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Find Purpose and Impact in Your Career: An Interview with Raphan Kebe · Business for Humans

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I'm Jaime Gennaro, business coach, consultant, and founder of Practica Consulting.
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In today's episode, I'm joined by Raphan Kebe, business owner,
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yoga teacher, author, and hypnotherapist.
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He shares his journey from touring musician to yoga teacher after a back injury,
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and we explore balance, belief, and reaching your full potential. Enjoy.
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Well, hello. Thank you again for joining me.
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So Raphan, just to talk about how I came in contact with you.
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So I went to a yoga retreat years ago. I think it was like 2018 in France, in Balmy.
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And I don't speak French, but my best friend lives there.
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And so I had this amazing, beautiful weekend all in French. And then you came
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in speaking French, but also speaking bits of English.
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So I felt like I could follow your class a little bit more.
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But your approach and your style to yoga just
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to me felt like a breath of fresh air you
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brought music into it there was this different type of
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movement and for me i kind of felt like oh i found it like this is my place
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this is where i belong and i hadn't really felt that way with yoga before um
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so that's how i came in contact with you i was really inspired by your class
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but i think what i would like to
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understand about your background is, you know, how did you discover yoga?
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And then how did you decide to kind of make the leap into turning it into a
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career and sort of a lifelong following?
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I see. Well, first of all, thank you, Jaime, for having me on.
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Pleasure seeing you again. And thank you for the kind words.
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I'm really glad the practice resonated with you.
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In relation to how I found yoga, like many of us, by necessity.
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My back went, I was a musician going through my music degree at the time, and my back went.
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So there you go, finding yourself. I found myself seeing chiropractors and osteopaths and you name it.
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And that was 15, 16 years ago.
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And I found myself doing Pilates and eventually yoga pretty much every day in
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order to sustain myself, at least physically.
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And shortly became a teacher.
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The switch from playing music to becoming a full-time teacher was actually fairly easy in the sense that.
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Back in those days, teaching yoga paid more and more frequently than being a
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funk or reggae musician.
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So I had to make a decision, not going to be wrong. It was a case of if I take
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on those classes and I know and understand that consistency is key in building anything,
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I had this understanding somehow that I couldn't take on a class and say I was
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going to be there every Thursday,
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Friday, or Saturday morning and then at the same time say yes to being in different
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bands or doing session work that were going to call me up, you know,
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once in a while or every two or three weeks and as such having to get my classes covered,
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you know, that there would be something to be sacrificed there.
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So within two or three years, I decided to focus on teaching and prioritize
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that. And yeah, it's been 15 years now.
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Wow. What helped. so what was that
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like because it's interesting because music is one
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of those things too where you have to feel like you've
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found this gift and have the courage to
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do it and to also sacrifice the other
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things and the other jobs and the sort of stability and so it's interesting
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to go from something that probably felt like you had found your gift and you
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were using your gift to leave that and go into yoga was there was there fear
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that music wouldn't be there for you anymore.
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Well, I mean, I think I left out a very important chapter,
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which was that when I say necessity, what I mean by that is,
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to make a long story short, is that I, in my life, only had one dream,
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which was to become a touring musician.
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I only wanted to travel the world and be on different stages and everything
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else. I didn't have plan B.
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And second year of my degree, my back went. But with that, my dream went.
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And you understand so it
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was the year where my son was born as well who's now
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17 and i went from having this one goal to now having family and having this
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option of expressing myself the way i used to towards the goal that i had been
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taken away from me all right this is how it felt,
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So when I say necessity, it was a case of, okay, what do I do with myself now?
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You know, how do I reinvent myself? Where do I go?
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Teaching is always something that's been on my mind because I've always shared
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anything I would go and learn and seek out about in life, in my life.
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But it just so happened that yoga kind of felt right at the time and it was
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one of many, many options because my mind went all over the place and,
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Also, I benefited from yoga not being what it is now, meaning that I could make
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up my mind about the practice and the teaching of it without being influenced
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by social media, people, or anything else.
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So that is how the leap happened, i.e. quite literally having to reinvent myself.
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And so when you reflect on that now, do you feel, what are your feelings?
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Does it feel like now you're on this path and that this was a path that you feel was meant for you?
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Do you feel like, do you know what I'm saying? Like, what are your reflections on that?
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Where you've been now for the last 15 years. Yeah, well, it's very interesting
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because I am now training as a psychotherapist and I'm still,
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I mean, I'm now again in the process of reinventing myself somehow,
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you know, using the skills and the experience that I've had over the past 15, 20 years.
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But how, when I reflect to answer your question more directly,
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there's a combination of pain and gratefulness, right?
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Gratefulness in hindsight is 20, 20, and it's great that those things did happen to me.
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But I also would not really wish them on my worst enemy because it is a year
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of my life that I can't really remember.
