Episode #94: Unlock Leadership Potential: The Power of Executive Retreats

Structured retreats can revolutionize your leadership and decision-making skills. In this episode, you will learn the 4S approach to disconnecting and gaining perspective from Fabrice Desmarescaux, a McKinsey partner and retreat expert. Challenge your beliefs about work-life balance and explore how mindful leadership can enhance productivity. Tune in to transform your executive performance.

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Guest

Sebastian Schieke

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Sebastian Schieke (00:00.743)
Hey, Fabrice, welcome to the show. We just, yes, and we just talked about a very important topic, taking time off. And you wrote a book about that, The Art of Retreats. And many listeners, they probably think now, hey, mean, what is that about? I mean, normally we talk about how to get more done, how to be more efficient, how to leverage AI to be more.

Fabrice (00:03.49)
Hi Sebastian, very happy to be here with you.

Sebastian Schieke (00:28.273)
productive, make more money. But now we want to talk about not doing anything at all. And what's, I mean, what did you, why did you write this book? How did you came up with this idea writing a book about retreats for CEOs and managers?

Fabrice (00:47.922)
Well, the book came out of my personal experience and the experience that I have working with leaders. I noticed that in the corporate world, we have this belief very often that more is more. So productivity is what we chase. so if you're, it's a little bit like the juggler, right? You're juggling balls. And so one day you have to practicing, you manage to juggle five balls.

Sebastian Schieke (01:01.18)
Yeah.

Fabrice (01:16.392)
And success would be to be able to juggle six balls at the same time and seven. And that's what we chase very often. I take a completely different approach, which is actually once you reach a certain level of seniority and responsibility, the best thing that you can do for yourself, for your teams and for your company.

Sebastian Schieke (01:19.951)
Or seven.

Fabrice (01:42.634)
is actually to take time off or take time reflecting, not time doing, but time being. that's a recipe that I apply to myself. We were just talking that you do that as well. You take time off. Look, at end of the day, we get the best ideas not when we're sitting at our desk in front of computer answering emails. We get our best ideas when we are some people. I always ask this question to the people I work with.

They say, well, in the shower, walking in nature, walking my dog, playing with my kids, just daydreaming in my bed. You don't get your best ideas when you're cramming meetings one after the other. And so this idea of productivity, think, occasionally is misdirected. So that's the genesis of the book.

Sebastian Schieke (02:24.54)
Yes.

Sebastian Schieke (02:38.907)
I completely agree. I think now managers becoming more more conscious that they only have a certain amount of energy and they need to manage this energy wisely. I mean, also regarding sleep, for example, a couple of years ago, if you didn't sleep enough, if you slept only four or five hours, then you'll be a star.

You say, I can function with four hours of sleep. Now, luckily, thankfully, we know that this is really bad for your health, for your long-term health, for longevity. And people are more conscious about getting enough sleep for start. And also, as you said, it is starting to get enough getting conscious about taking.

time off and as you said, reflecting and I do this. I'm just about to embark on another three month journey and I really value this time and it gives me so much energy and it gives me so much, yeah, as you said, new ideas and getting out of your normal day-to-day work is very important.

But putting this all in the book is obviously another step. So I would love to understand, do you have a concept of how managers should design this time out, this time off? What advice would you give them?

Fabrice (04:22.242)
Yes, and you know, I come from the world of business, so I understand very well the pressure that leaders are under and the constraints that leaders have, particularly when it comes to their free time. Very often, whatever little free time they have, they want to spend with their families, with their friends, or they want to spend their time doing activities that they enjoy, playing golf or watching TV or playing video games.

or what have you, the idea of saying, I'm going to take time off, but I'm not going to use it to play. I'm going to use it to reflect and disconnect and be in a place of silence and solitude. That doesn't necessarily come naturally for leaders. And that comes particularly from spiritual traditions. So every spiritual tradition has this concept of retreats.

Sebastian Schieke (05:01.931)
Mm.

