consider myself a traveler I adapt to
local customs eat what the locals eat
enjoy trying new things
embrace feeling uncomfortable and have a
blast getting lost see travelling to me
is like building a puzzle without a
reference image I have been to 61
countries so far
and nothing feeds my soul like
deciphering maps memorizing impossible
names and freezing time with my camera
now let me ask you a tougher question if
you had only one year left to live what
would you do and what wouldn’t you do I
don’t know how long I’ll live but this
question always inspires me and scares
me as we all know the older we get the
harder it is to forsake the familiar and
comfortable I also believe that our
biggest regrets are not our actions but
our in actions the things we wanted to
do but didn’t in addition to these I
randomly came across with three
seemingly unrelated concepts that when
put together made me understand a
beautiful quote by Pico Iyer sometimes
making a comfortable living and having a
good life move in opposite directions
the three concepts are are italic an
activity or creative work that has an
end or purpose in itself a key guy the
happiness of always being busy and this
beautiful quote by Ed Catmull the
president of Pixar craft is what we are
expected to know art is the unexpected
use of our craft with all of this in
mind I spent six years trying to
convince my wife to quit everything and
spend some time living like we only had
a year left giving your material life
away to travel extensively is certainly
a tough decision for anyone but some of
you probably know a few Americans or
Europeans who have done it before the
stakes are a bit higher for a Colombian
architect who moved to the u.s. in the
late 90s to fulfill his dream of
becoming a photographer then many years
later moved to New York to become a
filmmaker won an Emmy and then had to
convince his wife to quit her job as an
architect in Manhattan and donate all of
so about 18 months ago we sold our car
donated 90% of our belongings that’s a
nine zero closed our beautiful rent
control Brooklyn apartment and embarked
upon a journey around the world hoping
to accomplish three simple goals spend
more quality time together recharge our
creative Souls and for myself improve my
craft as a storyteller
we have lived in 20 countries worked in
almost 200 cities and slept in more than
a hundred different beds on the road we
learn in the gap between knowing and
doing for example most of my friends in
New York love wine they can tell you
everything about the best Bordeaux
vintages and the subtle differences
between the French and American oak but
not a single one has actually made wine
while photographing wine harvest in
Italy Spain and Portugal I asked Don
Francisco so what do you grow here and
he said grapes yes I know but is that
castelao or drink Adada and he replied I
don’t know surprised I insisted so you
have been making wine for 45 years and
you don’t know the name of your grapes
nope he said I just know how to make
good wine Don Francisco also taught me
that contra Ballia pour gosh – now Kansa
who enjoys work doesn’t get tired that’s
a good one
traveling is a great way to test the
strength of your relationships some of
my best memories where my wives were
nightmares like that week in Bali living
in the middle of a rice field surrounded
by nothing but silence and nature now if
you ask her
we were only surrounded by giant spiders
millions of ants and flying cockroaches
traveling also allows us to confront our
own belief systems and learn about
tolerance and humbleness in Myanmar we
spent two weeks with tudi the happiest
person I have ever met
juda volunteers full-time at a monastery
that doubles as an orphanage he barely
makes enough money to cover his living
expenses and yet donate half of his
salary for my birthday my wife and I
provided lunch for the hundred and fifty
children at the temple seeing the
children’s faces while eating chicken
soup made me feel blessed and incredibly
upset with myself for not doing similar
things more often I’m still upset while
circling the globe for a year and a half
we noticed four interesting cultural
trends the first trend is that online
content is pointing toward more of line
local experiences soon I believe the
most successful brands will be those
that can bridge online and offline
delivering seamless experiences
throughout the consumer journey in
getting better not only at reach but
relevance the second trend is how people
increasingly care about where their food
comes from in an age of industrialized
food more than ever people crave local
organic and sustainable farm goods a
third trend is a growing preference for
Han
goods over those that are mass-produced
and I’m not talking just about shoes or
furniture but the range extends from
bread to experiences when there is a
human story or a familiar face linked to
a product or more likely to make a
connection
the fourth trend is a rebirth of local
pride in local cultures and in
preserving traditions this is amazing in
a world where conglomerates and
monopolies seem to own everything and
get bigger by the week winner is this
wonderful local pride in Portugal
Espania italia morocco malaysia
australia new zealand hawaii mexico in
colombia younger generations still look
to the US as the trendsetter when it
comes to pop music or urban fashion but
there is a coolness factor in
materials ideas and sounds when it comes
to technology and especially mobile
payments the world’s attention is
quickly shifting to the east but that’s
a whole other topic for another day or
another TED talk I shot hundreds of
hours of footage thousands of images and
recorded lots of sound scapes as our
journey ended my challenge as a visual
storyteller was how to use this content
and the many lessons learned assisted by
a team that includes composers in
Brooklyn and Morocco video editors in
Charlotte and Lisbon a writer in Chicago
and a motion graphics artist in Hong
Kong we are developing an immersive
interactive project called visual
serendipity by showing the sites
sounds an energy of a place while
building a platform where the viewer
becomes part of the story the project
aims to show the many similarities we
all share with others in hopefully
increased tolerance amongst different
cultures here’s a trailer for visual
people also always want to know if we
achieved our original goals so let’s see
spend more quality time together
we actually spend 24/7 for 551 days
usually in tiny places and we’re still
together so let’s consider this goal
achieved recharge our creative goals our
creative souls absolutely
we saw wonderful landscapes and
buildings and had amazing experiences
but our best memories are of the people
we met and the many stories and meals we
shared them improve my craft as a
storyteller I do feel that today I can
parachute anywhere in the world and come
out with some decent images and a good
story people also want to know what the
key lessons are after such an amazing
journey and there are many but to finish
I would like to share four first a
spirit Drucker said life is a paradox in
order to build one most teardown or
paraphrasing the modern-day Explorer Ben
Saunders real inspiration and growth
only comes from adversity and challenges
in jumping out into the unknown second
we learned firsthand about Miller ISM
regardless of what you see in the news
every day I can assure you that most
people around the world are good and
generous by nature humans can and do
work together to improve our world we
all gain when we feel proud of who we
are in what we can become the third
lesson might seem obvious
even the technology offers us customized
news and entertainment and we can talk
to anyone in the world essentially for
free people seem less happy and more
disconnected I do loss technology use it
every day but as we become more
distracted we might be missing the time
to live our lives fully and in the
present and here’s the final and most
important lesson at least for me real
wealth is discretionary time and the
universal currency isn’t dollars euros
or bitcoins but smiles thank you [Applause]
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