be here when preparing for this talk I
came across something curious about
where do ideas come from where does
creativity come from and I came across
this phrase that we have both in English
and in Spanish in English we say to buy
into an idea in Spanish company nadir
and it seemed strange to me that we
should have developed a verb that
signifies transaction for something to
do with creativity so here we go and
let’s see if you want to buy this hello
my name is domine
I’m cutting this really great idea I
no take us all right attempt number two
my name is Dominic I’ve got this great
thing it’s light its metallic you can
take it any way it’s mobile all right
I’m not doing very well today right Tim
number three
hello my name’s Dominic I want to make
your life simpler easier we’re supposed
to be digital natives and yet we’re
drowning in paperwork
wouldn’t you like to be able to dedicate
your time to the things that you truly
love to the people that you truly love
I’ve got this thing it’s lightweight its
metallic it’s easy to take around would
there’s a paperclip it’s a really cool
design and one of the simplest most
elegant designs out there my point is
that doesn’t matter how creative or
world-changing your idea is if you can’t
communicate it if you can’t communicate
its benefits if you can’t tell people
why they want this thing in their life
then you’re not going to go very far so
you need to be able to sell in order to
put people to buy into your idea Kay the
complan lady no and it doesn’t have to
be an object as mundane as everyday as a
paperclip we could be talking about an
idea we could be talking about a concept
we could be talking you know about a
dream a dream like Martin Luther King’s
of a world where people are not judged
by the color of their skin but by the
content of their characters a beautiful
dream that could change the world so you
have to know how to sell where does the
art of selling come from well they’re
gonna be lots of theories about this
I’ve got two personal ones I think that
selling has to you have to have
confidence in order to be able to sell
no you have to have confidence in
yourself you have to have faith in your
idea because otherwise no one’s gonna be
buying here the second element I think
is important is empathy if you haven’t
reached out to people if people aren’t
listening if people aren’t gonna get
engaged with you then they’re not going
to be convinced by you so you need to be
able to engage that empathy and in order
to be able to sell every great leader of
the recent past every great tyrant as
well has used these tools the same tools
so where is this thing called confidence
come from well I think we’d all agree it
comes from how you brought up your
education your environment the
experiences
you’ve had the experiments that you’ve
made no in my case I started
communicating when I was quite young
when I was about seven years old I used
to write stories for my granny yeah and
we used to visit them every weekend in
their house by the River Thames and I
used to write these stories for my
granny about adventurers and adventures
and based on my readings of Huckleberry
Finn
of aesthetics or Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory and I used to write
these out and give them to my granny and
she was very pleased and in that same
house at the top of this house was this
very quiet kind of cocoon of a room and
that was my grandfather study and he had
this big mahogany desk with all these
drawers when I was seven it must have
looked a huge now and on the middle of
this desk was this big black metallic
typewriter and I thought this typewriter
was just amazing and I started you know
clanging on the keys and this is an old
school typewriter me well this methyl
and gets ching ching ching ching and I
thought this is magic on this paper came
out and I was probably really rubbish
probably not much better than I was I
know much better now Oh typing and I
love this idea and I know did I say yes
this is it I want to be a writer at that
point in my life no but I did think it
was amazing now on the second row of
keys you know the first one is QWERTY
and the second one down the letters are
a s and D and my brother and sisters
names Alexander Stephanie and Dominic in
that order they it was meant to be and I
started I continued like writing a lot
now I used to write love poems
everybody’s written a love poem right um
and you you know write out these lovely
love poems and you do swirls and
everything you put it on my purple paper
or something and I think we’d all admit
when we’re writing a love poem that
we’re actually selling yourself what
you’re doing is pitching yourself now it
could be your three-minute elevator
pitch or your 30 second one you gain and
everyone would admit I’d be the first
one to admit they’re not every love
you’re not gonna have a hundred percent
success rate are you you’re gonna fail
you have to get yourself back home and
you have to say like we do in English
there’s more fish in the sea