Fabrice (05:22.092)
There's always been a time when you're seeking greater truth, greater sense of purpose, greater connection with reality and sense of meaning, sense of purpose. Spiritual seekers have always taken time off, right? You have Jesus and the 40 days in the desert. You have all these traditions. You have the Buddhist retreats during the rainy season in Thailand. So we find this in...

virtually every spiritual tradition. And so my purpose is to marry the Western performance ideal with the wisdom that comes from spiritual traditions. Because I live in Asia, I've been living in Asia most of my adult life, I'm very inspired by Eastern spiritual traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism, yoga, et cetera. But...

Sebastian Schieke (06:13.532)
Yes.

Fabrice (06:17.996)
We find that also in Christianity, for example, and in Islam. So it's not at all a specificity of Eastern spiritual tradition. So we marry, in a way, the quest for performance and the quest for purpose or the quest for meaning. And that is exactly what the retreats are about. It's to say, I'm not giving up my ideal of performance. I'm a leader in charge of a corporation. I need to deliver.

Sebastian Schieke (06:31.132)
Mm-hmm.

Fabrice (06:46.582)
I need to deliver the bottom line, need to deliver share price, what have you. But I'm going to do that while taking occasionally time to reflect, to retire from the world so that I can elevate my perspective. I'm not going to be constantly the nose on the wheel under pressure. I'm going to take time in silence, in solitude to be able to see the big picture. And if you want, elevate.

Sebastian Schieke (07:16.849)
Yeah, consciousness.

Fabrice (07:17.099)
my consciousness elevates my soul. So that's the idea of the book and the research that I did both in performance management as well as coming from spiritual traditions.

Sebastian Schieke (07:29.437)
Okay, so we take a leader, a CEO of a mid-sized company, couple of hundred employees, very busy, and this person is at a stage where really you time out. So what could be a process that this person goes through to design his retreat and to really...

make sure that things are working while he's not there. Because we always think, yeah, mean, it doesn't work without me, but this is a lie. I mean, if you build a business, you should have the goal to fire yourself, to make the business run without you. And this is a good test. But what does a leader need to do to achieve this state, first of all? And then what does he need to do to create this time of reflection and finding?

purpose.

Fabrice (08:29.728)
Okay, so there's several questions here. So let's take them one by one. So first of all, the how-to, how do you carve out the space? So I am practical in my approach and I recognize that not everybody is going to have the opportunity to go completely off grid for three weeks or a month because you want to go to Tibet and hide in a monastery. occasionally some people have the luxury to do that.

Sebastian Schieke (08:33.639)
Yeah.

Fabrice (08:59.682)
But that's not everyone. Well, I've done shorter versions of that. I eat my own medicine, but it's very hard. And I think we have to recognize that for leaders, for example, the archetype that you describe, someone in charge of a mid-sized corporation, that is very often not feasible.

Sebastian Schieke (09:00.795)
I would love to do that.

Fabrice (09:25.944)
Point number one, let's be practical, you don't need to take three weeks off and fly to Costa Rica or Tibet to do that. You can start with much, much shorter formats, including take one hour or take two hours. If that works for you, then you can increase the duration. But what I'm asking for is not any longer than what you would take to play a game of golf or to...

watch a football match. So that's point number one. What do you do in your retreat time and how do you approach your retreat time? I have an acronym, it's the 4S. So the first S is for silence, disconnect your devices. The second S is solitude, you're on your own. Now you could be still surrounded by people of course, I'm not asking you to go in the middle of the desert but

Be by yourself. Try to go into a nice space. So that's my third S. A nice space. You know how we have places that put us in a nice energy and some places that depress us. So don't choose a place that depresses you. Choose a place where you're going to feel uplifted. It could be nature. It could be a cozy room. It could be the nice coffee shop around the corner where the vibes are good.

Find the right space and then go with a willingness not to play with your phone and continue watching Netflix or your emails, but go with the intention to reconnect with yourself. So the fourth S is reconnect with your soul. Go to that place, maybe bring a notebook with a blank sheet of paper, jot down the ideas that come up to you. And in the book, I give a lot of topics of reflection. So for example, you say,

Sebastian Schieke (11:07.762)
Yes.

