🍄 Psychedelic retreat; a journey through personal transformation

✍️ Rediscovering one's identity - from Fintech to creative writing

A day before my spiritual retreat with The JourneyMen Collective

For anyone who knows me a bit, whether in real life or through social media, a few words usually come to mind: fintech, financial services, technology, investor, startup, banker, board member, advisor, and so on.

A large part of our identity is rolled in with our career and we mostly define ourselves by what we are doing,

This is especially true in North-America where the first question asked is often “What do you do for a living?”. I was reminded of that strong attachment to our working identities while in Amsterdam earlier this year for Money 20/20. Despite it being a “work-conference” almost none was asking about each other’s job, which reminded me of how pleasant it was to be seen as an individual versus a “role”.

Maybe I was just ripe to finally realize that what I do is not who I am. Not only because one’s identity is deeper than a professional occupation. But also because my professional occupation was becoming more and more far away from who I was.

We tend to define ourselves by the negative so it would be easy for me to say that I didn’t recognize myself anymore in the hustle mentality. In these values of extreme competition, grind and questionable ethic. This is a great way to put the blame (as well as the responsibilities and ownership) on something and someone else.

We like to get away from things - the nasty boss, the ungrateful organization, the incompetent coworkers - but we rarely shift the paradigm and go towards something more exciting, more aligned, more fun. Something that we would have carefully chosen and crafted, according to our deepest values.

And even if we think we do, we don’t. How many of us have truly picked their lives? From the country and city we live in, the language we speak, the studies we pursued, to the career path we follow, the spouse we married (or not), the children we have (or not), how many of these choices have been made by default or framed by parents, race, gender, religion, society, etc. and how many have been made purposefully in alignment with our core self?

I certainly know that in my case most of my choices and the life they had led me to had been highly framed.

Being born a girl, in the late 70’s in a Catholic blue-collar area of France, didn’t feel as a blessing to me, as I was constantly reminded of how limited my value and options were. So to prove myself and show off to people who didn’t believe in me, I “picked” studies and career where men dominated, compensation was high and competition was intense. Emulating masculine attributes and proudly erasing as much as possible any feminine energy that might have still been alive in me. Pretending to believe that yes, the most important thing was success at all cost and too bad for the people who were on the wrong side of the spreadsheet; they just had to fight harder, such as I did.

This is just one tiny real-life example of how we end up in a place wondering “how on earth did I end up here?!”

For the last 5 years of being independent, I did many things and wore many hats. By traditional measures of success I had been successful. Advising prestigious companies, sitting on boards, speaking at conferences and so on. And I did enjoy it very much. However when looking at all the “fake choices” I made (or rather believed I made), I realized that my career had been built on the flawed assumptions of a 5 year old who wanted to prove to all the people who had dismissed and doubted her that they were wrong. You will admit that this is hardly a great reason to do things! It was time for me to do something for myself, versus in reaction to others.

Over the past 10 years I have allocated a lot of time and resources on my personal growth, shedding layers and layers of false beliefs, negative emotions, as well as harmful patterns of thoughts and behaviors. This releasing of the old-negative-not-helping stuff was the cornerstone to build on fresh foundations. Even if totally freeing ourselves from our environment seems pretty impossible, I did do a big clean-up!

I had wanted to redefine my identity for a while now, but felt stuck. I was facing 2 barriers. First, I was incapable of totally releasing what had been, the good, the bad and the ugly - my “unpleasant” childhood, my brother’s passing, my deeply-rooted survival instincts, but also my academic and career accomplishments that had been built on a distorted vision of life and myself. Second, I didn’t know what that other identity could be.

As human we don’t like uncertainty, so we hold on to the known even if we don’t really want it anymore, as it feels safer than the unknown (which is rich in possibilities, but also very scary!).

A couple of things really tipped the balance and unstuck me.

First, I shared in a previous edition, how valuable microdosing has been in my own personal and professional journey. Opening my mind to what could be, lightening the seriousness of it all and giving me a way more positive outlook on life. Writing my first book - Paris, Mushrooms and Me - being the most obvious and tangible value of this process.

Second, as I never do things by halves, I decided to go on a psilocybin retreat to really crystalize and amplify the shift I had witnessed with microdosing. In August, I started working remotely with the Journeymen Collective before my big “trip” that was going to happen during the Labor Day weekend. I mentioned in my previous edition how I wished to have started microdosing earlier, well I can emphatically repeat the same comment when it comes to this retreat. It was simply mind blowing!

