So it's August 6th and we are heading towards Amsterdam to the Renaissance Hotel.
Welcome back everyone, we've been here for a while. Now we have our next part of the orientation
program which is the Multisational Speech by John Ford. All right on the highway heading to Amsterdam
giving a presentation for the Samaritan students to land in but they actually landed yesterday
so they should be rested up a bit and Multisational Speaks for the speech. He also spoke last year,
a lot of the students were actually very motivated. He has a lot of experience here in the Netherlands.
We need some coffee before we get in the hotel. I don't want to say too much but he has a lot that
he wants to share with you and I think it would be a very good part of this orientation program.
We're going to be recording this one to share with you guys as a special
Sunside Kingdom episode 7 done in a non-podcast style but in a presentation style.
So without further ado I'd like to call John Sam Ford to the front.
Welcome to the Sunside Kingdom show. So who has never been in the Netherlands before?
Never been. Also quite a few of you have visited before.
See that was a trick question to see if you're awake. Okay who's, is it your first time in the
Netherlands? Show of hands. Okay so quite a few been here once before. So my presentation is called
Five Lessons from an OG. Now I'm a millennial so Gen Z's. There's no Gen Alphas yet right?
It's only Gen Z. What does OG mean? Okay well I'm not really a gangster but you know what I mean.
So I'm here today because I failed. Ta-da. Throughout life there'll be many different moments
where you'll face failure and different aspects and different parts of the journey but it's okay
to fail. The main thing that you have to do is fail forward. So if you stumble you get back up,
you keep moving. But I'm also here today because I succeeded and my name is John A.M. Sandy Ford
from the beautiful island of St. Martin that most of you I assume would know. I'm married.
This picture was 10 years ago already. We celebrated our 10-year anniversary in June.
We'll get to that part. We'll get to that part. How will I look?
Tutti-something yeah. So over five months I won't be tutti-something anymore.
This is my family, twins Michael and Mary. This was actually last year at the wedding of a friend
of ours in Morocco and my company is located in this building in Eindhoven. It's called Antonio
Media and this is the team. Well I thought I had about another hour to prepare because I had to
stick a funny little picture of Haroon in there. Haroon say hi. Our video editor, cameraman,
all-around media specialist also needs to be in this picture. And what we specialize in is web
design and user experience design. So we create web applications, mobile applications, etc. And
we do that for all sorts of companies in Europe but also some back home as well. Some of the bigger
clients that we've worked for Rockwool, ASML, Philips, the European Union, Honeywell, Brainport
Eindhoven, the TU, the Technical University of Eindhoven and founded by all. But 20 plus years ago
You see the OG now. I didn't have these fancy suits you know it was it was different times,
different times. And this is actually at Princess Juliana Airport. The old airport that I guess none
of you were born when that was demolished. The yellow maybe y'all seen it in these old pictures.
Yeah the yellow building and I think they were doing some remodeling and this was looking very
shabby where arrivals would come. But this was a 16, 17 year old me. So once upon a time I was
right where you guys sat in 2003 to be specific. But now I'm going to dive into the lessons.
So lesson number one. A lesson in focus. Who here has sometimes difficulties to focus?
All right let's dive in. So making the right study choice for you determines a big part of your future
success in life. And this also is going to tie into the amount of focus that you can actually put into
that study choice. And I'll tell a bit of a personal story. So I did my intern well not internship
sorry. I did my studies at the Fontys in Eindhoven. And initially well this is back in the days when
computers still had like you know the big CTR screens and and we was rocking MSN and websites
was super, super, duper crappy. So there wasn't a lot of information for us to find. No videos
online to really see what the future school is going to look like. I didn't travel to the
Netherlands before to check out the schools or anything. So I made a choice based on other
people's information slash oh I'm interested in computers I'll do information technology.
But quickly I realized that was not the right study for me. And I also used to do this little
thing called music. And we brought out a couple mixtapes back in the days. How old are 18, 19,
18 to 21. So 21 brings us where 2003 oh s**t. Sorry see you my friend. We'll bleep that out.
So these were 2007, 2005, 2008. And at the time, at the time I didn't really have the full focus
on school. So I was juggling between my music career and school. And every time things would go
good in music, build up some momentum, school falls back. Gotta go focus on the grades again,
focus on the grades, momentum falls. So you're constantly juggling back and forth. And the big
lesson in focus is you can't do two big things simultaneously. You'll have to focus on one,
finish it up, and then give the other one your full attention. Whether it's you can't split the
time 50-50, you'll have to either give it like 80-20, 90-10. But there needs to be focus in order
for those things to really work. But during that time I also discovered along the path that the
information technology was not right for me. So I switched over to ICT media design where I could
design my own album covers as you saw before, websites, videos, etc. And that led me to this
quote here as well. So college is not something you have to do. I know I might be contradicting
some of the elders that have spoken to you before, but it should be something that you want to do.