Fabrice (11:24.45)
Busy, I'm too busy. I cannot disappear. What is the source of your busyness? In service of what is your busyness? So we need to reflect on these things and we cannot reflect on these things when we are busy. We have to create that time off. it's a machine and the only way to start the machine in a way is to start small. don't go with, it's like the person who has never exercised.

Sebastian Schieke (11:40.679)
We are in the machine, yeah.

Fabrice (11:53.834)
in their life. There's no point booking a four-hour session at the gym because you're going to kill yourself. So you start small, maybe you go on the treadmill for 20 minutes and you walk one kilometer. Same thing here.

Sebastian Schieke (12:04.86)
Yes.

Sebastian Schieke (12:10.53)
Start small and I like this idea of starting with an hour that even hours sometimes for busy people something they cannot dream of. They are always in this hamster wheel and never disconnected from their mobile phones and taking one hour is a good step and a good approach.

Sebastian Schieke (12:38.981)
But then, I I still want to come back to this three weeks in TV. I guess there are certain types of people who have this dream to, I really want to switch off. I really want to disappear for a while. But I don't know how to do that. And I don't know in your book, do you cover use cases or?

strategies that people can achieve that.

Fabrice (13:09.282)
Yes, and there's many ways to do that. But for people who like the do-it-yourself approach, which is what I describe in my book, because look, let's not forget there's a lot of organized retreats. So there are retreat centers, each one with their different focus. So some have a spiritual angle, some have a health angle, some have a yoga. So you can perfectly decide to sign up for a retreat that is organized by someone else. And I have been a retreat leader

Sebastian Schieke (13:17.137)
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Schieke (13:22.033)
Yes.

Fabrice (13:39.638)
for many years. I curate retreat mostly for senior executives and executive teams to take them away from the boardroom, away from the office, away from the noise of the city. And I bring them into nature. And once we're in nature, the level of energy changes completely. And we can finally have conversations that are open-ended without having the need to...

look at our watch and how much this meeting needs to finish, so we'll take it offline and all that usual jargon. So you can go to a retreat that is organized by someone else, but I'm a big, big fan of solo retreats because you're only answer to yourself. And in the book, I describe how to curate these retreats. So from the very short format that I was describing to you, right? So the two hour in the coffee shop around the corner, two longer formats.

Sebastian Schieke (14:11.09)
Yeah.

Fabrice (14:33.514)
of several days. I would not recommend that someone starts with a three week retreat in Tibet because again, I'm always in favor of starting small and being pragmatic. But you know, if you have time, why not take two, three days and go to a place that you love and disconnect all the devices? That's usually, you know, it's not so much taking the time that people find difficult is to say, how am I going to live without my cell phone?

That dependency on technology is probably the most damaging addiction that senior leaders have today. I did recently, two months ago, I did a retreat in a monastery in Europe and I disconnected for four days.

It takes a little bit of preparation and I give checklists in my book, know, how to, people you want to let know, emergency contact numbers. I mean, the whole, there's no rocket science here, but you prepare it, right? So I always make sure that my secretary knows, you know, what to do in case someone needs to reach me. My team members know what to do and I tell my clients also, I won't be reachable for four days.

Sebastian Schieke (15:32.476)
Yeah.

Fabrice (15:57.058)
And I tell them like three weeks in advance. So anything that we need to take care of is well taken care of way before I disappear on a retreat. I usually make it coincide with the weekend. So Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, for example, or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So, you know, you have less days where you're supposed to be doing stuff that actually you're going to spend being instead of doing.

Sebastian Schieke (16:14.898)
Yeah.

Fabrice (16:24.94)
So there's little tricks like that that I cover in the book. I also, know, what do you do in the retreat, right? Because actually a retreat is more for being than for doing. So I always say, you know, release the agenda, you know. Yes, I'm going to give you a template of what you can do in the morning and stuff like that. But, you know, really, the point is you release the agenda because from the moment

Sebastian Schieke (16:35.697)
Yeah, you need a structure.

