About · Martine LaGrenade

I’ve never really known how to fit into a box.

Good. I help people step out of theirs.

My path has been anything but a straight line.

I’ve worked in different professions, explored different worlds and developed skills that might not seem to have much in common… and yet.

Looking back, I can see a clear thread running through it all.

I’ve always been interested in what happens between us.

What brings us closer. What pushes us apart. What we project onto others. The words we cannot find. The needs we do not know how to express. The conflicts we avoid until they blow up in our faces. The environments that help us grow and those that slowly diminish us.

Ultimately, that is what led me to relationship coaching.

Not because I claim to have found some miraculous way to make human relationships simple. But simply because I know they are not.

01 · The paths less travelled

A journey that never planned to be a straight line

ExplorePsychology · communication · Human Design

SupportCouple relationships · relationship with yourself

ConnectBusiness · management · cooperation

ShareWriting · book · podcast

The Cross of the Unexpected. Of course.

In Human Design, I am a 4/6 Projector with Emotional Authority, with an Incarnation Cross that is rather wonderfully suited to my journey: the Right Angle Cross of the Unexpected.

In other words: The Cross of the Unexpected.

I can hardly claim that I was mislabelled.

My path is made up of changes of direction, curiosity, encounters, experiences and projects that were not necessarily planned in the previous chapter.

But unexpected does not mean incoherent.

I love learning. Connecting disciplines. Understanding how systems work. Moving from psychology to management, from couple relationships to business, from communication to Human Design, from coaching to writing or podcasting.

Because, underneath it all, the subject remains remarkably consistent:

human beings and the way they relate to their world.

I do a lot of different things.

But almost all of them are about the same thing.

02 · A little confession

Aquarius. Yes, that might explain a thing or two.

I am an Aquarius. I pour the waters of my knowledge out into the world.

Don’t worry: I won’t ask for your star sign before we work together.

But there is something in that symbol I readily identify with: an interest in the collective, in ideas, in progress and in what we could do a little better together.

I care deeply about what we do to other people and the kind of world our behaviour helps create.

For me, that translates into some fairly simple values: generosity, kindness, sharing knowledge, curiosity, freedom and a sense of responsibility towards others.

Generosity, above all. Not the kind that means sacrificing yourself until you disappear, but the kind that asks:

“What can I contribute here that would make things a little better?”

That is probably a pretty good description of what motivates me.

03 · At the heart of my work

It all happens in relationships

I am a relationship coach because I believe the quality of our lives depends enormously on the quality of our relationships.

With our partner.
With those close to us.
With our colleagues.
With our manager.
With our clients.

But also with ourselves, our emotions, our boundaries, our desires, our work, our successes, our failures and all those little voices that sometimes have far too much to say.

A difficulty we think of as strictly personal often ends up showing up in our relationships.

And a difficult relationship often profoundly changes the way we see ourselves.

These things are rarely separate.

That is why I chose to write a book about relationships: to extend this work beyond our sessions and offer tools for understanding what happens between us.

Discover my book ↗

04 · Work matters, too

And then there is work.

Because eight hours a day, five or six days a week, is hardly a minor detail.

We often talk about work as an obligation.

Find a job. Keep your job. Be employable. Be productive. Adapt. Perform.

And when the job market gets tougher, the pressure grows: find a job, any job, and count yourself lucky to have one.

I find that a terribly limited way of looking at it.

Because work takes up an enormous part of our lives.

Our workplace can become a source of stress, conflict, exhaustion and lost confidence.

But when the conditions are right, it can also be an extraordinary place for competence, recognition, learning, cooperation, autonomy and personal fulfilment.

So it is not just work itself that interests me.

It is our relationship with work and the relationships we build within it.

That is one of the reasons I created Leader Instinct, my podcast about leadership and people-centred management.

Because a good manager does not just manage goals, schedules and performance indicators.

They influence a considerable part of the lives of the people who work with them.

Listen to Leader Instinct ↗