So whatever it is that you're going to choose, it better be or it should be something that you're
going to use for the rest of your life. Otherwise, I guarantee you, you'll graduate, you'll go into
the workforce, one year, two years, ten years, at some point you'll be like, this is not for me,
I had enough, and you'll make a complete switch. So if those feelings are emerging early, then seek
the help, seek help from the guidance counselors, online advice, etc. Find maybe older students,
perhaps in my busy schedule like a pencil you in for an hour somewhere down in the south,
someone to talk to, to help you figure out what that thing is truly for you.
So along the career, met a couple interesting individuals, some of you might recognize, maybe
you don't recognize him without the beard, and this was actually the highlight of the career before
I shifted focus fully on the business side of things.
So you live in Holland, but you're from St. Martin, and you have a beautiful accent.
The name of the song is called, Break Your Back.
It's basically something for everybody that like to get busy.
I'm a guy that gets busy.
And in St. Martin they get busy on a week.
We get busy.
I'm going to go over there for a blitz. So right now we're going to go to the nemesis
rapper there, St. Martin baby.
Okay, okay.
Prehistoric time, so 2003.
So most of you were between four and six years old when I did that.
No, no, no, no, no, this was 2009.
This was 2009.
Yeah, so lesson in focus.
After this moment, well, I had different experiences in New York.
Won't get into that right now, but saw how things could move in a New York minute.
Saw how people could try to get you under contracts that they would still be profiting
off of me from today. And luckily I had some back end that I could call back home.
They check contracts with lawyers and eventually I didn't sign certain contracts.
And I left that chapter behind.
But I do love to show it because it also shows the other side.
And wherever your starting point is, it's okay for you to diverge.
It's okay for you to go out there if you have different interests, taste different things.
Still have your focus point, but go out and experiment and go figure out the things that
really work for you. So you go broad.
But at some point you have to know when it's time to go back narrow and to then really get
down to that focus point like, okay, these are the things that I'm really interested in.
This is what I really want to pursue.
Maybe you'll never know it 100%.
You'll always have some doubts, but let's say if it's 75% plus, it's good enough.
And you focus on that and you give it your 100%.
Let's see, next lesson.
A lesson in resilience.
Anyone knows that word?
I believe most would.
Yeah?
St. Martin is a very resilient.
So I almost failed my first internship due to some miscommunication.
Bless you.
During my first internship, I worked by Tracks Design in St. Martin.
So this is back in 2008.
I did a lot, a lot of work.
A lot of print design work.
Also worked on their website.
Did tons of stuff.
And this was a campaign for Heineken during the Euro 2008.
That I worked on all of the design work for the entire campaign and it was all over the island.
Now, I had my internship coordinator, no, my internship mentor that I had to have communication with.
I wasn't hearing from him after a while.
So in my regular island mode, I say, well, if he's bothering me, I ain't gonna bother with him.
And I continued doing my work and I did amazing work.
But when I sent my final report, he was like, I'm gonna send you a report.
I'm gonna send you a report on how to do your work.
But when I sent my final report, he was like, oh, oh, you're alive.
I thought you was chilling on the beach somewhere.
Oh, this is not gonna work.
What?
After spending 20 weeks blood, sweat and tears.
And then when I came back, I even heard that some guys maybe worked on one website in the 20 weeks.
I did a website and at least 120 pieces of content.
So but I didn't give up.
I went to the coordinators.
I started to plead my case.
Many people weren't fully believing me because again, the amount of work that I was showing them that I did,
they thought I was just forging that or lying about it.
Because sometimes they don't believe you when you come from other places.
Just a hint.
So you got to continue pushing and fighting and find the resilience to keep going.
Eventually, going to the higher ups, they gave me a chance by setting me up in one of my upcoming projects
that I then had to do all the communication with the same mentor.
And in the end, they gave me a six, even though I got the eight from my internship itself.
But this was a very interesting moment because while I was pleading my case,
the internship coordinator watched me dead in my face.
Well, in Dutch, he said it.
Do you even want to be here?
And wow, that felt like another big blow because during my internship was the first time that I realized,
OK, I actually chose this study to support the marketing for my music.
But I realized that I was pretty good at the design stuff.
And then for him to tell me this at that point.