Fabrice (16:52.8)
If you've experienced disconnecting the devices from the moment you do that, time opens up. It's magic. You're not constantly checking your phone. You're not answering to anyone but yourself. And suddenly, the universe of possibilities opens up and you feel so relaxed that...

that your brain goes immediately into a different mode, right? Instead of being constantly in beta emergency mode, I need to put out fires, you know, it's very easy to go in being relaxed and your brain goes very quickly in alpha when you relax and you don't need to meditate very deeply for that. And that's when you get really creative. That's when you take a...

Sebastian Schieke (17:24.966)
Yes.

Fabrice (17:42.079)
a real hard look at your life and what you should be doing with your work, with your business, with your employees, with your team members. So the perspective that you take when times open up because you've disconnected is just amazing.

Sebastian Schieke (17:59.173)
I always ask myself, what have we done by introducing these mobile phones into our lives? I I grew up without a phone, obviously. mean, and when I compare how easy life was back then without being constantly connected and constantly checking stuff as it is now, it's really interesting. I mean, I have a...

I have apps on my phone which prevent me from checking the news, for example. So I only allow myself news access at certain times during the day. Because how often is it you're bored, you check the phone and then you read something which raises your anxiety level or which gets you out of your thinking process. And then you think about some problems you cannot control in the world.

And not having this at your fingertips is what helps me personally. But completely switching off, it's a different level, obviously.

Fabrice (19:03.864)
You know, Sebastian, when I walk in the streets and I live in Singapore, but I'm very sure that it's the same everywhere in the world. And I see people walking in the streets, just looking at their phones. And then you take the public transport and everyone's looking at their phone. And I'm wondering who's slave to whom? Because technology is supposed to be in our service to make our lives better. So we have more freedom. And I see how we've become enslaved.

Sebastian Schieke (19:10.322)
Everyone is.

Sebastian Schieke (19:25.703)
supporting us. It's not.

Fabrice (19:33.986)
by technology and we are in service of technology. It's not technology that's in our service. And I find that quite interesting to notice. And I think it's a very good call that you're making here and why these retreats are so important because it rebalances the perspective that we have on technology. There's nothing new here, just like you, grew up without mobile phones and slow mail.

That was way before email. And you know, the world was working just fine. And has technology really helped us to have more free time, more freedom?

Sebastian Schieke (20:04.646)
Yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (20:17.127)
Good question. wouldn't say no. I would say no, yes. It doesn't generate more free time. It enslaves us. mean, what is our main purpose? Keep the mobile phone, the battery charged and keep it in the Wi-Fi range. These are the two things we have to take care of.

Fabrice (20:34.712)
Yeah.

Yeah, as you see now, you take the perspective of a leader and I, because I work with senior leaders, know, I always take their perspective and a leader by definition is someone who has influence and has access to resources. Most of the clients I work with are typically CEOs of very large corporations, right? So they have enormous resources at their disposal. And so the question is, how can we...

Sebastian Schieke (20:41.042)
Yeah.

Fabrice (21:06.066)
use technology for the greater good and not to become slaves. I love technology. mean, look, without technology, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. So in a way, the technology itself is neutral. It's neither good nor bad. It is the use that we make of it. And so as a responsible leader, what is the use that we want to make of technology? Not only communications technology like

Sebastian Schieke (21:16.059)
Yeah, exactly.

Fabrice (21:35.48)
How reachable do we want to be? Is it OK to expect that people return your emails within an hour? Or is it OK to have periods where people can disconnect, for example, if they want to go on a retreat? But also, now we're going to have AI coming online very, very quickly. So what is the responsible use of technology? And I find that when you're really like the hamster on the wheel that you were describing just now.

and you're constantly busy, busy, busy and in the mode of action, it's very difficult to take a little bit of perspective, which is why I always recommend to my clients, even if it's a short couple of hours or four hours where they disconnect, that will really help them regain their perspective, regain their freedom to see the world as it is and not as we believe it should be when we're in the midst of the action.

