GRENADE
COACHING
GRENADE
COACHING

Étiquette : EN

  • Public speaking: what if you learned to speak like a politician… but actually had something to say?

    Public speaking: what if you learned to speak like a politician… but actually had something to say?

    You know those people who stand up and speak in front of an entire room, a microphone or a camera?

    Yes, yes. Those politicians who can spend ten minutes developing an idea that could sometimes have fit into three sentences.

    And yet, we listen to them.

    The sentence is perfectly constructed. The pace is controlled. The pauses land in exactly the right places. Their gaze sweeps across the room. Their voice drops when a statement needs weight and rises when they need to carry the audience with them.

    In short: even when the substance fails to convince us, the form of public speaking can be remarkably well mastered.

    What if this skill were not reserved for politicians, keynote speakers and those other mysterious creatures who somehow enjoy finding themselves in front of 800 people?

    Because before dreaming of giving a TED Talk, learning to speak with confidence can be useful in far more ordinary situations.

    Presenting an idea in a meeting. Defending a project. Going to a job interview. Asking for a raise. Explaining to a client why you disagree with them. Or diplomatically telling your boss that their wonderful idea may be sending everyone straight into a wall.

    Public speaking is about being convincing, but it is also about learning to defend your place and your ideas.

    What exactly is public speaking?

    It is easy to picture a lectern, a stage and a crowd.

    But public speaking more broadly means speaking to an audience. In its oratorical sense, a speech is a developed statement delivered before a group of people; public speaking involves structured and intentional communication designed, among other things, to inform or persuade. Le Robert

    And that “audience” can perfectly well consist of eight colleagues around a table.

    As soon as you need to organise your thoughts, capture attention, convey information and perhaps persuade several people, you are already using some of the skills involved in public speaking.

    The good news is that these skills can be learned.

    Speaking well in public is not just about finding the right words

    We place enormous importance on words, or more precisely on the script.

    We think we need to prepare it, write it, rewrite it… that we need to create a magnificent 47-slide presentation that we will then inflict on innocent people.

    And we forget the fundamental thing:

    a speech is not made of words alone. It is, and should be, embodied.

    Take a perfectly ordinary sentence:

    “I think we should reconsider this decision.”

    Say it quickly, looking down, shoulders hunched and voice hesitant.

    Then say exactly the same sentence while looking at the other person, slowing your pace slightly and leaving a second of silence after “decision”.

    Same sentence.

    Not the same speech.

    Your voice, rhythm, pauses, breathing, eye contact and posture all shape the way your message is received.

    Eloquence is not a gift reserved for a lucky few

    Some people seem naturally comfortable when they have to speak in public.

    That does not mean they were born holding a microphone.

    A large part of speaking with ease comes from skills that can be developed: structuring an idea, articulating your reasoning, using your voice, managing your pace, looking at your audience, mastering your posture and, above all, learning to tolerate that particularly delightful sensation of having twenty pairs of eyes fixed on you.

    Because behind difficulty speaking up, there is often something else:

    fear of judgement.

    “What if I stumble over my words?”

    “What if my mind goes blank?”

    “What if someone contradicts me?”

    “What if my question is stupid?”

    “What if I am not legitimate enough to speak?”

    Self-confidence in public speaking does not necessarily mean eliminating stage fright.

    It is more about developing enough inner security to speak despite it.

    Speaking up in meetings: public speaking in miniature

    This is probably one of the situations where the skill becomes most concrete.

    Picture the scene: you are in a meeting. A decision is about to be made. And you sincerely believe it is a bad one.

    You now have several options.

    • Stay silent and complain magnificently by the coffee machine an hour later.
    • Blurt out:

    “Honestly, this is never going to work.”

    • Or learn to express disagreement clearly, diplomatically and convincingly.

    For example, by structuring your intervention:

    here is what I observe → here is the risk I see → here is why → here is the alternative I propose.

    That way, you are no longer merely expressing an opinion. You are building an argument. That is already rhetoric.

    And knowing how to speak up in meetings can considerably change the way your skills and ideas are perceived professionally.

    Defending your interests without turning into a pushy salesperson

    Public speaking is not only useful for presenting projects.

    It also helps you defend your interests.

    Take the wonderful human experience of asking for a raise.

    Walking into your manager’s office with:

    “Er… I’ve been here for quite a while now and I was thinking maybe we could perhaps talk about my salary…”

    does not have the same effect as calmly presenting:

    what you have achieved, the responsibilities you carry, the value you bring and the precise request you are making.

    Asking for a raise is also an exercise in public speaking and argumentation.

    It is neither about attacking nor begging.

    It is about building a message clear enough for the other person to know exactly what you are asking for and why.

    A successful job interview is also about knowing how to tell a story

    The same mechanism applies in a job interview.

    We often imagine that answering the questions correctly is enough.

    But a recruiter only has a few dozen minutes to understand who you are professionally.

    Your ability to present your career path, explain your choices, tell the story of an experience, give a concrete example and respond calmly to an objection therefore becomes essential.

    Saying:

    “I know how to handle difficult situations”

    is a claim.

    Telling, in forty seconds, the story of a difficult situation, what you did and what happened next is a demonstration.

    And our brains like stories.

    Knowing how to speak in public therefore also means learning to turn a succession of information into an intelligible story.

    How do you make a presentation interesting without delivering a pompous TED Talk?

    Ah, the famous TED Talk.

    The black stage. The red circle. The little personal anecdote. The dramatic pause. And sometimes that strange feeling that someone is about to reveal the secret of the universe using three sticky notes and an experience they once had in an airport (I’m barely exaggerating…).

    Still, the format reminds us of something useful:

    a good presentation is not an accumulation of information.

    It has a direction.

    To prepare an interesting oral presentation, start with an extremely simple question:

    What do I want the people in the room to understand, feel or do after listening to me?

    One main idea.

    Then build around it.

    An opening that makes people want to listen.

    A clearly stated problem.

    A few arguments or examples.

    A progression.

    And a conclusion that genuinely answers the question you started with.

    You have just created a mini TED Talk.

    Without necessarily pacing slowly across a stage while explaining how meeting a Peruvian llama transformed your understanding of leadership.

    Posture matters… but it should not become theatre

    “Stand up straight.”

    “Look at your audience.”

    “Use your hands when you speak.”

    All of this advice can be useful.

    Until you spend so much time controlling your body that you start to look like a mime in the middle of an experimental workshop.

    The goal is not to manufacture an artificial posture of confidence.

    It is rather to remove what interferes with your message.

    Breathe enough.

    Do not speak at breakneck speed.

    Accept pauses.

    Actually look at the people you are speaking to.

    Take up your space instead of trying to disappear.

    Good posture supports the speech; it does not perform the speech for you.

    What if I freeze when I have to speak in public?

    Stage fright before speaking in public is not a sign that you lack competence in your field, only that public speaking itself may be a skill you still need to develop.

    The main challenge is to prevent the emotion from taking complete control of your attention.

    And one of the most effective methods remains spectacularly unglamorous:

    prepare and rehearse. (yes, with a Coach, it’s even better…)

    Not memorise every sentence word for word.

    Know your structure well enough to know where you are going even if a particular phrase escapes you.

    Prepare especially:

    your opening sentence, your three main ideas, your transitions, and your final sentence.

    Then you no longer need to retrieve a script from memory.

    You simply find your way again.

    Persuasion is not manipulation

    This is a distinction that matters to me.

    Developing eloquence and persuasive ability does not mean learning how to manipulate other people.

    An argument can perfectly well respect the freedom of the person listening.

    You set out your reasoning. You make your idea understandable. You explain why you defend it. You give the other person reasons to follow you.

    And they remain perfectly entitled to answer:

    “No.”

    Learning to persuade should therefore also mean learning to listen, respond to objections and accept disagreement.

    Otherwise, it is not really an exchange anymore.

    It is a monologue with a witness.

    Can public speaking be learned?

    Yes.

    And above all, you do not need to dream of becoming a professional speaker.

    You can work on your public speaking simply so that you can say clearly what you think when it matters.

    Speak up more often in meetings.

    Present your work without apologising for existing.

    Defend an idea in front of your team.

    Go into job interviews with greater confidence.

    Ask for a raise without wanting to disappear under the table.

    Set a boundary.

    Respond to an objection.

    Present a project.

    Or simply manage to say:

    “I disagree, and here is why.”

    Perhaps that is ultimately the interesting skill behind public speaking.

    Not becoming someone who can talk for twenty minutes without saying anything.

    But becoming someone capable of saying something when their voice matters.

    Public speaking is also about learning to defend your place and your ideas.

    Working on public speaking through coaching

    Public speaking is particularly interesting territory for coaching because it combines several dimensions: self-confidence, communication, stress management, posture, argumentation, the ability to defend your interests and your relationship with other people’s judgement.

    So we can work very concretely.

    Prepare a presentation. Simulate an interview. Rehearse asking for a raise. Work through a difficult intervention in a meeting. Test several formulations. Observe what a different posture changes. Learn how to respond when someone interrupts or contradicts you.

    Because between intellectually understanding how good public speaking works and actually doing it in front of someone, there is a particularly interesting little space:

    practice.

    And that is precisely where we can start playing — and you know how much I love to play…

  • Low energy: what if you simply don’t run on the same fuel as everyone else?

    Low energy: what if you simply don’t run on the same fuel as everyone else?

    Do you feel as though your energy levels have dropped?

