I have had the great pleasure for the past few years to collaborate within CANU with Jo-Annie Fortin, organizational development consultant and keynote speaker. Jo-Annie is an Olympic athlete with 17 years of experience in synchronized swimming. She just completed her master’s degree at HEC Montreal. A few weeks back she wrote a blog article about the consequences of the her never-ending quest for perfection.

Jo-Annie comes from a world where you need to smile when you’re hurting, stop breathing so that your teammates can emerge on top and make the judges buy your story so that you can get on the podium. It’s the cross road between art, sport, and show business.

A metaphor for life where it is dangerous to drown some parts of yourself if you are not vigilant.

It felt as if a violent storm was raging inside me. Chocking me. Drowning me. For the first time in my life, I was paying the price for pushing my limits too far (they literally slapped me in the face). I had no other choice but to listen to my body and take some time off. For several weeks, my only goal was to get through each day as slowly and gently as I could.

When human beings meet their limits, it is tragic and beautiful at the same time. A reminder of the fragility of life. Her intimate testimonial demonstrates the importance of listening to what the body and the heart have to say in order to temper the stories of will that the mind is telling itself.

What if being well was enough?

From the bottom of my heart thank you Jo-Annie.

I just finished reading the latest blog post of Stéphanie Dupuis, founder of THEMA.

I couldn’t help smiling while reading it and one quote really caught my eyes :

At war, if you make a mistake, you can die.
At war, if you do not do your job, you can die.
At war, if you do your job right, you can die.

Read my reactions and reflexions on her blog here.

May 2009 Ghundey Ghar, Afghanistan. Crédit photo : Cplc Jonathan Johansen.

During my late-teenage years, my view on courage was deeply influenced by the movies I used to watch on the big screen. A blazing kind of courage portrayed by actors with bulging muscles – the very incarnation of power. The kind of show that hits you in the gut!

That being said, can courage be expressed on a day-to-day basis in a more traditional context?

Read the blog here.

What needs to happen now on your team so that in 2030 looking back you can say that 2018 was one of your most positively meaningful work experience in terms of fulfillment, authenticity, and pride of your career?

You are convinced that your team members could raise their game if they were not stuck in day to day urgent work?
You’d like to feel better understood by your team members regarding your vision and how your team functions?
You want to experience the power of your team with everyone paddling in the same boat, going into the same direction in 2018?

Read the blog here.