My 2025 project: Stoicism & Neuroscience

Introduction: The 2025 project

For 2025, my project is to write an essay exploring the complementarity between Stoic wisdom and advances in neuroscience, with the aim of better understanding humans in the face of change. This subject particularly fascinates me in the current context, where our ability to adapt is severely tested by rapid and incessant transformations. Periods of stabilization, once essential for integrating changes, are now exponentially shortening. At the same time, adapting to market demands and technological advances imposes a constant succession of new phases of transformation.

In this essay, I will explore how Stoic principles—such as accepting uncontrollable events and focusing on our own actions—can be applied to managing instinctive reactions revealed by neuroscience. By combining these two perspectives, my ambition is to offer practical and philosophical strategies to navigate with resilience in a constantly changing world.

I am convinced that this integrated approach can provide valuable tools for both individuals and organizations to effectively adapt to rapid changes while maintaining inner balance and lasting serenity.

Fear of action

The fear of action. This expression, although seemingly innocuous, has intrigued me for years as a change management professional. While its observation is simple, its understanding is complex and nuanced. By drawing on neuroscience and Stoic teachings, I find valuable insights to better understand this phenomenon.

Neuroscience shows us how our brain reacts to uncertainty and risk. The fear of action is often triggered by the activation of the amygdala, the brain structure responsible for the "fight or flight" response. Understanding these mechanisms allows us to better manage our instinctive reflexes and make more informed decisions, even under stress.

On the other hand, Stoic teachings offer philosophical tools to overcome this fear. Stoics emphasize the importance of accepting what is beyond our control and focusing our energy on our own actions and attitudes. By adopting this perspective, we can mitigate the paralyzing impact of fear and move forward with more serenity and determination.

Thus, by combining neuroscientific and Stoic approaches, it becomes possible to develop a deeper understanding of the fear of action while adopting concrete strategies to overcome it and encourage positive change.

The beginning

I do not claim to be a specialist in neuroscience or an exegete of Stoicism. My contact with these disciplines dates back two and a half years, to a particularly difficult period in my personal life. At that time, a friend shared excerpts from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations with me, while I stumbled upon neuroscience articles on LinkedIn by pure chance. These two discoveries, almost simultaneous, resonated deeply with me at a time when I was desperately seeking to make sense of upheavals imposed by external factors completely beyond my control.

As a change management specialist, my first instinct was to analyze these events through a rational lens, to identify logical causes. But I quickly encountered a brutal truth: there was no tangible reason, no "why" to cling to. This realization was a shock. Stoic texts then offered me a salvific perspective, while neuroscience allowed me to understand the workings of my own brain. Together, these two disciplines contributed to my personal healing and helped me navigate the troubled waters of life.

What struck me was how these two fields of knowledge, although distinct, complement each other to illuminate our reactions to change. I quickly had the intuition that their teachings could enrich our understanding of underlying human mechanisms and, by extension, transform change management in our modern organizations. The more I delved into this reflection, the more it made sense in my professional practice.

Although I am neither a neuroscientist nor a philosopher, I am an experienced practitioner of change management, a field in which I have been working for several decades. Those who know me know that my strength lies in my ability to integrate empirical experiences and diverse theoretical knowledge to address complex situations. In this work—which is intended more as a personal essay than a scientific manual—I share my reflections on organizational change through the lens of neuroscience and Stoicism. My ambition is not to teach you these disciplines but to propose a new perspective to enrich our understanding and practices of change.

This essay is not intended to be an academic work. It is above all a personal reflection, nourished by my experiences and discoveries, aimed at offering a different perspective on change management. Perhaps this intuition will inspire researchers to delve deeper into this subject in a rigorous and well-supported thesis.

Your opinion matters: Join me in this reflection!

This essay is an intellectual and personal adventure, but I hope it will be enriched by diverse perspectives. If this project resonates with you, if you are passionate about Stoicism, neuroscience, or change management, or simply curious to explore these links, I invite you to actively participate in this reflection.

Your comments, critiques, and suggestions will be valuable for refining my ideas, challenging my intuitions, and broadening the horizons of this exploration. Whether you are an expert, a practitioner, or an enthusiastic reader, every contribution counts!

Share Your Thoughts: What questions would you like to see addressed in this essay? Which aspects do you think deserve particular attention? Challenge My Ideas: Are there points on which you disagree or find incomplete? Enrich the Debate: Do you have examples, readings, or experiences that could illuminate or illustrate these themes?

Together, we can make this essay much more than a personal work: a true platform for dialogue and exchange around human change.

👉 Leave a comment, send me a message, or share your ideas directly here. I look forward to reading you!

Thank you!