Never underestimate the power of simply being good

[Music]

hi guys

so um one of the most interesting topics

i heard from a lot of speakers

is uh the 18 minutes that we get

for the presentation and there’s a lot

of mixed

feelings about 18 minutes is it a lot

is it not enough and

for me when i was trying to figure out

what to talk about

for you guys today i realized that for

most people not just the presentation

staff today that are presenting their

stories

but for all of you 18 minutes is

actually nothing

to compress your entire life into 18

minutes

is practically impossible

so in order for me to present something

to you today it took me a long time to

find

one thing that i could possibly compress

into 18 minutes

something that you can walk away from

this

with some interest something to think

about

something that i am proud of and

something that actually changed my life

and i think that’s the most fascinating

thing about

life is that our job is to

fascinate our friends our family

ourselves

most importantly and

what i like to talk about today is the

power of relationships

the power of relationships is the reason

why i am standing here today in front of

you

many of you guys probably have

absolutely no idea who i am which

is great because that is

a perfect example of the power of

relationships and that is the perfect

example of

power of connecting with one another

you might be sitting next to someone

that you don’t know today

that you did not take a second to

possibly just turn around

make eye contact that could possibly

change your lives forever

and we don’t think about that because we

are

too close-minded sometimes and we focus

like a racehorse why do they put

the leather straps on the side of the

racehorse eyes in order to focus

on going forward and not looking to the

left and to the right

which is technically we are taught that

those things are distractions in life

but those distractions in life

is the true meaning of life essentially

because without those distractions

when you’re at a grocery store

and your mission is to buy some

plantains for dominican republic you

know

or some grapes or whatever it is

and then you take a second and you

notice someone standing next to you

and you take that chance

in my case it was ikea actually in santo

domingo here

and uh you know a year later i’m still

here thanks to my

beautiful dominican girlfriend

and i was here on tour i’ve been coming

here for 10

years i’ve been coming mainly to punta

cana to the festivals over there

and there was another dj that did a lot

of shows with me

he’s actually in the audience today he’s

one of the speakers omar i don’t know

where he is somewhere

uh and he was an opening dj for me

for many years and what a lot of us do

unfortunately especially in the music

industry or in the entertainment

business is that we

undermined the little guys they say

i never undermined anybody and that is

something that has taken me from a small

country in moldova

across the world and now to the stage

here in santo domingo doing ted

god knows how i got here but i’m here

so to connect the dots i was the guy

that respected the little guy and

through that guy i met another guy

and another guy and then i met freddy

who’s responsible for

me standing here in front of all of you

so why is that important the reason why

that’s important is because

we wake up in the morning

some of us are happy some of us are not

some of us wish we had more

and we always tend to blame

a lot of different reasons why we’re not

successful

why we don’t have more friends why we

don’t have more money

why we don’t travel enough

and we spend so much time

wasting and thinking about these things

when in essence god created this world

for us to explore this world and it

doesn’t have to be

flying to china to change your life

sometimes all it takes is for you to say

yes

to a certain event or be kind

to someone at your job

who might be a cleaning lady it might be

uh

it doesn’t matter who it is we can never

underestimate the power

of simply being good

and focusing on not only your problems

but understanding the world as a whole

because the world

the world is a combination of units

all of us together when you take out a

bunch of us

you start having holes so nobody is more

or less important per se

everybody is important if you’re walking

today you are important

even if you’re a shitty person you’re

important to me because you’re my bad

neighbor and i got to deal with you

right or you’re important to me because

you’re a great neighbor and i gotta

thank you every day for not being like

this guy over here

you know what i mean so don’t forget

that you are

important regardless if you’re good or

bad

because you have a duty in this world

and your duty

is to create we’re talking about you

know the space we create

right so when you in your own

backyard

and your neighbor doesn’t like it you’ve

just created a very

unnecessary space you know right

so when you wake up in the morning think

about that think about that for a second

that you have a responsibility

to create relationships not only to

make your life better but make the

entire world better

because only together true change can

happen you know i’ve been coming here

for 10 years

and i have to tell you santo domingo in

particular i mean dominican republic as

a whole

has been making some drastic drastic

changes forward you know obviously

there’s

a lot of uh progress still to be made

but the on the international market

this is no longer considered to be a

third world country and i know

being here might not be so

noticeable but you guys are creating

space you

you guys are creating you guys are

improving

your world here on a very large scale

together

so when we scale that down

and take me per se a performer

my job is to entertain

my job is to make people dance to be

more specific

if people don’t dance i don’t get a you

know i don’t get my paycheck

whose fault is it when people don’t

dance you know

is it a shitty song that i played is it

the way

i you know presented myself

it doesn’t matter because the most

important thing is

the presentation i think is the most

important thing the most essential thing

so for me my job is to create

relationships with new people

every single day for the past 10 years

i’ve been creating relationships

i’ve been creating relationships with

performers other performers

i’ve been creating relationships with

with

with the fans i’ve been creating

relationships with

staff members that are responsible for

