Nicolas Boulenger

Still, I've built work that's true to who I am.

I had a lot of video calls this afternoon. I wasn't too keen.

But every time, I share really powerful moments with people, and I come out with more energy than I went in with.

Yay.

Here's the game:

When you recognize a thought or an emotion for what it is, it loses its power over you.

So it's not about "manufacturing" happiness.

It's about removing, one by one, the attachments that keep you from seeing it's already there.

That's the feeling you get when you're present.

When you're stuck in your head, thought stands between you and the world. Like an obstacle, or a veil over your eyes: the outside world is blocked out, or heavily filtered.

When you become present again, the veil lifts.

The world reappears in all its color, all its presence. You don't need to pay attention to things: they're there, alive, vibrant, inescapable.

With the unshakable certainty that you're part of it.

This morning, I stopped the voice in my head again.

Inner silence. Just the world. Emotions.

I did it because the voice was especially loud: questions about the future, about my work, about money. Creating problems everywhere.

The mechanism has become clearer: I become aware of the current thought – what you usually do in meditation – but the "trick" is to also become aware of the commentary that follows: the little voice, quieter, less insistent, but still a judgment.

"Ah, good, we managed to spot a thought" ← also a thought!

It's a classic of inner life: you can neither summon nor chase away mental content, but by stepping aside and noticing it for what it is, you neutralize it.

To silence my voice, you have to do it with one level of recursion.

It doesn't look like much, but it's often the most important decision in a project.

The moment you say "we're not doing it that way," "we're not going about it like this," "I'd rather organize things differently."

Changing how you do things changes everything. It changes the activity – whether it brings joy or not, whether it creates a good atmosphere or not, etc. And of course it changes the result – which depends on the activity.

So the subject matters less than you think.

It's all in the doing.

I often trap myself by wanting a result.

I picture what the text, the film, the project should look like in the future, once it's finished, and I end up locked into a plan I have to carry out from A to Z.

No more freedom, no more surprise. The thing no longer changes with each impulse, the story no longer shifts with each idea. I shut myself in a corridor with only one way out. I become a slave to the finished product – one I dreamed up myself!

Hence the importance of taking the ego out of creation.

I jump into the void. I accept (I celebrate!) not knowing how it will turn out. I bet everything on the joy of making, on the present. And I let go, right now, of the praise and the pats on the back I had tied to the original plan.

It'll be what it'll be. The reactions will be what they'll be.

And that'll be just fine.

I just posted my first carousel.

No, I'm not starting to handcraft new content, I'm recycling the old.

For four years now, I've been writing journal entries regularly. Nobody read them – but I didn't care.

More recently, when I shared some of them on social media, I noticed people were interested.

So I wrote a script that turns my journal entries into carousels, which I post on Instagram and TikTok. For now, I'm going through them in chronological order.

We'll see if it's any use.

I've been watching a lot of videos about focus lately, including this one.

If you pursue just one thing at a given point in your life, you can put 100% into it.

If you do two things at once, you're not putting 50% into each – that's wrong. Barely 25%.

You lose a huge amount of power by splitting your attention.

Hence the question: which direction do you really want to go in?

Every now and then, I reach a new stage in meditation.

This morning, I "became" the sound of the rain.

That sounds a bit esoteric, but what it means is that I noticed the distance I was keeping all the time between myself and the experience.

Usually, "I observe the experience." I'm a subject (me) looking at, listening to or feeling an object (the rain). But from a distance. I remain myself. The rain remains the rain.

This morning, I became aware of that distance. I realized I was the one creating it, that it came from an inner resistance, probably a fear of losing myself.

Once I'd spotted it, I could lower the barrier. It dropped all at once and I could "become" the sound of the rain, the tightness in my stomach, the worry about the day ahead, etc.

It had happened to me before – it happens to all of us – but by chance.

This time, I spotted the inner mechanism.

I sent out the newsletter earlier.

