Laurent Rousseau, a former Citroën quality executive, left corporate work to run leadership retreats and masterminds. He discusses why teams fail to recognize their own success, how posture affects mood, and why he now focuses on coaching instead of manufacturing.
Chapters
All right. I'm here in Vigo, Spain, with Laurent Rousseau, who is high up mucky muck and quality control over at Citroen, which is a major car manufacturer in Europe and other places. We were just talking here at dinner. We're in Vigo, Spain. It's beautiful here tonight. We're watching the sunset and eating out on the deck. We were talking about why Laurent decided ultimately to leave his very prestigious job.
Right.
Career. Because he had more in store.
Right.
There was more to do in your life. You wanted to do something different. Why don't you tell us, like, what was the moment when you knew that that career wasn't for you long term?
I think, you know, is that in Automotion? And I guess that's the same in the United States. We have more or less to do more, more quickly with less. Yeah. And finally there. There are no other choice that. To create more quickly, to do more, more quickly. For instance, it was one thing that was very shocking for me. I've been working four years for a big car project for more than 500 millions of euros of inversion. And at the end, I was not able to pay a coffee to my team to celebrate that we have been able to go up to a milestone, you know, so this means that it was not only effort, it was working hard, but the small part of celebration, you were not able to do it. And for me, that there is no sense if you are working, working, working, and you will never. And you are not able to say to the people, okay, good job. Today it's up.
We celebrate it, have, like a real party.
I've done it, but I was. I have to pay with my. With my.
With your own money. At your.
With my own money to my team. Because the company was saying that we were increasing and blah, blah, blah. That was a turning point because I think that, okay, we have to work, okay, for the value of discipline, for the value of working, for the value of effort. But I think that we all need to celebrate. We all need to be prouder. When I was thinking at the end of my project, there were two times where I was very proud of myself. It was when we were presenting the car in Lisbon to the brass people, because we were five place or on the seventh place. And the fifth place was presented in Lisbona, in Lisboa, in Portugal. And the seven were present.
That's where I'm staying right now.
Yes. And the seventh one was presented in Munich. And with the press people, we were in the mountain in the natural, said, okay, at the end. I have pleasure when I am in the nature. I have pleasure when I am with the sea. So I want to be able to live of my passion, which is I was more interested in the project of how to motivate people, how people are able to go up to the difficulties, up to their own ego, how to create a big team cohesion, a big team.
So basically, you take the leadership skills you learn in the corporate world and now you're transitioning them into leadership, mentoring, coaching, mastermind. Yes.
And also I use. Sometimes it's not always possible, but when I can, we use the. The selling to. To learn leadership.
So that beach over there and that island, I don't know if you guys can see too well past the sunshine, is rated one of the top beaches in the world. We're looking at it right now. So one of Laurance, by the. One of Laurent's dreams, and I'm gonna help him, hopefully, is to get entrepreneurs from the United States and Europe and everywhere to come out to that beach. Maybe we rent a nice catamaran or your friend has one and we can.
Go out or it can be in Ibiza also.
And we'll make it a learning, fun experience. Right? So we'll learn about leadership and motivation and peak performance and like Tony Robbins type strategies and, you know, things along those lines. But also we'll have a blast doing it.
Yes. And you know what I think is that each time if I ask people if their where they were during the plane attack in the tower in New.
York, they will all record everyone right away. It's like our.
I was at this point, I was in high school.
I was 16. It was sophomore year. We were in second period. I remember the TV was on. We saw what happened. We saw the first plane hit. We're like, that's weird. And nothing happened for like 30 minutes. We're like, all right, that's just a fluke, right?
The plane hit.
And then when the second plane hit, it was like, oh, yeah, something's really wrong here.
This means that your memory is in relation with your emotions.
Yes. Very much tied.
So that's why I think that that works for the world, but that works also for the good. So this means that imagine that you train your leadership, you train your memory, you train your neuroscience, you train how to use your brain at the top. You can do it in a hotel in New York, it will be fine. But if you do it in Ibiza, if you do it there, if you do it in a place where you. The sea, you only with the respiration that you get here from the soul, from the sea, you will be much more able to record and you will be much more able to connect and to get a big team building than if you are in a small hotel everywhere in a town.
You know, I think also like it ties you to a place, right? And every time you think of that place or you go to the ocean, you can kind of tie that sense memory back to that experience. And every time something like that happens in your life, anytime you go on a boat or to the beach, or with your family anywhere on vacation, you bring all that flooding right back to you. It's an anchor, right? An nlp or they call it, what do they call it in French linguistic programming? P and L. So P and L for our French speaking audience, you know, tying those triggers together and ultimately learning how your body reacts and your emotions. Like it starts with intellectual mastery. You have a thought and then it's tied to your emotions and it becomes phys mastery until the point where it's actually coded in your neurology. There's actually a great book on this called the Talent Code by a guy named Daniel Coyle. If you haven't read it, I recommend you check it out. But it talks about the actual physical changes that happen in your body as a result of highly emotionally charged work. So you're combining your head and your heart which creates a physical mastery of.
Whatever you're trying to do that can begin with your head, but that can begin with your body. It means that if you change your body, for instance, that's very well that if I put my body like this on very, you know, strong and very tall. I will get 25 if I stay very tall and I put my shoes.
There'S like a string hanging up.
I will get 25% more dopamine in my, how you say, saliv.
Saliva.
Saliva. I will get 25% more saliva if I am in a position of domination. You know, this means that your emotion comes from your hips, but your body position also change.
Your motion creates emotion. Yeah, yeah, got it brother. Alright guys, if you want more details about this mastermind coming up, it's in the works right now. We're kind of cranking on it. You want to come out to a beautiful, lovely place out here like Vigo in Espana, hang out with people like us, other enlightened heart centered entrepreneurs. Put your email in the box below, I'll send you some cool shit and I'll let you know when it's all ready to rock. So you can get on board. It'll be super fun. What do you think, Laurent?
It will be great. I think that we had very bad events in Nice, in France right now. But I think that we are much more than this stupid guy. And that more we will connect between pace, between different religious, between different mindset, between. I don't know, value. More we will connect more. We will create a great world. I think a better world.
