Ten chapters of real coaching, ten exercises you do yourself, and a coaching companion who asks you the questions instead of handing you answers. Read it, hear it, and be coached through it.
A coaching session in Tokyo runs two hours. Chapter One runs 28 minutes to hear, less to read, and it costs you nothing.
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“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
— Anaïs Nin
A grey afternoon in February 2024. Sarah, the Country Manager for Japan of a luxury Maison, was about to present her business plan to the regional board.
Outside the boardroom door, she pressed her jade pendant, the way she always did when the pressure was on. One breath. A habit she never let anyone see. Then she opened the door and walked in.
A boardroom in Roppongi, seven people around the table. She went through her forty slides, every number checked twice, and answered every question before anyone could ask it.
Richard, her boss, had flown in from Paris for it. He hesitated a few seconds before making a comment. Then he spoke, without much emotion, looking at the table more than at her.
“Thank you for your... long presentation. I understand the numbers are good. Congratulations.” A small pause. “But I don't really see where you want to go. I don't see your vision. I can't be excited about it. I don't feel inspired by your presentation.”
It was a cold shower. Sarah thought: Okay, I got it. I won't be promoted. He doesn't think much of me. She wanted to leave the room.
He sets a binder on the glass table between them, and a pen beside it. “This is your life from now.” He turns to the page he wants, puts his finger on it, and asks:
“Take everything you are carrying right now, and tell me how you feel about it. What you think about it. All of it, the good ones and the challenging ones.”
Then he looks out at the park and stops watching her, because some things only come out when nobody is looking.
Sarah answered with one line.
“I don't know who I'm doing all this for anymore.”
The full chapter in a page-turning reader, with the illustrated scenes from Sarah's story.
In the Living Book, on any deviceEvery chapter narrated, with a voice for Sarah and a voice for PhilBot. Chapter One runs 28 minutes.
Play while you walkAt the end of every chapter, PhilBot hands you one exercise. One, never more, and then it asks you the questions.
The same exercises Philippe's clients do
Your shelf, on the laptop and in your pocket. Turn the page, or press play and let it read to you.
“This is our first session together. Take your time.”
The chapter ends and the conversation starts. PhilBot hands you the exercise, then waits while you think, the way a coach does. No lecture, no scoring, no rush.
Nothing you write there is graded, and nothing is shared.
Most leaders never go looking. You did.
One email, and the Preface and Chapter One open, to read and to hear.
Paper and pen, right after you finish reading, while it is still fresh.
Sarah runs Japan for a luxury Maison. Three hundred people, twenty boutiques, 112% of budget. On paper she is unstoppable. In one comment across a boardroom table, the job she has wanted for three years moves further away.
Over thirty-four days of coaching you sit in the room with her: the voice in her head that comments on everything, the day she names it, the exercises that move her, and the moment her team starts producing without her.
Her situation may be nothing like yours. Read the questions anyway. The ones Philippe asks Sarah are the ones he would ask you.
“She is measuring constantly. But I see her when she forgets to measure. And when she forgets, she is exactly the right size.”
Each chapter is a session. Inside it you watch real coaching happen; at the end you get the exercise, the same one Philippe's clients do with the same pen and the same silence.
Philippe's story, and the sentence in 2005 that started everything.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
One exercise waits at the end.
All ten exercises, gathered in one place for the second pass.
“Philippe Grall has spent years helping people see what they cannot see in themselves, and Finding Your Diamond distills that work into something rare: a book that is both deeply personal and genuinely useful. This is a book about what becomes possible when you stop shrinking and start leading from who you actually are.”
“A rigorous framework wrapped inside a story you can't put down. Philippe shows leaders how to do the harder, more important work: coaching themselves, and then coaching the people they lead. Every leader I know needs this book. The ones who think they don't, most of all.”
“With over ten thousand hours of coaching, Philippe's insight into a client's inner spirit is outstanding. He combines compassion with practical advice, helping others reveal their inner diamond and let it shine. Even if you never meet him in person, his book brings you close as a true friend.”
Philippe Grall arrived in Tokyo in 2000, after thirteen trips to Japan and everyone telling him it was impossible. In 2005, a Japanese executive named Debari-san told him: “You are a diamond.” A year later, Équilibre was born.
Since then he has coached CEOs and executives across more than twenty nationalities, past ten thousand hours in the room. His mission is to help people find the diamond they carry and let it shine. This book exists to pass that sentence on to you.
Yes. Every chapter, the audio, and the exercises. Your email opens the book so we can tell you the day a new chapter arrives, and so Philippe knows who he is writing for.
Because the exercises need a week to work. Read at the speed of your life, not at the speed of your ambition. One chapter, one exercise, one honest week.
No. If you only have time to read, read. The exercises will wait for you. If you do them honestly, with paper, this book will work differently for you than any leadership book you have read before.
Philippe's coaching companion, a version built for this book. It waits at the end of every chapter with a notebook and a pen, and it asks you the questions rather than handing you answers.
Sarah is a fictional person, a combination of actual people I have worked with. The situations happened, in one room or another, across more than ten thousand hours of coaching. Every identifying detail has been changed.
Yes, once the last chapter is polished. Readers of the Living Book hear about it first, and their comments shape what goes to print. That is what makes it a living book.
This page is the door. Behind it is the Living Book, where the Preface and Chapter One are waiting, to read and to hear. Every new chapter opens on a Monday, and you will hear from us the day it does.
