How to be Lucky | Paul Bourne | TEDxCluj

[Music] so I was thinking about luck and I was thinking how lucky I am to be here in Cluj I feel really lucky to be here and I thinking how did I actually come to be on this stage talking to you was it luck or is it something else so how did I get here I was invited I was invited by the guy from TEDx Cluj who met me in Belgrade it was in Belgrade what was I doing in Belgrade I was teaching that's right I was teaching a workshop for entrepreneurs creative hubs they were talking about things like Richard Branson and Steve Jobs and I was there I'm a theatre director I was there talking about Shakespeare and Aristotle they were a bit confused and it was that confusion that I was trying to nurture their creative imaginations I was talking about tasks and opportunities the difference between a task and an opportunity I was talking about the fixed mindset and the growth mindset I talked about Aristotle and Aristotle said if you want to avoid criticism then say nothing do nothing be nothing and I was saying if you want to have an opinion if you want to make a difference then say something do something be something and that's why I was doing I was being something and the guy from Cluj said come here and tell us about this so I did and I'm here it's so lucky but it's not it's not the first time I've been in Romania I was in Bucharest a few years ago why was I in Bucharest the coffee it's because of the coffee in Cambridge where I'm from I went into a cafe and I asked for a doppio mia mac macchiato cafe and the guy said no we just serve coffee and someone laughed another customer laughed they said oh you only get coffee like that in Italy and I said I've just come from Italy I was showing off a little bit about coffee I've just come from Italy why was I in Italy ah as because I'd been in Frankfurt in Germany for the weekend I went for a weekend and I stayed for five years that's right but I was in a dinner party and the guy said what do you do I didn't really know what I did because I just graduated from college so I said I'm a theatre director and he said really I said yes he said oh that's interesting I run a theater and I was like fantastic this is so lucky said do you like working with children and I said no not really well I'm running a program for children in theatre I said hey I like theater I'll do it and I did it it was great and he said come and work for me and I did and I worked for him for five years and then he said would you like to do some more work and I said sure he said come and work in France come and work in Belgium come and work in Italy I was directing a play in Italy I love the coffee I was in the cafe in Cambridge and I asked for the complicated coffee and they said no and the guy said I'm opening a cafe in Cambridge I'm going around all the other cafes to see what kind of coffee they have and I I'm going to have the best coffee in Cambridge if you would like a good coffee come and see me we open in one week's time but if you come today I will make you a coffee come in one hours time so I said well I can't come in an hour I'm not I'm not free I'm not available he said ok but when the hour came I thought I've got to go too I've got to go and see this cafe I've got to have a coffee I've got to have my double macchiato espresso coffee I knocked on the window sure the builders were in I went into the cafe he said welcome he made me a coffee was great coffee and I said this is a fantastic place full of books everywhere and in the corner were some computers and I said what are the computers for he said this is going to be the first internet cafe in Great Britain here I said I don't think it'll catch on and I went downstairs he showed me around and I went downstairs and there was a storeroom and the storeroom was full of books and bottles and I said that what a great space said this shouldn't be a storeroom this should be a performance space you could do theater here and poetry and music he said what really I said yes let me do it I'll do it for you yeah I've just come back from Italy I don't have anything to do and I did it every Friday and Saturday and Sunday 50 people would come and listen to poetry music and theater it's still there every night they have some performance on it's amazing I love that space and I would book all the acts and one guy one guy was so annoying ok he would call me at home he would say hi I want to get my band on in your space I'm like where did you get my number from why did you keep calling me you're so annoying leave me alone he called me again and again and again I said fine fine I'll put your band on and he came he performed he was good I said ok you're part-time musician what do you do the rest of the time and he said I'm an academic I said okay what kind of thing do you teach so I teach business business communication I said oh I do a bit of business communication i when I was in New York I was teaching a theater class and on the theater class was a lady and her husband taught in the military school in New York and he asked me to come and teach communication skills to soldiers so I was doing trust exercises trust exercises with people who had guns and I thought if I can teach them communication skills I can teach anybody communication skills so I said I can do it okay come and teach my students and I taught his students and we and we work together and he said let's work with other businesses and we did and we came to Bucharest and we worked with the economic University on startups and I worked with the professors and teachers and I helped them to think about Aristotle and be something and say something and do something and I tried to help them in Bucharest it was it was a great great privilege and we went with his professor I went around the world to South America and then I went to North America I went to Nashville and I did a workshop on teaching methodologies how you can use the theater in business and we want a price how lucky was