And arguably you make better decisions. I also find that retreat time rebalances your energy, right? So you're not so stressed. It reduces your stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. It puts you in a much better place to be kind and compassionate with yourself, but also kind and compassionate with others. There's nothing like a little bit of distance and silence and solitude to realize how much we depend on others.

and how much we love others in the most case,

Sebastian Schieke (23:06.609)
Yeah, and how much we are conditioned by our world around us. How much we think we have to function because certain aspects are as they are. But if you step out of this world and go into a different world, then as you said, we get completely a new perspective on things and rethink our...

behavior and our actions and our decisions. It's a fantastic opportunity. I would think that many people, have this limiting belief they cannot do that because they are so in their belief structure. What do you tell them and how do you say convince them that this is an important step they should take?

Fabrice (23:59.384)
Yeah, well, if I have a coaching relationship with them or just a conversation, I always challenge the beliefs, right, that we cannot take time away. I don't call it time off really because a retreat is not time off, right? Time off for me is to go to the beach and the beach club and have the diaries and party. That is time off. But retreat is actually time on.

Sebastian Schieke (24:20.54)
Yeah.

Fabrice (24:28.152)
but time on for being instead of time on for doing. So there's a distinction here. But I always challenge the belief. People come with objections like, I can't go away because my teams need me. Well, is that so? Do they really need you? Or you're just a freaking micromanager who feels the need to be in control and you just cannot let go? Maybe your team would be better off if you disappeared for two days.

Sebastian Schieke (24:31.001)
doing.

Sebastian Schieke (24:54.684)
Yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (24:59.493)
Exactly.

Fabrice (24:59.81)
So is it true that your team needs you? And I'm not questioning that there's occasions where yes, the team will need you. But is it always the case? Is it so much the case that you cannot disappear for two days or three days?

So I think we have a number of assumptions because you see, we've been conditioned to be always on seven days, 24 hours, we're reachable. mean, I'm talking about leaders with serious responsibilities, right? But that's conditioning. That's what we believe is expected of us because as you said, we've had these macho attitudes of,

Sebastian Schieke (25:24.55)
Yeah.

Fabrice (25:44.682)
sleep is overrated and let's push through the night guys, we're going to make this happen. And again, I'm not saying in situations of emergencies, you have to be 24 seven because otherwise the business is going to crash. But that's hopefully not always the case. we're going to push through and let's work harder. Actually, science has demonstrated that lack of sleep.

Sebastian Schieke (25:46.545)
Yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (25:54.055)
Sometimes it's important,

Fabrice (26:13.856)
is terrible for decision making. People who are tired, and that's been shown as well, you push meetings 10 p.m., 11 p.m., midnight, and then you make horrible decisions. And by the way, that's something that the most skilled negotiators use against you, right? They drag you into the night. My wife is in &A's, she's absolutely...

Sebastian Schieke (26:34.371)
Exactly, yeah.

Fabrice (26:40.118)
I would never want to negotiate against her. I've learned that the very, very hard way. Never negotiate with my wife because she'll drag you until 3 a.m., 5 a.m., etc. But if you're not prepared physically and mentally to do that, you'll make the worst decisions. And so there's nothing smart or mature about not respecting natural cycles, sometimes on, sometimes off, and as part of the sometimes off.

Sebastian Schieke (26:43.057)
Hmm.

Sebastian Schieke (26:48.615)
Yeah.

Fabrice (27:06.85)
disconnecting and if it's only one hour or two hours so that you can regain your perspective, you can replenish your energy, you can rebalance yourself. And I think it's a very, very healthy sanity check to disappear from time to time if you have responsibilities because you want to see how the business survives without you. mean, look, one day you're going to die. And then what? Then the business crashes?

Sebastian Schieke (27:32.985)
Exactly.

