Jacques Le Briand did not react particularly well when I proposed succeeding him at the head of the traditional bedding company Le Briand. “I have already introduced two successors to my customers. That is enough,” he said, dismissing me out of hand.
He had already told me what happened, and I understood his ill humor. He had always been certain that an employee who joined the traditional bedding company at barely 18 would one day succeed him.
But when the time came to discuss practical matters—namely, money—their voices had risen and risen… They had been estranged ever since. He then hired someone else with a view to making him his new successor, but that attempt also failed.
The man had therefore grown wary. Yet he eventually heard me out and offered a compromise: I would come and work with him, and he would judge me by what I did.
This was in April 1999. We agreed to wait until everyone returned from vacation, and everything seemed to be falling wonderfully into place. A pregnant employee was about to go on maternity leave, so I could replace her without costing the company a penny. Meanwhile, I still had time to finish renovating the apartment with my brother.
And so, on the first Monday morning of September 1999, I reported for my first day of work.
At about the same time, Emmanuel Laurentin must have been getting his program onto the air. Neither of us had much time to prove ourselves: if I did not succeed on the first try, I would quickly be shown the door.
So I worked twice as hard. Yet despite motivation and focus that I could only describe as exceptional—I even surprised myself by what I could do, and especially by how consistently I did it—I remained a clumsy beginner who was far too slow.
So slow… I could marshal every last cell in my body and stop glancing at the clock to focus only on every detail of every movement, but alas, everything still took me hours too long. It was maddening!
Fortunately, my friends were there to encourage me. They knew about my professional troubles and checked on me whenever they could.
At a party, someone would ask, “So, what are you up to these days?” When I explained my plan, I watched their faces light up—especially the friends of friends of friends, people I did not know and who did not know me: “Ah!”
Anyone who works with their hands and has seen their vocation abruptly elevated, through sheer rarity, from proletarian labor to an art knows what I mean: the admiration of people who imagine that creating with your own hands must be pure happiness knows no bounds. That had not been my motivation, but the fact remained that my future and still hypothetical profession as a mattress maker and bedding maker made me seem exceptional.
And if that was not enough, everyone applauded the fact that, simply by pursuing this plan, I was saving a traditional bedding company more than a century old from disappearing, preserving a legacy, helping to reduce unemployment in France and fighting deindustrialization. I was becoming a standard-bearer for society’s prevailing values: taking risks, starting a business, investing and actively contributing to the economy…
Picture a scene from a war movie. It is night. Hunkered down in a trench or shell hole, a group of exhausted soldiers must launch another assault. The camera slowly moves from one face to the next; each shows fatigue and fear. Finally, it reaches the face of the man we know to be the hero. He looks as exhausted and terrified as his comrades.
The camera lingers, then shifts into a point-of-view shot: through it we see the gaze of each fellow sufferer who is relying on him to go first, to make possible what would otherwise be impossible, the action that will save them.
Slowly he rises. He hesitates a little longer, then, through a miraculous act of will, rallies the rest of the unit with a phrase or a gesture. They all surge forward, already victorious.
Damn it! I had put myself in exactly that situation. Unless I wanted to disappoint everyone, I no longer had a choice: I had to go through with it, whatever the cost… And with my chest thrust proudly forward, no less.