that we won a prize yeah and we had to go and receive this prize for the best workshop of the year and there was another guy who was also getting a prize for being a wonderful teacher and this guy told a story that I would like to tell to you now but to tell the story I need an apple don't mean the computer I mean the sort that you eat does anybody have an apple do you have an apple you have an apple quick quick bring me the Apple bring me the Apple pass the Apple down throw the Apple I need the Apple bring the Apple I'm going to have my five a day yet okay can you bring the Apple up to me it's a yeah bring me the Apple okay so where are we we're being very lucky in Nashville fantastic perfect all right no as for me thank you this guy the guy that was also getting the award he told a story he told the story of how he became a millionaire when he was only 10 years of age a millionaire at ten and he told the story he lived in the Midwest of America in a farm that was isolated in the middle of nowhere yeah he was only ten years of age and he wanted to make his fortune and he told the story of how he became a millionaire one night he went into his bedroom he looked all the money he had and he only had five cents that's all he had five cents if I'm gonna make my fortune he got up early the next morning and he walked ten miles about 15 kilometers to the nearest town he walked all the morning he got to the town and at the town he spent that five cents and he bought himself an apple and he walked all the way back ten miles back to the farm he did his chores he worked with his grandfather his brand's mother his brothers and sisters and family they worked on the farm worked really hard and then at night he polished that Apple till it was really really really shiny and he got up early the next morning he walked all the way to the market and he sold the Apple it was so shiny he sold it for ten cents he bought two apples but the apples in his pocket he walked all the way home he did his chores he stayed up all night he polished the Apple he got up early the next morning he went all the way into the town he sold that Apple and he bought four apples and he took the four iPods and he walked all the way home and he did his chores he got up the next morning he walked all the way to town he sold those apples and he got eight apples and he did this day after day after day and at the end of the month his grandfather died and left him a million dollars [Applause] and in that workshop listening in that workshop was a lady from Russia a lady from Russia was there and she said Paul I would love you to come to Russia I know lots of people in the theater I know lots of people in business please come to Russia and I said okay sure lovely you know let's let's stay in touch you know you say let's stay in touch you never do six weeks later through my letterbox came an envelope in that envelope was an airline tickets to go to Moscow where did you get my dress from how does she know my name how did you know the details for the ticket I said how did you know this she says I'm Russian we know these things I looked at the ticket thought should I do this I've got to do it I went to Moscow I went to Moscow I did the workshop we've been working together now for 15 years we've traveled who's Becca Stan Kazakhstan right across to all across Russia Sochi novel Saab rias we've been in some petersburg and we've been using theater skills in business and then I was so lucky she introduced me to the people of the Moscow arts theater I'd studied about the Moscow arts theater and I got to work there how lucky was that and we brought shows we brought shows from Russia and other countries and we brought them to Cambridge by now we had a theater somebody had come into the storeroom theater in the little cafe had seen our work and said come into our theater in a big theater I was now the artistic director of this big theater and we invited shows to come to Cambridge and people came to Cambridge to perform and it was wonderful and the awed in the audiences people would come and say I enjoyed that show so much and I spoke to one lady and I said what do you do and she said I look after the archive of Charles Darwin in the library in Cambridge and I said wow that is incredible so when there's a reason when there's a time you can come and visit and I will show you his personal letters his personal diary it was time for the people from Bucharest to come to Cambridge I took them into the library I showed them Charles Darwin's personal letters and diary the diary from the Beagle travel a piece of paper which had the original sketch of the evolutionary tree of life and on that piece of paper where he done all his works his children also drawn pictures of cowboys and Indians all over it and I thought this is incredible this is the diary that Charles Darwin took on the Beagle and she had on the white gloves she said it's very very precious nobody can touch this I said what's that over there I'm touching the book I'm touching it I know I shouldn't touch it but it's Charles Darwin's I had to touch it it had to be done and she said you know what be amazing why don't you do a play in which you read the letters of Charles Darwin fantastic we research Charles Darwin we learn about Charles Darwin we learn the most important lesson we learn that the survival of mankind the survival of all species depends upon its ability to improvise and collaborate we learn this we do the performance people love it a member of the audience comes up and says I like Charles Darwin but actually why don't you do a play about my Cambridge hero Sir Isaac Newton okay sure we'll do a play about Isaac Newton we research Isaac Newton yes he is an amazing character an amazing physicist but he wasn't looking to understand physics he was searching for God it wasn't about physics it was to understand the universe he wasn't gravity wasn't what he was searching but to understand wasn't this it was God he was looking for