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It was for close to nine, ten months where I couldn't play. I was in pain every day.
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My mind was in different places.
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And it's not something I would want to relieve again nor to give to anyone else to leave on.
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But like anything you know the greatest challenges tend to be the greatest the lessons as well,
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so it taught me a few things and and when i reflect back
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it was a case of learning on how not to put every single one of my eggs in one
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basket learning to diversify and learning to be open-minded developing more
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of a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset saying this is the one and
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only thing that can give me happiness.
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Having a definition for myself of what happiness can mean because I didn't have one.
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So those things in reflection I can speak of.
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But yeah, necessity and injuries and having two is both the gift and the curse.
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Many of us actually fight that place
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where if we use what happened to us for which
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we are unhappy about we may actually turn around
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and start being happy about it i don't want to be grateful for
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what happened to me so i'm not going to use that as a path as a launch launching
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pad towards a better me i think there's something unconscious that happens with
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a lot of us i can speak for myself and say that i've i've held on to that for
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for a while yeah yeah it's so true i think a lot about.
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I've had grief, a lot of grief in my life, a lot of loss.
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And when I think about grief, it's also one of those things that it's easy to
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just hold on to and not use it as a launching pad also.
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But when I think about being in the depths of grief, it's one of the most productive emotions.
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It's an emotion that I don't wish on anyone, but when you have to face it, it,
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It's busy. It really works at you.
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And you don't want it. I feel like most people in their whole life avoid having
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to feel that feeling in particular.
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That we do everything we can to avoid it. But once you're in it,
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it's just so productive. It really is.
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That's the only word I can use to describe grief.
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Because it makes us work. But it's productive work. It feels useful.
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I agree. Yeah, interesting. So now in this place where you have some gratefulness
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towards your experiences, how are you using that to teach people in a different way?
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What are the lessons that you're bringing to people? How are you fueling your
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teaching from that place?
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That's a good question. In quite a few ways, but I'm thinking of one in particular,
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which is in relation to vocabulary.
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And what I mean by that is that in order to reinvent yourself or to change or
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I should say augment your story, you have got to improve on the vocabulary that
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you use in order to tell your story.
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So I am a fan of saying and of teaching and of sharing with whoever wants to
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listen to me that wanting to change your story is the beginning.
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But developing the vocabulary to tell this new story or this old story differently is where it's at.
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Number two, in terms of what I was thinking in relation to your question,
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which was to have mentors, either direct or indirect mentors, people to look up to,
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goals to have, you know, places that you want to reach, you want to reach SOE
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and that, you can then really and honestly look at your goals and say, how do I get there?
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And then act in congruence with that.
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So either the feedback is direct, if you're lucky enough to have teachers,
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mentors, coaches, therapists who can tell you, this is what I'm seeing, this is what I'm.
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Finding ways for yourself to record yourself, to pay attention to how people
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react to what you say and what you do when you do and say those things that you do.
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And to be as blunt and honest with yourself about, I am trying to cultivate
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this, but what I do and say cultivate that.
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And if the issue is always...
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Appearing when I'm doing this, then perhaps I should take responsibility.
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Perhaps it is not in the people in front of me not getting me.
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It is me not expressing myself the way I really ought to in order to contribute
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to the situation or to cultivate what I really want to cultivate.
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And it's not an easy task, right?
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I know for myself that I remember a book by Dale Carnegie, you know,
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the book How to Win and Friends and Influence People.
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And I really disliked this book. I really disliked it because I'm French.
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I'm from Paris in particular. We like confrontation.
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It's like I'm wired for this. And this book is telling me basically to give
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people compliments before I tell them what to change and then give them another
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compliment. You know, that little shit.
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Yeah. And I really, really disliked it. And I was like, no, I want people to be adults.
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I don't want to be in my head. That was the argument.
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And then I went to work with children. And I somehow consciously and unconsciously
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started to put the theory to practice.
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And I could see that people were responding differently to me.
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And up to now, I still don't like this book. But it is not the Bible.
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Because it does work. And again, people don't hear negation.
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And I was very, very quick to point out where people were messing up to my students
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where they were fucking up and to change that find the good,
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find the positive you know,
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impress the fact that the effort needs to be,
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acknowledged first as opposed to just go you got this one wrong that's not what i meant,
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and that changes everything again it goes
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with the vocabulary but at least in my mind i
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wasn't i understood that to be useful and
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effective i needed to curve my
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want and need to be concise because i love to be concise and to go straight
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to the point and i love when people give it to straight but also it is the way
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i am wired my culture my background and conditioning kind of forced that onto
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me i am grateful for but i live in the uk it's a different culture altogether.
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And we gotta do what what works in order to get to where we want to be and that
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is exactly the work that's part
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of the work mentors feedback somehow get yourself a coach that you can,
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that you can receive accountability from. Yeah, it's interesting because I've
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had to work on the opposite thing in my work because I came from this very hard.