Fabrice (27:36.642)
That's not healthy. So in a way, a retreat is a small stress test to see how the business handles without you. And hopefully, if you're a good leader, the business will handle just fine when you're not around.

Sebastian Schieke (27:38.373)
No, I mean...

Sebastian Schieke (27:49.681)
I would say it's your responsibility to design your organization that it's functioning without you because you responsible for all the staff members, you're responsible for the business, you have stakeholders, you have clients and you cannot let them down just by not functioning. And you can only achieve that when you design a business that it's working on its own.

you're not working in the business, you're working on the business. many people are not there yet. I think, yeah, reading books like yours and taking the first step and taking an hour off and going to a nice coffee house is definitely the right approach.

Fabrice (28:35.841)
and disconnect your phone.

Sebastian Schieke (28:37.487)
And disconnect your phone. So when you run these retreats, do you have some stories of leaders who come out and maybe have an amazing epiphany or did a major change in their life and in the business because they've been on one of these retreats with you?

Fabrice (28:57.974)
Yes, very, very, very often. So for the retreats that I lead, I've led two types of retreats. One is retreats with a more spiritual dimensions. And so people come in their personal capacity very often because of the networks that I have. Those people tend to be senior executives, but they don't have to be. And we practice reflection.

Sebastian Schieke (29:05.341)
Mm-hmm.

Sebastian Schieke (29:12.433)
Yeah.

Fabrice (29:26.956)
meditation, some movements like yoga, connection with nature, and group discussions. That, because of the construct, always leads to insights by the mere fact that we're disconnecting and we're taking a little bit of perspective and we can see our lives with a bit more detachment. So that always leads.

to new insights. It could be insights in how I conduct my life. It could be insights into my relationships. It could be insights in my job and am I really fulfilled by the current situation or not. So, a wide range of topics that we approach in these retreats. Then the other type of retreats that I lead are corporate retreats. And so...

I work with the clients of my firm. I'm a partner at McKinsey, so we work with large corporations. And occasionally, I bring the CEO and the executive suite on a retreat. There is going to be very difference because there is an agenda to...

push through some barriers that are limiting the effectiveness of the team. And so very often, one of the primary barriers for teams functioning well is how much do we trust each other? How well do we know each other? Because we could be working side by side for years and years and years, but we don't really know each other as human beings. So part of the sessions that we do in these retreats,

is the discovery of who we are really as human beings and how are we going to come together as a team to be in service of a greater purpose and what is it that we would like to achieve together. So it's reconnecting with our collective purpose as well as forming bonds of trust and intimacy that we didn't have before. And for that I follow the same protocol. I bring people into nature.

Fabrice (31:39.406)
Never do a retreat in the boardroom. It's terrible, right? The vibes are wrong and you have people distracted all the time with some of their team members walking in the room asking them to sign papers. I mean, it's a nightmare. So take them off site. And I do that pretty much every week now. So I was in Saigon last week in a beautiful boutique hotel with the executive committee of...

Sebastian Schieke (31:47.964)
Yeah.

Fabrice (32:07.562)
one of the large Vietnamese banks. Next week I will be in Bangkok, the following week I'll be in the Philippines. And I take people off-site, ideally with a great connection with nature, and we release the agenda. So one of the big steps, and I think it's an important lesson for every leader, actually for everyone for that matter, is

Sebastian Schieke (32:21.18)
Yeah.

Fabrice (32:36.482)
Let go of your attachment to outcomes. We live constantly under stress because we want to achieve stuff. Because we believe that that stuff is going to make us happy. Whether it's a budget, it's a KPI, it's a salary, it's a promotion. When I become vice president, I will be happy. When sales reach $100 million, I will be happy. No, bullshit. You won't be happy.

Sebastian Schieke (32:53.125)
Yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (33:01.379)
Never. Yeah, exactly.