But I swallowed it, stayed cool.
And made sure that I got through and got my six and moved on.
And then in the end.
At graduation, so at my final internship moment, the same internship coordinator was my second assessor
and basically gave a mini stand innovation at the end of my presentation.
And I graduated with an eight and a half.
So you can prove them wrong in the end.
And years later, this is him right here.
Now we're very cool.
And he invites me over to speak to the students, the excellent students on how to succeed in this career.
So the world is round.
You just have to have patience for that moment when it comes back and keep working hard.
A lesson in patience.
You can't get to level five without going through levels two to four first.
Who knows this game?
OK, what does the mushroom do?
Yeah. OK, what does this the goomba do?
Yeah. And what do you get from this?
OK, now this is level one.
So you learn the basics in level one.
Now in level two, there's turtles walking around, right?
And then in level three, there might be one with the fireball.
Now you have to go through each level to understand the skills that you need in each level in order to be ready for the next level.
Sometimes in life, there's moments that you can jump through one of these green things,
and you pop out on a higher level.
But you're going to be overwhelmed by what's happening there because you haven't mastered the levels that came before.
And this is this is the key lesson that I learned during my musical career, because as you saw, I was on BET,
but I wasn't signed to anyone.
So I had my own situation going.
So I couldn't fully capitalize on the momentum of that moment because you need a team behind you in order to capitalize on those moments.
So sometimes you might step into something and you wouldn't be fully ready for it.
It's OK to still experience it, but you have to understand that you have to go through each level with the patience of knowing that you have to experience these lessons in order to be ready for the next lessons that are coming.
So, yeah, during that time, I wanted it fast.
I didn't have a manager, no record label.
And each time I would find that green pipe and sneak up the other side, I would be up on a certain level and then get slapped.
I would be slapped back down because you're not ready to be in that space.
All right.
Lesson number four, networking.
So you might think that as you start school, you'll already see that certain people have these little cliques and groups.
Some of them might have known each other from high school.
They might have met somewhere else.
And you as Samartiners, how many of you are here today?
Twenty two.
How many different cities are going to?
Seven.
Seven different cities.
So on average, that's three or four per city.
Any of you know people that are living or going to the same schools?
Raise of hands.
All right.
So at least in the school, you might be able to meet up.
But if your schedules aren't syncing up, et cetera, for the most part, you'll end up being alone in these situations.
And at times it can feel very lonely.
It can feel very difficult.
But I would encourage you to try as much as possible to step out of your comfort zone and try to connect with others.
There will be people that you just don't need to waste your time on.
But there will also be people in there that out of the blue, you never know how life is going to turn out.
And one of the persons that I met in my very first year back in 2003 is someone that I work with today.
And someone that eventually created a connection for me that led to, let's say, six figures plus plus plus for my business.
But that all started with a handshake talking about Eminem and Dr. Dre in 2003.
So a lesson in networking.
Does anyone recognize this guy on the left?
I'm not saying I believe in his politics, but this was a special moment that was created through networking.
Or that's going to die.
Did you guys do the game yesterday?
Sabrina, did you do the game yesterday?
OK, so did they show this picture?
They should know.
Yeah, go ahead.
Just tell them.
OK, there we go.
He was a prime minister for what, 12, 13 years?
13 long years.
So that was a moment back in 2017.
And this is a quote that actually came out in 2003 by 50 Cent, something that I really believe in up to this day.
And coming from St. Martin, you should know that this also plays a role down there.
So who you know puts you on, and what you know determines how long you stay on once you get in.
So that means that knowing the right people is going to get you in the right doors.
But if you yourself aren't ready to be in those doors, you don't have the knowledge of what it takes to be in those doors,
the door will open again, and you'll be kicked right back out.
So that's why you have to have the knowledge, the experience, et cetera, to be prepared to walk into certain doors.
But it all starts with who you know.
And these are different networking moments throughout the career.
And this is what I mentioned before with that friend of mine.
We started working to get on a project at this company.
You guys might not know it today, but if you stick around long enough in Holland, you'll definitely hear about it.
It's basically the largest company in the Netherlands today.
And we've been doing work for them since 2014.
ASML.
And all of that networking and good business, et cetera, et cetera, also led to a moment that I was announced,
granted, awarded, awarded the Young Professional of the Year in 2016 by the World Trade Center, Eindhoven.
Thank you. Thank you.
And I'll tell the story of how this happened afterwards.
But this also came as a personal invite.
300 changemakers in Europe were invited to Berlin to meet Obama and have a presentation by Obama.
But that's a story that I can maybe tell at the time, the details.