me sleeping comfortable

at night before or after the show the

drivers

the promoters you know like the amazing

people that put

this thing together uh for all of you

guys

those all of those things together

is the reason why my ass gets to stand

on stage

and perform for thousands of people

around the world

because those people chose for me to be

there

not me we don’t choose

the only thing we can do

is we could be better we could be good

we can expand we can expand our energy

for those people to decide for you to be

here

that’s how the world works the world

doesn’t work that you know i hear a lot

of people unfortunately talking about

you know oh i’m so great you know i’m

the best

you know that’s great you might be the

best

but without the energy that is

necessary the relationships the power of

relationships that i’m talking about

none of that matters none of that

matters

how many musicians or how many athletes

that are

phenomenal do you see in the news ruin

their careers because of their egos

they’re some of the talented the most

talented people in the world god gave

them god gave them the gift

you know and what do they do they

on that gift

and that’s why when you see kids from

nothing

you know coming out of nothing coming

from nothing

sometimes you know

and making it to the top understanding

the journey

i understand my journey i’ve been

understanding my journey for 10 years

which is the reason why people still

call me

i have a lot of friends that are a lot

more talented than i am

but they don’t understand the journey

because they don’t know how to create

that space around them that attracts

others to them

that energy

is so powerful

and so amazing at the same time

that a lot of us don’t take advantage of

it unfortunately

we wake up in the morning and we first

thing we do

is we think about the shitty job that we

have

or the problems with this or the

problems with that

where in essence what we have to realize

is that

i got out of this bed today and i have

my

you know my feet i have my brain

i have my food on the table if i want to

expand as a human being i don’t like to

call it

become more successful become more rich

because

becoming rich is it’s not

it’s not essential and it and it does

nothing

actually you know the there’s a lot of

rich people that hate their life you

know so that doesn’t matter

but every time you wake up in the

morning and you’re like i can’t get out

of bed and i can create these

phenomenal relationships you can even

fix existing relationships

and that’s the power that god gave us

that you know we always

we always talk about it and all the

societies we always say that

we always love the comeback kid never

forget about that

the world loves the comeback kid you

could be the shittiest neighbor ever

you know you come around a few times

with some

brugal and sankocho you know what i mean

he might think of you differently

you know and you have that power

you have that power to change to create

new space

that energy when you wake up in the

morning all of you

all of us do

and when you wake up tomorrow

think about that it starts it’s a new

start every day it’s a new start every

day

i have so many phenomenal stories

on how i’ve achieved certain things

there was a there was a show

it was called sensation white and

amsterdam 60

000 people arena it was like the

impossible

it was the impossible for you to perform

at a show like that

for me it was like impossible so i woke

up every day and i watched those videos

i watched those videos day in and day

out

and then six years later i did the

biggest sensation white amsterdam

to this day 65 000 people

and i was standing there and how did i

get there

did i imagine you know people are like

oh yeah let me imagine

i’m gonna fly to the moon and oh look

i’m on the moon you know

no it doesn’t work like that you have to

imagine

that step one if you imagine

that’s step one step what is step two

step two is

go buy some brugal for your neighbor you

know

and say thank you for your mom and dad

for

you know even bringing your shady ass to

life sometimes you know what i mean

taking care of your

dirty socks and whatnot you know what i

mean and then you start building you

start building

every day co-workers friends

girlfriends boyfriends kids you know i

see so many families having problems

because of their relationships you know

relationship problems

relationships are very very very

destructive things

if they are not in a good state how can

you possibly focus on success

if you have relationship problems in

your own backyard

in your own families those need to be

the baby steps

before you get to say mom i’m off to the

moon you know what i mean

once you get to through those the family

then you get out now you’re outside

what’s happening outside okay your

co-workers

whoever you’re working with business

partners friends

friends number two you know

those relationships you know how many

times i’ve met

people for the first time and i’m like

aren’t you having problems with your

career and yeah you know i’m like a

starving musician

i’m like did you know that your best

friend runs this like

theater one of the biggest theaters in

town

oh yeah yeah i know yeah i’m like

okay what’s the problem here oh yeah

yeah you know he’s busy

well yeah he’s probably busy for you

because you’re a shitty friend

right you know we got the answers

we don’t like to we’re like us humans we

like to

we know the answers all of us know the

answers it’s like

i see people going to therapy with their

you know with their

boyfriends and girlfriends it’s like oh

it’s been so hard we don’t know what the

issue is

really we don’t know what the issue is

come on man

go back to day one when you met

and take those baby steps all the way

forward and kind of see where you

screwed up along the way you’re like oh

wait okay more flowers okay

all right all right so this period of

six months has been

flourless in this house you know what i

mean

so we start with the flowers people are

like no it’s this

no start with the flowers yo start with

the flowers

everybody wants to go to the moon

everybody wants to be rich everybody

wants to be happy

but nobody wants to buy flowers you know

nobody wants to buy flowers nobody wants

to help an elderly woman cross the

street

but we want to be the talkers you know

the

the most powerful men in the world

build those relationships i got three

seconds left

i was fighting it at first that’s all i

got for you guys

thank you so much build those

[Applause]

relationships

you