alright and I’m off to that to the next
one but I think I learned will began to
learn this art of selling through
through love letters something strange
happened in my late teens electronic
dance music and I’ve washed through the
UK washed through London this rave scene
and I got washed up you know with it not
just by the illegal raves not just by
the drugs they’re also important um but
also of course by the music and dancing
all the night but I love the idea the
whole kind of concept and I loved the
graphic design I realized and at that
point in that stage there was no
internet and there was no social media
so the way that people would market
things and let let you know about where
they were at Nick’s rave when the next
wave was because they were illegal we
didn’t know where they were was with
flyers and if people would hand out
flyers after the rave all you’d have to
go to like a record shop and get the
Flyers and I started collecting these
flyers and then later when I was at
university I continued with this dance
scene with music with painting like
sheets for these mostly illegal parties
that we would put on with our friends
and I started designing flies and I
think I began to understand the power of
words and images at that point in my
life and it’s something I’ve taken all
the way through when I was 22 things
happen one of them was my father died
and the second one I went to South
America for the first time and I landed
in Caracas then he was like by hello
hurry up and like leafy London suburbian
and this was like Caracas mega mega city
and I headed off to a place called
Berlin Savannah which is known as the
lost world it has these amazing
mountains this tip wheeze which are
called islands in time and
I fell in love with this area of this
region I was really inspired I began
writing about it a lot taking photos
drawings but I was also very affected by
what I saw in Caracas and the crime that
that gnarly nasty part of Caracas know
and I think I was also inspired to write
and your creativity can come both from
the sublime and also from the ugly
basically and the unjust and you end up
writing about stuff um after that I was
very lucky I continued writing and then
one day you know of the sky fell a
contract to write a whole guidebook to
Venezuela an amazing project I had a
whole year they paid me real money and I
also had a deadline and new young people
something that I’ve learned is a
deadline is it sharpens your creativity
it’s amazing you can really sharpen your
creativity
when you’ve got this deadline hanging
over you and I think it also this this
project challenged me and and made me
you know step up which is I think is
always important you had to push me I’d
written you know articles before that
but here was like a hundred thousand
word book that I had to hand in and of
course I handed it in late and I then
became this kind of published author
person and traveled I went all around
Europe I went around Central America
South America I’ve lived a blessed life
I developed my voice people talk about
writing in different ways some people
say it’s like a muscle now you have to
train this muscle maybe no pain no gain
I don’t buy into that at all I don’t do
any exercise I ride my bike so some
people talk about writing like a craft
known you have to think of like a
carpenter or something anything you know
shaping these words I don’t know what
writing is I really don’t all I don’t
understand it
all I can tell you I think of all the
arts it’s probably the most intimate if
you have a very relationship between you
is the the writer and the reader you
take them by the hand no you kind of
danced a strange tango dance together
and you’re very aware when you’re
writing of every little thing that you
do can have an impact every full stop is
it a paragraph is it a question mark all
of that has an effect and what it is
whatever it is it’s work and its failure
and it’s rejection you write beautiful
articles and then editor goes me get up
you have to get up like the love letters
there more fish in the sea
but you have to deal with it and you
have to work at it and develop your
voice and the same thing applied when I
I bought a video camera I said well you
know I can write stories I can order my
thoughts let’s do video as well and I
also taught the advent of the World Wide
Web happen and the Internet
that’s all yeah man I can do this as
well and I wanted to you know talk about
all these other things too that I had
experience that couldn’t go in these
articles I then settled in Quito and I
was very lucky to fall in love with a
beautiful woman and fall in love with a
beautiful city and get a job eventually
in Quito trees more and being an
ambassador for their city someone who
talks about the city and you have to
believe in that city know if you’re
going to promote it and sell it you have
to believe in your product and also
something I think is very important was
that I was very motivated I would wake
up in the morning you know
