ABOUT 6 HOURS AGO • 4 MIN READ

How to cool down ? 3 tips to train you and your team presence and slowness for higher impact.StH #42

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Spark to Hack ✧

Hi, I'm Aurélie, a professional coach and facilitator, specialized in innovation in healthcare and sustainability.I enable team and organization leaders in healthcare to increase the speed between an ideas discovery and significant investments. I bring creativity and disciplined methods with contagious energy and a smile as well as a team and system coaching approach.I have a No BlaBla, No Bullshit, and no Blingbling values.I am an entrepreneur & Mum of 3 boys aware that I only have one life, so I want to make the most of it!

Hello Reader !


Finally, rain and temperatures below 21 degrees at night 🥵. The past few weeks of heat waves reminded me of the need to cool down and slow down.
In a world addicted to speed, even during vacations, we often plan holidays as something to consume or perform (I am also quite good at doing a "to-do list" on vacation 😅). We could "escape" instead reconnect with our senses and creating meaningful moments that center us. Summer is perfect for that!

This is an invitation to lower the temperature and bring more presence and slowdown. I will share with you my tips:

  • A sensory technique you can use anytime to re-center
  • A new take on vacation and how to build time rather than just use it
  • Nature as a mirror: how to read the signals it offers for your slowness
  • Tools and tips to make your summer deeper, not just cooler and more fun

Before we begin, how can I assist you?

  • Train you to build an AI systemic mindset while building your AI team, so you can lead others on any AI transformation and adoption project- Use the summer to build this competence here
  • Coach you and your team so we design and pressure test faster your new strategy (eg, vaccine cancer) or product (eg AI& digital products).
  • Audit and improve your innovation, customer centricity, and ability to adapt to a complex and ever-evolving environment: I will train your teams on GenAI, Customer-centricity in healthcare, intrapreneurship, and agile & startup ways of working.

"Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you."

John De Paola

Get comfortable for your 5 minutes of sparks to hack.

✨ Spark

✏ Speed is the problem, not slowness

As a society, we reward speed, and generative AI is amplifying this trend, as well as its negative implications. I've met many people who have been working with generative AI for the past two years, building and utilizing agents and assistants daily. The common thread is exhaustion and brain fatigue.

"Doing nothing often leads to the very best something." — Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne)

We need to rethink slowness and recognize that taking time is essential.

✏ Performance vs Presence

I still remember vividly reading this quote when the kids were still very young ( 1,7, and 9):

"Don't give your business your best and your family your rest".

Similarly, based on our performance, we can develop presence skills and challenge our hierarchy of presence & slowness versus performance.

Let's see how.

Hack

✏ Slowness definition

Slowness isn’t laziness, it’s deliberate presence. It’s cooling the inner rush to align with what matters.
Remember: "Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you." This is when you slow down so that your best ideas come 😉.

✏ The 5 Senses Reset

Yesterday, I had dinner with a friend who reminded me I shared these tips years ago. A technique I call “The 5 Senses Reset.”

As you do your laundry, cleaning, cooking, art and craft with your kids, running, gardening... instead of having a podcast or videos, you focus on your senses:

  • Something you can smell
  • Something you can hear
  • Something you can touch
  • Something you can see
  • Something you can taste

The body will do what the mind can’t: anchor you to now.

I often use it in workshops as an energizer, sending my team outside with a list of "Things they need to collect or see". This brings fun, collaboration, and a sense of presence for the rest of the afternoon.

This is my easy adaptation from the"5 Senses Grounding Technique" (sometimes called the 5-4-3-2-1 technique), a simple and powerful mindfulness and anxiety-regulation tool.

The classic version involves noticing:

  • 5 things you can see
  • 4 things you can feel (touch)
  • 3 things you can hear
  • 2 things you can smell
  • 1 thing you can taste

Don’t consume your holiday—build it


What if you were to redesign from vacation as consumption to vacation as creation? Keeping in mind that it's not the destination but the journey that matters.

It's not having a cake ready for dinner, it's making the cake with someone. I came across this concept: Tutto Blu invites you to build your raft and set sail together for a gentle drift along the shores of a lake.

So the question is, what can you contribute to building during your vacation?

And for your team, you can also design a "building" session during an off-site. My go-to tools are Legos or wooden sticks to build collaboration and presence.

✏ Let nature flirt with your attention

Sometimes, I go for a walk and find myself stopping. A snail on a stone. An eagle is circling above while I run. I don’t force meaning, but I ask: What is this inviting me into?

Arnold Mindell calls this a quantum flirt: a way to read what’s showing up for you, without logic, but with openness.

“If you pay attention, the universe will give you clues.”

Next time you pause, notice what catches your eye. What could be the invitation?

This is a game I play daily. This might sound "weird", I thought that a few years ago when I learned this tip as part of my Systemic Coaching Certification - ORSC. Now, I would never stop this practice. Lately, I have been drawn to seeing many snails - I guess I'm being invited to slow down 😅. Vacations are coming soon.

That's it for today.

See you in two weeks. Keep the spark alive, and be intentional :)


What's up with me?

For two of the top five pharma companies, I led a training session on assertiveness in Lausanne and a commercial oncology strategy workshop in Paris, allowing me to enjoy many friends' dinners (and Aperol Spritz 😉).


→ Chilowe explains the concept here:

Reader, hit reply to let me know if you liked this edition or if you tried these tips. I respond to every person who writes to me!

Spark to Hack ✧

Hi, I'm Aurélie, a professional coach and facilitator, specialized in innovation in healthcare and sustainability.I enable team and organization leaders in healthcare to increase the speed between an ideas discovery and significant investments. I bring creativity and disciplined methods with contagious energy and a smile as well as a team and system coaching approach.I have a No BlaBla, No Bullshit, and no Blingbling values.I am an entrepreneur & Mum of 3 boys aware that I only have one life, so I want to make the most of it!