    As though you are running out of energy while everyone else still seems to have enough fuel to launch twelve projects, renovate their kitchen, run a half-marathon and suggest yet another meeting at 6:30 p.m.?

    Maybe you are going through a period of low motivation, struggling to take action, or simply experiencing that very particular feeling:

    “I’ve got nothing left in the tank.”

    What if Human Design had an answer?

    Let’s clear up one important ambiguity first.

    Unusual, significant or persistent fatigue can obviously have physical or psychological causes that deserve to be explored with a healthcare professional. Human Design is neither a medical tool nor a method for diagnosing the cause of fatigue.

    But it does raise another question, one that is much more interesting in a coaching context:

    what if we simply do not all have the same relationship with energy?

    Because when we are constantly told that everyone should be productive eight hours a day, permanently motivated and able to operate at the same pace, we can end up believing that a different fuel tank must necessarily be a defective one.

    And that is precisely where Human Design becomes interesting.

    In Human Design, we do not all have the same engine

    Human Design distinguishes several energy Types: Generator, Manifesting Generator, Manifestor, Projector and Reflector.

    Within this framework, not everyone is considered to have the same consistent energy for acting, producing or sustaining effort.

    Generators and Manifesting Generators have, in Human Design terminology, a defined Sacral Centre. Projectors, Manifestors and Reflectors do not operate in the same way.

    This obviously does not mean that some human beings literally have a Duracell battery built into their stomach while the rest of us are running on three AAA batteries scavenged from a remote control.

    It is a symbolic model of how we function, not a physiological measurement of energy.

    But this model can become particularly meaningful when someone tells me:

    “I don’t understand. Everyone else can keep up with this pace. I end up completely drained.”

    What if you were a Projector?

    This is often where people discovering their Human Design profile start raising an eyebrow.

    According to traditional Human Design teachings, Projectors make up around one fifth of the population. They are described as people whose functioning is not built around a constant Sacral energy designed for continuous production.

    Their value is said to lie elsewhere.

    Observing.

    Understanding.

    Identifying what works and what does not.

    Reading people and systems.

    Directing energy rather than necessarily supplying it.

    And that changes quite a lot when you have spent years trying to operate like someone who seems to have a different engine.

    Because the problem can then become:

    “Why can’t I do as much as everyone else?”

    It is a question I have asked myself many times — you can see my profile in the “About” section — when a much more fruitful question might have been:

    “Where does my energy actually create the most value?”

    When low energy meets a lack of recognition

    And this is probably one of the most unpleasant cocktails.

    You have given a great deal.

    Maybe even everything you had.

    You spotted a problem no one else seemed to notice. You proposed a solution. You devoted time and energy to improving the situation.

    And no one seems to see it.

    Worse:

    sometimes you feel as though you are speaking without being heard.

    Then, three weeks later, someone rephrases an idea strangely similar to yours and suddenly:

    “Gerard, what an extraordinary idea!”

    And there you are, internally considering several creative uses for the office stapler.

    In traditional Human Design terminology, recognition plays a particularly important role for Projectors. Their so-called “Not-Self” theme is bitterness.

    It is easy to see why this idea might resonate with someone who spends enormous amounts of energy contributing but feels that their contribution is never truly seen.

    Be careful with the shortcut, though:

    feeling exhausted, ignored or insufficiently recognised absolutely does not prove that you are a Projector.

    That is precisely what a chart is for: looking at the whole picture instead of self-diagnosing as a Projector after three Instagram Reels.

    “Why do people listen to me less?”

    Here again, Human Design offers an interesting framework to explore.

    We do not all naturally occupy space in the same way.

    Some people initiate easily.

    Others draw people along through their energy.

    Some are remarkably good at observing group dynamics.

    Others are particularly sensitive to their environment.

    This can create situations where an extremely insightful person is not necessarily the one who speaks the loudest, responds the fastest or naturally takes centre stage.

    Visibility and relevance are not the same thing.

    And in a company, confusing the two is a serious problem.

    Because a team that systematically listens to whoever takes up the most space risks overlooking the person who spotted the problem before everyone else.

    Before looking for more energy, ask where yours is going

    This is probably the question I find most interesting in coaching.

    When someone tells me:

    “I lack motivation.”

    I want to look behind that sentence.

    Do they genuinely lack motivation?

    Are they exhausted?

    Are they spending their energy on something that constantly forces them to fight against themselves?

    Are they trying to keep up with someone else’s pace?

    Does their professional environment suit them?

    Do they spend more time proving their value than using their skills?

    Do they work among people who know how to recognise what they bring?

    Because there is an enormous difference between:

    having no energy

    and

    spending your energy in the wrong place.

    And that distinction goes far beyond Human Design.

    Get your Human Design chart to better understand how you function

    That is precisely one of the reasons I use Human Design in coaching.

    Not to tell you that four geometric shapes and two Gates know your life better than you do.

    But to provide an additional framework that can be compared with your real-life experience.

    What is your energy Type?

    Your Authority?

    Your Profile?

    Which of your Centres are defined or undefined?

    In which situations do you genuinely recognise the way the model describes you, and where does it not fit your experience?

    A Human Design chart becomes much more interesting when it is used to ask questions rather than hand out new labels.

    If you would like to discover your chart and, above all, understand what it can concretely reveal about the way you function, you can book a session with me directly.

    Book an appointment with Grenade Coaching

    And I promise: if you discover that you are a Projector, I will not prescribe three compulsory naps and a formal ban on touching a spreadsheet after 4 p.m.

    And what about the workplace? Let’s stop building teams of clones

    This is where, in my view, the subject becomes even more interesting.

    Because Human Design in the workplace can also provide a basis for thinking about team building, management and the complementary strengths of team members.

    We sometimes have a rather strange idea of the ideal team.

    We recruit different people…

    then ask them all to function in exactly the same way.

    Same pace.

    Same way of communicating.

    Same way of making decisions.

    Same relationship with autonomy.

    Same definition of performance.

    And then we organise a team-building day with three wooden blocks and a zip line to find out why the whole lot of them are not working together harmoniously.

    There may be an intermediate step.

    A strong team is not made up of interchangeable people

    Whether you fully subscribe to Human Design or simply use it as a tool for reflection, it raises a particularly fruitful management question:

    What does this person need in order to give the best of what they know how to do?

    And its twin question:

    What can other people genuinely rely on them for?

    This is where diversity stops being a pretty value written on a PowerPoint presentation.

    A team may need the person who initiates.

    The person with remarkable stamina.

    The person who sees the dysfunctions nobody else notices.

    The person who creates connections.

    Someone who slows everyone down at the precise moment when the entire team was cheerfully about to charge straight into a wall.

    Team building is then no longer just about creating a pleasant atmosphere.

    It is about building enough knowledge and trust for everyone to know:

    “This is what I bring. This is what you bring. And this is why we are better together than if we all tried to become the same person.”

    Stop standardising people and start benefiting from their diversity

    This is also a subject I discuss in Leader Instinct: we have a very strong tendency to standardise human behaviour.

    We implicitly define a “right” way to work, communicate, lead, think or even be motivated.

    Then we measure everyone against that standard.

    Yet the richness of a group comes precisely from the fact that we do not all notice the same things, think in the same way or bring the same skills.

    Human Design is certainly not the only framework for exploring this diversity.

    But it can be an excellent excuse to start talking about it.

    Listen to the Leader Instinct podcast

    Maybe your energy is not the problem

    So if you arrived here because you were searching for the reason behind a loss of energy, low energy levels, lack of motivation or that unpleasant feeling that you simply do not have enough fuel left to keep moving, please do not immediately conclude:

    “Fuck, I’m a Projector.”

    That would be a little hasty.

    Start by distinguishing what may relate to your health from what relates to your lifestyle, environment, work and way of functioning.

    Then ask yourself another question:

    what if the problem were not the amount of energy I have, but the way I am trying to use it?

    Because we spend a lot of time looking for ways to put more fuel in the tank.

    When sometimes it would be far more interesting to look at what we are doing with the fuel.

  • The 5 stages of depression: useful for understanding… but beware of the shortcut

    The 5 stages of depression: useful for understanding… but beware of the shortcut

    More and more often online, you will find five “stages of depression”: pre-depressive, progressive, acute, remission and recovery.

    This representation is not completely absurd. It describes fairly intuitively one possible trajectory of a depressive episode: something begins to change, symptoms settle in, become significant, then may gradually decrease until recovery.

    But these are not five universal, officially recognised clinical stages that every person with depression must necessarily go through.

    And that distinction matters.

    Because depression is not an organised tour with five compulsory stops and “recovery” waiting at the terminus.

    Depression is unfortunately highly variable. It may develop gradually or appear to arrive abruptly. It may be mild, moderate or severe. There may be one episode or several over a lifetime. Improvement may be complete or leave residual symptoms. Relapse or recurrence may also occur.

    So what do these famous five stages of depression actually describe? And how far can the model help us understand what is happening without misleading us?

    Before the five stages: what do we mean by “depression”?

    The word is used so often in everyday language that it can end up describing very different realities.

    “I’m depressed.” “I’ve got the blues.” “I’m going through a rough patch.” “I have depression.”

    Those sentences do not necessarily describe the same thing.

    Clinical depression is not simply sadness. The World Health Organization explicitly distinguishes it from ordinary mood fluctuations and temporary emotional reactions to difficulties. It notably involves depressed mood or a persistent loss of interest or pleasure, potentially accompanied by fatigue, sleep or appetite disturbances, concentration difficulties, guilt, low self-worth or hopelessness.

