Hello Mulhouse!
Hello Mulhouse! We're very happy to be here and to be inspired by all of the speakers,
who are sharing some of the things that are most essential to them.
In listening just now to Eric and Lilou, we truly feel that we're part of
a community of people, like you, for that matter,
who are going to bring something different to the world.
For us, the element that's fundamental for this return to the essentials
is something that contributes to human evolution.
It's something that resides in all of us, since our childhood.
It's crucial to have this quality alive in us, which is...
play!
We love to play, and we truly believe in playing.
We believe in it so much that we created a company
called le playground
which is a vast playing field for adults to develop their leadership--
yes, indeed, I said their leadership-- through play.
What we do with the adults who come to play with us,
and we create playgrounds, playing fields all over,
is to accompany them through their personal evolution and toward their leadership.
To get to that point in life, we've had to play with many different things,
because playing is also connecting, connecting to oneself, connecting to others.
Some of our games in life have been very, very beautiful, very brilliant,
and others have been very difficult. Ever since birth, we've always played.
In fact, a few months ago a journalist asked us the question:
"When did you create the way you work?"
And we truly felt that it's something we've done since childhood.
Both of us come from multicultural families ...
Actually, meeting Marco was highly improbable.
We lived on different continents, we had lives that were completely different ...
I was born in California, daughter of a Mexican father and Mexican-German mother.
My first language was Spanish, and when I started school I also started to learn English.
It was total immersion, and I lived in these two worlds.
But something extraordinary happened when I was 7 years old that made an impact on my life.
For some reason, my father gave me a Jacques Brel record.
With that, I heard the French language for the first time in my life,
and I fell head over heels in love.
I told myself that I would learn to speak French, and it became my passion.
So I studied French and was a French teacher during the first 15 years of my professional life
I lived that passion, and today, what fires me up,
what excites me, is to accompany other people in finding their passions.
And in this world where it was highly improbable that we should meet, I was living in Europe.
As I mentioned, I come from a multicultural family.
My mother is French-Belgian-German, my father is Italian, born of a Spanish mother,
and to further complicate matters, I was born in Zurich.
So when someone asks where I'm from, it's a complicated question for me!
And what's interesting is that I had to play with life because of that, because I was born with several languages
and, more importantly, with several cultures. And do you know, in my little boy's head,
it was very strange to see how each of these cultures thought that the others didn't do things right.
One side of the family would try to convince me that they were right and the others wrong.
As for me, I had a nonconformist spirit from the very beginning of my childhood
and I started saying no, look! There are good things here, and there are good things there.
Why do we always see only the bad things? Why can't we mix the good things together?
And I began to be the defender, to see the possibilities that existed on both sides.
I can guarantee that Marco has this nonconformist essence in him because I live with him every day!
And this rebel essence that I have has built up in my life
because when I was a child, I was very lucky.
My parents' lives took place in the theater, they worked in it, and my life took place on stages, like this one.
For me, this is a bit of a return to my essentials. And the backstage was my classroom.
I was a solitary child. I was the teddy bear of all the actors, but I didn't know other children.
At age 13, I went through a tragic event. My parents quit,
and I had to go into formal education. I had never been to a regular school.
I had never been with so many children my own age.
In addition, because parts of my education had been in different languages,
at school they decided to place me with children four years younger than me.
I suffered. I cried. I was ashamed. And I decided to take life by the horns.
In two years, I caught up with the children my own age, in only two years.
And later, I became director/manager of two large multinational companies on a global level
with teams on three continents.
So we can see here that life gives us things and events that summon us to change,
that we need to go beyond them and truly be there, present, to welcome them and move forward.
And since then, really, my current passion is to accompany people in making the improbable possible.
Because each one of us has qualities that are unique,
and I believe in the beauty and the uniqueness of the human being.
Now, we live in a society where change is inevitable.
Today everything changes at the speed of light. Technology is continually improving.
When you buy an iPhone, in fact, the next one—
If you buy a different brand, too!
Yes, that's true! He surprises me every time!
So, technology and everything else changes at an incredible speed. It's not the same as for our parents,
who studied for a job, for a profession, and who could spend 40 years working and doing the same thing.
It never even came into question. Today it's not the same.
And we're living at this frantic pace. There are wonderful things in our society.
There are great scientific advancements, great advancements in many areas
and at the same time we don't have time to live. We're always doing, doing, doing.
And the truth is that all this change gives us possibilities that previous generations didn't have to really change things.
We invite you wholeheartedly to play to be a leader of this change.
If we also look at education, we were educated in a way where we needed to learn everything by rote.
We have a diploma, we have what we need, and in fact there aren't any courses in creativity or imagination,
except if you have the possibility of attending a private school where they have that creativity.
That exists; today there's an entire movement around that.
But here, what we're doing in our playground,
we're bringing people, adults, to really touch this creativity, this curiosity,
like a child, without judgment, completely letting go
so everyone can truly be at the core of what he is
and also of the changing unknown, because we live in a world where we don't know what's going to happen.
