Is Your Internal GPS Working?
Yesterday on the A7 motorway, I missed my exit to Ardèche (my home somewhere in the South of France)
I was coming back from a talk I gave in Lyon… and I was so deep in my thoughts (already preparing the next one, obviously) that I missed the exit.
Well, my GPS didn’t flinch. No judgment. No “Bruno, you’re really stupid”. Just a quiet “recalculating…” and voilà, a new route to La Vignasse
It struck me: this is EXACTLY what we call a strange attractor in chaos theory!
The GPS Doesn’t Judge, It Recalculates
The GPS doesn’t tell me “sorry, you missed your exit, you’re doomed, go back to Lyon and try again tomorrow”. No. It keeps the final destination… and simply finds another route.
In this world that’s changing faster and faster, most people spend their time lamenting missed turns. “I should have made that choice in 2015”, “If only I had made that decision”… and so on.
But contrary to what you’re told everywhere, it’s not the path that matters most. It’s the destination.
The Strange Attractor: Your Fixed Point in Chaos
In chaos theory, we call this a strange attractor: a fixed point you’re moving toward… even if the path to get there is chaotic, unpredictable, full of detours.
I’ve already told you this story in my book “On ne va pas forcément tous finir avec une hache au fond de la forêt”: the first time I rode a bike in the sand in Morocco with my friends. The handlebars were oscillating in all directions, and the more I tried to control them, the worse it got (the amplification effect…).
My friend Pierre-Alain, who competed in off-road motorcycle racing, gave me the secret: don’t look at the handlebars, look at a fixed point in the distance. If you don’t have that fixed point to focus on, you fall. But if you keep your eyes on that point… your body naturally makes all the necessary micro-adjustments.
It’s the same in your life.
The Real Question
The real question isn’t “what’s the right path?” (nobody knows in a chaotic world).
The real question is: “Where do you really want to be in one year? In five years?”
And I’m not talking about vague goals like “being happy” or “succeeding professionally”. I’m talking about a PRECISE vision. Where will you be physically? With whom? What will you do with your days? How will you feel?
How to Create Your Internal GPS (Practical Exercise)
Every morning for years, I’ve been taking one or two minutes to visualize where I want to be. Really SEE where I’ll be, what I’ll do, who will be around me.
Two minutes. No more.
Here’s how to do it:
- Choose your time horizon: one year, five years, ten years… the one that resonates most with your current situation.
- Close your eyes and visualize a typical day in that future life. Not in broad strokes… in DETAILS. Where do you wake up? What’s the first thing you see? Who’s next to you? What do you feel in your body?
- Engage all your senses: what do you see, hear, feel, even smell? The more precise, the more powerful.
- Do it EVERY DAY. It’s the regularity that creates the strange attractor, not the intensity.
Because when you visualize your dream every day – whether in one year or ten years – you literally program your internal GPS.
And then, magic… your daily decisions (even the unconscious ones) naturally align with that destination
You choose to have dinner with Marie rather than Jacques… you say yes to this project and no to that one… and you don’t even really know why. It’s your strange attractor working in the background!
Nothing Random Happens Anymore
If you have this clear vision – your internal GPS, your strange attractor – then every detour, every “mistake”, every crisis… is just a “recalculating”
Nothing random happens in your life anymore.
So now, I ask you:
Do you have a clear internal GPS… or are you following other people’s signs?
If you don’t have a clear vision yet, I invite you to take 15-20 minutes this week to start clarifying your strange attractor. You can follow a step-by-step guide here!
→ 5 tools to thrive in uncertainty
Bruno Marion is an expert in chaos theory applied to leadership and management. An international bilingual English-French keynote speaker, he works with executives and organizations in more than 40 countries. He is the author of Chaos, A User’s Guide and Not Everyone Will End Up with an Axe in the Forest.