With Rob and Gary from The JourneyMen Collective

Under the supervision of Rob and Gary I took a first dose of psilocybin and I was off to the races. I am purposefully NOT giving details on quantity and mushrooms strains as this experience should be performed in the company of trained professionals, not alone or with friends in one’s basement or garden.

My first “trip” which was quite long (~7 hours) really helped me release a lot of the old. I realized that I was holding on to some past traumas with great passion! Namely my brother’s passing and the harsh judgement and criticism I held towards myself. It was very intense, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually, but I could not have dreamt of a bigger impact.

The second “trip” was as long, but much less intense. A lot still shifted, however more in terms of amplifying the “good” (versus releasing the “bad”).

After each trip one full day of integration occurred for the body, mind and spirit to assimilate the transformation they had been going through.

Four weeks after the Journey and ~6-7 weeks after the start of my collaboration with The JMC I can say that my outlook on life has dramatically shifted to possibilities, expansion, glass half-full, peace, serenity, hope and excitement for what is and what will be. It feels extremely “odd” for me who had lived in defense for as long as I can remember. It also seems weird and foreign to me now when I remember operating through the lenses of my high degrees of fears, paranoia and anxiety.

Prior to my journey I had already decided to stop my Fintech-related activities (including The Private Market Whisperer) to focus on creative writing. Since I came back from the Journey, it has become even more obvious to me that I want to focus on activities that inspire and uplift “me” - not the “me” created in reaction to her life circumstances, but the more free, true, untainted version of “me”. Financial services was a great stage of my life and career, however it had been created from a place of resentment, fear and anxiety ( again, that 5 year old self!).

I have always loved writing since I was a young kid writing poems to her teachers. I had buried that love very deep - finance being more prestigious, safe and impressive. Over the last ~2-3 years I had been writing on work-related topic. It was already a stretch; putting my thoughts and knowledge out there was not an easy step to take. Looking back I realize that it had been a necessary stage for me to dare write a book, especially a non-work related book!

Tying all of this back to rediscovering my identity, creative writing is definitely an important piece of what I want to do, but one’s identity goes way above and beyond to what one’s does. It is how one is, when doing anything.

In my context, it was important to shift my activities and career, as they were not aligned with the “real” me. However the key piece is one’s state of being regardless of the activities one is engaging in.

As I am writing these lines I am in the train, coming back from Ottawa where I had spent a few days collaborating with wonderful individuals on “International Science Technology and Innovation Partnerships”. It has been interesting for me to put to the test this new identity - would I be able to keep my expansive, positive, collaborative mindset or would I fall back to my competitive, defensive, low self-worth mindset? I am glad to report that I passed the test with flying colors! I spoke up without questioning myself at length beforehand, wondering if what I had to say was valuable (or to show off and compete). I just enjoyed the moment, the discussions, the intelligence and competence of my very impressive colleagues. I didn’t feel “less than”, nor did I feel “more than”. I just was in the moment, totally enjoying it without second-thoughts, nor preconceived notions. It was very pleasant and relaxing 😀

Even if I am not planning on engaging in such activities in the future, I know I now could have fun doing so. I could have actually doubled down on finance and have way more fun at it by embodying this new perspective. However, creative writing is loudly calling me!

My book Paris, Mushrooms and Me is currently being professionally edited and once finalized I will contact the agents who were interested by the first draft of the manuscript, as well as new agents. And then we will be off to the races to find a publisher. This book is probably the easiest, yet the most meaningful thing I have ever done in my life, totally trumping this idea that “difficulty is good”. I have actually started a couple of other books and a third one is in gestation.

This has been a long way to tell you that I will not be publishing The Private Market Whisperer on a-going forward basis 😀 After the great success and engagement of my piece on micro-dosing I wanted to share the above in the hope that it would help some of you.

When it comes to The JourneyMen Collective my experience has been tremendous and I am planning to go back in 12-18 months to continue building on this first stage of expansion. You can find more information on their website They have been featured in Bloomberg and will be soon in The Times.

I want to thank you My Dear Reader for the last 10 months; it had been great for me to write The Private Market Whisperer and I hope it had been great for you as well!

Onwards and Upwards! 🚀