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So, obviously, the transition is going to be complicated,
I can't deny that.
Let's try to refocus and be a little quieter;
I'm going to read just a small extract,
it lasts only a mere 30 minutes,
(Laughter)
from a book which is intended for 6-7 year-old children,
to help them reflect on fundamental issues
they can ask themselves.
"A failure is like a true friend who dares to talk to us,
even if what it has to say is frankly unpleasant.
Our failures give us lots of information
on what is wrong, what needs to be changed,
needs to be improved, or perhaps give up.
If we don't try to understand our failures,
if we do anything to forget them,
we'll go round in circles,
possibly all our life."
So of course, you will agree,
when attempting to explain abstract things to children,
we use short sentences and simple words,
and it is quite amazing to see the difference
with which an adult will answer a child's questions,
differently, obviously,
from questions coming from an adult, a group of adults, or even a population.
So I will try to raise the issue
trying to ask you a simple question;
so don't answer all at once, please,
but what force finally pushes us to constantly lose
in simplicity and in...
- sorry -
in simplicity - right, getting there -
and foresight when things get complicated.
We all have in mind many complexities
that come up when we are facing problems.
We even tend to neglect the essential,
to lose ourselves in complex explanations,
eventually missing what is essential.
Worse than that, we forget
our failures.
Somehow, when talking about crises,
you've heard about it a number of times before,
I ask myself if in the end,
the true rationality of these crises we are experiencing
is just a lack of common sense, quite simply.
So, of course, I will not differ from my colleagues,
just to illustrate these bad films we've seen for decades.
There is a series of films with the same scenario,
the same actors, the same endingss, with
joy, hope, sadness,
and all of a sudden, the scenario repeats itself, over and over again.
So why shouldn't we respond
to these crises with the words of a child?
Would it be easier, for example,
to explain it as we explain it to children,
with short sentences and simple words?
So now, obviously, you could say,
"This Frenchman, coming here to tell us stories!
No way! Things are not that simple!
It is quite clear!"
We all have in mind the scales of values
the different scales of values
We all have in mind some truths that sometimes are better left unsaid,
or unheard by the way.
There are conflicts of interest,
there is a transparency that does not exist.
in our civilizations.
So as I am all alone on stage
and you're not answering me,
I'll answer to myself,
"the same is not necessarily true."
Would it be sufficient to basically have some common sense and have simple relationships
to be able to avoid failures,
and eventually avoid these various crises?
I don't think so.
So,
when you come on stage as the penultimate speaker,
a number of people have already used the arguments that I'm goint to use,
yet I'll keep talking about entrepreneurs.
Two types of entrepreneurs: entrepreneurs who are
economic agents first, let's talk about them.
I've been dealing with those entrepreneurs for a few years now,
I was, before becoming myself an entrepreneur,
"a happy corporate slave"
working in a large company for twenty years,
And I realized, since I am an entrepreneur,
that the people I deal with often have values that are
quite interesting relative to the vector I am looking for
in simplicity: there is common sense,
caution, simplicity,
and perhaps this is simply the fruit
of a confrontation with their reality.
They are directly responsible for their success
and of course their failures.
So there are entrepreneurs who are carriers of messages,
innovations, and they carry their company
socially and economically,
and there are other entrepreneurs, those who cross the oceans,
those who climb mountains for example.
In this case, I like to dwell on two characters,
whom my partner and myself appreciate,
namely Sir Edmund Hillary and the little guy over there,
Tensing Norgay.
These two guys here climbed Mount Everest in May 53,
and sometimes we forget, of course, to remember that Hillary, in 52,
made a first attempt to climb Mount Everest.
And he suffered a resounding failure.
This led him to say a thing that I love.
I would like us to read it together, if you will.
"Mount Everest, you beat me the first time".
but I'll beat you the next time
because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing. ยป
(Laughter)
It's not very funny! Because it means
that the experience and strength of conviction
that turn these entrepreneurs into real heroes
we could perhaps bring it back into our daily lives.
I'm not an artist, I am not a philosopher,
I would just like to join a school of thought,
maybe this entrepreneurs' school of thought
People who may get a simplicity return
in human relationships,
in a confrontation with a reality that is full of common sense,
and maybe that return to the core values
could help us maybe not to circumvent failures,
but in any case, to anticipate and perhaps prevent them,
thus finding again the lucidity and sincerity that today's world has lost,
It was a real message.
Thank you for your attention.
(Applause)