We don't know what will happen one second from now.
It's really being able to create from what happens, from what emerges, not only from what comes from the past, and to take pleasure in it.
It's transforming chaos into possibility, and for that we need to play because playing is a place of authenticity,
of connection. We can't play if we're not connected -- with ourselves first, but with others also -- we can't play.
So, playing is truly essential. Playing, having fun, and the profoundness of playing as well.
Thus, as Eric stated with the Aikido, we need to have this balance in ourselves.
All of those who practice a sport, you know that if something happened five minutes ago
or if something is going to happen in the future, you can't be present in your game.
In fact, what we do is to create situations where people have to play in the present moment.
Do you have your voice, there? Is everything okay?
Yes!
We're going to show you some images of the expression of beauty in people
who are learning in this experiential manner, by playing.
How it reinforces confidence and centering above all, balance as Eric would say, in itself.
Look at the beauty. Look at the expression. It's not only the sun that's shining through but the soul as well.
It's the person centered and in balance with herself
who will be able to truly create the life she wishes to create.
Here's the place where people play in Paris, in our playground.
Here you see some adults. The people you see are leaders.
You can see how each one is centered in their own play, in their own world, in their own universe,
in the midst of really tasting, savoring, discovering what is there, and exploring that universe.
It's really beautiful to see the photo that was just shown, to see people
sitting on the floor like children. Actually, I have a small anecdote. One day at le playground,
someone came to deliver some sushi. Everyone was gone,
and everything was left like that. The delivery person asked, "Madame, do you have a preschool here?"
I said, "No, it's a school for adults, and they come to play."
Here in this image you see several people, but you see four leaders
working together, collaborating together, co-creating, from which a real collective intelligence emerges.
This is truly a space where each person's potential will be felt, seen,
expressed, and something even more beautiful will be created.
This is le playground in Toronto. Here we accompanied some extraordinary people.
These are African leaders, because we have the pleasure of accompanying and playing with
Engineers Without Borders Canada on a global level. In fact, regarding Engineers Without Borders Canada,
it was someone from Mulhouse who took us to them, and their Talent Manager is a native of your city.
Here we have two people, two of our participants
who are playing with courage, playing with pushing their limits, because one thing that's important in life is
that you can have good ideas, you can have creativity,
you can have lots of love and compassion, and if you don't have the courage to move to the next step,
it will never happen.
I want to tell you an anecdote from my life. When I was director of a multinational corporation,
it was a time in my life when I really had it all, everything that, on the outside, one could wish for:
a beautiful family, a fabulous car, two houses, a great deal of power...
and I was empty.
Inside me, it wasn't working at all. I wasn't in my passion at all.
I worked for the sake of working. I made profits for the sake of making profits.
And while questioning all of this,
I had the luck that "fate"--I don't believe in fate, so let's say false fate--
led me to discover Gestalt, a discipline of introspection, and Sir John Whitmore, the creator of modern coaching.
I took courses from him in the two areas of training at the same time,
and in the middle, after several months, I decided to break out of my golden cage and leave everything behind.
Everyone around me thought I was completely crazy.
You know what? They may have been right. I changed my life.
Now I do what I'm passionate about, what I love. I make much less money,
but I'm happy. I'm aligned. I'm in balance.
As for me, I was still living in the United States, where I was teaching French
and the year 2000 was a turning point in my life.
I had the extraordinary opportunity to come live in Paris for a sabbatical year,
which brought me a bit closer to Marco, without knowing it.
Actually, I came with my husband, my child,
and at the end of that year we divorced, something that was very difficult for me
because that simply wasn't done in my family. And I was faced with some soul-searching.
The most logical thing would have been to return home and resume my work,
but Jacques Brel was still living inside me and I wanted to live my life in Paris.
What did that mean?
Well, do you hear a little accent today? I wasn't going to teach French in France, that's for sure.
So I spent the first three years teaching English and looking for myself.
It took me three years, and I found it.
We're going to play a little game with you now, very quickly.
We would like you to close your eyes and take a deep breath.
Integrate the lights ...
the sounds in the room... and while continuing to breathe, look for
a place in your life there was something extraordinary,
a truly extraordinary moment, a unique moment ...
a moment where you felt free, in pure imagination, where anything was possible.
Feel this energy, and when you feel it fully, put your hand on your heart.
Listen to your heart with this energy.
This energy lives inside you.
And ask your heart, with this energy, what is possible today for you
if you play to change for something extraordinary for an even better life?
Come back to the room, and open your eyes.
We'll just be curious and wonder what's in each one of you,
and we're going to finish. We want to simply say "play with change, lead the change,"
because you have a real opportunity in your own essence, in your own essentials, to be the leader of your life.
And when things happen to you, because they do happen -- sad things, events that challenge you to go beyond your limits,
instead of judging them as good or bad, look at them and ask yourself,
"How am I going to play with this?"
You are capable of playing and making this change.
Thank you.