    In France, the Haute Autorité de Santé notes that a characterised depressive episode involves symptoms present almost every day for at least two weeks, representing a change from previous functioning and causing significant distress or impairment.

    In other words: sadness is a human emotion; depression is considerably more complex.

    There is no single depression that looks the same for everyone

    This is the first problem with trying to fit depression into five neat boxes.

    A depressive episode may be mild, moderate or severe. Two people meeting criteria for a depressive disorder may have noticeably different experiences.

    For one person, fatigue and loss of motivation may dominate. For another, sleep problems, anxiety, irritability or inability to feel pleasure. Another may experience rage, frustration or anger linked to helplessness.

    One person may continue working at enormous cost while another can no longer manage their usual activities.

    Talking about depression therefore means talking about a range of possible manifestations and trajectories, not a single script.

    Stage 1: the pre-depressive stage or early signs

    In the popular five-stage model, the first stage is a period in which something begins to change.

    Unusual fatigue, disturbed sleep, irritability, gradual loss of motivation, concentration difficulties, isolation or the feeling that previously enjoyable activities now require disproportionate effort may appear.

    The problem is that these early signs of depression are not specific.

    Fatigue has many possible causes. Professional stress is not automatically the beginning of depression. A week in which you want the entire human race to bugger off is not, by itself, a psychiatric diagnosis.

    The idea can nevertheless be useful as an invitation to notice a lasting change from your usual functioning, rather than as a compulsory medical stage.

    Stage 2: depressive symptoms settle in

    The second stage describes symptoms becoming more established.

    What looked like a bad period begins to last. Lack of energy affects work. Social interaction becomes costly. Previously pleasurable activities bring less pleasure. Sleep or concentration problems persist.

    An important concept here is anhedonia: a marked reduction in interest or pleasure.

    Depression does not always look like someone constantly crying. It may also feel like:

    “I don’t feel much anymore.”

    or:

    “Everything takes effort and nothing really appeals to me.”

    When several symptoms persist, intensify and significantly affect daily life, assessment by a health professional becomes particularly relevant.

    Stage 3: the acute phase of depression

    This is what the model presents as the peak of the episode.

    Symptoms of depression are numerous or intense enough to seriously disrupt daily functioning: depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure, exhaustion, sleep disturbance, appetite changes, cognitive difficulties, guilt, loss of curiosity, bitterness, anger, self-devaluation or a very pessimistic view of the future may occur.

    In severe forms, normal professional, family or social activities can become extremely difficult. Suicide risk also needs to be assessed where relevant.

    But even here, calling this the “third stage” can mislead.

    A person does not have to consciously experience stages 1 and 2 before reaching this point. Some depressions develop slowly; others appear much more abruptly, particularly in the context of major traumatic or cumulative events.

    The acute phase therefore describes intensity, not the third level of a video game that everyone must unlock.

    Stage 4: partial remission

    When symptoms begin to decrease, some articles describe a fourth stage: remission.

    This term does have clinical meaning.

    But remission and recovery are not the same thing.

    A person can feel considerably better without having returned to previous functioning. Fatigue, sleep problems, cognitive difficulties or residual anhedonia may remain.

    And importantly: remission is not “acceptance”.

    Acceptance may describe how a person psychologically understands and lives with their illness. Remission concerns the evolution of symptoms.

    You can fully recognise and accept that you are depressed while still being in the middle of a depressive episode.

    Stage 5: recovery and relapse prevention

    The fifth stage is described as recovery: symptoms have greatly decreased or disappeared, functioning gradually returns and activities resume.

    But feeling better does not necessarily mean everything is over overnight.

    Clinical recommendations commonly distinguish an acute treatment phase from maintenance treatment, which aims to consolidate remission, restore functioning and quality of life, and reduce recurrence risk.

    This helps explain why follow-up may continue after symptoms improve.

    After depression, learning to recognise your own early warning signs, vulnerability factors and what helps maintain improvement can be useful.

    Where the five-stage model becomes misleading

    This is where I begin to have a problem with the five neat boxes.

    Because they easily suggest:

    1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 5 → finished.

    Reality is considerably less disciplined.

    Someone may improve and then worsen. Some symptoms may disappear while others remain. There are single episodes, recurrent depressions and persistent or chronic forms.

    A real trajectory might look more like:

    early symptoms → worsening → improvement → residual symptoms → further improvement

    or:

    depressive episode → remission → another episode months or years later

    or something far less easy to draw as a tidy arrow.

    The five-stage model can serve as a simplified map. The problem begins when we confuse the map with the territory.

    What if my symptoms do not fit these five stages?

    That absolutely does not mean your suffering is illegitimate or that you are somehow “doing depression wrong”. There is no great depression examiner waiting to give you a mark, and depression is not a performance.

    This is precisely the danger of overly linear psychological models: they can create a norm where they were only meant to help understanding.

    Conversely, recognising a few symptoms in an article does not allow you to diagnose yourself with depression.

    If a persistent low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, significant fatigue or other symptoms continue and affect daily life, speaking with a doctor or mental-health professional can help assess what is happening and what forms of support are appropriate.

    So, are the five stages of depression bullshit?

    Not exactly.

    But they are not a psychological law either.

    Pre-depression, establishment of symptoms, acute phase, remission and recovery are a fairly intuitive way of describing one possible trajectory of depression.

    They can help explain that a depressive episode evolves, that symptoms may develop gradually and that recovery itself may take time.

    What becomes problematic is treating them as five official, universal and successive stages.

    Clinical classifications and guidelines focus instead on symptoms, duration, severity, functional impact, evolution, remission and risks of relapse or recurrence.

    Ultimately, the most useful question may not be:

    “Which stage am I in?”

    but:

    “What has been changing for me, for how long, what effect is it having on my life, and what help do I need today?”

  • Why hire a coach? 40 situations where coaching can help

    Why hire a coach? 40 situations where coaching can help

    We sometimes imagine that people hire a coach only when they have “a problem”.

    That is rather reductive.

    You can also seek coaching because you are going round in circles, because a situation keeps repeating itself, because you have a decision to make, because a relationship has become difficult, because you want to improve the way you manage… or simply because you know where you want to go but cannot work out how to get there.

    There is therefore no single doorway into coaching.

    After years of supporting people, I have seen individuals, couples and professionals arrive with extremely different requests. Some were in the middle of a crisis. Others were doing reasonably well but wanted something to change. Others simply needed an outside perspective to understand what was happening.

    So rather than explaining abstractly “why you should get coaching”, here is a much more interesting question:

    In what situations can coaching actually be useful?

    Why choose individual coaching?

    You do not need to wait until you have hit rock bottom before asking for support. Fortunately.

    How can I rebuild my self-confidence?

    When you systematically doubt your abilities, constantly seek external validation or no longer dare to do things you actually want to do, the work rarely consists of repeating in front of a mirror that you are wonderful.

    It is more about understanding what undermines that confidence, what maintains the problem and how to regain a more accurate perception of your abilities.

    How can I stop sabotaging myself?

    You know what you should do. Sometimes you have even started.

    And yet, mysteriously, you procrastinate, give up, repeatedly choose the wrong person, turn down an opportunity you wanted or find an excellent reason not to change anything.

    The famous “self-sabotage” generally deserves better than a kick up the backside and three inspirational Instagram quotes.

    We need to understand what the behaviour is protecting.

    What can I do when I feel stuck?

    You have thought about the problem from every possible angle. Then from the other direction. Then once again, just in case the problem had politely changed overnight.

    Sometimes thinking more with exactly the same premises simply produces… more of the same thinking.

    An outside perspective can reveal blind spots, contradictions, alternatives or resources you can no longer see.

    And also…

    • How can I learn to set boundaries?
    • How can I make a difficult decision?
    • How can I break a recurring pattern?
    • How can I manage my emotions better?
    • How can I stop procrastinating?
    • How can I communicate better?
    • How can I say no without feeling guilty?
    • How can I find my place?
    • How can I get through a period of change?
    • How can I understand my needs better?
    • How can I leave a relationship or situation that no longer suits me?
    • How can I turn a desire for change into concrete action?

    The common denominator is not necessarily suffering.

    It is often the gap between the situation you are living and the one you would like to build.

    Why choose couples coaching?

    No, couples coaching is not reserved for couples deciding between booking a session and throwing plates at each other.

    You can come because the relationship is in crisis, of course. But also precisely to avoid getting there.

    How can I discuss a difficult subject with my partner?

    Money, sex, children, family, division of labour, life plans, jealousy, commitment…

    Some subjects become so emotionally loaded that eventually you are no longer discussing the problem, but every previous argument about the problem.

    Coaching can recreate a framework in which each person can speak and hear what the other is actually trying to say.

    How can I set boundaries in my relationship?

    Loving someone does not mean accepting everything.

    But setting a boundary without turning it into a threat, ultimatum or punishment can require genuine relational learning.

    How can we deal with family problems affecting our relationship?

    In-laws, children, ex-partners, blended families, differences in parenting…

    A couple does not exist in a vacuum. Some difficulties arise precisely at the boundaries between the couple and the people around them.

    And also…

    • How can we start talking again?
    • How can we stop having the same arguments?
    • How can I express my needs without attacking my partner?
    • How can we rediscover closeness?
    • How can we manage an important difference between us?
    • How can we make a decision together?
    • How can we rebuild trust?
    • How can we divide responsibilities more fairly?
    • How can we live with our differences?
    • How do we know whether we still want to build something together?

