A Personal Message – End 2017

I finished the year 2017 with a personal message, also providing an outlook for 2018.

I am recovering from one of the most difficult times in my personal life, as after getting sick in 2015 I had plenty of time during the last 2 years to research and overthink what I want to do during the time to come.

 

After 12 years of focusing on production and finally finishing the documentary THE BLACK ROOTS OF SALSA in mid-2016 the drastic global changes stroke me hard when watching out for business solutions as the world has changed.

I got stuck in cultural projects with Ismaray, teaching her entrepreneurship and the necessary tools, needed in her career of being an independent artist, as I am convinced of her talent. I adore her kind authority when providing dance education and her energetic nature, she demonstrates on stage.

 

I knew it is difficult to be profitable when working on cultural projects and especially with Cuba.

If you operate here in Switzerland costs of living are incredibly high and can not be compared to other places.

We tested different business options in tours with artists to Europe we organized from 2011 until 2014, then with 5 trips of Cuba te llama and finally, starting in 2015 with the Cuba Si o Si Events here in Zürich.

 

I would not miss any of these experiences and I would like to thank Ismaray for her huge effort for Attic Independent Production and the promotion of the Cuban culture here in Europe.

I also learned a lot while it was hard work to generate some profit. It is not mainly the obvious costs you pay in hard cash, it is about the enormous time effort, invested in the projects.

When I started working on the documentaries, I was requesting Venture Capital here in Switzerland. There was nobody providing funds for documenting the culture in Cuba so I worked to generate the Venture Capital to cross-finance the projects step by step.

It was a different time then. Now anybody can present his projects through crowdfunding to a worldwide VC network and does not rely on a few possible angel investors and cultural funding and besides crowdfunding, there are so many more business models available now.

 

My nature is being an ambitious and interested person with technical and artistical skills and the biggest benefit for all efforts is the broad skillset I have at hand now.

I am no genius but I am pretty smart and I am a good observer, which leads me to see consequences in a series of actions, discover solutions and find talent.

During college I played 3 instruments, then I studied math and physics at the University of Zürich while working as a programmer in the early days of the Internet from 1999 until 2004 when I started planning my own venture. From 2005 until 2008 I made my career in banking in the financial products area and dropped out during the financial crisis.

So getting back into an IT world of 2011, working for a small IT Service Provider here in Switzerland was challenging and since then I pushed my programming skills to meet the modern development environment again and again.

 

In 2016 I started a quite extraordinary online education to learn the disciplines of marketing, sales, and distribution in the new digital environment and what I found was a deeper insight into entrepreneurship, confirming my experiences and providing a new vision on branding, the production process and the obvious changes to our work environment.

At the beginning of 2017 then I escaped to Costa Rica for a surf trip of 2 months to reorient and try to find inner peace again.

 

It took me some time since then to reorient and unfortunately Ismaray and I had to separate our businesses.

I came to the decision that I want to build open source media, informing on different channels in a modern way about the digitalization, providing an entry point into this new digital world.

The brilliant marketer Gary Vaynerchuck proposes to start with a Manifest, so that’s what I am doing here.

I recommend building your organized knowledge base on the topics you want to cover.

Another brilliant marketer Stuart Ross is always talking about finding your voice, so I am providing my example in this journey, starting from scratch.

 

 

I have no ambitions to sell you my own academy, instead, I will recommend you the best sources I know.

My part is more of a mastermind, providing my point of view based on reflections, my errors and case studies of projects.

I am no big fan of mass conversation, so I see the beauty in using videos through social media platforms to be able to have a direct conversation with you.

Then as the business person, I am, I want to tune my skills in communication and use IT and Social Media to bring my initiatives to a broad audience and provide services for businesses and individuals, struggling with their transformation into the new digital economy we have shifted in.

 

I had the chance to run into some great personalities, same in art as in business and I am grateful for trusting me.

I would like to thank all of you for a life full of experiences!

Special thanks, I want to dedicate to my friend and brother Adonis who is himself an entrepreneur besides being one of the greatest Cuban percussionists.

He manages his venture Osain del Monte under much more difficult circumstances then I and I have a feeling, there is a lot coming from his side by 2018.

 

I am incredibly grateful for all I received from my parents, who always supported my education and personal development and carried all of my crazy initiatives for years with me, helping me to build a strong identity.

So as I am turning 40 this year, it is time for me to give back to society.

I hope I can inspire you to share your knowledge and your personal way in life too, in a world, where lots and lots of people are being overwhelmed and afraid of the mass of information and the speed of change.

In my point of view this means, living the sharing economy, everybody talks about!

You can not take your knowledge to the grave and you might die tomorrow so you better share what you know.

 

I have a long agenda of topics to cover and my challenge is to provide a guide for you, how a journey can look like.

 

I will answer your questions and I want to encourage you to share your smaller or bigger success stories.

Meanwhile subscribe, like and share this content with those, who you think need to make a first step or a change to get active again in life and provide her or his best to the society.

 

People are doing incredible stuff around the globe, but I also register a big loss of ethics and culture globally, especially within the younger generation and I am challenging you to speak out for your values and become a messenger for your audience!

Don’t be afraid to find your voice and explore the massive possibilities of the new digital economy!

 

I finish this manifest with a point about self-awareness.

20 years ago I stopped playing my beloved instrument, the Cello for several reasons. I came to the conclusion that I am not born to be on stage, as I do not have the required talent to make a career on this beautiful instrument.

My nature is also being too diversified, so I was not committed and obsessed enough to do the hard work for perfection, required to become a great classical musician.

Now I started playing again as a hobby and I leave you with my humble interpretation of one of my favorite pieces.

 

Christian Liebich