Intuition...

Hello birds

I don't know why but I'm particularly troubled by the writing of this post, by the personal dimension it implies. Let's start at the beginning, a few months ago, Estée Lauder contacted me to make a film about intuition, one of the brand's values. I had no idea, but before it was a brand, a cosmetics group, miracle creams and my mom's perfume, it was a woman, a true visionary... Estée Lauder, (what a beautiful first name) is the one to whom we owe in-store samples, muses, the first skincare line for men and the Serum. And speaking of Serum, back in the '80s, when the entire cosmetics world was launching little jars of pastel pink, ecru or baby blue cream, Mrs. Lauder decided to go against the grain and launch a serum in a brown bottle with a pharmacist's pipette. All her investors and collaborators cried scandal and predicted commercial failure, but she decided to go ahead anyway. Well, her brown bottle, still on the bus shelters, is the famous Advanced Night Repair, a success rarely equalled. A fine example of a visionary woman who wasn't afraid to follow her intuition.

Anyway, that's how I got the brief, "we'd like you to illustrate intuition, with your vision of it through a video". My cheeks turn pink. I love video, but I'm not much of a director, and in working on the subject I discovered that friendship was also one of the brand's values. So naturally, I thought that the person best placed to help me on this subject would be Mai Huamy director friend, who takes me from laughter to tears, from tenderness to overcoming myself in less than a minute.

So, here we are, writing this little film with 4 hands, doing the verbal ping-pong that we do so well, analyzing the subject, and having a laugh, because in the end, that's what's best: working while having fun!

As far as I'm concerned, intuition is something we all have deep down inside us, we just have to keep our eyes open or listen carefully. It's a superpower that's within everyone's reach, that we all have deep down in our pocket, a joker we often forget to use. Because what intuition whispers to us is frightening, not pleasurable. Intuition is full of pitfalls, it's not the easy path, because it often tells us to go against the grain of what reason dictates.

But you can practice every day, it's easy, for example, with your clothes, you change until you're satisfied, a shorter hem on your jeans, a belt on a vest, you experiment, until you reach the right reflection in your mirror, until you feel good in your sneakers, it's already your intuition speaking, helping us to feel ourselves.

And then it's often complicated to follow your intuition, a bit like Estee when the financial stakes are enormous. I've sometimes given up on contracts with a lot of money at stake, because I didn't feel the project was right for me, I had the feeling I was corrupting myself, moving away from what I wanted to be to meet a demand. And since I've become my own boss, this line of conduct has been my backbone. But it's just like any new job, an interview that leaves you with a strange, inexplicable taste, but the great salary that makes you forget all your initial doubts, only to make you miserable... I think that if you're lucky enough to have a choice, everything comes to those who wait.

And then there's the example of intransigence. Intuition is that little voice you'd like to silence. Because when you've worked hard, when you've finished, and the result isn't what you'd imagined, your mouth pouts and your intuition says you've got to start again. That's the price you pay for taking pride in your work.

Aaahhh and then there's love... I think this is one of the times when intuition is most audible, but magically you go deaf. This person who turns our heads but deep down we know we're going to have a hard time of it at some point, we know full well they'll make us suffer, but we go along anyway... And naively, we think we'll be able to change the other person to bend them to our own projections. No, no, no, we've tested this for you, more than once, and it doesn't work! It's also good to make your own mistakes, you learn a lot about human beings, that's for sure, but if anyone should make you cry, it's laughter... And as far as I'm concerned, sometimes you meet someone and you "marry" them straight away because you have the feeling they're the one, and intuition gives you another magical power: self-confidence!

I challenge you to search deep down in your memory for a painful memory and analyze the situation, to recall the moment when you said, "Deep down I knew it was going to go wrong anyway, so I went ahead anyway". It's not your pessimism talking, but your intuition that you didn't listen to. According to Spinoza - and I've done my homework - intuition is the highest form of knowledge! For me, intuition is the first look at a situation, the premonition that came over me, the first impression I formed of someone.

Of course, I always make mistakes, because fear gets in the way, but even if I end up in a literal or figurative dead end, I learn from it so I don't go down that road a second time. But looking back on these errors of judgement, I have the impression that deep down I knew the outcome before the story even began, so I just have to keep learning and keep listening...

Thanks to the Estée Lauder team for their trust, to Annie Claire and Aurélie for their kindness, to Mai for her talent, to Julie for her perfectionism, and to the lemon team, the main testers of my intuition, for their golden patience. In fact, to mark the occasion, the brand is running a great competition on its facebook pageI suggest you check it out this afternoon. Love you all.