As you saw in the introduction, our first exercise is the lifeline. You might be wondering why you should be thinking about your lifeline? Let's listen to Bernard who, like Marine, followed the process with us during the tour. Bernard lives in Montreal, and is 21 years old. He's studying for a bachelors degree in philosophy and economics
at McGill University. "We had the opportunity to look back at our journeys, whether personal or professional, to really understand what they were and to look inside ourselves, in order to be able to choose the direction we wanted to go. " What is a lifeline? We've just seen Bernard, who explained it to you and underlined the importance of understanding where we come from, to be able to set a course for the future. As the proverb goes:
When you no longer know where you're going, turn around and look where you've come from. The lifeline is an exercise commonly used by students and professional participants at HEC. What we intend for you, with this chapter, is to ensure that your chosen project is consistent with yourself, and that you have developed it for the right reasons. Is it the result of a strong intuition, does it reflect a profound desire on your part, or is the project actually a response to a situation that you have encountered in your life? The lifeline is designed to let you look back at your past, quite simply, and find the keys to understanding why you are where you are today. Don't worry, I'll be taking you through the process step by step. All you need to do is follow the instructions. It will be very simple, very visual and fun. Take a large sheet of paper. It can be a paperboard sheet or a large piece of drawing paper. You will also need two marker pens of different colours, one for the professional part and another for the personal part. We'll explain what you need to do. Trace a line from left to right through the middle of the sheet, as shown on the example, representing the timeline from your birth up until today. Describe the key moments in your life, the big events, milestones, changes, moments when there was a "before" and an "after". An important meeting, whether personal or professional, or founding friendships. You can use drawings, pictures, or symbols to illustrate these events. The personal life part will go below the line. It should include for example your family life, illnesses, travel, love life, separations, trauma, in short anything that has marked an important stage in your personal life up to now. You can illustrate this lifeline with keywords, pictures, anything that can represent the way you feel about these events. So position all of these things below the line, in chronological order. Don't hesitate to put markers showing the year, to help you situate everything in time, and put dates inside your lifeline. Now you should do the same for the professional part. It will go above your lifeline. This part will include your studies, career choices or non-choices that you have made, your professional experience and projects, and transitional periods that you have experienced since the start. Add your meetings with people who have inspired you, teachers, bosses, people you've met along the way and who have made you say: "That's what I want to do with my life, that's how I want to work. If you like, you can add a bubble wherever you think fit, showing the jobs that people have had in your family, your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Don't forget your childhood dreams, what you wanted to do when you were young, in another bubble. Take the time to think carefully and introspectively. Don't start drawing straight away. Begin by writing a list of your life's events, by hand, so you can position them on the sheet of paper. Let's listen to Thanh, one of the pioneers of the 2014 Ticket for Change Tour, a serial entrepreneur and former international consultant, who has devoted her talents to her life's project. She's going to tell us how she was able to find consistency between her personal life and what she has done in her professional career and her commitment to the world. Let's listen. "I was 36 years old. I had this extremely fast and brilliant career at McKinsey. I was the first woman to be named partner in Paris, and at the time I was somewhere in the top 5%, which meant big bonuses but also a lot of responsibilities and also a lot of resources. So at the time, I had opened McKinsey's operations in South-East Asia and China. I'd also launched incubators for internet businesses and new technologies, and I just remember that back then I was only sleeping at home once a month. The rest of the time, I was in airports and on planes, and at big international hotels. And the rest of the time, I was driving a Porsche, dressing in Armani. And I think that what really happened, was that first of all, one day I got home from a trip, I went to see my mother and suddenly she started having stomach pains. She was taken to hospital in the middle of the night and the next day they told me she had two months to live. Literally. I felt like my world was collapsing, and suddenly I said to myself: "This makes no sense!" I already knew it, but at the point it was so obvious that I couldn't go on. So I decided to stay with her, telling myself: I need to be with her for these two months. And the miracle was, she stayed with us. She fought, and I took her to my apartment, and took care of her. We talked a whole lot, every night. And every day, she would wake up saying: "You know, every day is a lifetime. You can't mess it up. And in fact those two months became six years, and six years, well that's a miracle. And so I think that's what was really behind my decision
to change. Because all of a sudden, I said to myself: "Not only does this make no sense, but what could possibly frighten me more, than losing her? And when I stay with her for two months and it ends up lasting six years, that's like a recipe, it's a miracle. It was a recipe for invincibility. You can't go wrong after that. So, that's what gave me the courage to start Institut Angenius, the NGO I created straight after. The idea was to say to myself: "If you want to make sense of what you are today at the age of 36, then take the skills you have, all the things you can do, and work for things that means something, for others, for NGOs, and so on. And from there, you have to open up that knowledge to everyone." I hope this video has inspired you and that you understand where we're trying to take you in this chapter. Over to you! If you like, you can download the outline we've created for you, to use as a guide. Take at least two hours to do the exercise properly and illustrate your lifeline. You can do it in several stages or even over several days, so you can leave it and come back to it. It's rare to be able to devote time to yourself and ask yourself the right questions. So make the most of it. If you are entrepreneurs of change, you're going to need lots of energy and passion. It's impossible to work 60 or 70 hours per week without having a great engine inside you, the kind of passion that drives you to move mountains. Before moving on to the next part, go ahead and think! Once your lifeline is done, you can begin making connections between the different events that make up your personal and professional story. Find points where they intersect, possible explanations, consistencies and inconsistencies in your past. For example, perhaps someone close to you had health problems and you became a doctor. To do this, we suggest you "decode" or interpret your lifeline by asking yourself a series of questions, that you can find in the attached document. This "decoding" work and this introspective analysis are crucial, to enable you to
look forward. They will give you the solid base from which you can further. Don't do it alone - find a witness to help you. It's essential to share this work in pairs or in small groups of three or four. You should choose people you trust, who can provide a helpful outside view for this exercise. Show them your lifeline, and your interpretation of it. You can then do the same for them, if they do the MOOC for you. Your witness may ask you questions to challenge you, identify things that you might not have seen by yourself, and help you get to know yourself even more deeply. We don't recommend asking someone from your family, as they will be too close to you emotionally. Choose a non-family member instead. Now, over to you! We'll see you again afterward. Thank you for doing the lifeline exercise. Now, let's move on to the coat of arms.
