Nicolas Boulenger

I've noticed that when my life speeds up, taking 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).

It used to be ego that got me there, 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, my mood is more stable, I'm not hungry all the time, and 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 always creeps back. 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.

(The intro to another chapter of the book.)

I think I could make something this afternoon.

It's a way of organizing things that has made my life much better these past few years: 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. The ones nobody wants to say no to.

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 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.

More on this soon: it's what I'm setting up for my clients – and what I set up for myself first.

It's doing a small version of what you want to do big in your life, every day, 10 minutes a day. Discovering yourself through concrete, daily action rather than abstract thought.

It's 10 minutes a day. It doesn't get in the way of anything else. There's no excuse.

I just got off a video call with a client who was very skeptical. Then he got it.

"Nobody's going to help me unless there's already something up and running."

Small win.

I'm dropping the dark, mysterious website.

People see my mug on the homepage.

I own it.

I'm writing a book. No more time for a daily journal entry.

Instead, I'm setting up this "microblogging" system to share what catches my interest throughout the day: ideas, links, images...

Yes, I'm doing what Musk and Trump did: starting my own social network. (Which I should call "Trou Social", after Trouville. But no.)

When you're aligned, here's how it goes:

From the outside, you're a workhorse. You do what nobody else can, and people admire your willpower and your drive.

From the inside, it's a breeze. It doesn't happen by itself, no, but the doing is easy. The hours fly by and nothing hurts.

I think the goal of a life is to build that alignment.

One that exists only for you – nobody can impose it on you, or offer it to you. It's a personal quest.

Few people find it.

Few people look for it.

Many have given up – or never started.

They take it for granted that work is suffering. That hurting yourself to survive is normal, that you have to accept it, that it's everyone's lot.

Some are even proud of it. Their identity comes from the effort they put in every day to do what they don't like. And they look down on those who don't do the same.

Others have found their alignment and can't understand why everyone doesn't do as they do. If running at dawn changed their life, anyone who doesn't take it up right away deserves whatever happens to them.

Sometimes they convince a few people to imitate them. Who then think: if it's so easy for them, why is it so hard for me? I must be useless.

Because alignment doesn't transfer.

It can't be compared, can't be sold.

It's different for everyone.

You build it.

The only message you can pass on, it seems to me, is this:

It exists.

Yes, for you too.

It's not about changing everything overnight, but if you don't look for it, you'll never find it.

That's what my character keeps saying in the film I just shot at Off Courts.

It's also what several friends told me after the screening. A triumph.

The secret? I gave it away in this video several days before the shoot. At that point, I had no idea what I was going to do. I was lost.

And I decided that was fine. That I was going to let go completely.

I wouldn't worry about the result, or about anything. I'd let it come.

It's a way of working I've already brought into several parts of my life, and into an earlier film in particular, but never this far.

I'm not aiming at anything anymore. I'm not controlling anything. I'll make the film events push me to make, and that will be fine.

Then, on the morning of the session I was due to shoot in, I met my guardian angels.

I didn't go looking for them. They sat down next to me and offered to help.

And they're the ones who made the film.

Without them, nothing would have happened.

If I had chosen to "take charge", to "put a team together" and to "find the right people" in order to "do what I had in mind", I wouldn't have pulled off a quarter of what we did together.

Of course, I "directed". The story comes in part from me.

But I could never have expressed myself like that without being surrounded by that efficiency and that kindness. And that, I didn't choose. I had nothing to do with it.

So yes, I made a film, sort of. But actually, no. It made itself.

My real job was to let it happen.

Watch the film here.

My technique works.

When people tell me "I subscribed to your newsletter and I'm not getting anything", instead of admitting the truth (I haven't sent any), I go on the offensive:

"Is your email set up correctly? Did you sign up for the right list? Does your annual income exceed a certain threshold? Do you really deserve to receive my newsletter?"

Because, you see, from watching the powerful of this world, I've figured something out:

Success is built on other people's guilt.

It's very hard to manipulate people who never question their right to exist on this planet.

So you have to start by planting a doubt.

Here are the steps I've identified in the champions of the field:

1. Start by inventing an obligation or a standard. It doesn't have to be justified, as long as it's almost impossible to meet.
2. Repeat it on a loop, by every means available, over a long period. If you have access to media outlets, all the better.
3. When you need to control someone, show them how they're in violation of this very important standard you made up.
4. Use the resulting guilt to make them do what you want.
5. Enjoy.

It works fast on the most fragile – the poor, the sad, the ones who don't fit in.

Once you have those on board, you can use peer pressure to bring in the rest.

That's why, to maximize my hold over you, dear reader, I invite you to answer this short survey, which will tell me about your main insecurities so I can manipulate you better.

(No need to reply by email, just speak your answers out loud: this message comes with an AI device that listens and interprets your answers automatically.)

Back-to-school survey

I often find it hard to speak freely because...

Have you noticed that your life is more or less organized like this:

1. You pass judgment on a situation, positive or negative,
2. You put a plan in place to fix that situation,
3. Did your plan fail or succeed? Back to step 1.

