ANNA LECAT

In 1994, I walked into a courtyard in Chengdu and felt hundreds of eyes land on me. The air was thick with smoke, and the chatter stopped the moment I was noticed. I heard the whisper "laowai" and saw children pointing.

My body tightened as I felt the familiar wall of exclusion. I wanted to explain that I respected their traditions, but I knew words would not work there.

Then I heard a sound that changed everything. Click. Click. Clack. It was the rhythm of the game. I realized that real connection does not always require the right phrases or long negotiations.

Sometimes it is enough to pull up a chair and start playing. This experience taught me a principle I use today with leaders stuck in conflict.

Read the full story of how a game breaks down walls where words are powerless on my Substack.
Link in comments.

#connection #collaboration #lovingconflict

1 day ago (edited) | [YT] | 1

ANNA LECAT

The Paradox of Reverence.
"I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live."

Albert Schweitzer wrote these words. He won a Nobel Peace Prize and dedicated his life to a hospital in Gabon.

He also called Africans his "junior brothers." He refused to see them as his equals.

Holding both truths is uncomfortable. We want our heroes to be perfect. We want the person who teaches us "Reverence for Life" to practice it perfectly.

He didn't. And if I am honest, neither do I.
I grew up in Soviet Ukraine where the constitution guaranteed rights that didn't exist in reality.

I learned early that high ideals often hide deep flaws.

It is easy to respect life in the abstract or write about humanity.

It is agonizingly hard to look at the person right in front of you who votes differently or threatens your worldview and see them as fully human.

They are equal to us. They are not a "junior brother" or an obstacle to manage.
Schweitzer’s failure makes his words more urgent.

It reminds me that even those who dedicate their lives to doing good can have massive blind spots.
I am sitting with the uncomfortable question his life poses.

Who am I failing to see as fully human right now?

#AlbertSchweitzer #reverenceforlife #humanity #complexity #lovingconflict

2 days ago | [YT] | 1

ANNA LECAT

Denmark was once the poster child for digital classrooms. Now they are hitting the brakes.

I watched a report on how Danish schools are locking away smartphones and bringing back physical books. It is not just schools. Youth centers and sports clubs are doing it too.

A coach in the video pinned down exactly why. She said the moment a phone enters the room, the energy drops. Someone gets "outgrouped." The connection fractures because half our attention is elsewhere.

I know that dynamic well.

That is why I ask participants to surrender their phones and electronics at the start of my workshops.

You can feel the resistance in the room. It is almost physical. We are so used to having a digital exit strategy in our pocket. But once the devices are gone, the atmosphere changes. A bubble forms around us.

We stop looking for distractions and start looking at each other. The conversation deepens because there is nowhere else to go. We are simply, fully together.

Denmark calls this "digital sobriety." I hope we are all paying attention. #DigitalSobriety #HumanConnection #Focus

3 days ago | [YT] | 0

ANNA LECAT

Living in Paris, it is impossible not to feel the ghost of Simone de Beauvoir. She sat in the cafés I walk past, writing about a kind of freedom that terrified people.

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

But she also taught me something profound about love. She believed that true love isn't about merging until you disappear. It is about two free people choosing to walk side by side.

In my workshops on Loving Conflict and Intimacy, I see people avoiding conflict because they are afraid of losing the other person. They silence themselves to keep the peace.

Beauvoir reminds us that if you have to erase yourself to keep a relationship, you have already lost.
Intimacy requires two whole people. As my tango teacher told me: "Mind your own axis first."

Only when we can stand on our own can we truly lean into each other without falling.
Happy Birthday, Simone. Thank you for the difficult, necessary lesson.

If these values are close to you, I would be grateful if you shared this post.

#SimoneDeBeauvoir #Paris #freedom #intimacy #lovingconflict

1 week ago | [YT] | 2

ANNA LECAT

Welcome to my column, "Ask Anna." This is a space where I act as a researcher and fellow traveler exploring relationships. I share what I have observed from twenty-five years of living and working across four continents. You can ask me any question about tension, conflict, and creating closeness where others see division.

Here is the question we will look at today:

"My partner and I love each other, but we keep fighting about manners. I value directness and honesty. He says I’m being rude. Conversely, I feel like he beats around the bush, which feels manipulative to me. It’s exhausting. How do we stop fighting over who is being polite and who is being real?"

I walked into a bakery in my new Paris neighborhood absolutely certain I knew how to be polite. After twenty years navigating social webs in China and building businesses in the United States, I believed directness was the highest form of respect. I simply ordered a baguette, but the woman behind the counter looked at me with ice in her eyes.

She handed me the bread in silence and turned away before I could even say thank you. I walked out feeling confused and rejected. My husband Jerome later asked me a simple question that changed everything...