    Sometimes the goal is not to “save the relationship at all costs”. It may also be to understand what is happening and help two people make a more conscious decision about what comes next.

    Why hire a coach in a business?

    Because putting eight human beings in an open-plan office with a task list, a dashboard, KPIs and someone called a “manager” has, strangely enough, never been sufficient to create a functioning team.

    A company is an extraordinary relationship laboratory: objectives, power, responsibilities, personalities, constraints, clients, money and sometimes urgency. Everything is there to produce the best… and occasionally a magnificent mess.

    How do I manage a difficult employee?

    First useful question: what exactly is difficult?

    Their behaviour? Their results? Your communication? A conflict of values? Resistance to change? Poorly defined responsibility?

    Defining the problem correctly already prevents you from looking for the solution in the wrong place.

    How do I manage a crisis?

    In a crisis, the temptation is often to react faster at the very moment when we need to think more clearly.

    Coaching can help a leader or manager distinguish genuine urgency from noise, prioritise decisions, anticipate consequences and work on communication.

    How do I deal with a difficult client?

    Setting boundaries while preserving a commercial relationship is a particular skill. Sometimes you need to learn to negotiate, reformulate, clarify what is possible and what is not, and stop confusing customer service with unlimited submission.

    How do I motivate my team?

    Motivation is not a button located somewhere behind an employee’s left ear.

    It can depend on autonomy, recognition, meaning, workload, clarity of objectives, quality of management, working relationships and the feeling of progressing.

    And also…

    • How can I give difficult feedback?
    • How can I handle disagreement within my team?
    • How can I delegate without micromanaging?
    • How can I assert my authority without becoming authoritarian?
    • How can I manage interpersonal tension?
    • How can I improve communication?
    • How can I support change?
    • How can I develop cooperation?
    • How can I manage competing priorities?
    • How can I reconcile performance with healthy working relationships?

    The aim is not to manufacture smiling managers capable of reciting three communication methods.

    It is to develop the ability to understand human situations and intervene with greater discernment.

    So how do I know whether I need coaching?

    A simple rule can help.

    You do not necessarily need a coach because something is wrong.

    Support can become useful when:

    you want something to change, but your usual methods are no longer enough to produce that change.

    You may know exactly what you want. Or not yet know.

    You may have a very concrete problem. Or simply that irritating feeling that something is wrong without being able to put your finger on it.

    That is precisely where the work begins.

    And why tell me all this?

    Because throughout my experience as a coach, I have worked with very different individual, relational, couple and professional issues.

    My job is not to tell you how to live your life.

    Still less to hand out prefabricated solutions in the style of “the five habits of successful people before 6:12 a.m.”

    It is to understand with you what is happening in your situation, bring to light what you cannot yet see and build solutions that are usable in your reality.

    Of course, I could tell you here that I am absolutely wonderful.

    That would be slightly suspicious.

    So the simplest thing is to let the people I have already coached speak for themselves:

    → Read my clients’ testimonials

    And if one of the questions in this article looks suspiciously like the one you are asking yourself, perhaps that is already a good place to start.

  • Coaching, psychology, meditation… A practice at the crossroads

    Coaching, psychology, meditation… A practice at the crossroads

    There is a question I am regularly asked: “But ultimately, is coaching psychology?”

    Short answer: no.

    More interesting answer: no… but it would still be rather strange to work with human beings without ever taking an interest in what several decades of research have taught us about human beings.

    Coaching is neither psychology, psychiatry nor psychotherapy. Nor is a coach an amateur psychologist who simply happens to be missing the diploma on the wall.

    They are different professions, with different aims, methods, training pathways and fields of intervention.

    That absolutely does not prevent coaching from drawing on knowledge, concepts and practices from different disciplines.

    That is actually how I see my profession:

    as a practice at the crossroads.

    Coach, psychologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist: they are not the same thing

    Let’s put our cards on the table.

    In France, a psychologist has regulated university training and the title of psychologist is legally protected.

    A psychiatrist is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. Among other things, they can make medical diagnoses and prescribe medication.

    The title psychotherapist is also regulated in France and subject to specific conditions.

    The term psychopractitioner, on the other hand, does not correspond to the same kind of regulated title: it is used by professionals offering various forms of psychotherapeutic support according to their training.

    And then there is the coach.

    A coach’s job is not to diagnose or treat a mental-health disorder.

    And that distinction is not an administrative nicety.

    It defines the boundaries of our work.

    So what does coaching actually work on?

    Coaching generally starts from a present situation and a question, difficulty, objective or desired change.

    How do I set a boundary?

    How do I handle this conflict?

    Why do I keep postponing this decision?

    How do I change the way I communicate?

    How do I prepare for this difficult conversation?

    How do I stop repeating this particular relational pattern?

    We may need to understand what is happening. But understanding is not the end point.

    The question quickly becomes: what can we try?

    Psychology can provide useful maps

    That is where psychological knowledge becomes extremely useful to me.

    Cognitive psychology can help us understand certain biases, habits of thought, attention or decision-making.

    Social psychology can illuminate group dynamics, influence, conformity, attribution and interpersonal perception.

    Research on emotion, motivation, learning or behaviour can also offer useful hypotheses.

    But a psychological concept is not a magic label.

    If I tell you that a cognitive bias may be involved in a situation, the interesting part is not that we have found a clever name for it.

    The interesting part is:

    “What changes once we know that?”

    Meditation and attention: useful practices, not magic spells

    I may also draw on practices inspired by meditation or attention training.

    Not because closing your eyes for three minutes will magically solve your relationship with your manager.

    But because learning to notice what is happening in us before reacting can sometimes create a tiny but very useful gap between stimulus and response.

    Notice the tension.

    Identify the emotion.

    Observe the thought that has just appeared.

    Then decide what to do with it.

    Again, the aim is not to turn every coaching session into a spiritual retreat with incense and Tibetan bells.

    The practice is useful only if it helps you act differently in real life.

    Role-play: because knowing what to say and saying it are two different things

    This is probably one of my favourite tools.

    You can understand perfectly well that you should set a boundary.

    You can even write the ideal sentence on a piece of paper.

    Then the person is in front of you.

    They insist.

    They look disappointed.

    They challenge your decision.

    And suddenly your beautiful sentence disappears into another dimension.

    So we practise.

    I play the colleague, partner, manager, client or difficult person.

    You answer.

    We stop.

    We look at what happened.

    Then we try again.

    Because a skill is not acquired merely by understanding it.

    Exercises between sessions: no, I am not giving you homework for the sake of it

    I also like proposing exercises between sessions.

    But I have very little interest in generic worksheets that could have been given to absolutely anyone.

    If I suggest an exercise, I want it to make sense for your specific situation.

    Observe one particular behaviour for a week.

    Try a different response in one precise situation.

    Write down what happens immediately before a recurring reaction.

    Ask a question you normally avoid.

    Test a boundary.

    Experiment with a new way of communicating.

    The purpose is not to behave like a good pupil.

    The purpose is to collect information from real life.

    And sometimes I use tools that are not scientifically validated

    Yes.

    I also use frameworks such as Human Design.

    And I think it is important to be perfectly clear about their status.

    Human Design is not a scientifically validated psychological model.

    I therefore do not present it as scientific truth, diagnosis or explanation of your physiology.

    I use it as a symbolic and exploratory framework capable of generating questions or hypotheses.

    And if the framework tells us something that does not match your lived experience?

    Your lived experience wins.

    The tool should never become more important than the person

    This is ultimately the principle that connects all of these approaches for me.

    I can use a psychological concept.

    A role-play.

    An attention exercise.

    A symbolic framework.

    A practical experiment.

    But if the tool does not help the person in front of me understand, experiment or act, then it is the wrong tool.

    The method must adapt to you.

    And sometimes the work simply begins with this question:

    “All right. You already know a great deal about your problem. Now, what are we going to try?”

  • Bespoke professional training: learn, experiment… and even have fun

    Bespoke professional training: learn, experiment… and even have fun

    Delivering training is one of my greatest pleasures. I was already talking about it four years ago…

    As an Aquarius who loooves pouring the waters of knowledge over the world, I still have a blast designing bespoke training programmes, but also delivering them to people who are hungry to understand, experiment and discover new ways of doing things.

    And because I mainly work with adults, often in a professional context, I quickly discovered something:

    wearing a badge around your neck and having a meeting at 2 p.m. does not suddenly make you lose all desire to play.

    Quite the opposite.

    It has even become one of my specialities: creating professional training courses and playful workshops that make it possible to learn differently, encourage encounters, create connection, step outside your comfort zone and, above all, actually experiment with what we are talking about.

    Because there can be one hell of a gap between understanding something intellectually and being able to use it at work on Monday morning.

    Adult training should not look like six hours of PowerPoint

    We have all been through that training session.

    You are sitting down.

    Someone is talking.

    A PowerPoint containing approximately 847 slides scrolls past your eyes.

    At some point, a pyramid appears.

    Nobody really knows why.

    By 3:17 p.m., your soul has left your body, but you continue nodding politely.

    I do not want to do that.

    Professional training can obviously transmit knowledge. But if the aim is for participants to then change something in their practice, knowledge alone is not always enough.

    You need to be able to try.

    Question.

    Get things wrong.

    Try again.

    Observe what happens.

    Compare your experience with other people’s.

    And sometimes laugh wholeheartedly at what has just happened.

    That is why, whenever possible, I favour active and experiential learning.

