Choosing your roots
“Everyone has their own world; the key is to plant your roots in the soil that suits you.”
Marc Levy
In today’s globalized environment, traveling has become extremely easy, whether for leisure or relocation. As a result, large corporations seeking international expansion now expect their leaders to be just as global as they are. But with too much movement, some may quickly feel as if they are losing their roots, no longer feeling truly at home anywhere.
Our roots are deeply important, as they form the foundation of our identity and represent a tremendous source of energy. They are often seen as an intangible given, a past that cannot be changed, and something that determines our life choices. We frequently confine them to our birthplace, where we grew up, and our family history.
Yet what constitutes our roots is far broader! They encompass all the significant events of our lives and everything that makes us feel “at home,” whether that be a place, an atmosphere, or a human connection. I remember, for instance, during my studies at Supélec, several of my classmates saying: “I feel more at home here than where I was born.” A shared passion and common goals are generally much more unifying than simply having worn out school benches alongside childhood friends. And that’s the point: we can choose our roots!
1. Creating new roots
The place we are born and our family history shape our identity in the early years of our life. But we then make our own choices, which can detach us from those initial anchors. Our sense of belonging to a place or a group depends on our values. Personally, I would feel completely alien and disconnected in the world of Frank Underwood, the politician played by Kevin Spacey in House of Cards, willing to do anything to achieve his goals!
Rooting one’s values in a new place allows us to claim it as our own and weave it into our personal story. That’s the choice I made nearly 20 years ago by becoming the proud owner of a house in Provence. Born in Lyon, I had spent almost all my vacations with my grandmother in Chamonix, so it was natural for me to start looking in the Alps. But I quickly realized that those roots no longer played a major role in how I defined myself. So, I planted new ones in a place that better reflected my identity, a place where I can recharge whenever I need.
That said, creating new roots doesn’t mean rejecting the old ones. I didn’t abandon my mountain roots; I transformed them—alpinism in Chamonix became climbing in Provence! A study by Yih-teen Lee at the University of Navarre showed that expatriates who identify both with their culture of origin and with their new environment perform far better than those who identify with only one or with neither.
2. Using storytelling as a tool for transformation
Our lives are shaped by key events that drive us to make choices. We decide to see these events as “meaningful” and integrate them into our storytelling to explain where we come from and where we are going. They become part of our roots and provide us with the energy needed to carry out important transformations. For example, it was the birth of my eldest daughter that pushed me to leave my job as a trader and switch careers.
But once again, roots are not immutable. We can choose to focus on one event over another, or even rewrite our story along the way if it no longer reflects who we are.
Deciding which roots to include in our personal storytelling is crucial—whether to convince others or to remind ourselves of our unique value. Memory is dynamic and reorganizes itself constantly, especially during REM sleep, in line with our experiences and the stories we tell ourselves. It’s up to us not to remain prisoners of memories—some of which are likely inaccurate (as Milan Kundera suggests in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting). We often idealize or selectively retain memories, whether good or bad. Fascinatingly, the memories of a complicated childbirth tend to fade as the child grows—a blessing, no doubt!
3. Finding “Success Stories” with high identification potential
Countless studies show that our brains respond much better to stories than to statistics or rational arguments. It is therefore just as important to choose and develop your own story as it is to listen to others’ stories for inspiration. The closer we feel to the characters, the easier it is to identify with them.
Researching one’s family tree to select role models and asking them to share their stories can reveal hidden talents within ourselves. Personally, I chose one of my ancestors—my great-great-grandfather—for his boldness and ability to break free from his environment. He left the family farm in Beaujolais to try his luck in Lyon. His story inspired me when I left Lyon to take on new challenges in Paris, then New York, and later London!
That said, if your family story feels heavy, pulling you backward and preventing you from moving forward, consider building a genogram with the help of a therapist or coach. Sometimes it’s necessary to let go of certain family influences and retain only those that help us grow. In narrative practices, this process is called “remembrement” (re-anchoring or regrouping).
4. Developing a vision
Having a compass is the best way to navigate in complex environments, as every sailor knows. Adjusting the sails to move forward, even if it means tacking, is key to overcoming challenges.
I suggest nurturing your personal and professional vision by drawing your own tree of life. This is an exercise I regularly practice, as it links our key past achievements, our values (in the sense of what we need from our environment to be excellent), our talents, and our desires/dreams. It offers a quick and powerful way to visualize your career path, bring meaning to it, and project yourself into a motivating future!
Similarly, identifying with role models—people who have aged gracefully or reinvented themselves regularly—can be highly effective. Think of Karl Lagerfeld, Charlie Chaplin, or Louis de Funès, all magnificent examples!
Choosing your roots is, above all, a conscious choice shaped by your environment and life goals. Guiding your memory, nurturing your identities, reconnecting with your past to build your future—all this allows you to create new foundations aligned with the person you are today, and to embrace change in pursuit of the goals you set for yourself.