16 flights, 11 cities and 10 countries in 35 days.
My recent tour of Europe and the Middle East rolling out SCC’s new Strategic Plan, joining the bustling events program and reconnecting with members and partners was frenetic, insightful and, above all, highly motivating.
This compressed timeframe provides a vivid, real-time perspective of the state of the world, and spending time with close friends in every city offers a firsthand, unfiltered “on the ground” perspective.
In these 5 weeks I spent a lot of time with our start-up community, and companies establishing in new territories in uncertain times; AI, war, energy resilience, climate change; there is a lit going on around the world.
Regularly over the 5 weeks conversations turn to the sacrifices people are to bring their ideas to life; the long hours, lack of money, rejection, criticism, years of grind.
The question regularly posed is, “Are you really prepared to do what it takes to make your dream a reality?”
At a lovely reconnecting with the redoubtable @Natalia Olson-Urtecho in Barcelona, this prompted a reverie to one of the greatest writers in history, who should be the source of much inspiration for everyone in the current times.
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel García Márquez, is one of the greatest novels ever written, and the story of how it came about may be, if it is possible, even more remarkable than the book itself.
2 weeks after connecting with Natalia, I had the exceptional pleasure of introducing “100 Years” to my good friend Dr. Ali al-Azzawi, in Dubai, who, inexplicably, had not crossed its path. The excitement of knowing that this simple recommendation will change the life of someone you care about never diminishes.
In 1965, Gabriel García Márquez was driving with his wife, Mercedes Barcha, and children to Acapulco for a family vacation when, it is recounted, the book came to him from nowhere: the opening line, the tone, the entire novel.
Without hesitation Gabo turned the car around, cancelled the vacation, returned home, quit his job, confined himself to his office, and advised Mercedes, "I'm going to lock myself away to write. You manage everything".
For the next 18 months Gabriel wrote and smoked 60 cigarettes a day, and Mercedes “managed everything”.
She sold the car to pay for food and rent.
She set up lines of credit with household suppliers, negotiated rent extensions and held off the debt collectors.
She pawned her jewellery to pay for food and writing paper.
She even rationed food to her two children to make ends meet.
The family debt reached an astonishing US$12,000; a vast sum for a poor family in Mexico City.
Late in 1966, Gabo emerged with a 700-page manuscript. Famously they went to the post office to mail it to the publishers, but when the manuscript was weighed, the postage cost was 82 pesos… and they only had 45 pesos left…
Gabo asked the postal clerk to cut the manuscript in half, paid 45 pesos and sent half of it.
Mercedes immediately returned home, collected her last remaining household appliances, pawned them, returned to the post office and mailed the second half of the manuscript.
After paying, she is said to have turned to her husband and quipped, "All we need now is for the book to be bad."
It most certainly was not bad.
Upon receiving the manuscript, the publishers were astonished.
The first edition, published in 1967, sold out in days.
Immediately the Márquez family was elevated from debt and poverty, and the world was introduced to one of the greatest writers of all time.
By 1982, universally recognised as one of the greatest writers ever to take up a pen, Márquez was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The story of Gabo’s obsession with his vision, and the unwavering and unconditional support of Mercedes is remarkable.
Their gamble was so extreme it beggars belief, as does the quality of the gift that they have provided to humanity.
This magical book will transform the lives of everyone who reads it for as long as there are people.
For that we must be eternally grateful.
And so, ask yourself,
“How committed are you – really – to making your dream a reality”?
Welcome to the July edition of “Urban Insights”.
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