    I do not only want participants to leave knowing something more.

    I want them to have done something with that knowledge.

    Bespoke professional training

    I am not a great believer in training courses pulled straight out of the freezer.

    A management team struggling with communication, a company wanting to strengthen team cohesion and a group wishing to reflect on their relationship with work do not have the same needs, culture or constraints.

    So why offer them exactly the same training?

    When I design bespoke training for a company or organisation, I therefore begin by understanding what is actually happening.

    What is the need?

    What is already working?

    Where is it getting stuck?

    What would you like to see change after the training?

    And above all: what should participants be able to do differently when they leave?

    That is the basis on which I build the content, exercises and facilitation methods.

    Training then becomes a means, not an end.

    My speciality: learning through experimentation

    I particularly enjoy creating playful, participatory workshops.

    Not “playful” in the sense that I am going to force Gérard from Accounts to mime something in front of his colleagues at 8:32 a.m. or be accused of resisting change.

    I promise, Gérard.

    You can breathe.

    Games and experimentation are interesting when they have a pedagogical purpose.

    They can very quickly reveal a group dynamic, a communication reflex, a relational difficulty or a different way of solving a problem.

    Above all, they make visible mechanisms we could spend hours talking about without ever actually observing.

    That is when the experience becomes interesting.

    We are no longer merely talking about what we do. We can look at what we have just actually done.

    Learning, experimenting… and even having fun

    I like people to think during training.

    I like questions.

    I like disagreement.

    I like the moment when someone says:

    “Wait, I don’t agree.”

    Excellent.

    Now we have something to work with.

    A good training course should call on participants’ judgement, critical thinking and capacity for reflection.

    It should not infantilise them.

    Adults arrive with experience, knowledge, habits, doubts, resistance and sometimes excellent reasons to question what they are being told.

    That is material.

    So rather than asking people to absorb a ready-made answer, I prefer to create situations in which they can test, compare, debate and draw conclusions.

    And yes, sometimes laugh.

    You can work seriously without constantly taking yourself seriously.

    Training is not content consumption

    This has become even more obvious with online training.

    Watching a video is not necessarily learning.

    Reading a PDF is not necessarily learning.

    Clicking “next” seventeen times in an e-learning module is definitely not necessarily learning.

    Consuming content is not learning.

    Learning requires something to happen with the information.

    Connecting it to existing knowledge.

    Retrieving it.

    Using it.

    Testing it.

    Making a mistake.

    Correcting it.

    Explaining it.

    Applying it in another context.

    That is why, when I work on online training or e-learning, I am interested in what the learner is actually going to do between two pieces of content.

    An exercise.

    A decision.

    A case study.

    A question.

    A situation to analyse.

    A real-life experiment.

    Something that turns passive exposure into active engagement.

    Designing pedagogical experiences for existing training programmes

    I do not necessarily need to create the entire training course.

    Sometimes you already have the expertise.

    You already have the content.

    You know exactly what you want to teach.

    But the training lacks interaction, experimentation or a way of turning knowledge into something participants can actually use.

    That interests me too.

    I can design pedagogical workshops, role-plays, games, case studies, icebreakers and practical exercises that fit into an existing programme.

    The objective is not to add entertainment for entertainment’s sake.

    It is to ask:

    “What experience would help participants understand this idea rather than merely hear it?”

    Training programmes adapted to your people, your context and your objectives

    Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with very different organisations and audiences:

    ALEP, SOAT, the En Embuscade micro-nursery, Astro Bitch, Cuisinella, L’Or du Commun, Contact + and Marschall SAS…

    Different organisations, different audiences, different needs.

    And that is exactly what I enjoy.

    I do not want to endlessly repeat the same training course in front of different people.

    I prefer to understand what you need and build something that makes sense for you.

    Are you looking for bespoke training for your company?

    You may already have a very precise idea.

    Or simply a problem:

    “My team is no longer communicating properly.”

    “Our managers could use some support.”

    “We would like to work on cohesion.”

    “Something is happening in this team, but we are struggling to put our finger on it.”

    That works for me too.

    We can start with the problem rather than the solution.

    I design professional training courses, participatory workshops and bespoke interventions, particularly around human relationships, communication, management and cooperation.

    And what do I like most about my job?

    Being asked to do it again.

    So, will the next training session be for you?

    Contact me. I would be delighted to discuss it with you.

  • Human Design and coaching: what if the problem isn’t you, but the instruction manual you were given?

    Human Design and coaching: what if the problem isn’t you, but the instruction manual you were given?

    Have you noticed how personal development can give the impression that there is an astonishing number of instructions telling us how to become better human beings?

    Be more disciplined. More spontaneous. Learn to say no. Get out of your comfort zone. Persevere. Let go. Think before you act. Stop overthinking.

    In short: do everything and its opposite, but please do all of it properly!

    And when it does not work, we have an unfortunate tendency to draw a rather brutal conclusion:

    “The problem is me.”

    That is precisely where I like to use Human Design in coaching.

    Not as absolute truth, a crystal ball or random determinism… and certainly not to tell someone who they are by showing them a pretty coloured diagram as though they had finally found the owner’s manual that went missing at birth.

    I use it as one more tool for asking better questions, exploring potential and, above all, learning to like ourselves a little better.

    What exactly is Human Design?

    Human Design is an individual reading system created in the late 1980s by Alan Robert Krakower, who later adopted the self-proclaimed name Ra Uru Hu.

    It combines elements drawn from several traditions and systems, including astrology, the I Ching, the Kabbalah and the chakra system, with a vocabulary that also borrows from contemporary science.

    Let us be clear: Human Design is not a scientifically validated psychological or medical model.

    I do not use it to diagnose anything, nor to explain a person’s biology, health or psychology as though the chart constituted scientific evidence.

    I use it as a symbolic framework for reflection.

    A framework can be useful even when it is not a scientific theory, provided we remain very clear about what we are doing with it.

    Why use Human Design in coaching?

    Because sometimes we have spent years trying to function according to rules that suit us rather badly.

    Take energy, for example.

    We are often told that if we are motivated enough, organised enough and disciplined enough, we should be capable of maintaining roughly the same pace as everyone else.

    Human Design proposes another way of questioning that assumption.

    Not:

    “Why can’t I keep up?”

    but perhaps:

    “Where does my energy actually create the most value?”

    That question does not magically prove anything about your physiology.

    But it can lead to very concrete observations about your working rhythm, your environment, the tasks that drain you, the ones that stimulate you, and the situations in which your contribution is most relevant.

    And sometimes that is enough to stop treating every difference as a defect.

    The five Human Design types as hypotheses, not boxes

    Human Design distinguishes five major types: Generator, Manifesting Generator, Projector, Manifestor and Reflector.

    Each comes with its own language about strategy, energy and interaction.

    The temptation is obvious:

    “Aha! I am a Projector, therefore I am like this.”

    No.

    Or at least, not in the way I use the tool.

    I would rather ask:

    “Does this description help you notice something real in your experience?”

    If yes, let us explore it.

    If no, we do not need to twist reality until it fits the chart.

    A useful tool should help us observe ourselves better.

    It should not force us to become loyal to the tool.

    Human Design and self-acceptance

    This is probably the part that interests me most.

    Many people arrive in coaching with a long list of things they believe they should correct about themselves.

    Too slow.

    Too intense.

    Too sensitive.

    Too independent.

    Too indecisive.

    Too impatient.

    Not productive enough.

    Not sociable enough.

    Not ambitious enough.

    Too ambitious.

    Human Design can sometimes offer a sufficiently different perspective to interrupt that automatic judgement.

    What if the question were not:

    “How do I become more normal?”

    but:

    “How does this characteristic actually work in me, and what do I do with it?”

    That does not mean romanticising every difficulty.

    Some behaviours need to change.

    Some skills need to be learned.

    Some habits are genuinely harmful.

    But self-acceptance and change are not opposites.

    Sometimes we change much more effectively once we stop spending half our energy insulting ourselves for being the person who needs to change.

    Human Design in relationships: what if the other person were not a bad version of you?

    This is another area where I find the framework particularly interesting.

    We constantly interpret other people through our own way of functioning.

    “When I care about someone, I do this.”

    Therefore:

    “If they don’t do it, they can’t really care about me.”

    And that is how two perfectly legitimate ways of functioning can manufacture a monumental conflict out of almost nothing.

    In a couple, a family or at work, Human Design can offer another lens:

    What if the other person were not a bad version of me?

    That simple question can be extremely powerful.

    Not to excuse any behaviour whatsoever because a coloured chart supposedly decided it.

    But to distinguish between:

    a difference in functioning, a difference in needs, and genuinely problematic behaviour.

    Those are really not the same thing.

    Where I refuse to use Human Design

    There is, however, one boundary I care about very much.

    I never want to hear:

    “I’m like this because I’m a Projector.”

    Or:

    “He’s a Manifestor, so of course he does that.”

    No.

    Your Human Design is not an official medical certificate of being a pain in the arse.

    It does not exempt you from responsibility, learning or self-questioning.

    Quite the opposite.

    If a framework helps you understand a mechanism better, it should increase your ability to act on it, not provide an excellent excuse for never changing anything again.

    So why use Human Design in coaching?

    Because sometimes we have spent years trying to solve the wrong problem.

    And a sufficiently different framework can provoke something valuable:

    “Wait… what if I looked at this differently?”

    That is what I am looking for.

    I work with different tools because no single tool can summarise a human being.

    Not Human Design.

