Biraci Jr Yawanawá “Isku” and myself at Akasha in Brazil a few weeks ago. Isku has helped me for three years and invited me recently to the Yawanawá sacred village. The face paintings are a traditional activity with the Amazon tribes and are said to provide protection. More soon. Nothing scary with the paintings I promise!

Since this is a new newsletter and a new podcast I thought I should introduce myself briefly.

I live in San Francisco, California since 2007. I learned from the incredible technology entrepreneurs at the heart of Silicon Valley and also spent time on my two passions, kite-surfing and paragliding which are both easy to practice 20 minutes away from my home.

I was born on July 14, 1972 (yep Cancer) in the South of France, a small city called Perpignan an hour and a half drive from Barcelona in Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. 

My father Patrick originated from French Brittany which shows in my “Breton” name. He died more than ten years ago from lung cancer smoking too many cigarettes. His lineage is Breton and my 23 and me shows Nordic origins. He gave me my tall body and heavy bones and stature that some people call “Viking” like. Patrick and my mother were selling small sailing and motor boats in a village called Saint-Cyprien Plage. He also gave me my passion for sailing and now kite-surfing training me and following me in many races on “Optimist” and “Moth-Europe” before they had foils on…

My mother Anne was born in Barcelona and is of Catalan origin. She spends her time between the mountains in Font-Romeu and Perpignan. I was mostly raised in Catalan by Anne and my grand mother and grand father. I love the south of France and the Spanish Catalunya. I am a big fan of that region, people and of course food. I don’t go back there very often and miss it.

I got engaged when I was 18, married at 20 and first kid at 23. I was happily married for 20 years. 

I won’t talk here about my ex-wife Geraldine to respect her privacy. She gave me three beautiful children. Arthur, Gauthier and Grégoire. Géraldine is an incredible woman. I have the deepest gratitude for everything she gave me and made me. We built together many successful businesses as co-entrepreneurs working together and supporting each other. I don’t even know how she managed to run our businesses at the same time as raising our beautiful children.

The most important I achieved is without any doubt to have three beautiful boys in this world. They are now adults and very successful and I am very proud of them and love them with all my heart. I won’t talk too much about them either for the same privacy reasons but love them with everything I have.

Entrepreneur and business angel

I built several businesses. Some failed, some succeeded. I am the most proud of building with Geraldine the LeWeb conference that helped many people realize they could be entrepreneurs too. LeWeb featured the talks of great technology entrepreneurs for 12 years or and inspired many. The conference at its peak had about 4,000 participants from 90 countries and was one of the pioneers and first of its kind in the world. When we launched in 2003 was only one similar event, in Silicon Valley, which was called Web 2.0. We sold the conference and it ended (sadly!) in 2014. I am also a business angel and invested and supported many entrepreneurs financially and with some advice. 

Writing online 

I have started writing on the internet in 2003 as one of the early bloggers and never stopped. Sharing has always helped me in my business career and definitely got the LeWeb conference started. It was originally called “LesBlogs”. The first edition gathered 200 of the top first bloggers in the world, from 20 countries. I gathered them mostly thanks to my early blogging. I also wrote a book in French about blogging as I was obsessed by the phenomenon and how I thought it would change the world by enabling anyone to share any thoughts without the need to go through traditional media and publishing. 

Personal transformation 

It is now time for me to share much less about business and technology and much more about myself and my personal transformation. 

While successful in business and family I also went through deep personal challenges as I divorced 7 years ago. I was 40 when everything started to seriously shift and the very well known personal crisis many men go through between 40 and 50 hit me hard.

Meditation and therapy 

I did several silent meditation retreats and learned to meditate which greatly helped. I highly recommend the Vipassana 10 days silent meditation which I did and loved even though it was hard. I did 7 years of therapy hoping I would let go of the past and what made me feel bad and finally be happier. While therapy helped me understand my issues better it did really not make me happy. I am however very grateful to my therapists who put great efforts in changing my mind. It definitely helped. It mostly kept me on track with my life and made me understand my past and my key issues which is very important for the next chapter of my life.

I have been journaling for years after reading the Miracle of Morning pages which I highly recommend.

My friends helped me the most. I have fantastic friends around the world and love them. I cannot be more grateful for their constant support.

The experience and change I went through with three years of plant medicine and my recent 30 days in the Amazon forest changed me so much that I now feel like sharing everything I learned on this new newsletter.

Please do introduce yourself also on comments below as I am also hoping to make this place a real community. It takes a minute, say a few words about yourself, what you do and where you live!

Thanks for reading.

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