Fabrice (33:03.246)
As soon as your sales reach 100 million, you're going to have a nice dinner with your team and then you'll say, 200 million, that's the target. Let's go back. So it's actually a recipe for unhappiness. It's not a recipe for happiness. I tell our clients, it's the journey. You have to enjoy the journey. There's no destination. So let go of your attachment to outcomes. Release the constraint of time.

Sebastian Schieke (33:09.241)
Now we need more.

Yeah.

Fabrice (33:29.43)
And so in our discussions, in our group sessions, I also released the agenda. said, look, let's start talking and we'll finish when we finish. And if we don't finish today, we'll continue tomorrow. It's OK. It's OK. There's no specific targets that we need to achieve. It's a retreat. It's not another day in the office. It's a retreat.

Sebastian Schieke (33:51.707)
It's not a project you're going through.

Fabrice (33:53.506)
Yeah, it's not a project. It's not a project. And when you do that, Sebastien, that's when magic happens. Because suddenly, you know, the light bulb goes off and says, yes, let's just spend the time it takes to get to know each other.

Sebastian Schieke (34:12.113)
And I think this is more and more important, especially in the times we live in where many people work in remote and new people joining a company. I mean, when I joined organizations in the past, I worked in an office and we went out in the evening for dinner or for a drink and you get these people to know and you build relationships. And this is now very hard for many people because I mean, we meet each other on Zoom and Teams and not have this physical...

this connection where we talk about a topic, where we go out for a drink or sit in one room and putting this into a retreat is, I think, is something very important that many companies should implement in their yearly planning that for two or three times a year, you take time off, you go somewhere as a team and to release the agenda. I like this concept, releasing the agenda.

Fabrice (35:12.178)
Yeah, release the time constraint, release the agenda. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the key teachings is you're entitled to the work, but you're not entitled to the fruits of your labor. So do the work because you enjoy it. Do the work because it's purposeful, but let go of your attachment to rewards and outcomes. And it sounds completely counterintuitive in our Western world because we always work to achieve something.

Sebastian Schieke (35:14.683)
Yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (35:27.995)
Yes.

Sebastian Schieke (35:34.193)
How often have you?

Sebastian Schieke (35:38.427)
Yeah, but yes, yeah.

Fabrice (35:41.176)
But working to achieve something has the effect of making you miserable most of the time. Because you're miserable now, but you will be happy when. And the reality is you will not be happy when, because as soon as you've achieved it, it's like when you go shopping and you think that getting a new car is going to make you happy. Well, the new car makes you happy for a week.

Sebastian Schieke (35:59.089)
Yeah.

Exactly, until you get a first scratch and then you're completely miserable because this car has a scratch.

Fabrice (36:06.414)
Exactly. So, so yeah.

Sebastian Schieke (36:12.869)
Or you buy a new toy, know, you buy a new phone or whatever. It's nice. then an hour later, yeah, it's just a phone. know, I mean, that's what it is.

Fabrice (36:21.802)
Yeah, yeah. that's, when we finally slow down and we go on these retreats and we reduce the level of stress and stimulus and excitement, then you start seeing these things for what they are, which is all illusions, you know, and the only reality is what you have now. And so you might as well enjoy it. You know, you might might as well be grateful for

for what we have. Most senior executives I work with have blessed lives. There's really nothing to complain about. They've been successful. They have prestige and power and money. And there's no reason to always be stressed and under tension.

You know, you see people frowning and not being happy and impatient, et cetera. There's really no reason for that. You're not going to achieve more because you're a jerk, right? Just relax, smile, be grateful. And if anything, you're going to be a lot more effective because people will love working with you.

Sebastian Schieke (37:25.957)
more. You achieve less when you're unhappy.

Sebastian Schieke (37:40.763)
I would like to finish on this because this is a very important final statement. I enjoy this concept. I sort of flipped through your book, but I want to really spend time to read it because these are really important topics. And yeah, thank you so much for the work you do and the focus and...

helping leaders to step out of the hamster wheel. Thanks a lot Fabrice.

Fabrice (38:13.73)
Well, thanks, Sebastian. I really enjoyed the conversation.