All right. Let's continue.
A lesson in knowledge.
To know that you do not know is best.
To think you know when you do not is a disease.
Recognizing this disease as a disease is to be free of it.
Any guesses what this means?
Yeah, go ahead.
There's about seven plus billion of us on this planet.
And not one person on this planet knows everything.
So the more you know is actually the more you realize how much you don't know.
And the more you start to respect how much you don't know and how much you can actually learn from others
and how you can collaborate with others to you don't have to know it all.
And there are certain things that you're going to be uniquely good in that others aren't and the opposite as well.
So whether it's in the school projects that you'll be doing or in work later,
you have to collaborate with others to to really get the best results.
Back in 2019, the time flies, man, when you get an old because this is this because this feels like yesterday.
But I did I did something that I never thought I would do.
I went camping in the woods.
But don't worry, I'm not planning to repeat.
It was for a very specific purpose.
So in 2019, I followed what is called a mastermind.
And a mastermind is where you're in a group of like minded individuals.
In this case, it was entrepreneurs and your exchange in knowledge, exchange in network.
There's different presenters that come.
You sort of follow like these little mini courses.
And one of the events because it was a year long was the vision quest.
And the vision quest is you go for 24 hours in the woods with no food, only water,
none of your devices, a flashlight and a tad polio because not even a real tent.
And you fast and you only allowed a notebook and a pen to write your thoughts.
So this was this was the setup.
Do you think you like a conference?
Well, we can't.
There was there was kind of like a bonfire thing the next day.
So it started at 12 noon.
And how many of us were there?
Maybe 20 something of us.
And it was a pretty big woods forest, whatever you want to call it.
And we had to spread out because we we weren't allowed to be able to look around
and see where someone else was.
So you had to be kind of far enough that you couldn't see anyone so that you really
feel that you're in in solitude.
I definitely remember thinking, OK, I'm going to learn all the sounds of the forest
during the day.
They're completely different than at night because there's a lot of things that wake up at night.
I don't know what was crawling down there at times.
I didn't I practically didn't sleep a wink until the sun started to come up.
I maybe took a cat nap for two hours.
But once I woke up, I felt pretty refreshed because this is now the next day
because there was a photographer that came around around noon when we first were setting up.
And then he came back around, I don't know, maybe anywhere between seven to nine o'clock
or something like that.
And he snapped some pictures of of of everyone.
And the first day, my thoughts were super random, sometimes like two, three lines, like, OK,
I got to do this in the garden or I got to pay that bill or I got to do that.
But the next day, the thoughts were very clear and I started to write and I end up writing
about six pages and the six pages actually turned into, oh, you're asking about the campfire.
Here is here's a kumbaya moment when everyone comes back and they get some soup.
And we were talking about our experience.
But that those six pages turned into a personal finance course that I created that I also
give to persons between your age to about 35 ish.
But as I mentioned before, my profession is building applications, not personal finance,
but due to being the designer, as I dived into the personal finance topic myself and
started to really extract the knowledge I put on my designer hat and created a framework
that really tells the complete picture of the personal finance model.
And here we have a couple of quotes from persons that followed the course.
In this particular part of the course, I'm going to talk about the
quote from Steve Jobs, and that is you can't connect the dots looking forward.
You can only connect them looking backwards.
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
And this approach has never let me down and it has made all the difference in my life.
But in essence, in all these different moments on your journey, you have to trust that the
dots will connect in your future.
You wouldn't be able to see always why this particular thing is happening, why this person
is in your life, et cetera, et cetera.
Only as you grow, you start to see how all these dots connect to bring you to where you
are in those future moments.
So trust that when it feels right, go with the flow.
When it doesn't feel right, also put the brakes on it.
Trust your own intuition.
Then, last but not least, so what were the five lessons?
You guys can just shout it out.
No, no.
Focus, patience, and knowledge.
All right.
That side was paying attention.
So along the journey, there's going to be many different moments in life and some will
try to find it, others may not.
I encourage you to definitely go look for it because once you start to connect with
it, life becomes even better.
And that's a finding purpose, your purpose.
And there's been many different things on my journey that have been very important to
me, and I've been able to do many different things on my journey that started to make
more sense for me and click for me of what my purpose is.
And I believe what that is is to connect and share knowledge, experiences, but also bring
vital tools to my Caribbean folks.
And this is also why I'm here today.
And along that journey, I did various projects.
One of them was under the umbrella of Cosme, and we trained and connected with folks in
11 different islands, no, 10 different islands, where we trained them on the aspects of setting
up business incubators and shared office spaces and basically the collaboration mindset.