I still have existential doubts about it, but I've made a decision:

The newsletter is a little hello-and-a-hug once in a while, for people who like to hear from me every so often. A way to stay in touch around the big moments (films, screenings, meetups...). Or when I really want to share something.

So three or four times a year, tops. Not monthly. No roundup. Anyone who wants to follow my content more regularly can find it on my website or on social media.

So NO: I won't send out another newsletter just to say that.

When my life speeds up, I've noticed that setting up a practice often does me good. I commit to one activity a day, with a contract:

The result is mandatory, the means are up to me.

So I have to produce a piece of content (the result), but I do exactly what I want (the means).

That's what I call "discipline in the service of exploration": when I run out of steam, since I'm not allowed to stop, I'm forced to find a way of working that's easier for me.

That's how I get to know myself.

I've finished recording my professional videos.

The more experience I get, the more I realize that what matters is never doing a retake. The first take is always the best.

The idea takes shape in my head in real time. The micro-expressions that come with finding the words are the best cues for the viewer. Even the clumsy recoveries after a mistake create a connection.

When you redo it, it's often clearer, more organized, more complete... but it doesn't speak to people as much.

UPDATE: that evening, it took me 5 takes to record a personal video that was better that way – and it's doing really well. So there you go.

This is the afternoon I record my professional narrative strategy videos.

I make about fifteen of them and schedule one a day for the next three weeks. That's how I get between five and ten leads a week – a pretty good return, when you think about it.

My personal videos, on the other hand, are never recorded in advance.

This morning I also wrote the newsletter, which goes out late this afternoon.

I can no longer carry out a plan I came up with in the past.

I was already saying this in this video about this film I made in September (which did really well, thank you).

I used to manage it through ego, I think.

I pushed through the painful stage of execution because I had my eyes on the result. A result my ego was tied up in. "If they love the result, they'll love me" – as the character in the film says.

Now that I've separated ego from creation, that engine no longer runs.

If I don't feel pleasure, surprise and sharing in the making, I don't do it.

If you're sure where you're going, you're waiting. Waiting for the destination, the arrival, the result.

And almost every surprise is a bad one: detours, delays, cancellations.

If you don't know where you're going, you're exploring.

Surprises are no longer setbacks, or obstacles. Freedom.

I've beaten cigarettes, alcohol and meat.

But one demon always gets the better of me: sugar.

When I quit sugar completely, I notice that my mood is more stable, that I'm not hungry all the time, and that everything gets easier: sleeping, exercising, eating well.

When I go back to sugar, everything falls apart.

I snack all the time, on anything. I get mood swings. My diet, like my life, comes down to chasing cravings that are bad for me.

Whenever I quit, sugar creeps back into my life. Apples. A square of dark chocolate after a meal. A dessert because I'm with my son. Then it takes over again.

Today I got rid of all the sugar in the house (again).

Wish me luck.

Either you act out of obligation, or you act out of love.

To act out of love, there can't be any obligation.

That's why my first step is always to free myself from obligation. I'm under no obligation. I won't do it. Really. I mentally prepare myself to face the consequences of "not doing it".

Once I'm free, everything changes.

Sometimes the reasons to act come back to me. The ones I'd forgotten. And everything becomes easy.

Or I don't. And good riddance.

That's how my brain tries to take back control when I'm too zen: through anger and obligations.

It dredges up old memories that make me angry – memories that have nothing to do with the present – or it makes up situations that don't exist. Just to wind me up.

Or it reminds me of things I have to do in the future. Things that absolutely don't need handling now. But it finds the one detail that worries me, so I keep chewing on it.

That's how it gets back in the driver's seat. Through reactive thought and action.

So I have to pause and remember:

There's nothing to do. Ever.

Really happy with this new writing feed.

It reminds me of the first blog post I wrote on this site's ancestor: I said there that I didn't want to go back over the whole history, and that I'd only talk about the present.

That decision let me publish every day.

I'm doing the same thing here: now that I no longer bother with introductions, conclusions or coherence, I can let the flow run free.

