« Summer Body, 5 crazy techniques! More precise, more technical, the new aesthetic regimen works on a body in pieces. Here’s the ultimate guide to a well-calibrated Summer Body, down to the millimeter. (2) «
This might be fun to laugh about, were it not for a deep-seated societal problem that extends far beyond beaches, and far beyond summer.
Always too much or too little
Since childhood, we’ve all been conditioned to compare ourselves to a model of perfection.
As children, we’re compared to the perfect student, sitting quietly in class, doing homework independently, getting good grades in math and English.
As we grow up, we are compared to the perfect woman, with a perfect figure, blonde, sweet, and understanding, or to the perfect man, solid, virile and with a lucrative job.
The world of work is no exception. Leaders are compared to the perfect leader, who must be empathetic (3).
In reality, we always feel we are either too much or too little. And we do everything to fit into the mold, into the norm, and stay there, sometimes at the cost of great discomfort.
Normal is just a statistical reality
To be normal is just to be « devoid of any exceptional character » and to « conform to the most frequent type » (4). It’s just a statistical reality (5). individual variations are the real norm.
7 billion individuals, 7 billion brains.
We are all unique in both our physical traits and our personalities.
If we consider our brains, for example, they all have the same shape and structure, but on closer inspection, they’re all different, even those of identical twins who won’t have the same folds or grooves.
On a simple task, such as pressing a button, the same motor zone « lights up » from one brain to another, but not in the same way, nor with the same intensity. And the more complex the task, the more each brain will react differently (6).
Wanting to standardize things may be reassuring at first, but it soon proves counter-productive.
Investing in our strengths, a paradigm shift
For my lovely seatmate, rather than adopting a drastic pre-summer diet and focusing on her « little belly », she could simply focus on her assets this summer at the beach, and show off her hazel eyes, dazzling smile and shoulders, for example.
For our leaders, rather than asking whether they’re empathetic, and if not, how they can become so, it’s more effective to ask what makes them a good leader, what their natural aptitudes are, and to build on those.
Just as there are 1001 beauties, there are 1001 ways to be a good leader.
2 Leaders, 2 approaches, 1 result
Let me share with you an anecdote about a bet lost by one of my clients.
Newly appointed to head a team, he bet me that the former leader (who he knew) was just like him, with the same « quiet strength » (7), the same self-confidence and the ability to instill in his teams the serenity that he felt.
After the team handover workshop, he had to face the facts: if there was indeed the same result: serenity, the previous leader had achieved it by setting very clear objectives and systematically anticipating risks. 2 Leaders, 2 ways of doing things, 1 same result.
Flaws & talents: two sides of the same coin
On the road to perfection, we focus our efforts on our areas of weakest performance, on our flaws.
It’s worth remembering that the Larousse dictionary defines a defect as « an absence, lack or insufficiency of what is necessary ». Once again, we reference the « norm », and what we lack in order to be considered normal.
But a defect is often just a natural talent waiting to be understood and mastered. Grumpiness, gossip, hyper-emotionality, hyperactivity… these are the flip side of very useful talents.
Take procrastination (8), which the Larousse dictionary describes as a pathological tendency to procrastinate.
An interesting illustration can be found in Orelsan’s film « Comment c’est loin » (9). Pushed into a corner by their producer, Orelsan and his bandmate Gringe have 24 hours to finalize a song, even though they haven’t completed a single one in the past 5 years. It’s all there, at least the painful part of this talent when it’s not mastered, and the key element for the procrastinator, having a firm deadline by which to hand in his copy.
In fact, procrastination is often due to a natural ability to work out solution scenarios in a complex environment.
The procrastinator’s brain is constantly at work, often unconsciously, and only starts calculating the expected scenario at the last minute, just before the deadline, to be sure of having all the elements needed for a perfect scenario, the optimum solution (10).
The quest for perfection or the quest for excellence
A detailed understanding of our various natural aptitudes and talents (11) enables us to move from a logic of constraints and injunctions to one of mastery and development of our full potential.
It’s time to reconcile individuals with their deepest nature, and to invest individually and collectively in what we do naturally well.
To return to my lovely seatmate, the story has a happy ending. After a long, heated discussion about perfection, it was collectively decided to « kill perfection before it kills us » and to put the entertaining book « The Perfect Woman is an Asshole » (12) on the summer reading list.