    Not a personality test.

    Not a psychological theory.

    Not even your own story about yourself.

    But each can illuminate a different part of the problem.

    And sometimes a single new hypothesis is enough for something that has felt stuck for years to finally begin moving.

    That is why I use Human Design alongside coaching.

    Not to tell you who you are.

    But to have one more way of asking you:

    “What if you simply do not function the way you were taught you should?”

  • Fear of failure, change and judgement: do we really need to “overcome our fears”?

    Fear of failure, change and judgement: do we really need to “overcome our fears”?

    Ah, Madame Fear.

    Always on duty.

    You have an idea? Her little weasel face pops up.

    Thinking about changing jobs? She pulls up a chair and joins the table.

    Want to say something important to someone? She orders a coffee, takes off her coat and clearly, she intends to stay.

    And she has a few classics in her repertoire:

    “Maybe this isn’t the right time.”

    “What if you screw it up?”

    “What will they think of you?”

    “Maybe you should think about it a little longer.”

    That last one is particularly sneaky because it sounds like healthy caution. Except that sometimes you’ve been “thinking about it a little longer” for three years.

    But unlike what you regularly read in personal development, I am not going to tell you that fear is an illusion you simply need to conquer.

    Fear exists. And courage, after all, is not the absence of fear.

    Fear therefore has very good reasons to exist.

    The more interesting question is:

    Is this fear still protecting me… or has it started making decisions for me? Or even… shitting in my boots?

    Fear is not your enemy

    Let’s give Madame Fear her due.

    Fear is an extraordinarily useful mechanism.

    When faced with a threat, our body mobilises responses that can help us flee, fight or freeze. Our attention changes. Our body prepares itself. Our perception of risk shifts.

    In short, fear did not take up residence in our brain solely to stop us asking for a pay rise.

    Its main role is… survival.

    And contrary to the slightly caricatural mammoth metaphor I used in the past, our brain does not react only to dangers capable of eating us.

    Human beings are social creatures.

    Rejection, humiliation, loss of status, uncertainty and failure can therefore represent particularly powerful threats.

    Your boss may not look like a sabre-toothed tiger (well, I hope not; otherwise change companies quickly!), but the idea of standing up to them can still trigger a very real fear response.

    So why do some fears stop us in our tracks?

    Because fear does not need to correspond to an immediate danger in order to affect us.

    Take someone who wants to change careers.

    Their fear may say:

    “You’ll lose your financial security.”

    That is useful information.

    We can work with it.

    Run the numbers.

    Plan a transition.

    Build a safety net.

    But it may also say:

    “What if you discover you’re not capable?”

    Then:

    “What if everyone thinks this decision is ridiculous?”

    Then:

    “Maybe you should wait until you’re absolutely certain.”

    And here we arrive at one of my favourite little marvels:

    waiting to feel reassured before taking action.

    On paper, it is ideal, seductive and so much more reassuring. Except that in real life, sometimes it is impossible.

    Because some information only exists after you act.

    You cannot know exactly how you will feel in a new profession before you have experienced it enough.

    You cannot know how someone will react before you have the conversation (or before working with an experienced coach who can role-play the scene with you and help you prepare).

    You cannot know whether your project will work before confronting it, at least partly, with reality.

    At some point, more thinking no longer produces more information.

    It simply produces more thinking.

    The real trap: avoidance works brilliantly well and feeds inertia

    And this is where it gets properly vicious.

    Imagine you are afraid to speak during a meeting.

    The meeting begins.

    Your heart speeds up.

    You had something to say.

    Probably something very interesting too. And…

    In the end, you say nothing.

    And immediately…

    relief.

    Congratulations: your brain has just learned something.

    “Not speaking = discomfort disappears.” Yay, what a crap lesson.

    So the next time the situation occurs, avoidance becomes extremely tempting.

    That is one reason some fears can gradually shrink our field of action.

    Not because we are weak.

    But because avoidance is bloody effective in the short term.

    The problem arrives with the long-term bill.

    “Get out of your comfort zone”: yes, but not any old way!

    Here again, personal development has managed to turn an interesting idea into something printable on a mug.

    GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE.

    Very good, Gérard. But how far, exactly?

    Because between comfort and absolute panic, there are a few interesting nuances.

    The goal is not to throw yourself deliberately into the situation that terrifies you most and hope for a spiritual revelation in the middle of a panic attack.

    A much smarter objective might be:

    gradually increase your ability to act despite a certain level of discomfort.

    And for that, we can experiment.

    This is where coaching can become particularly concrete

    Suppose your difficulty is asserting yourself.

    We could spend an entire hour talking about your fear of conflict.

    That might be useful.

    But we can also do something else.

    We can manufacture the conflict.

    Not with boxing gloves, I do run a respectable practice after all, but I can play the insistent colleague, the unhappy client, the toxic manager who asks:

    “Yes, but just this once, surely you could still…”

    And you can try, stumble over your words, get it wrong in a sandbox.

    Your first response may be far too aggressive (and that’s okay, that’s the game, my poor Lucette).

    The second may sound like an apology.

    The third will start sounding like you.

    And suddenly, we are no longer discussing your ability to set boundaries in the abstract.

    You are learning how to set one! (And I’ll be bouncing with joy watching you succeed!)

    Fear of failure also deserves a little failure

    Here is another thing I love working on.

    Someone who is deeply afraid of failure can spend an enormous amount of energy avoiding every situation in which they might fail.

    The problem is obvious:

    that also eliminates an impressive number of situations in which they might succeed.

    So sometimes we can turn the problem around.

    Not:

    “How can I be certain I’ll succeed?”

    But:

    “How can I try without needing this attempt to succeed?”

    Small test.

    Prototype.

    Exploratory conversation.

    Application.

    Request.

    Experiment.

    An action small enough that failure would not be catastrophic, but real enough to produce information.

    Because one tiny failure in the real world can sometimes teach you more than three weeks spent imagining a gigantic failure in your head, or worse, living only in the safety of NEVER making a mistake.

    What if your fear is right?

    Yep.

    That happens too.

    Afraid of losing money by launching your project?

    Possible.

    Afraid someone will react badly when you set a boundary?

    Possible.

    Afraid a major change will be difficult?

    Obviously.

    The purpose of coaching is not to turn every fear into a negative thought to be exterminated with inspirational quotes.

    Sometimes fear contains relevant information.

    So we can ask it:

    “What are you trying to protect me from?”

    Then examine the answer.

    If the risk is real: how can we reduce it?

    If it is acceptable: are we willing to take it?

    If it is disproportionate: how can we test it?

    And if fear prevents us from living normally, becomes overwhelming or is part of an anxiety disorder: coaching may simply not be the right tool, and a mental-health professional will be more appropriate.

    So the right question is not always:

    “How do I conquer my fear?”

    But:

    “What do I want to do with the information it is giving me?”

    Courage is not the absence of fear

    Ultimately, I find it much more interesting to stop treating fear as an adversary.

    Because if you wait until you are no longer afraid before acting, Madame Fear has one particularly effective argument:

    “Not today.”

    So perhaps the goal is not to make her disappear.

    Perhaps the goal is to be able to answer:

    “Yes, I heard you. Now move over a little; I’ve got something to try.”

    And go anyway.

    So remember, Madame Fear. She’s got potential, the bitch, but she does not get to stop you living on the pretext of stopping you dying. 😏

  • Narcissistic abuser: recognise the mechanisms and learn to stop playing the game

    Narcissistic abuser: recognise the mechanisms and learn to stop playing the game

    “I think my partner is a narcissistic abuser.”

    Sometimes that sentence comes after months. Sometimes after years. And sometimes even before the coaching sessions have begun.

    The person has read articles, watched videos, spoken with friends and family, discovered gaslighting, DARVO, flying monkeys, love bombing…

    And suddenly, some pieces of the puzzle seem to fit together.

    But a much more difficult question comes next:

    All right. What do I do now?

    Because identifying a problematic relationship dynamic does not necessarily tell you how to respond to it. (I also talk about that here)

    And with certain people, our usual reflexes can even help keep us trapped in a game we cannot win.

    “Narcissistic abuser”: what exactly are we talking about?

    Let’s begin with an important clarification.

    The French expression “pervers narcissique”, often translated as “narcissistic abuser”, is widely used, but it is not an official psychiatric diagnosis in the DSM-5-TR.

    There is, however, narcissistic personality disorder, which is diagnosed by mental-health professionals according to specific criteria. Having certain narcissistic, manipulative or particularly unpleasant behaviours is therefore not, in itself, enough to diagnose someone. Cleveland Clinic

    And when you come to see me, my job is not to diagnose your partner, mother, colleague or boss from a distance.

    What we can look at, however, is something much more directly useful:

    What does this person do?

    How often?

    What happens when you say no?

    What happens when you confront them with their actions?

    What do they do when you set a boundary?

    How does the situation end up being turned against you?

    And above all:

    what can you do in response to this dynamic?

    You do not need an official “Premium-grade arsehole” certificate before you are allowed to protect yourself from behaviour that hurts you.

    The problem is not only what the person does. It is the relationship system they create.

    This is probably one of the hardest things to explain when you are living in a narcissistic or manipulative relationship.

    From the outside, each event may seem relatively ordinary: a remark. An argument. A lie. A humiliation disguised as a joke. A forgotten promise. A slightly different version of events. A conversation that somehow ends with you on trial.

    Taken separately, each event can be explained away.

    It is their repetition and organisation that become important.

