I woke up with body aches, pain in the crook of my arm, and persistent nausea. The reality caught up with me brutally. I am here alone in this hospital room, expatriated far away from family and friends, 49 years old and sick. My body screams his fatigue, my soul whispers its unfulfilled dreams, and my heart begs my brain to listen…
Few months later, my health is under control, and I started my process of transition to a new chapter of my life. I realized after more than 2 decades as a happy mum and hyper-active successful expatriate business leader, I am at a turning point. While routine always looks attractive and comfortable, I am free of deciding my own path.
“Are you crazy to leave behind a successful and well-paid corporate life?” some relatives have asked. After more than 25 years of career I exactly know what makes me happy and what could drive my energy for the 25 years to come. I know conventional definition of success will not be good enough anymore.
At first, I decided to take real time off: 1 big year to just enjoy life and lived some of my bucket list dreams. I walk twice the Saint James way and spent 9 months in cooking school obtaining a Pastry and Cooking diploma with honours. I repatriated, moved back in Paris and enjoyed family life. This was also absolutely needed gestation time to nudge the right professional direction.
And here we are. I feel now completely ready to enter this new chapter which I will write at the conjunction of my values, my capacity, and my passion. I will focus on what matters the most for me and my proudest achievements of the last years. I will be supporting leaders on their path to success, positively provoking them to unlock their inner potential, caring and supporting with benevolence when they will face key or critical moments, boosting their self-confidence, offering knowledge, questioning, and nourishing reflections to unlock possibility and singular talents.
I created “SLB pathfinder”which was officially born last week . I picked “Pathfinder” a wonderful English word both echoing some of my best memories and crystallising ideas of possibility, progress, achievement and maturing time.
With the extended life expectancy (85 years as I read in Europe) and extra decades we inherited in the past century, it clearly changes the paradigm we were all grown up with. We might have new extended possibility. What if we would write several chapters in our life? What if we would catch these moments of truth to harvest our self-awareness, ride our courage to grow and align our actions to our heart and soul? Changes can be scary sometimes, but it is also an incredible source of learnings, growth, and freedom.
What about you? Did you experience one of this moment of truth, occasion to re- evaluate your purpose in life and perhaps make a bold choice among your multiple possible futures?