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Very ego-driven world, the world of advertising.
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And I was a woman in that world, which was also a different sort of place to be.
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And so I leaned really hard into my nurturing, encouraging all the things that
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that world did not provide.
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I wanted to give that to my people, to my teams, and be that encouraging voice.
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And then I moved to the Netherlands, which is like direct and straight and to the point.
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And I worked for a Dutch company right when I landed there.
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And it was a blow.
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It was a major blow. But it also, in the same way that you learned that culture
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from a different perspective, I had to learn how to be more concise,
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how to be more direct, how to make sure that I was incorporating that level
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of feedback to my clients as a coach, because I couldn't only encourage and pat them on the back.
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I needed to be a reflection to them of the things that other people weren't
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saying in a kind way, in my own, you know, natural way.
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But it's interesting, because I had the complete opposite reflection of like,
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I had to really learn that direct, concise communication to be effective in
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my work. So it's a balance.
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It's a real balance. It's a beautiful challenge. Yeah.
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Here, I think both of us developed what I call the range.
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And first of all, I'll tell you that I train teachers, mostly women,
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mostly female teachers.
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And interestingly enough, I teach that. Most of them need to,
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in my eyes, I basically coach them in not being mommy anymore.
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So it's a very female trait to start with.
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But the range that I'm referring to is also appreciating that there is that
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tough, direct, concise, and there's the nurturing aspect.
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One could say male to female ratio, which I quite like the symbolism of that.
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And it's not about staying on one side of the range.
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It's really about developing that entirety, that spectrum of expression that you can have.
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So that even when you're nurturing, there's something inside of you that makes
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people feel and understand that you could easily slide it to the other side.
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And whilst you're being tough and concise and direct, there's also something
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within you that makes people feel and sense and understand that there's a nurturing side to you.
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And I think that the better you develop that range, like an actor who's capable
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of going dramatic and comedic to soft and gentle or, you know what I mean, to just have that range.
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And the more as people, as coaches, as teachers and trainers,
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but especially as people, I would say,
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developing that range and finding comfort in as much of that spectrum as we
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can for ourselves and for others is the best thing you can do. so that we can travel.
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You know, from one city to another, from one country to another,
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from one person to another, from a client to another, and somehow gauge where
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you need to be on that range, on that spectrum for them to benefit from your presence.
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Oh, I love that. A hundred percent.
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Definitely. Because I think, again, like my environment was what pushed me to lean in one direction.
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And now when I'm working with individuals, I can find the balance between that
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range, but I had to lean so hard on one side because what I saw around me was
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not that, and I knew that's what people needed.
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And I think that my instinct was right. I mean, I think people gravitated towards
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working with me because I wasn't the normal kind of manager or,
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you know, I was running a business.
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I ran an office in Amsterdam for an American company, and I think people there
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were like, this is a boss that isn't like the normal boss that we would have
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in this industry and in this environment.
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Because I leaned really hard in that direction.
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But again, just being in the Netherlands, I had to learn to find that other place.
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But I like the idea of just.
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Finding an individual and understanding where on the spectrum they need you to show up for them.
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That's a really beautiful kind of metaphor for that. Because it's true.
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Everyone needs something different and we're trying to provide that for them.
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And it reminds me of something that, I don't know if you've read Julia Cameron's book, The Artist's Way.
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But she talks about people being her believing mirrors.
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I see. But she needs some people to provide really, you know,
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very strict, helpful feedback.
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But also you need people to encourage your art and to encourage your work and
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to be those people who will believe in you no matter what.
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And so I'm curious, who are your believing mirrors? Do you have people like
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that in your life that help you believe in yourself and believe that you're
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capable of doing the next augmentation and the next reinvention?
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Yeah, well, I do. I'm lucky enough. The first person that comes to mind is my
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wife, simply because today is our 20th anniversary.
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She's in Turkey this morning for 10 days, walking over there,
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but, you know, we were Skyping, or sorry, WhatsAppping, chatting about that this morning.
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I'm just going 20 years of putting up with each other, but also supporting one
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another and being there when, you know, the going gets rough,
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but also providing feedback and intelligent.
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Full of love and compassion and belief in each other's potential.
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So that's the type of feedback we've been providing.
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Besides that, I'm lucky enough to have a mom who loves me very much.
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People around me who don't necessarily say it all the time but seem to be sticking
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around me as if they've got a lot of faith in my potential and in my being.
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So that provides, as always, provide me with quite a bit of faith.
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There's a side of me that's quite...
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I'm going to say French, pretentious and egotistical, which I now value a lot.
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I am also someone I shall rely on for my own belief in oneself.
