I've never been alone.
I was born with someone else.
I have a twin sister called Lucie.
She's amazing.
She's probably the person in the world who makes me laugh the most.
If I'm telling you this, it's because being a twin has consequences.
Being a twin means creating your identity with a partner.
It means always being relative to someone else
and so always compare yourself.
This led me to question our education system.
I am a pure product of the national education.
Made in Henry IV High School,
packaged in a prestigious university -I mean this one-
I've followed "the road," sometimes more of a highway,
without questioning myself too much.
Highways are convenient you can just put yourself on autopilot.
So, our education system is perfect for people like me,
for certain types of talents
such as people with structure
who can see life as three structures and three substructures
and who easily adapt.
For all the rest, people like my sister,
who don't really want to adapt, those who break the mold,
for them, school is often seen as a battle,
a battle to be won by getting a diploma,
that little piece of paper that will allow us to begin our life at long last.
For all these people, it's only once they get out of the system
that they realize they're good at something, they have talents.
Now, I can tell you that my sister is doing well and she's successful,
but I've told myself all along those years that there was a problem,
a problem with waste of talents.
Why is it that my sisters' talent took so long to come out?
Why did it take her 20 years to excel?
And why was only my talent recognized in school?
Really, a talent isn't limited to being a piano virtuoso.
We have such a restrictive idea of talent that we think we don't even have any.
In the real meaning of the word,
a talent is something we do naturally and without effort.
It could be being an incredibly good listener.
It could be being a super-good organizer,
or being able to convince anyone in less than two minutes.
We all have talents.
But the thing is we are not aware of them
firstly because we exercise them without effort,
and secondly because usually, they weren't valued at school
and most probably, we aren't using them at work.
So, why is it important to know our talent?
Okay, let's do a quick show of hands.
Who has ever told himself, "I'm useless"?
Be honest.
Okay now, who has ever told himself,
"I'm hardly in a position to do what I do"?
Okay.
And "I'll never make it"?
Now, all three?
Okay, those in that case please come and see me after,
we've psychological treatment unit.
Seriously, we're all telling ourselves these things all the time.
I do it almost every day.
That's precisely why it's so important
to ask yourself what your good at, what your talents are.
At what point in life do we realize our full potential?
Me, I got lucky
because I was lead to ask myself some of these questions quite early on.
In fact, on arriving at this fine establishment
two things happened.
The first is that I lost my talent.
I had intensely studied literature before.
So I went from metaphysical questions
to financial management
and it was quite a shock for me.
Therefore, I wasn't so good at school anymore.
That lead me to the second thing
which is asking this abyssal question, "Why?"
"Why was I studying what I was studying?"
I was told about profit maximization but I found hard to believe
that it was the only end goal of all my classes.
So, during this first year, I often thought about leaving,
running away.
Then I said to myself I'd actually worked hard to get this far
and that I should scratch below the surface.
So, I went yes, but on a journey of discovery about my university.
That's how I discovered the unlikely combination of two words:
social entrepreneurship.
And I became fascinated by these two words for the eight following years.
I realized that going on a journey
sometimes means making an effort to stay where you are.
But back then, I hadn't fully taken that lesson on board.
"Going on a journey" only meant for me, going far away, going somewhere else.
So, that's what I did.
I traveled the world for nine months.
It was amazing.
Then I came back home to France,
And there, I was lost.
At the time, I wanted to leave again,
I wanted to go live abroad, to be again somewhere else,
to run away again.
But actually, my real journey began here.
Well, not quite here in Cergy but nearby in Paris.
It began with a meeting,
the meeting of three incredible people
who were reinventing the world around a bottle of a bad red wine.
They invited me to join them on their journey,
an entrepreneurial adventure that allowed me to take action
regarding the issue I was passionate about, the waste of talent.
So three years ago, with the help of many others,
these associates and I set up "Ticket for Change."
Ticket for Change starts with the idea that everyone has talents.
I hope I've now convinced you about that.
Now, the real question is "What do we do with these talents?"
How could we enable each person
to use their talents to have a positive impact on society?
How could we connect each problem in the world and one of these talents
in order to solve it?
Because there are thousands of people in France who want to act
but they don't know where to start.
We even did a nationwide study with the help of a consultant,
and we found out that for every 100 French,
74 say they want to take action to solve a social issue,
but are not doing it.
Now, that's a waste of talent.
So, how can we go about helping all these talents
to act and get involved?
Well, we are developing programs
to train and educate people about entrepreneurship:
a social start-up incubator, a free online course open to all,
workshops, talks ...
In three years we reached more than 53,000 people.
We brought forward more than 400 projects,
and provide a long term support to 89 social start-ups,
some of whom are present here.
Rather, we supported 89 talents.
We help them develop their projects from a legal and financial point of view.
We introduce them to the right mentors and experts.
We support them in all those things but,
what's really unique
is that we help them activate their talents.
And that's when they really become entrepreneurial.
Because being "an entrepreneur" is temporary.
It's a job title, an occupation.
But being "entrepreneurial" is an enduring attitude.
In fact, it means being capable in any situation,
be it in your private life or your professional life,
of approaching each problem by asking yourself,
"Is there not a solution to resolve this?"
This comes at the right time,
since we'll have more than a few problems to resolve over the coming years.
There are local and global problems that are urgent and important,
and you know them already,
but I've got three bits of good news.
The first one is that some people are already leading the way,
they are taking action and showing us that it's possible.
I told you about 89 of them,
but there are thousands more in France and millions around the world.
The second is that each one of us has solutions to offer.
Each one of us has one or more talents
that allows him to approach each problem of the world
from their own unique perspective.
And finally, the third one is that our talents today
can have a potentially massive impact.
Thanks to modern technology,
thanks to these powerful computers that we carry around in our pockets,
we can do extraordinary things from our living rooms.
We are potential super heroes.
So yes, go on a journey!
Go on a journey, but do it in an entrepreneurial way.
Go far away if you have to,
but leave asking yourself why you're leaving,
and best of all, go into self-discovery,
go to discover your talents.
Try this exercise: tomorrow or this week,
really try to spot situations again in your private or professional life,
where you enjoy being yourself, you feel whole and unique.
Spot those moments where you feel you're realizing your potential,
where you're good.
Make note of it and keep it somewhere in your mind
or better yet say it, work it out.
So, it's super scary, I know,
so, let me show you.
I'll do it.
Me, my talent
it is my ability to transmit my energy,
to transmit what I have inside.
So, there it is.
Now, it's your turn.
So, on your talents ... get set ... go!
Thank you.
(Applause)