Read the full version on my Substack to discover the “Three Questions” practice I use to help couples move from judgment to understanding. You will learn how to apply the “Rule of Us” to stop fighting over protocols and start deciding what respect looks like in your own home.
open.substack.com/pub/annalecatofficial/p/manners-…

1 week ago | [YT] | 3

ANNA LECAT

Can you love someone who voted differently?
I keep hearing people say they can't stay close to someone who voted differently than them. That fundamental value differences make real connection impossible.

And I keep hearing others say they're exhausted from pretending to agree just to keep the peace. That staying silent about what matters feels like betraying themselves.
Both are true. Both deserve space.

Last year, I worked with business partners who'd been avoiding each other for months after discovering their opposing views on a major political issue. During our session, instead of debating the issue, I asked them to share what they were most afraid of. One talked about his children's future. The other described his father's struggle and what shaped his perspective on freedom versus security.

They weren't defending positions anymore. They were sharing what they cared about most deeply.

I live this tension constantly. My Ukrainian parents and my French in-laws both carry traditional family values - clear hierarchies, established roles, respect for convention. Meanwhile, my husband Jerome and I felt most at home in San Francisco, where people question everything from religion to parenting.

Our kids are growing up between these two extremes, watching their grandparents' certainty meet their parents' constant questioning.

Here's what I'm wrestling with: When is staying in relationship an act of love, and when is it compromising yourself?

I don't have a clean answer. Because sometimes staying connected across deep disagreement is the most courageous thing we can do. And sometimes walking away is the boundary we need.

What would you do if someone you loved held a belief you found morally unacceptable?

#lovingconflict #values #connection

PS: Researcher and author of Loving Conflict, exploring how intimacy turns conflict into collaboration. It's the heart of my workshops and one-on-one work.

1 week ago | [YT] | 4

ANNA LECAT

Buenos Aires taught me something I couldn't learn in any boardroom.
In tango, you're constantly negotiating. Who leads this moment? Who follows? The best dancers trade roles fluidly, responding to each other's energy.
Leadership isn't about control. It's about listening so carefully to your partner that you move as one.
Last week at a milonga in Italy, I danced with people from seven different countries. No shared language, just presence and trust through movement.
I bring this to every workshop I facilitate. The body teaches what words can't.
#tango #embodiedleadership #connection

1 week ago | [YT] | 3

ANNA LECAT

In Soviet Ukraine, religion was discouraged. So New Year’s Eve had to hold all the magic that Christmas holds for others.
It was the one night when miracles were allowed. We waited for the clock to strike twelve, believing the next year would be better simply because it was new.
Tonight, I am in Paris. My Ukrainian parents are safe here with us. My French husband is opening champagne. My children are switching between languages.
It is tempting to look at the state of the world and wish for a miracle again. To wish for conflicts to vanish and peace to just arrive.
But I have learned that peace doesn't arrive. We build it.
We build it in the difficult conversations we don’t walk away from. In the apologies we finally make. In the moments we choose to listen to someone we deeply disagree with.
The miracle isn't that the year changes. The miracle is that we can change.
To everyone in this community: Thank you for practicing this work with me.
I wish you a year of difficult, beautiful, necessary conversations.
#NewYear2026 #hope #connection #lovingconflict #ukraine

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3

ANNA LECAT

My parents have moved countries four times in their lives. Ukraine to Germany. Germany to California. California to France.
They're with us now, in their old age. Three generations under one roof in Paris.
Yesterday my father was teaching my kids a Ukrainian song. My mother was reading them a Russian story. My husband was making dinner. The kids switching between French, English, and Russian without thinking about it.
Chaos. Laughter. Four languages at once. Cultural layers everywhere. Deep love underneath it all.
This is what intimacy looks like in real life. Messy. Loud. Imperfect. Beautiful.
Not the Instagram version. The version where we stay connected through everything.
#multigenerational #family #ukraine

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 7

ANNA LECAT

“There is no tiger.”
I had been pouring out my anxieties for ten minutes. Not enough speaking gigs, the competition on social media, the feeling that I wasn't moving fast enough. I was all anxiety and very little rational thought.

Then he said that phrase about the tiger. And I laughed. Because it was true. I had been running from threats that existed only in my imagination for years.

In this article I share the story of Jesús de la Garza. He is my mentor who taught me the difference between real danger and the fear of uncertainty.

I share the realizations that shifted my perspective most:
- The "Imaginary Tiger" and how the brain invents worst-case scenarios when it lacks information.
- The "Let the Shovel Go" rule. Why the first step when you find yourself in a hole is to simply stop digging.
- The difference between "Head to Head" and "Heart to Heart" conversations. Why intellectual debates often drain us while emotional connection nourishes us.

This is a story about shifting from proving your worth to finding joy in the process. And how to find a quiet calm in the midst of chaos

Read the full story on my Substack.
open.substack.com/pub/annalecatofficial/p/the-man-…
open.substack.com/pub/annalecatofficial/p/the-man-…
open.substack.com/pub/annalecatofficial/p/the-man-…

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 4