Where's the harm, you might ask?

After all, it's a self-correcting process: with each iteration, things get a little better. So why not organize ourselves this way?

Two things bother me.

First, step 2 is unconscious.

By that I mean that during the execution phase, we're not present.

Instead of being available to the world and to whatever comes up, our eyes are fixed on the objective.

But that objective is a concept. It's a view of the world built in the past. One that's still relevant – or not. Achievable – or not. In our best interest – who knows?

It's an intellectual decision, based on a judgment (step 1), that takes precedence over the present. Following the objective becomes more important than following the flow.

"But we can adjust," you'll say. "If we see we're heading in the wrong direction, we can always change objectives."

Can we, really? In any case, it's frowned upon.

Someone who changes objectives too often is seen as ineffective, inconsistent, unreliable. Weak. "They can't handle obstacles." "They give up too fast." "They can't see a mission through."

Our society values those who pursue the objective in spite of the present. Those who stay the course despite the warning signs. Despite the alarms, despite the crises, despite the deaths. ("A real leader.")

That's why, when we fail, we're often pushed to question step 2 – and that's the second thing that bothers me:

We blame ourselves for doing it badly, for poor execution, for not being strong enough, brave enough, persistent enough. It's our fault.

Whereas for me, the devil is in step 1:

In the judgment. In the intention. In the desire for control.

If my life has gotten better over the past 7 years, it's because I've worked on that step.

I still judge (of course), but less. And not the same things anymore. And as my judgment began to change, so did my actions.

By accepting more, we put an end to certain hollow crusades. We spend less time in our heads, straining toward an imaginary future, and more time here and now.

We let ourselves trust the present and whatever arises naturally.

"Succeeding" and "failing" lose a little of their authority over our lives.

And honestly, it's restful.

If you're not doing exactly what you want with your life, something is wrong.

Of course, emergencies happen.

Three days, three months or three years where you have to grind it out. Handling money, family, health. That's normal.

But too often, the emergency becomes the long term.

The fix you put in place to survive becomes the direction.

The odd job becomes the career.

The temporary support becomes the life partner.

The illness becomes the identity.

The temporary emergency becomes the permanent excuse.

Out of weakness? Out of conformity? Out of comfort?

No: because deep down, we don't know what we want.

We've gotten used to saying yes or no to whatever we're offered.

To being happy or unhappy about whatever comes our way.

To updating the routine and calling it change.

But building something new, from nothing, from the inside?

That's very rare.

And I'm not talking about entrepreneurship. Most entrepreneurs are following a template too.

This isn't about money or success either.

Not about making a living, not about finding love, not about changing the world.

What is it about, exactly?

That's the real question. The starting point.

If you could do whatever you wanted, what would your life be about?

Or, more honestly:

Since you haven't found that yet, what are you going to put in place to build it?

Spoiler alert: thinking won't be enough. This isn't an intellectual decision.

You'll have to find it in action.

So what's your plan?

You're not free two days a week or five weeks a year.

You're not free only when there's nothing in your calendar.

You're not free just at the beginning or the end of a life.

You don't wait to be free.

Either you're free all the time, at every moment, or you never are.

"I have to finish this, and then I'll be free."

No.

If circumstances are keeping you from being free, freedom isn't what you're looking for: it's permission.

Being free can't hinge on outside circumstances – by definition.

It's an inner decision. Recognizing a state you're already in.

It's choosing to drop the illusion that you're not free.

It's a decision you can make at any moment.

It takes no effort, no preparation.

It's instant, effective immediately.

It's performative: making it is enough.

It costs nothing, to anyone.

So go ahead. Now.

If you wait a second, you'll wait your whole life.

To keep it short: I no longer care about technical quality.

Like a lot of photographers and filmmakers, I used to worry a great deal about "preserving image quality".

You shoot in "log" or in "raw", at full resolution, to keep as much room as possible for post-production. That's where the real decisions get made.

Now I decide everything as I shoot, with no way to change it later.

Format, color, framing: all of it is locked in on the spot. I don't retouch a thing.

Then when I get home, I delete 98% of the photos straight away. Immediately, no agonizing.

Even the ones I used to keep because they were "not bad".

Either I feel a pull I can't explain, or it goes.

And yes, that means I've given up film. I think I was shooting it out of snobbery.

Let's be honest, I loved the results. The grain, the character. The nobility of film.

These days, the only thing I care about is the process.

Spontaneity. Deciding on the spot. The irreversible choice that captures the emotion of one exact moment.

So much of what I used to do was built on the fear of regret. Keeping everything "just in case". And in the end, it just piled up. For nothing.

I don't want to pile things up anymore.

After three days of this, I've already learned things about my own taste that decades of raw and film never showed me.

I'm not a fan of photos of people – even when I catch a beautiful moment. Nor much of landscapes.

What I like is material, texture. Corners crammed with detail, dense and rich, with a bit of light here and there.

That's the central question of what I'm exploring in photography right now, but also of everything else I'm building at the moment:

"What do I actually like?"