one thing and he found another and we found out that Newton was the worst ever teacher at the University of Cambridge because nobody could understand anything he was talking about so they made him stop being a teacher and they sent him to London to be the Member of Parliament for Cambridge and he was there for five years and he only said one thing in five years they write down every single thing that everyone says in the houses of parliament and for one debate in five years he said one thing and the speaker was speaking I was a debate and he said ah Sir Isaac Newton has a contribution to make to the debate Sir Isaac Newton what would you like to say and he said it's a little bit warm in here could somebody please open the window that's the only thing he ever said and we got to take the play all around the world and we got an invitation to Toronto in Canada to take the play but the actor was sick he couldn't do it was three days what bad luck but good luck was we had a fantastic actor who said he could learn the part in three days and we went to Toronto and he was so amazing held key he was learning the part on the plane and it was amazing and I said to him let me buy you a beer to say thank you and he told me a story while we had that beer but I remember now and I'd like to share with you he told a story of seeing a magician and the magician was on stage and he was a it was a wonderful magician he said I'm going to do a trick now and I'm going to make some very valuable things disappear to become worthless and on stage he had to stands and a one stand was a violin and on the other stand was a painting with a gold picture frame he produced a piece of paper and he said I have on stage now an original Stradivarius and an original Picasso I'm going to make them disappear I'm going to make them worthless and he walked over to the violin and he picked up the violin and he walked over to the painting and he smashed the violin through the painting the painting was destroyed the violin was in pieces the audience gasped he said don't worry don't panic it turns out Stradivarius was an awful painter a Picasso made terrible violins and I thought that's right that's what we do we think we label things we presume conditionally we see the world we don't look behind and I remember I remember thinking about Picasso I remember thinking he's right he talks about inspiration inspiration does happen it finds you while you're working and I was working I was working and I was being inspired by other people by working I remember another thing Picasso said if you're painting and you don't have any yellow just use blue who knows and I was right right if if I haven't got yellow use blue and we came back to Cambridge and we came back and we did the performance and the professorship of Cambridge that was from Isaac Newton was passed down to Stephen Hawking Stephen Hawking came to the show he came in his chair and he came to the show and he watched the show he watched the show and afterwards they said would you like to meet Stephen Hawking and I said sure I'd love to meet Stephen Hawking so I said to him hello how are you and we talked a little bit and I said I do what I say to Stephen Hawking I said I read you hadn't been very well Stephen we were getting on very well at this stage and he said yes so that's that's right Paul I hadn't been very well and I said why did I say this I said did you see the joke about you when you weren't well in the newspaper and he said no what was it I know doesn't matter no no tell me the joke tell me the joke as I really it's okay so there was a newspaper and Stephen Hawking was in the hospital bed they had all the wires and everything and the two doctors and they had clip pads standing over the bed and one doctor saying to the other doctor what do you think what do you think we can do because I don't know maybe we should try turning him off and turning him on again and I told this joke to Stephen Hawking and he laughed and I thought and I I told this story and I told this story to my friend and he said that's a wonderful story and I thought great I've got all these stories I must keep telling these stories and must keep telling these stories and the guy that built the theater that I became director of he invited me to go to Kashi sheets ER in Slovakia it was European Capital of Culture I went to talk about Aristotle and all these people and Inca sheets ER was the guy from Belgrade and he said come to Belgrade and tell us about Aristotle tell us about your stories and I went to Belgrade and in Belgrade was the guy from Cluj and he invited me here today how lucky was that and he said to me he said to me Paul I want you to talk about going beyond what do you know about going beyond and I said well I don't know I know that if you haven't got yellow you should use blue I know that inspiration finds you when you're working I know that you have to be able to laugh at yourself I know that you have to be able to improvise and collaborate I know that if the room is warm you have to open the window I know that a storeroom doesn't have to be a storeroom it can be a performance space I know that it's great to drink coffee and I know that you have to say something I know that you have to do something and I know you have to be something be lucky you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 381,007

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Romania, Life, Achievement, Adventure, Behavorial economics, Benefit, Career, Choice, Comedy, Community, Creativity, Curiosity, Decision making, Early education, Economics, Entertainment, Farming, Globalization, Goal-setting, Happiness, Humor, Ideas, Life Development, Life Hack, Mobility, Money, Passion, Personal education, Personal growth, Philosophy, Positive Thinking, Self improvement, Struggle, Success, Theater, Work

Id: Z6C78dAHUcQ

Length: 22min 39sec (1359 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2017

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