How would you like to look back at your life from your 80th birthday?

The meaning of life is to find your gift.
The purpose of life is to give it away.
– Pablo Picasso –

How would you like to look back at your life from your 80th birthday?

Have you ever asked yourself that question?

It’s definitely not an easy one to answer. It may take days, weeks or even months before you are able to answer that question…

Maybe you have a general idea but do not know the specifics. 

Maybe you’d like to still  be looking ahead. You’d still like to have plans for 10, 20 years. still wanting to experience and learn new things.

Or maybe you have absolutely no clue. You’ve never ever thought of this question before….

So why is it important to ask such a question? Why does it matter? 

Well, once in a while, we should ask ourselves this question to find out what is our purpose in life or to make sure we are still working towards it….  We were all put on earth for a reason… Some people know their purpose early in life, some others will need years to discover… and some other never will.

Knowing what you would like to have achieved, what you would like to be proud of will help you throughout your life: 

– It first will give you a vision, from which you can start and work backwards. You then will be able to set long, medium and short term goals, that you can in turn break down further in smaller milestones. 

– You then will be able to find out what you should focus on, what skills or habits you should acquire and what you need to let go… If you want to be known for having run (or won) a marathon, maybe you first need to learn how to run on a regular basis, maybe you need to eat healthier or make some changes to your nutrition. And maybe you need to stop smoking once and for all…

– Finally, this will also help you focus on the right things, put the priority on things or people you care about and forget about all the other minor issues you have in your life. 

Jeff Bezos once said: “When you think about the things that you will regret when you’re 80, they’re almost always the things that you did not do. They’re acts of omission. Very rarely are you going to regret something that you did that failed and didn’t work or whatever” 

So, take a moment and ask yourself: How would you like to look back from your 80th birthday?

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Welcome to my first book

It has been a long delivery… Almost 20 years to be precise! I am pleased to announce that I am now the proud mother of my first book, ‘My revenge on life’.

It was a Friday in August 1998, when I was with my mom on a highway in Belgium, driving from France to the Netherlands. We were stuck in a traffic jam under a tunnel when a truck hit us. I had to stay three months in hospitals. It took me another six months before I could fully walk normally again and go back to work full time. It then took me years to be fit again and I managed to do so thanks to salsa dancing. I picked up my life, grew professionally and traveled the world…

I had always said I should write a book about what had happened to me but never really took the time. I finally started working on my book more than 12 years after my accident. I guess I needed that time to ‘digest’ what had happened… And yes, writing a book is not easy. It takes time, it has to flow, it should not be boring and it needs to have an end! This was my biggest challenge: I did not have the latter till this year! At the beginning of 2018, I had decided to help expats and young professionals optimize their potential. And it was as if the universe was sending me signs… All the pieces fit in together and I just had to finish my story.

It is always with mixed emotions that I recall all the events of my accident. When I look back, I am actually grateful this happened to me. It was definitely not easy to go through this experience, but it contributed to make me the person that I am. I have always been positive; I do not give up easily and always achieve my goals. This book is just another proof of that. If this book helps at least one person, then I will have accomplished my other goal: inspire people in showing them that there is always hope even in the most difficult situations…

PS: This book is available on all the Amazon marketplaces, both in English and in French (‘Ma revanche sur la vie’).

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The keys of success

I recently met a group of coaches and we asked ourselves: what is success? How come some people are successful and some others aren’t? Success is obviously different for everybody, as we all have different goals or yearnings. However, we all agreed on two things: to be successful you first have to make a decision and you have to take action.

Whether you decide to go right or left depends on circumstances and does not really ‘matter’, as long as you keep moving. Deciding to stay at the same place is not a decision as it means staying in your comfort zone. This in turn means stagnating, which in turn means that soon or later, instead of moving forward, you’re regressing.

These observations are valid not only in our professional life but also in our personal life. We all heard the expression: ‘Knowledge is power’. I do not fully agree with this, but agree with what Napoleon Hill wrote in his book ‘Think and grow rich’: Knowledge is only potential power. If you have the knowledge but do nothing about it, then this knowledge is lost because you have not taken action.

So, don’t be afraid to grab opportunities! Don’t be a spectator of your life, but act, i.e. be literally an actor! When you make a decision and take action, you have nothing to lose. The worst that can happen is that you’ll learn something new. And as for me, I have decided to win the Oscar for best actress in my own life! 🙂

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