Actually, that's what I should have called it: the flow.

Just look at everything I've published between yesterday and today. Maybe it's just the excitement of starting out. We'll see.

But it's already a good sign.

I've stayed where I was set down as a child.

Between Paris and Normandy. I never moved away, never became an expat, never went off to see the world. I never built a life anywhere else.

I'm waiting until I'm a grown-up to leave.

No one can predict the future. And yet you torture yourself every minute, as if you knew how what you do now will affect your well-being later.

(Intro of another chapter from the book)

I think I could make something this afternoon.

Of all the ways I've organized myself these past few years, this one has made my life much better: creating outlets for different kinds of work.

For writing, I have my journal and my website. And once those two showcases were finally up, a lot of things came unstuck for me. I could just write. Same with videos: once I allowed myself to speak up on social media, I could just take out my phone and talk.

Often, the engine stalls for lack of outlets.

I'm still looking for an outlet for making things: music, drawing, films. For now, I only make one film a year. I need to find the one that will let the engine run whenever the urge strikes.

One of the subjects of the book I'm writing.

This former Apple employee had a great idea that Steve Jobs turned down.

In this video, he explains why Steve Jobs was right.

Things don't get complicated because of bad ideas – those are usually easy to spot. It's the good ideas going in the wrong direction.

I see it in scripts and in creative work: adding a good idea to a story doesn't make it a better story. Quite the opposite: it complicates, dilutes, distracts.

Creating is never about piling things up. It's a clear, pure, personal act, and every moment of it points the way.

The goal of the practice I talked about yesterday is to exhaust yourself.

You realize that what you thought was best for you isn't actually what you want. You don't even enjoy the activity itself.

So, to keep producing every day, you have to drop what's artificial (made up by the mind) and find, through action, what's truly aligned.

That's what's happening to one of my clients. Who realized the goal she'd been chasing for years wasn't the right one.

Can you see the value of figuring that out in a few weeks rather than a few years? Or never?

"One gram of shit is enough to spoil a kilo of caviar. One gram of caviar does nothing for a kilo of shit." – Roland Topor

That's why I talk about keeping mornings "sacred".

You make a small concession, you agree to a small meeting, you drift a little from what you'd planned... And it all goes sideways.

This morning, it's a trivial little appointment at the town hall.

But I have to pull the paperwork together. The corner store can't come up with the tax stamp. Which turned out not to be needed.

My whole morning ended up organized around it.

I don't take meetings in the morning.

I don't do admin either.

I meditate, I write, I think. I do the deep work everything else depends on.

It's not a luxury. I earn a better living now that I work this way. It's not the hours that count.

Think about it: one good decision or one good action can unlock your whole life.

So what's a "productive" day? A day where you worked 12 hours straight? Or a day where you changed your life in ten minutes?

Apparently, young people have a hard time understanding why we (the old folks) were so traumatized by 9/11.

Author Jason Pargin explains it to them very well in this short video.

Watch it on Instagram or on TikTok.

Actually, that's it: this system lets me write crap.

Instead of writing long notes on consciousness or obligations, I can jot down passing ideas that aren't worth much – but that are fun to write.

And it makes a lot more sense for me to do that here, on a site I own and control, than on Musk's and Zuckerberg's social networks.

You should do the same.

I swear. Here's the email I just got:

We came across Panique dans l'Espace #05 : Mille ans de Solitude in the official Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market Catalogue 2025 and would like to invite you to submit it to ORION International Film Festival for consideration.
Use code ORIONIFFFILM30 for 30% off the entry fee.

So these guys are writing to offer me the chance to pay to have my film rejected.

That said, it's a very funny film. Here it is.

This system's not bad.

I write when it comes. Just what matters. No intro, no conclusion, no fluff.

Pretty much in line with my idea of expressing myself freely rather than betting on a result.

Also in line with the note "My New Approach to Social Networks".

I could share these ideas on social media. But it starts at home.

I like it.