Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ekrem Dupanović
Dreamer: Miša Lukić, CEO Central and Eastern Europe, Publicis One
I’m very happy that Media Marketing has decided to make a series of short articles on the theme “I Have a Dream” in honour of one of my favourite historical figures, Martin Luther King.
I know many of his speeches and quotes, but I am especially fond of the one that says: “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”
Martin not only dreamed, but lived his dream. In the end, he died for his dream, but this only speaks of him as one of the greatest sons of America and the democratic world in the twentieth century. He died for his dream and for all who believed in this dream. I’m sure it was not in vain.
We all know of his famous speech entitled “I Have A Dream”, which Dr. King gave on the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963. To this day, the entire world admires this speech, and at the time it was held it motivated millions of people to fight and persist for a more equal world, and equal opportunities for all.
That speech has always inspired me, but on the other hand, many times I wondered what would have happened if instead of “I have a dream” Martin repeated in his speech “I have a plan.”
I’m of the opinion that his speech would have been quickly forgotten, and that the world would not be as it is now. That’s why I’m firmly convinced that if we want great changes in life, we have to dream great dreams, and not only when we sleep, but in our waking hours.
Media Marketing: Your favourite dream from childhood?
Miša Lukić: When I was a kid I had many dreams, some less original and some more.
Since my dad was a big truck driver, and was on the road all the time, my first and favourite dream was to be a driver like him. But since I always loved company, it was not at all appealing to spend hours and days alone, then my Solomonic idea was to be a bus driver on international lines. An interesting thing is that part of this big dream has come true for me – with all the trips, being in the “driver’s seat” as a leader, working with many people, and often feeling as if I’m driving a full bus in which clients and people come in and out, and I do everything I can to make their trip to the desired destination in their business world as smooth and comfortable as possible. Their smiles when they come in and out of this imaginary bus of mine is to this day my biggest reward for all that I do.
When the dreams of childhood are concerned, there’s also an interesting story of my school friend, who dreamed of being an “owner”. When asked “of what?” he would reply “doesn’t matter.”
Later, in my own kind of worldview, I defined it as my desire to become the owner of my own dream. In general, I believe that a person can be either an owner or a slave of their dream. You are a slave of the dream when it pulls you away from what you truly are, and what you can become, and you own your dream if the fulfilment of that dream brings you closer to yourself, and the achievement of your full potential.
Media Marketing: What did you dream of when you were just entering the world of advertising?
Miša Lukić: I started my career in advertising in S Team Saatchi & Saatchi Beograd and I always proudly say that I am one of “Sakan’s kids”. I entered the magical world of advertising while growing with this legend of our profession, and for that reason it was quite natural for me to dream that one day, I myself would become a mage of marketing like Sakan, and would have my own agency that will be like the one I grew up in.
It took me more than ten years to realize my dream, when at the beginning of this century, together with the Leo Burnett Agency, I became part of the most creative and most successful agency in Serbia. The crown of that success came in 2010, when we were declared the most creative agency in the Adriatic Region at the Golden Drum festival in Portorož.
Another proof that dreams do come true in some strange and marvellous way – even when we personally cannot have any influence on it – came two decades later, under some unbelievable circumstances, when the agency of my dreams, in which I started my journey (Saatchi & Saatchi), was given to me among all the other agency brands of the Publicis Group, which I have been running for ten years in this region.
Still, my greatest dream when I came into the world of marketing – and in this sense the greatest achievement of a dream – was to become someone who will at least have a bit of merit to be compared with Sakan. I think that I will never achieve the dream of becoming a star of Sakan’s calibre, but the hand with which I tried to reach out to the stars was not left in the mud either (“When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get them but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either”- Leo Burnet). But, to my immense happiness, during Sakan’s life I had received the greatest professional recognition that I will ever receive, and I received it from him personally, in the form of dedication in his first book Pretty Woman. For two decades now, I haven’t shown this dedication to anyone except those closest to me, and this is the first time that I talk publicly about it. To my great joy, Sakan got his first real successors in his company, Žarko and Lazar, who realized the dreams he did not reach, but it will always be the greatest honour for me that at one time, he also saw me as his successor in the profession to which I have devoted my life.
Media Marketing: What do you dream of today?
Miša Lukić: I still dream big. You know what they say: “Man is not old until dreams give way to regret”.
My new big dream on the business plan is to build one of the largest and most successful business design consulting companies in the world, that would be born in our region, and from there conquer the whole world.
It’s a dream that I’ve been dreaming for many years, and I hope that I will soon start with its realization.
Media Marketing: What was the dream that brought you where you are today?
Miša Lukić: The dream that brought me where I am today was actually conceived as an anti-dream. As a kid I liked the Bijelo Dugme band, and worshiped most of their songs, but one song left the strongest impression on me. It was the song “Pristao sam biću sve što hoće” (“I agreed to become all she wants”), and its line “po meni se ništa neće zvati” (“Nothing will ever be named after me”.) The words of this song have been so deeply engraved in my teenage mind that I have firmly promised myself that I will never give up on life and my dreams, and that I will do my best to make people remember me for the best of things, and, if luck be, that something will even be named after me. This dream, that has emerged from an anti-dream, will, I believe, follow me for the rest of my life.
Media Marketing: Do you dream more awake or asleep?
Miša Lukić: When we wake up in the morning, we have two choices … keep sleeping and dreaming our dreams, or wake up and follow our dreams. The choice is on us.
I believe in the words of Abdul Kalam, who said that a real dream is not something you see during sleep, but that which doesn’t let you sleep.
It happens to all of us to have dreams that make us so excited we cannot sleep all night.
When we find something that will make us feel this way every night, our life becomes worthy of living.
Media Marketing: Are there any dreams you gave up on? And if yes, why?
Miša Lukić: I never gave up on any of my big dreams, because I promised myself as a teenager I would never give up on my dreams, even though some of them scared me with their enormity at the time I was dreaming them.
When tough times come, and when I’m on the verge of giving up, I listen to my anti-dream song, “I agreed to become all she wants”, and I quickly climb back into the saddle.
In the end, we all know that we very rarely regret the things we’ve done. Just the opposite, we always regret the things we never even tried, even when we had the chance to do them.
My message to everyone who wants to achieve great things in life is that miracles begin to happen when you give your dreams the same amount of energy as you give to your fears.