Often than not, in the Caribbean, if one person opened up a store, started a business in X,
then someone else might come along and try to just copy the exact same business instead
of create something adjacent to it and collaborate together to boost the economy.
So these are some of those moments back in 2017, 18-ish.
This was on the Cayman Islands, here in Aruba at the Chamber of Commerce.
From government officials to entrepreneurs to people in education were all trained on
these different aspects.
And I can say that today Aruba has completed one in the Cayman Islands as well.
In St. Martin, there has been variants of it.
And this was at a big conference in Aruba also talking about the same subject matter.
And then came a moment in 2017.
I started this together with some friends and acquaintances of mine.
And we raised over 71,000 euros in actual money.
But in total, in the funds and grants that we received, we maybe topped out around 120,000
euros.
And we did various projects on the island.
So back in 2018, we donated to nine-place schools, to six primary schools, and three
high schools.
So different sports equipment and school equipment, et cetera.
We had contact with all the schools there.
Most of the schools from the Catholic School Board already had quite some donations.
So they said that they were pretty OK.
The schools that fell under government, unfortunately, didn't have that much granted to them.
So those schools became the focus of our donations.
And then the following school year, we collaborated with the SMDF and the Windward Island Bank.
And we donated to almost 400-plus kids.
So we collaborated again.
You hear this word constantly, yeah?
Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate, working together.
We collaborated with the, what's it called again?
It's a foundation that encompasses about 17 primary schools.
And they gave us a list of the kids that they knew were most in need of the support.
And we donated two shirts and two pants or skirts for over 400-plus kids, so over 2,000-plus
items.
So the summation of all of this, I have to slide over here.
It's something that I actually would like you guys to check out and subscribe to.
Now this is my blatant marketing.
People!
Welcome, welcome to season two of the Sunside Kingdom Show.
We have more in store for you this season, more interviews, more epic.
Remember this is the place where we interview Dutch Caribbean role models doing greatness
in their communities for their islands represented to the fullest.
And we want to interview those individuals and showcase them and highlight them to our
communities all around the world throughout our diaspora.
Thank you so much for tuning into season one.
And I can't wait to see you for season two.
So it's called the Sunside Kingdom Show where we interview Dutch Caribbean role models.
So not only St. Martin but also from the other five islands.
And yeah, they talk about the struggles but also the successes and the things that helped
them along their journey to become the individuals that they are today.
So I'll leave you with this quote.
So this big circle is your comfort zone and that little circle outside is where epic shit
happens.
So you have to leave your comfort zone in order to reach those goals.
And every time you start to feel too comfortable, change it up.
Go and seek the uncomfortability.
So the ultimate life lesson is find your purpose, whatever that may be.
Thank you.
That was my presentation.
Thank you.
Any questions?
Oh, a question in the back.
Do you offer internships?
Yes, I do.
AntoniaMedia.com.
Whenever we have internships, they always post it there.
Well, maybe I'll stick around a bit.
Because I know we have to get into the next thing.
But it was really true networking.
It was true all that I was doing before.
Someone recognized that.
And she was in a position that she was asked for, is there anyone that you would recommend
that suits this profile?
And then she gave them my name, called me up.
So this is called me up the same day.
Called me, I need to prepare this letter.
And send it to her by the evening, because it was a last minute thing, a final submission.
So had to drop whatever I was doing, prepare the letter, send it over.
And then a few weeks later, in my inbox, there was an email from the Obama Foundation.
And it felt like one of those moments, like these are scammers sending me this.
This can't really be real.
But it was real.
Yes, yes.
Two, three sisters working at Versant.
I have six sisters in total.
And no brothers.
That's why I have these gray hairs.
Any other questions?
Yeah?
Do you have any advice on networking for people who aren't as social or more timid with the
networking?
Well, I know in modern times, people go online for a lot of these things.
I would encourage you to also try to network offline.
So you may find certain groups online where you could already start to build connections
with.
But try smaller settings, smaller gatherings.
If the bigger gatherings feel a bit too intimidating, then try to find those smaller gatherings.
Or definitely what's always recommended is to have one or two persons with you.
So the persons that you feel comfortable with.
So even if you don't end up talking to anybody else that night, then at least you had a good
time with the people that you came with.
But the more that you go out, the easier that it becomes.
So those first times that you go out and you network, you won't be doing this.
You'll just be doing this.
So go with your own little group.
And then some random person will slide in and start to speak to you guys.
And you'll see how organically it can flow from there.
Anyone else?
No?
All right.
Then thank you very much.