holder
and what I do for a living is often
described by female as an experience
better than sex for you to understand
whom I wanted to be and who I became
instead I have to tell you a little bit
my story when I was a teenager I wanted
to have all the things we all want to
have in life I wanted to have a amazing
mansion flashy car hot smoking wife and
of course have the money to travel the
world for that reason I went to
university I graduated from law school
to make sure I will fulfill all the
goals in 2002 I decided out of the blue
that I wanted to go to England to learn
the language and I left Venezuela that
the country would I was born and family
and friends and the comfort of my home
to go and learn the language I was
terrified because I didn’t speak a word
of English I was there alone so my
thought was you cannot let this stop you
from doing the things you want to do so
in England this part of my
qualifications I have to do pretty much
anything in order to survived cleaning
toilets wiping floors looking after
elderly people in care homes but the
beautiful thing about all this is I
learn how to walk in someone else’s
shoes I learn how a cleaner feels like I
learn how a waiter feels like because I
had to do all these jobs in 2003 I went
back to Venezuela after saving a little
bit of money with my three jobs to visit
my family and friends and out of the
blue I decided that I wanted to try
skydiving you see skydiving normally
people start with a tandem skydive to
make sure if skydiving is for them or
not
my friends were mocking me around saying
if you do a tandem skydive we’re never
gonna talk to you again you’re gonna be
a girl so I was stupid enough to go for
the full course anyways
I go to the place where we’re doing the
skydive I mean climbing in the plane to
4000 meters and I was shaking out as you
can see I’m a little bit Brown I was
completely pale and I was thinking what
the hell am i doing there’s no need for
me to be doing this and right after that
moment the instructor comes very close
very close to me and says
are you ready to skydive and I go no no
and they open the door
they drag me out of that plane I don’t
know how they did it of course I’m a
little bit small so it’s easy to do it
they hug me there and off we went three
four you see free fall is something very
very difficult to explain I think there
are no words to describe what a human
feels in freefall your brain can only
process the information pass to it by
your body feeling and by your sight so
there is really no chance for you to see
what to think whether you have milk in
the fridge or not once that part should
open and I realize that I was still
alive I managed to land it and and I
decided this is it this is what I do
want to do for a living I want to become
a professional skydiver I’m sure my mom
wanted to kill me after paying for
university but that’s the way it is like
any other profession skydiving requires
that an individual obtains
qualifications in common in order to
become a professional skydiver that was
my plan from the very beginning to make
sure that I was on top of the game so I
became a coach I became a skydiving
instructor a coach examiner skydiving
instructor examiner I became a
professional exhibition jumper who is
the person that jumps in very tiny
places like stadiums and in the middle
of the street I also became one of the
many safety and training advisors from
the United States partial Association
around the world all this from the very
very beginning of my career I was always
inclined to do things that people
consider dangerous or that require a lot
of planning and expertise and I think
that’s what my motivation comes from
from presenting myself with a challenge
and work towards making it safely
achievable the problem with this is the
more experience you gain with all these
kind of crazy things as you guys normal
people call me is that the more
information you have in this little
crazy brain the more afraid you’re going
to be because you’re able to measure the
outcome of your mistakes
all these qualifications and all these
things took me to Dubai where I became
the assistant operation manager of Skaro
Dubai I was there for five years there I
did things that I never thought I would
be able to do and I met people that I
yeah with friends you know like in 2014
I set to new Guinness World Records by
landing with the world’s smallest and
fastest parachute if you’re wondering
how small this parachute is I brought it
here with me so you can see it to give
you a little bit more of example I’m
going to give you some technical details
a little bit better explain a tandem
parachute that is designed for two
people measures around 33 square meters
and has a vertical descent of
approximately 25 kilometres an hour
basically going down experienced
skydivers use parachutes are 3 to 5
times bigger than this parachute this
parachute measures only 3.2 square
meters it was manufacture in New Zealand
by amazing engineers and it’s pretty
much the size of a single bed sheet or
if you if you go on your bed and you
cover with your sheet is pretty much the
same surface the average speed that we
reach during the project was hundred and
twenty kilometres an hour
vertical speed and the maximum speed
recorded was with this parachute of 180
which is only 20 kilometers an hour less
than freefall speed we had many many
challenges with these projects I’m gonna
pass you some information see here you
can see a little bit the comparison
acrobatic pilots suffer from g-force
g-force is given to the quick
acceleration of a body
I knew if this parachute would start
turning violently and I didn’t know how