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I'm thinking now about a speech by Matthew McConaughey, who's talking about
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his future self as being the person that he looks up to or that he listens to.
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And I'm starting to appreciate that concept a lot more.
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And yeah, the sources of inspiration, The people that I look up to,
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you know, on my wall, I've got John Coltrane here and Nina Simone and Miles Davis.
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I like jazz and jazz musicians in particular for their commitment and their
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sense of artistry and their dedication to their art form.
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And that really inspires me. I imagine John Coltrane to be of a certain way
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from what I read from and of him, from the people about.
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And I sometimes ask myself, like, how would he react to me if we were sitting
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in the same room right now on my sofa?
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What type of reaction would I get from this guy?
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I want to build myself to a place where someone like John Coltrane would listen
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to me, speak about my own art form and be able to say, yes, young brother,
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I understand where you are.
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I see in a sense where you're off to.
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You know what I mean? Total projections. We need a bit of madness in order to get to our dreams.
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But from time to time I use that you know if I don't have an older mentor or
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coach or someone that I look up to and I can ask questions it's a case of asking myself.
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That imaginary friend or mentor people that you respect from afar would they respect you?
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Yeah. And if you don't feel they would respect you then start working towards
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building the capacity and the skills and the abilities to become someone that
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they would actually respect.
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Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. That's a great way to reflect, to reflect on that.
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So last question for you, when you go into this next phase, what are you most
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afraid of? What do you feel like you're holding back?
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What's that piece of you that you feel like, okay, have this like genius thing,
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but I'm afraid to put it out into the world.
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I don't know how people will react to it. Like, what's the most fearful thing
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that you're holding back right now?
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Oh, Jamie, you don't know what this question means because only yesterday I've
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decided to publish a book of poetry I've been writing for the past,
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I don't know, 15, 20 years.
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And I'm really now facing that question as to not only what has been holding
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me, but what is holding me now.
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So it's very, very fresh and very, very raw where you're pressing on right now.
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And I can honestly say from the height of today, in terms of having a couple
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of hours of reflection because I've been thinking about that.
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There's quite a bit of fear of success, which is kind of an odd one, right?
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And I benefit from not really fearing judgment that much, but fear of success is one.
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Fear of not being able to live up to my own potential because once you put something
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out there, you have to follow it up with something else, I believe,
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or at least I feel, I sense.
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And that scares me a bit because if I've been writing something for 15 years,
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you know, and if somebody likes it and said, you know, we want you to do another
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one, I'm not going to have another 15 years. Am I actually good enough to write another one?
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You know, so I'm projecting future pacing way too much.
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So those are two of the main obstacles that I'm now facing, really. Yeah.
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I'm sure there's more, but those are the two that jumps at me in terms of the
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challenge that I'm facing internally as to publishing something fairly intimate,
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that is me, that can be rated and liked and disliked and all those things that
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I feel is genius, to use your words,
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because in relation to everything that I've already built around it.
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And to make a long story short, I use this poetry to write a script for a short film.
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I've turned it into a play at some point that's never got produced.
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We started to work on it a few years ago with actors.
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I've had quite a few ideas as to what to do with those writings.
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And I'm now like, just keep it simple, silly.
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There are poems. You don't have to write a song with them because that's my wiring.
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I've written a poem. Now let me turn this into a song. So that means let me produce the music.
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Let me produce the video clip that goes with it. Let me look out for all the
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musicians I could gather.
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And let me look for the right location to film it.
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And before you know it, I haven't done any of those things because then it became
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a massive undertaking where the simple idea was you've written a bunch of poems
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that you think ought to be read.
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Print them out, put it out. So that's number three, I guess,
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number one of what I'm working with, which is keep it simple,
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city. You know, the KISS principle.
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Yeah, amazing. And so just out of curiosity, what does your future self have
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to say about where you are right now?
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What would your future self tell you?
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Oh, I honestly don't really know.
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I could make something up. I could have a chat of many things.
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But it's true that that practice of looking ahead and what would you want your,
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you know, older self to say to you right now?
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I think my older self would tell me what he's been telling me for a while,
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which is get on with it. Yeah.
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Start. Yeah.
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Rufan, thank you so much. It's been so great to reconnect with you.
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My pleasure. It's amazing.
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Yeah. We'll stay in touch. I'll let you know about the California event.
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Maybe we'll get you out there to teach. That would be beautiful. I like the sound of that.
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Cool. Put January on your calendar. California. January in California.
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My birthday is in January, so I may come and celebrate my birthday with you
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guys on the 20th if you're still looking at.
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Amazing. Okay. Great.
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Awesome. Well, thanks again.
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If today's conversation resonated with you and you're thinking about your next
26:17
career move, Book a free 20-minute coaching call with me.
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And if you're ready to go deeper, join the next chapter starting in January
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at practica.consulting backslash the next chapter.