and then black eyes and I’m knocking out
God and I would say I am working for 2
million Latinos no that’s a huge
motivation it’s not for yourself it’s
not further for the boss the millionaire
you’re working for these two million
continues so I think if you’re not
motivated in life find motivation
because no one alien are going to be
creative if you’re not motivated and
second of all I don’t think anybody’s
going to believe you
I then went on to work for this travel
company and I was very lucky again I was
able to work on two new hotel projects
and one of them was in the cloud for us
these tropical cloud forests to the
northwest of Quito and I kind of went
back to this lost world now when I was
20 when I was very raw after my father
had died and I managed to smell the
forest again listen to the waterfalls
again and I was charged or tasked with
communicating this beauty communicating
the project its conservation and we were
very successful luckily in talking about
it and getting the world’s media and to
talk about it so that inspiration can
have very wide ramifications I think
something else happened to me that kind
of fell from the sky swinging back and I
got a phone call saying would I like to
be risa ministro diploma some tourists
eager dellacroix thought no no Deputy
Minister I think you’ve got the wrong
person but they hadn’t and I realized
that it was a wonderful challenge that I
should take up and I did state’s route
down this challenge at me and and
although on paper I could do this job
and it was an amazing year full of all
sorts of amazing moments and happiness
and joy when the work of like hundreds
of people literally hundreds of people
could kinda come together
materialize for the common good it was
also a year of very tough very long
hours and when you realize that you have
to deal with frustration you have a very
broad horizon these are all the millions
of things that you can do to promote
Ecuador
and you’re only gonna have time to do
this much and you’re only gonna have be
able to do that much if you’ve got a
team of people around you and you have
to deal with that failure you have to
live with the ghosts of your failure and
you have to get up and keep going
I was then very lucky back a few years
ago to be involved in there in a
magazine project which in a way brings
together all my passions everything
well my skill set and it’s also about
sharing this great country called
Ecuador with people whether they live
here or whether they’re visiting and
it’s this amazingly creative bubble that
we live in and while we love each other
and hear each other with equal passion
so creativity for me does not come out
of no way no opportunities go Shoop no
opportunities can fall from the sky like
we’ve seen in my life but creativity is
the experience that you apply to the
problem that you face I’m so experiences
that come from your successes come from
your life Oscar Wilde said experiences
that the named one gives to one’s
mistakes take your mistakes used him you
have to apply the creativity to this
problem you have to research you have to
analyze it you have to understand it
because when you think about it what’s
the point of your creativity if no one
gets your message you know you’re
shouting the hailer here’s my message
and no one’s listening to you because
you haven’t done the exercises that you
need to do in order to get there
sometimes you can have a very pure think
of a pure artists vision and you can
they can have this very personal view
and only really in extraordinary cases
can it happen
with that view that very personal view
you can impact someone no without first
putting yourself in their shoes without
first generating some kind of empathy
with them so creativity is dialogue it’s
a two-way street is too strange tango
dance that I talk about when I’m writing
to describe in its this transaction
people are going to sell an idea and
people are going to buy into it people
are going to believe that that idea and
you need to in order to touch people
kind of deeply then you first need to
have done this laborious tedious
sometimes boring work now of researching
of trying to empathize and reach out
into other people lives into their their
hopes you know their dreams their
concerns and once you’ve done that then
you can quite easily Holmes you know
have this message which is extremely
powerful
you can change people you can change the
way they think you can change the world
like Martin Luther King did with a
beautiful dream that is powerful its
power do you have a powerful message
once you’ve got all that behind you and
that comes from your confidence
confidence that you earn you build and
you bolster with everything and through
everything that you do so when you
combine confidence with empathy you’ll
have this strength you’ll have reasoning
you’ll have arguments and I believe that
then you’ll have freedom to create and
when you have that then you have
creative freedom and that’s what I wish
you oh thank you very much [Applause]