Bonjour my dear Friends 💗
As I am going down memory lane, especially after my little encounter with… death 😰 from just a few months ago (and the 6 surgeries and LOTSSSSSS of pain and tears that followed it all) I started to “relive”, all mostly thanks to looking at Photos and Videos, some of the thousands of key and beautiful moments of my life’s journey… SO very many amazing beautiful magical moments, all filled with endless… hummm!? what should I call it!?… Oh! I know! “Joix the Vivre!” … quite appropriate for a little French immigrant isn’t it?! 😉 All making for such a rich and beautiful Life which words can never even start to express my gratitude for it all…
It made my heart, soul, mind and spirit SOOOO immensely and deeply happy to start to realize, just as I was lying in the ICU at both Duke and then UNC hospitals, being there for many days right after my massive heart attack, that I truly had absolutely ZERO “regrets” about my entire work life and work choices…
They are all paved with endless minor and major changes, all paved with numerous U turns, and new beginnings… always fueled and directed by my heart and passions only… Whatever was making me truly happy and excited at any given moment, is pretty much exactly what I did… and anytime, as often happened, that I would lose my current passion for a new business or work activity… I would then simply, and always very quickly, just let it go!… always without ever hesitating, and no matter how “successful” or how much money it could have been making… only to always jump right away in embracing something totally new! (just like I did as my most recent example, with suddenly deciding to learn Photography, when I was back then a very successful, and very publicized, Day Trader for many years.
And from for having indeed zero regrets about all those choices and my many changes, I feel like the most lucky man I could ever have wished to be for my entire “work” life! ❤
If I have any modest advice to share with you from my own journey, is to simply please… PLEASEEEEE… always… ALWAYSSSS follow YOUR HEART! Always follow your dreams and passions… some of them will allow you to make a limited “living” and barely put food on the table… others will make a lot of money and public success for you… but either way, if you always follow your heart you will both never ever be “wrong” nor will you ever ever have any regrets… and you will, just like me, truly feel like the luckiest person alive from all of your work choices! ❤
Now since taking you through my very many changes and U turns in my various business ventures, would be way too long and way too boring for you… I will only share in this post a few things about my very beginnings… Otherwise, I would need to start to expand upon such diverse work and business journeys from my diverse past such as…
- selling lint removers door to door…
- starting an import / export business…
- being an Artist and selling my paintings…
- publishing a Phone directory all over California…
- marketing TV products/infomercials…
- creating and marketing a talking greeting card…
- washing cars… to being a magician… to day trading and giving large day trading seminars and writing a Course sold in over 75 countries… to selling coffin nails to 90% of the French market… to photography and videography etc…
So I will focus today on sharing just one of those… the very first one… from “the very beginnings” 🙂
At the age of 17, after passing my Baccalauréat, I left my native Toulouse to go “up to the Capital…” meaning moving to Paris, which back then was a huge “deal”, to attend an engineer school… and doing so for only 1 single reason, to please my parents. Back then I was incredibly shy, incredibly introverted and with zero self esteem… actually, to be more accurate, I had NEGATIVE self esteem 🙁 so whatever my parents wished for me to do, I did…
So, long story short, after 1/2 of that engineer school (I failed at it as I soooo could not stand it 🙁 and you can of course never ever do really well, at something that you despise 🙁 ) – I did an MBA (which I liked a little more… but still not loved since I did not like schools all together… I just wanted “real life” <3 ) and during a summer internship, I created an Import department for a successful business who back then did only Exports… and I did so well with it that the CEO asked me to keep managing for him during my final year of MBA, everything that I had created for him during the summer…
Then, as soon as I got my MBA, he also asked me to start working for him full time… which I happily did… being INCREDIBLY PRIVILEGED since my office was.. guess where?.. on one of the most pricey address/streets in Paris, the famous “Rue de La Paix”.
The office that my boss gave me (along with using his personal luxury Mercedes, which, back then, was a huge luxury and privilege!) was at 23, rue de la Paix… right in the heart of Paris… and my windows view being straight down on both the gorgeous OPERA DE PARIS, as well as the famous “Cafe de la Paix”.
I was SOOOOOO immensely privileged… I had a secretary, a fancy suit, an amazing office, an open line of credit to do the deals I wanted to do, and so many other privileges… and I was doing lunch pretty much every day at the amazing CAFE DE LA PAIX ! what a life!!! and guess what!?… within a few months I dumped it all, to the great despair of my parents and everyone… as I had suddenly decided to “leave all this and leave France” and… move to… our beautiful AMERICA! A country which I knew absolutely NOTHING about except for what I had seen in movies and on TV series such… as STARSKY & HUTCH… or CHIPS! What a great foundation for a sophisticated social cultural evaluation and assessment right!? lol … also, at that time, I had never ever been… on a plane!!!
All I knew, intuitively and deeply in my soul and spirit, is that despite those very successful and very privileged “work beginnings”, the last thing that I ever wanted was to become just “one of them” meaning, like most Parisians and French people (there are OF COURSE many exceptions and great individuals there but I am of course here making a major generalization), being very negative, complaining all the time, very pessimistic, never grateful, with close to no empathy or compassion for the struggles of others, racist, constantly sarcastic, and very self centered, always having the need to make you feel that they are smarter and better than you… soooo many traits which my soul and spirit, which I had just started to free and design as my owns and on my own terms, could not relate to nor wanted to ever be part of…
I was already valuing kindness, caring, compassion, warmth, and humility… and I picked… America… and Americans… for those traits, and for my very first steps into my brand new life to create, and to unfold…
Needless to say, in over 30 years in American, I have never once regretted those choices ❤
And on a totally side note, it is so cute for my own journey to remember to this day what I would eat for my daily “1 to 2 hour lunch” (you know, Parisian and French and all! lol ) and as I would almost always order the very same (I can make drastic changes in my life on a dime… while I also love “repetition” of what I call “predictable pleasures” such as eating 200 times the same dish in the same restaurant! lol ) .
So my daily lunch menu was n most days as follows:
- FOIE GRAS FRAIS with 1 glass of Sauterne of course!
- SOLE MEUNIERE et POMMES VAPEUR
- PROFITEROLLES AU CHOCOLAT
Wine and Cafe of course… and always amazing fresh baguette…
What a start in work life right!? one would think… and yet… I dumped it all together… moving suddenly to Los Angeles with barely a bag with some clothing and shoes and very little idea of what I was going to do there to make a living… and of course no one waiting to help me or guide me either since no one in my family, not extended family, had ever been to… “America! “.
It was all the very beginning of a crazy happy wonderful endless series of adventures which I do not regret a single instant of… and am so immensely grateful for it all!
And my greatest wish for my children, and for yours, is to do the very same… simply following and trusting their heart and passions… for it all makes for such a beautiful way to live one’s life ❤
With much much love to YOU!❤
pascal
note: I thought of also sharing with you one of the very many memories from one of my many work “lives”, and journeys, that I mentioned earlier… this here under was one of the many TV Interviews that I did on Bloomberg, ABC, CBS etc… very happy memories! – and a chance for you to see me in full “nerd” mode ! lol with nerd glasses, hair, clothing and all! lol Too funny!!!
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