- This Anglo-Saxon expression, popularized by the women’s press and then widely adopted by the French media, refers to the perfect body that we can show off without shame in a swimsuit on the beach this summer.
- The media gets in on the act as soon as the first ray of sunshine appears, like this year’s Vogue, which struck on April 8 with an article on « 5 crazy techniques », from which the quote is taken. https://www.vogue.fr/article/summer-body-protocoles-ete-corps. And this will continue until the summer. See, for example, the France 2 news bulletin for July 2-8, 2023, relayed by France Info, which will certainly be repeated almost identically this year. https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/psycho-bien-etre/summer-body-les-francais-de-plus-en-plus-complexes-par-leur-corps-a-l-approche-des-vacances-d-ete_5938823.html No one can escape it, all the more so as this injunction to perfection is widely taken up. See, for example, the French sport company Decathlon, which has a special feature on its website about how to achieve your summer body goal: (https://www.domyos.fr/dossier-summer-body-le-guide-pour-atteindre-votre-body-goal-1)
- Empathetic Leadership is a managerial fad that appeared in 2014/2015 in the United States and in France in 2018/2019 and is still going strong. See, for example, HEC Montréal, which ranks Empathetic Leadership as number 1 in its article «2024 : 4 nouvelles compétences essentielles en entreprise » https://ecole-dirigeants.hec.ca/blogs/actualites/5-conseils-pour-favoriser-linnovation-dans-votre-organisation or HEC Paris with its 2024 short program in London for Leaders that promises you’ll leave « a better leader, with empathy » https://www.hec.edu/fr/executive-education/decouvrez-l-ensemble-de-nos-programmes/programmes-courts-executive/leadership-executives-london
- Définition du Dictionnaire Le Robert dans sa version Dixel Mobile sur l’App Store.
- As described in the Wikipedia Entry on Normal Distribution, for exemple, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution, Gaussian curves are ubiquitous when it comes to human characteristics and behavior. However, no individual can systematically be located in the central, normal part of these graphs.
- For a simple, fun introduction to these subjects, you can visit the » Brains, the neuroludic exhibition « , for example, which is part of the permanent exhibition at the Cités des Sciences (renamed Universciences). It dates back to 2014, but is still a good way to discover the theme, alone or with the family. https://www.cite-sciences.fr/fr/ma-cite-accessible/deficients-visuels/expositions-permanentes/cerveau-lexpo-neuroludique
- « La force tranquille », the slogan that marked France’s 1981 presidential election campaign, remains inseparable from François Mitterand’s victory some forty years ago. See for example https://www.tf1info.fr/politique/la-force-tranquille-on-sait-desormais-qui-est-a-l-origine-du-slogan-de-mitterrand-2185570.html
- Procrastination has been the most-searched definition on Google several years in a row (2018, 2019, 2020 etc.) and you only have to search for the word procrastination on a search engine to see that it is unanimously considered as a flaw to « fight », « beat », « stop »…
- Film Synopsis: After a decade of non-productivity, Orel and Gringe, in their thirties, are struggling to write their first rap album. Their lyrics, full of tasteless jokes and convoluted references, evoke their daily lives in an average provincial town. The problem: they can’t finish a song. After a stormy session with their producers, they’re up against the wall: they’ve got 24 hours to come up with a song worthy of the name. Their old demons – fear of failure, procrastination, intrusive buddies, relationship problems, etc. – get in the way. To see an extract https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5dxz6f Orelsan himself makes it clear that this is not a biopic. The facts are exaggerated to make it a comedy. « I struggled for 10 years, so everything is magnified in the film, and I used narrative tricks, for example: https://www.lefigaro.fr/cinema/2015/12/10/03002-20151210ARTFIG00176–comment-c-est-loin-orelsan-en-haut-de-l-affiche.php
- If you procrastinate, you may find it useful to consult this guide https://www.amazon.com/POWERFUL-PROCRASTINATION-talent-taming-complexity/dp/2957736578
- A talent is a natural human ability to perceive, act, think, influence and interact, which, when applied productively, brings pleasure and performance. Each individual possesses a unique combination of talents. Definition Anne WEBER 2013 (Evolution of Markus Buckingham & Vosburgh’s 2001 definition as cited in Pierre-Michel Menger’s Le talent en débat)
- https://www.cultura.com/p-la-femme-parfaite-est-une-connasse-t-1-9782290059487.html