to deal with g-force I would possibly
pass out and die for that reason we went
to a g-force training centre in Holland
after three days of turning around and
passing out and almost puking at least
once a day then I managed to deal with
7.5 g-forces for more than 30 seconds
another channel challenge we face is
that this parachute is so so small that
every time I link to the left or I lean
to the right or even move my head to the
left or to the right the parachute would
turn so I have to be really really
careful because I was flying with some
other skydivers on the side with a
wingsuit with a with a squirrel suit
they were fine on the side helping me to
see how the party would perform if I was
not careful enough I would hit them and
knock them unconscious and of course I
would have been a really catastrophic
another challenge we face is that most
parachutes of pretty much every single
parachute that leaves the factory are
tested this little parachute was not I
was the test jumper and guinea pig at
the same time and I knew although the
guys in New Zealand are sports put a lot
of time and engineering making this
parachute if for some reason that part
should collapse in flight I will get
entangled with the fabric and lines I
will not be able to free myself to open
one of my remaining two parachutes
another challenge we face is that the
backpack or the container where my
parachutes are normally fit in are
designed to carry two parachutes now
with this one we modified a we custom
build a container to make sure we could
accommodate this one the problem with
this is for 9,000 jumps I was used to
having the emergency handles in the same
position now when they build this thing
my emergency handles changed completely
we as a skydivers were trained through
muscle memory repetition repetition
repetition so if for some reason
something goes wrong we know how to
react without thinking the problem with
these is as I mentioned 9,000 jobs doing
the same emergency procedure if I made a
mistake it could be perhaps two
parachutes open at the same time getting
entangled and falling down and not being
able to release it one of the things as
well that was real fun sometimes but
stressful was that every time
I had a problem or every time I was
flying a size of parachute that I was
not really comfortable with because we
were using different size from big all
the way to small
we were carrying computers around my
waist to make sure I was measuring
vertical descent horizontal speed
g-forces so for some reason something
that this happened that the parachute is
facing the other way and none of my back
or I was not comfortable with the
parachute I would basically release a
cameras we produce a documentary out of
this record and I’m really camera shy I
don’t know how I’m actually doing this
in front of you guys
the cameras were following me even to
the toilet
I’m not joking and sometimes I really
wanted to have my time with my wife used
to tell her a I’m afraid I was shaking
but anyways I think that was one of the
most psychological things for me on the
ground finally I think the most
challenging one was landing this
parachute this parachute the surface is
so so small that every time I I brake
when you break a parachute you deform
the tail of the lower part of the
parachute so if I exceeded that break
the parachute which simply collapse and
I would fall from whatever height I was
flying her all the way to the ground in
the other hand if I was too late or I
gave too too little of input then the
parachute was he flying a lot of
vertical speed and I will hit the ground
on full speed as you can see I managed I
think I lost at 1 centimeter but I was
every time I see that Guinness World
Records certificate certificate on my
wall
it’s like if someone presses a play
button and the whole 18 months of videos
despite the amazing things that I lived
in Dubai got a really good salary I had
a what the life that perhaps I dreamed
of when I was a teenager I decided that
something was missing that I wanted to
do more outdoor activities that I wanted
to enjoy more innate more nature and do
the things that didn’t have the time to
do before for that reason I moved eight
months ago to Slovenia to hopefully keep
the balance between obviously a normal
salary with a lot of things that make me
you see if you were to ask me if I’m a
wealthy person the answer is not and I
think I would never be but if you were
to ask me if I consider myself a
successful person the answer is
absolutely I don’t have any of the
things I thought I was gonna have when I
was a teenager what I do have is a
beautiful Slovenian wife who has been
who has been fundamental part of my
success for the last nine year and the
funny thing is she’s actually 15
I recently when I move to Slovenia
because people is very told I bought
baseball bad just in case you guys want
to try to mess around a little bit
I’ve lived in five different countries I
travel the world and I have many
projects that I still want to develop to
be honest I’m not really looking forward
to be retired anytime soon you see fear
plays a very very important part in our
lives
fear help us to avoid decisions that
sometimes can take us into trouble but
at the same time fear is what stopped us
from achieving amazing things and that’s
what I’m here today I’m here today to
face that fear and to embrace it because
I’m really afraid of public speaking so
I compared this fear that I’m feeling
right now with the same fear I felt
doing my first skydive back in 2003 I
have a question to ask you all are you
going to let fear stop you from becoming
who you really want to be thank you very
much [Applause]