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#AroundTheWorld #Trends | Eduardo Angel | TEDxTAMU


[Applause]
how many of you ate at my
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
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 crust 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
spent 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
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 pets on the road we
learned 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 were my wives worst
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 Tora 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
handmade goods
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 emotion graphics
artists in Hong Kong we are developing
an immersive interactive project called
visual serendipity by showing the sights
sounds and
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
people always 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 as Peter 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 in
general 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 though 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 leave 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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