    Little by little, you may begin spending more time anticipating the other person’s reactions than asking yourself what you actually think.

    And your relational reality eventually revolves around one question:

    “How do I need to behave to avoid the next disaster?”

    At that point, there is already a problem, whatever the other person’s diagnosis may be.

    “But they’re lovely with everyone else”

    Yes.

    And that is precisely what can make some situations extremely difficult to explain.

    A person does not necessarily behave in the same way with everyone.

    Your partner may be charming with colleagues. Funny with friends. Lovely with the neighbour. Caring with family. And completely different in private.

    The reasoning:

    “They’re wonderful with me, so they can’t be abusive towards you”

    simply does not hold up. And it does not make you the local nutcase.

    We all adapt our behaviour to different contexts and people. In an abusive or manipulative dynamic, that discrepancy can become particularly disorienting for the person experiencing it.

    Because they no longer have only to deal with what is happening.

    They may also have to convince other people that what is happening is real.

    Flying monkeys: when other people enter the game

    The term flying monkeys, borrowed from The Wizard of Oz, is used in popular literature about narcissistic relationships to describe people around the manipulative person who relay their influence: defending their version of events, passing on messages, guilt-tripping the target or sometimes participating directly in the pressure placed on them. Psych Central

    And flying monkeys are not necessarily sinister accomplices gathered around a table in a basement.

    That is exactly what makes the phenomenon remarkable.

    Some may sincerely believe the version they have been told.

    “You’re exaggerating.”

    “I know them; they would never do that.”

    “You probably both have some responsibility.”

    “They’re suffering terribly because of you.”

    “You should still make an effort.”

    Now imagine having to manage both the original conflict and the perception of five people who only have access to part of the story.

    It is exhausting.

    And trying to convince absolutely everyone can become a second trap.

    DARVO: when you ask for accountability and end up in the dock

    Here is one particularly useful mechanism to know.

    DARVO stands for:

    Deny – Attack – Reverse Victim and Offender.

    In other words:

    deny → attack → reverse the roles of victim and offender.

    The concept was developed by psychologist Jennifer Freyd to describe a possible response when a person is confronted about wrongdoing: they deny it, attack the credibility of the person confronting them, then present themselves as the victim. Research on DARVO does not limit it to narcissism. Dynamics Lab

    Example:

    “You insulted me yesterday in front of our friends.”

    Denial:

    “I never insulted you.”

    Then:

    Attack:

    “Anyway, you always twist everything. You’re completely paranoid.”

    Then:

    Reversal:

    “Do you realise I constantly have to watch everything I say because of you? I’m the one living through hell.”

    And twenty minutes later…

    there you are defending yourself.

    The original subject?

    Gone.

    Meanwhile, your brain is still trying to understand how you got from:

    “Why did you insult me?”

    to:

    “I now have to prove I’m not a horrible person.”

    That is precisely why recognising a mechanism can change so much.

    The first reflex to develop: recognise the game before you play it

    Once you have identified DARVO, the aim is not necessarily to become better at DARVO than the other person.

    In fact, it is often exactly the opposite.

    You learn to notice:

    “Ah. We have just left the original subject.”

    And you can develop responses.

    “That isn’t the issue we’re discussing.”

    “We can talk about that afterwards. Right now, I’m talking about what happened yesterday.”

    “I’m not going to debate my personality.”

    “I’ve heard your disagreement. My decision remains the same.”

    These are extraordinarily simple sentences.

    Holding onto them when someone knows exactly which buttons to press is another matter.

    And that is where practising in coaching sessions becomes useful: to strengthen your responses and your ability to hold your ground.

    Do not try to beat a manipulator at their own game

    It is an understandable temptation.

    Once you finally understand the mechanism, you think:

    “Fine. Now I’ll do the same thing to them.”

    Bad game.

    Not because you need to be morally superior and float above the conflict in a white light.

    But because you are then accepting their playing field.

    Lie against lie.

    Manipulation against manipulation.

    Provocation against provocation.

    You will spend a phenomenal amount of energy trying to control someone who may already be spending a great deal of energy controlling the situation.

    And above all, you risk losing sight of your actual goal.

    The question is not:

    “How can I finally beat them?”

    But:

    “How can I reduce their power over my decisions, my emotions and my life?”

    Dr Ramani’s strategies: stop feeding the dynamic

    Clinical psychologist Ramani Durvasula has worked for years on narcissistic relationships. Her approach emphasises, among other things, that you cannot force a narcissistic person to change and that it often becomes necessary to redirect your energy towards boundaries, self-protection and rebuilding your own functioning. Doctor Ramani

    Several strategies often discussed around her work fit here.

    Don’t engage: do not enter every battle

    Not every provocation deserves a response.

    Not every accusation requires a twelve-paragraph dissertation.

    Not every absurd version of your personality needs correcting.

    That is terribly difficult when you feel unfairly accused.

    Your brain screams:

    “BUT THAT’S NOT TRUE!”

    And yet sometimes, not entering the exchange is precisely the strategy.

    Grey rock: become profoundly uninteresting

    The grey rock principle consists of reducing the amount of emotional fuel offered in certain interactions: brief, neutral, factual answers, little personal information and little reaction to provocations.

    It does not mean becoming an emotional rock throughout your entire life.

    It is a contextual strategy intended to limit certain interactions.

    Radical acceptance: stop negotiating with the person we wish they were

    This is probably the most painful one.

    Radical acceptance does not mean:

    “This behaviour is acceptable.”

    It means something closer to:

    “I am going to stop building my strategy around the hope that this person will suddenly react like someone they have never shown themselves to be.”

    Dr Ramani specifically emphasises giving up the constant attempt to change or appease the narcissistic person and beginning instead to rebuild your own boundaries and relationship with reality. Doctor Ramani

    And that can hurt.

    Because sometimes you have to grieve not only a relationship…

    but the relationship you hoped you would one day have.

    Knowing what to do is infinitely easier than actually doing it

    That is the problem with all this advice.

    On the Internet:

    “Set boundaries.”

    Wonderful. Thanks, Jean-Pierre.

    Now try setting a boundary with someone who has known you for fifteen years, knows exactly how to trigger your guilt and may have access to your children, friends, home or finances.

    Suddenly, the sentence:

    “Just don’t react”

    becomes slightly less brilliant.

    These strategies can require nerves of steel.

    Not because you are weak.

    Because they run directly against extremely powerful human reflexes:

    defending yourself when accused,

    trying to be understood,

    correcting an injustice,

    convincing someone you love,

    responding to provocation,

    seeking repair.

    And that is precisely why practice matters. Training your mindset. Strengthening your mental resilience. Consolidating your self-confidence.

    Coaching: turning a theoretical strategy into reflexes

    This is where my work really begins.

    I am not going to teach you to diagnose your partner.

    I can, however, help you work on what happens when you are facing them.

    We can replay a real conversation.

    Identify the exact moment it shifted.

    Spot a DARVO.

    Observe which sentence made you lose your footing.

    Identify your usual reflex.

    Then replay the scene.

    You say A.

    I answer B.

    You try a response.

    We look at what works.

    We try again.

    Again.

    Until:

    “I know intellectually what I should do”

    begins to become:

    “I can recognise what is happening while it is happening.”

    Then:

    “I now have several possible responses.”

    That is exactly the difference between understanding a strategy and developing a reflex.

    And sometimes you simply need to vent

    I care a lot about this part.

    Because you cannot spend your whole life in military-strategy mode.

    Sometimes you held your boundary.

    You did not answer.

    You refused to enter the DARVO.

    You stayed perfectly factual.

    You left the room.

    Well done.

    And now you want to scream:

    “WHAT AN ARSEHOLE!” or “WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT!”

    Fine.

    Sometimes you need somewhere to put that.

    A space where you do not need to be strategic.

    Where you can reconstruct chronologically what just happened.

    Check your perception.

    Understand why it hit you so hard.

    And regain enough distance to decide what comes next.

    That is not failing to manage your emotions.

    Sometimes it is precisely what allows you not to unload them in the wrong place.

    “Am I going crazy?”: when gaslighting makes you doubt your own reality

    And sometimes venting serves an even more fundamental purpose: telling someone what happened and checking that no, you are not completely losing your mind.

    That is particularly relevant with gaslighting, a form of manipulation in which one person gradually causes another to doubt their memories, perceptions or interpretation of events.

    “I never said that.”

    “You’re making it up.”

    “You always interpret everything the wrong way.”

    “It was a joke; you’re far too sensitive.”

    “That is absolutely not what happened.”

    One isolated occurrence is obviously not enough to call something gaslighting: we can all remember an event differently. What becomes problematic is the repetition of a dynamic that gradually erodes your trust in your own perception.

    The term itself comes from a work of fiction that became surprisingly relevant.

    Patrick Hamilton’s British play Gas Light, first performed in 1938, was adapted for film, notably in George Cukor’s famous 1944 Gaslight. In the story, a husband gradually manipulates his wife into believing she is losing her mind. Among the things she notices, the gas lights in the house mysteriously dim. When she mentions it, her husband denies it and pretends to be able to read the newspaper in such low light, which she observes and which contributes to making her doubt her own perception.

    That is where the term gaslighting comes from.

    And it is also why having a space outside the relationship can become valuable. Not to have someone automatically agree with your version of events, but to reconstruct a situation, distinguish facts from interpretations and gradually regain confidence in your own judgement.

    Sometimes regaining control begins with an extremely simple question:

    “Wait… what actually happened?”

