Découvrir Next Chapter Boardroom
In 2010, I applied for an internship at L’Oréal and was invited to an assessment day at one of their offices somewhere in Ile-de-France.
I was nervous, way more than I let on.
At the time, I was completing my Master’s, and I was one of the only people in that room who had not spent years living and studying in France. I had been in the country for less than a year, after leaving a life and career behind in Côte d’Ivoire (More on that transition in my book Miracles Beyond Borders - Part 1 : Surviving Abidjan). In that room, surrounded by candidates who seemed to fit every unspoken expectation of what a “L’Oréal profile” looked like, I felt slightly inadequate.
Then the HR manager placed a series of photos on the table.
“Choose an image that speaks to you and use it to introduce yourself.”
I looked at the photos. And one stopped me immediately.
I spotted a photo of a fish leaping out of a small glass bowl, suspended mid-air, between the water it had left and the new space it had not yet reached.
I chose it without hesitation.
When it was my turn, I said something like this:
“I chose this photo because several times in my life, I had to decide to jump out of a bowl that became too small, with no certainty about where I was going”
After a couple of extra steps in the recruitment process, I got the internship.
What that image captured (and what I did not yet have the words for at the time) is something I have thought about many times since.
When you leap out of a bowl, there is a moment where you are suspended in mid-air.
You have already let go. The new has not caught you yet. You could still fall.
But it’s also during that terrifying in-between space that the most important things about us are revealed.
In the Bible, Abraham is one of those people.
God tells him: “Leave your country, your people, your father’s household — and go to the land I will show you.” (Genesis 12) And with no additional guarantee, Abraham goes, again, again and again.
His entire trajectory is a series of departures into the unknown, each one asking more of him than the last, each one unlocking a dimension of his destiny he could not have accessed from where he was standing.
Even if, to some people, Abraham may have seemed reckless, each time he knew when the bowl had become too small and when to move on.
Nairobi, 2018
Looking back at my life and career, I see the same pattern clearly now.
Cameroon to Côte d’Ivoire. Côte d’Ivoire to France. France to Singapore and China. Back to France. Then back to Africa (Cameroon, then Ghana with Stanford University). Then Geneva, the United Nations. And then: the leap into entrepreneurship.
Each time, a bowl had become too small. Each time, I jumped. Each time, there was that terrifying suspended moment where I had let go of the familiar while the new had not yet caught me.
And each time, I landed somewhere I could not have imagined from the bowl before.
And something shifted.
When I left the United Nations in 2020 and launched my own practice in Geneva, I made a different kind of decision.
For the first time in a very long time: I did not jump, I planted.
I stayed in Geneva, built slowly and said yes to depth instead of a new beginning.
Today, seven years later, the fruits are different.
Instead of the adrenaline of the leap I now thrive on something quieter, and in many ways more solid. A network built over time. Institutions that trust me. A community that knows my name. Joining boards. Building Partnerships and creating a village slowly, in a city where I arrived with no roots at all.
Ultimately, these were two different seasons and kinds of growth, but both were real and necessary.
Are you a fish who has started to feel the walls of a bowl that no longer fits and is looking at moving to another country, role, industry, or version of yourself — even without knowing exactly where you will land?
Or are you a seed who has finally found fertile ground and would like to start building the roots that will hold everything else you are meant to carry?
Both are valid, but confusing one for the other is where most people lose years.
So, which season are youI in?
It’s rarely a question you can answer in isolation.
Sometimes, to address your most complex decisions, you need to sit at a table with people who have also jumped, and planted, and learned the difference between the two.
On June 27, I am opening that room.
The Next Chapter Boardroom is a private, facilitated session for women navigating transition, leadership, ambition, and high-stakes decisions.
Maximum 8 women. Hot-seat format. French and English
You bring your real situation and the room thinks with you.
You leave with clarity, one concrete next step, and a perspective you could not access alone.
🗓 Saturday, June 27 | 15:00–17:00 CET | Online via Zoom
👥 Max. 8 women | French & English | Confidential
💸 97 EUR with code 1BOARDROOM until June 21st — then 127 EUR
LEARN MORE ABOUT NEXT CHAPTER BOARDROOM
Seats are limited to 8.
See you soon!
À bientôt,
Candace
Coach • Strategist • Storyteller
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