Simply better business: Counterintuitive skills from the Amazon | Yossi Ghinsberg — Transcript

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1. 0:03what I bring is counterintuitive
2. 0:05Survivor skills people think Amazon
3. 0:07Survivor skills okay we'll be better
4. 0:09competitors you know like the compet
5. 0:12we'll take the competition down we'll
6. 0:14outsmart them we'll eliminate them will
7. 0:16destroy them which is the old thinking
8. 0:18in Darian terms of whatsoever which is
9. 0:21totally wrong now when I say totally
10. 0:24wrong um you know I'm saying I have the
11. 0:28authority not because I was lost for
12. 0:303 weeks because I came back there on the
13. 0:33same river and lived there for 3 years I
14. 0:36lived in the Amazon for three years with
15. 0:39the indigenous people that saved my life
16. 0:42came back lived with them and we built
17. 0:44together a a resort that transformed the
18. 0:47entire area I'm telling both stories so
19. 0:50I'm telling the first about my survival
20. 0:51alone and then now I came back and
21. 0:54together with the indigenous
22. 0:55people the story is a repetition of
23. 0:58certain Sims and dream you know my first
24. 1:01Adventure was a naive dream I wanted to
25. 1:03be a great Explorer find tribes marry
26. 1:06the daughter of the chief and Treasures
27. 1:08of
28. 1:09gold but what what's good about a naive
29. 1:12dreamer as opposed to
30. 1:16intelligent skeptic cynical experience
31. 1:19dreamer that the other one will never go
32. 1:21after the dream because they know it's
33. 1:24impossible the naive dreamer will will
34. 1:26go after it and when you don't know
35. 1:29something is impossible possible it's
36. 1:30not impossible the second story is about
37. 1:33this indigenous people that basically I
38. 1:35come to visit them to thank them for
39. 1:37saving my life and they're saying our
40. 1:39life is in danger now the the youth are
41. 1:41leaving the village and never coming
42. 1:43back because in the jungle town There's
43. 1:45progress and they don't want to live
44. 1:48ancestral lives they want progress and
45. 1:50our idea is to Save Our Youth and save
46. 1:53our village by building a resort so
47. 1:56tourists will come from all over the
48. 1:57world and our youth will going to build
49. 1:59a resort be the guides and the cooks and
50. 2:01the motor men and this is an impossible
51. 2:05thing because they so remote from
52. 2:07civilization and there's no resources to
53. 2:10do that but they don't know that so why
54. 2:13would I spoil it for them telling them
55. 2:14they're naive so I joined them and stay
56. 2:17with them for three years and with that
57. 2:19na we do unbelievable things first of
58. 2:22all I had this realization the
59. 2:25realization comes when I start learning
60. 2:27about the Amazon and I realize that in
61. 2:31in one article that I read that Ren the
62. 2:33economic value of renewable resources is
63. 2:36greater than the economic value of
64. 2:38non-renewable resources when I read this
65. 2:41article I really have an Enlightenment
66. 2:43because what it means that saving the
67. 2:45forest is a better business it's not
68. 2:48better for Humanity for future
69. 2:50generation it's not about the water it's
70. 2:52not about the the lungs of the planet
71. 2:55it's not about our responsibility the
72. 2:57land doesn't belong to us we belong to
73. 2:58the land no it's about making more money
74. 3:02if we preserve the Amazon we make more
75. 3:04money it's simply Better Business and so
76. 3:06when I understood that I wrote a three
77. 3:09pager and I flew to Washington DC to
78. 3:11raise
79. 3:12money I was so well connected in
80. 3:15Washington
81. 3:16DC for one single reason I found the
82. 3:20Yellow Pages in the phone
83. 3:22boo that's you know so I made calls from
84. 3:28the Yellow Pages and one organization
85. 3:30agreed to meet me I came it was the
86. 3:33interamerican Development Bank I come to
87. 3:36meet them that's my first meeting in in
88. 3:38in Washington
89. 3:39DC and I start telling them about this
90. 3:42idea and I swear this is like word by
91. 3:45word what I tell you is is a true story
92. 3:48within 10 minutes the head of the
93. 3:51department comes to the room listens to
94. 3:53me and saying Mr
95. 3:55Ginsburg one thing you have to commit
96. 3:58right now that you not talking with any
97. 4:00other organization it took me a minute
98. 4:02to understand what he's
99. 4:04saying they needed the idea much more
100. 4:07than I needed the money not only that he
101. 4:10said we cannot give you that money that
102. 4:11you're asking because in my na I wrote
103. 4:14that we needed
104. 4:16$250,000 Grand they said we are the
105. 4:18small loan department we cannot give
106. 4:21less than a million and a
107. 4:22half I got a million and a half US
108. 4:26dollars in one meeting my first and only
109. 4:29meeting in Washington DC and I only
110. 4:31asked for
111. 4:32$250,000 a professional will never do it
112. 4:35a professional will never stand in a
113. 4:36phone boo with put quarters from the
114. 4:39Yellow Pages you know the bank was so
115. 4:42Keen they were so Keen about the project
116. 4:45they wanted to secure it they wanted to
117. 4:48give the money
118. 4:50but I was just a guy like I was y
119. 4:53Ginsburg nothing else like I have no
120. 4:55history I'm not a professional in this
121. 4:57field I have no background they couldn't
122. 5:00give me the money I had no legal entity
123. 5:01to receive the money and there was
124. 5:03nobody else so so Keen that they were
125. 5:07they gave the money to the indigenous
126. 5:09directly this never happened this was
127. 5:12unprecedented it changed the game the
128. 5:15indigenous people were financed directly
129. 5:18by the inter American Development Bank
130. 5:20with no NGO in the middle today 120
131. 5:23other indigenous communities replicated
132. 5:25chalalan what we Bill we made this
133. 5:28chalalan is still the most awarded
134. 5:30Resort 20 years later fully owned and
135. 5:32operated by this indigenous people so
136. 5:36basically we have two stories you know
137. 5:37the story of a child you know was a
138. 5:39naive dream and the story of a community
139. 5:41was the naive naive
140. 5:49dream