OBJECTIVES: The author describes his first steps in laparoscopic surgery and the sources of some of his ideas. He thanks his father’s influence and the technical stimuli that catalysed his scientific curiosity. For the benefit of young urologists at the beginning of their careers he shows how the frustrations of working with the early instruments became the vital challenges that inspired creative solutions.METHODS: His urological surgeon father inspired in his young son a passion for his calling. He developed an immediate and compelling interest in the shape and function of urological instruments like, for example, Freyer’s lithotripter and the Iglesias resectoscope. Books of urological history and the works of pioneer urologists fascinated him. Watching José María Gil Vernet operate particularly impressed him and he says that Gil Vernet was the first urologist he saw using a laparoscope to diagnose an abdominal testicle. While working in an Oxford University hospital in 1985, he designed a balloon device to dissect the retropubic space. This procedure was the precursor of what several years later became extraperitoneal surgery. The following year, he read the manual of Semm’s laparoscopy and later described a laparoscopic varicocelectomy. In 1993, he published the first description of a laparoscopic radical cystectomy and ileal conduit. In 1997, he adapted a surgical robotic system with a master-slave arm to carry out firstly a transurethral resection.RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: He says that a good idea is beyond price because it helps the inspired individual to make true a long-held ambition and achieve the signal success that lifts him out of the mud of mediocrity.