    What if no communication strategy is enough?

    That is also a possibility we need to be able to face.

    Sometimes the best wording changes nothing.

    The clearest boundary is not respected.

    Grey rock does not solve the problem.

    Disengagement reduces some arguments but does not transform the relationship.

    And no relationship skill can, by itself, make an unhealthy situation healthy.

    Coaching can then help clarify:

    What do I want?

    What can I still accept?

    What are my actual limits?

    What resources do I need?

    What decisions am I prepared to make?

    But when the situation involves violence, threats, coercion, financial control, or significant physical or psychological danger, the priority changes. It is no longer only a matter of communicating better: appropriate specialised professionals and support services need to be involved.

    You probably cannot control what this person thinks of you

    And perhaps not what they tell other people about you either.

    That is one of the hardest things to accept.

    You can explain.

    Prove.

    Argue.

    Show the messages.

    Tell the story in the right order.

    And some people may still choose to believe another version.

    Trying to obtain universal recognition of what happened can then keep you attached to the situation.

    The question gradually becomes:

    “Do I need this person to acknowledge what they did to me before I can start taking my life back?”

    The answer can be painful.

    But it can also be extraordinarily liberating.

    Leave the game instead of winning it

    That is ultimately the change I am trying to create.

    At first, the question is often:

    “How should I answer them?”

    Then it becomes:

    “Why does this strategy work on me?”

    Then:

    “How can I respond differently?”

    And finally:

    “Do I even want to keep participating in this dynamic?”

    You may not need to become better than the other person at their game.

    You may need to regain enough stability, discernment and decision-making power to understand that you can leave the table.

    And sometimes that is precisely where taking back control begins.

    Coaching and narcissistic relationships

    If you think you are in a relationship with a narcissistic person, if you recognise mechanisms such as gaslighting, DARVO, flying monkeys, blame reversal or repeated violations of your boundaries, we can work together on the behaviours you observe and, above all, on your options for action.

    Coaching is not a substitute for psychiatric diagnosis, psychotherapy when needed, or specialist domestic-abuse services.

    Its usefulness lies elsewhere:

    understanding the dynamic, developing reflexes, testing responses, strengthening your boundaries, preparing difficult conversations and helping you regain your decision-making power.

    Because ultimately, the goal is not to become an expert in narcissistic personality.

    It is for that personality to gradually stop organising YOUR life.

  • Conflict management: learning to argue without screwing everything up

    Conflict management: learning to argue without screwing everything up

    Conflict is part of relationships.

    At work, in a couple, with family, friends or clients, two people can want different things, understand the same situation differently or simply have two completely different ways of dealing with disagreement.

    The problem is therefore not always conflict itself.

    The problem is what we do once conflict begins.

    Attack. Withdraw. Explain for forty-five minutes. Become sarcastic. Give in. Raise our voice. Try to win. Pretend nothing happened. Or bring up that thing from 2017 that was apparently still waiting patiently in a drawer.

    Learning conflict management is not learning how never to disagree.

    It is learning how to enter disagreement without destroying yourself, submitting automatically or turning every conversation into a duel.

    A healthy relationship is not a relationship without conflict

    Two people can care about each other and still disagree.

    Two colleagues can respect each other and still have incompatible priorities.

    A manager and an employee can have legitimate interests that collide.

    The absence of conflict is therefore not necessarily evidence of a healthy relationship. Sometimes it simply means that one person has stopped speaking.

    The more useful question is:

    What happens when disagreement appears?

    Can both people speak? Can they hear each other? Can they negotiate? Can they set boundaries? Can they disagree without attacking the other’s worth?

    Because you can win an argument and lose the relationship.

    We do not all play the same game during conflict

    One person attacks.

    Another negotiates.

    Another runs away.

    Another waits.

    Another uses humour.

    Another becomes extremely rational.

    Another suddenly turns into a prosecutor with a 74-page case file.

    This is why conflict can feel like playing poker with someone who thinks they are playing chess.

    We are not only managing a disagreement. We are also managing the way each person manages disagreement.

    Nonviolent Communication: useful, but not magic

    Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication model invites us to distinguish observations, feelings, needs and requests.

    That can be extremely useful.

    But knowing the vocabulary of NVC does not automatically make someone good at conflict.

    A soft sentence is not necessarily a soft intention.

    Manipulation can perfectly well wear a beige cardigan and talk about its needs.

    The point is not to use the correct formula. It is to communicate more clearly while remaining capable of hearing the other person and respecting their freedom to disagree.

    Passive-aggressive communication versus brutal honesty

    Some people avoid direct conflict so thoroughly that disagreement comes out sideways: silence, sarcasm, delay, little digs, strategic forgetfulness.

    Others pride themselves on being “very direct”.

    But directness is not automatically a virtue.

    A shovel is very direct too.

    Healthy conflict management is not about choosing between swallowing everything and hitting people verbally with garden tools.

    It is about learning to say what needs to be said clearly, firmly and proportionately.

    Why are some of us afraid of conflict?

    For some people, disagreement feels dangerous.

    They may fear rejection, anger, abandonment, humiliation or losing the relationship.

    So they avoid the conversation.

    They say yes when they mean no.

    They postpone.

    They soften their message until there is almost nothing left.

    And then resentment quietly moves in and starts paying rent.

    Working on fear of conflict means understanding what we expect will happen if we finally say what we think, ask for what we need or set a boundary.

    What are we really fighting about?

    A conflict about dishes may not be about dishes.

    A disagreement about lateness may actually involve respect.

    A dispute about money may involve security, power or recognition.

    A professional disagreement may conceal a question of authority: who decides?

    That does not mean every conflict hides a mysterious childhood wound.

    Sometimes the problem really is that Gérard has not done his part of the project.

    But identifying the underlying issue often prevents us from spending two hours fighting about the wrong thing.

    Emotions in conflict: when someone presses exactly the right button

    We can think of ourselves as calm, tolerant and excellent communicators.

    Then someone presses exactly the right spot.

    Hello anger.

    Hello fear.

    Hello need to be right.

    Hello horrifying sentence we knew perfectly well we should not say, but said anyway.

    This is where emotional regulation and introspection can become useful.

    What is this situation touching in me? Why does this precise sentence make me lose my footing? What am I suddenly trying to defend? What fear has appeared?

    Tools inspired by Shadow Work can sometimes help explore particularly intense or repetitive reactions, without pretending that every conflict comes from a hidden wound.

    Why I love role-play in conflict-management training

    Understanding conflict intellectually is relatively comfortable.

    Living it is another matter.

    In my conflict-management training, I therefore use role-play extensively.

    A very unhappy client. A particularly stubborn colleague. A manager who refuses to listen. An employee who challenges you. Someone who monopolises the conversation.

    The workshop becomes a relationship laboratory.

    You can try a response. See what happens. Stop. Adjust. Try again.

    That is how an abstract communication principle gradually becomes a usable skill.

    Conflict at work

    Professional conflict has its own ingredients: hierarchy, responsibilities, deadlines, clients, money, power and organisational constraints.

    The useful questions are often concrete.

    What exactly is the disagreement? What is negotiable? What is not? Who has decision-making authority? What facts do we have? What interpretation are we adding? What conversation has been avoided?

    The goal is not to make everyone like each other.

    It is to make cooperation possible without pretending that differences do not exist.

    Conflict in couples

    In couples, conflict often becomes cumulative.

    We are no longer arguing only about today’s problem.

    We are arguing about today’s problem plus the last six times it happened, plus what it supposedly proves about the other person, plus the fact that they “always” do this.

    Learning to slow the conversation down, identify the actual issue and separate the present disagreement from the entire history of the relationship can already change a great deal.

    Internet verdicts will not solve Tuesday night’s argument

    Sometimes we look for an external verdict.

    Who is right? Who is wrong? Who is the asshole?

    The Internet can give you a judgement.

    But even a thousand comments agreeing with you will not necessarily tell you what to do when you see the person again on Tuesday.

    Conflict management is less about obtaining a verdict than about deciding what you want to protect, what you are willing to negotiate and what you will do next.

    You cannot control the other person

    This is one of the most frustrating truths in conflict.

    You can prepare your words.

    You can regulate your tone.

    You can be clear.

    You can listen.

    And the other person can still react badly.

    The part you can work on is your own position: your limits, decisions, responses and choices.

    That is not total control.

    But it is not nothing either.

    Coaching or training for conflict management?

    Individual coaching can be useful when you are dealing with a real conflict and need to understand the dynamic, prepare a conversation or test different responses.

    A workshop can instead let you experiment with fictional situations, play with strategies, observe the group’s reactions and gradually build new reflexes.

    And that is probably what I enjoy most about these interventions:

    people come looking for tools to manage others.

    And quite often…

    they discover something about themselves.

    As a complement to this article:

    Human Design incarnation crosses associated with conflict include:

    • Right Angle Cross of Tension — 21/48 | 38/39: tension, pressure, provocation and confrontation.
    • Left Angle Cross of Individualism — 39/38 | 51/57: Gate 39 provokes and Gate 38 fights, with friction around what is worth defending.
    • Right Angle Cross of Penetration — 57/51 | 53/54 (and 51/57 | 54/53): Gate 51 introduces shock, impact and disruption.

    Other relevant gates include Gate 6, Conflict/Friction; Gate 38, Opposition/The Fighter; Gate 39, Obstruction/Provocation; Gate 21, Biting Through/Control; and Gate 49, Revolution/Principles.