Share a part of the life of our collaborators by discovering their hobbies! This month, let's talk about Xavier MANDON's hobby, our Director d²X Paris for the energy sector.

What is your passion?

I would like to share with you, not a passion, but the practice of a sport that gives me a lot of pleasure every time that I can practice it: golfing.

When and how did you start?

I discovered this sport when I got married ! The country house of my in-laws was less than 500 meters from a golf course, which was very beautiful and very little used in the summer, in Ardèche (near Annonay, France). Right from the beginning, I got hooked on this sport which is generally practiced in a very pleasant setting, and allows you to have a nice sportive walk!

I quickly realized that it's a sport that requires a significant investment of time! Indeed, a 9-hole golf course easily takes 2 hours. That's where my passion as a newlywed and especially as a father took over this practice most of the time! This explains why I still take so much pleasure in playing, but my level is rather stagnant! 

What do you like in this sport?

Apart from the long time outside in a superb setting, golf is a sport that requires a great deal of self-control and control of one's emotions and that always pushes you to take a step back (to analyze before tking any action).

Golf is a very technical sport that requires a great capacity to concentrate on a very important number of parameters to which is added the pressure that one puts on oneself. A bad gesture, positioning, tension, deconcentration and the ball can go in completely improbable directions (I experiment it regularly!). But what a great satisfaction when the shot is perfect!

And in your daily life, how does your passion fit in?

Too rarely unfortunately - today, I manage to play it essentially in the summer during the Ardéchoise holidays, a little in the Landes and 1 weekend a year with 3 friends while discovering a region.

In order to progress during the year, I practice from time to time during the weekend in a golf course near my home in the Yvelines, sometimes my 11 year old boy, who progresses at a sometimes annoying speed !

Have you acquired skills through the sport you use in your professional life ?

I think that this sport requires and develops the following qualities: self-confidence, calm, optimism, self-confidence, concentration, imagination, mastery and commitment.

In addition, the rhythm is extremely varied on a golf course and you never repeat the same gesture twice. You have to manage this variation in rhythm, managing your strength between long and short shots, for example. This is useful in professional life where you have to constantly adapt to new situations and find original solutions.

Golf also allows you have some humility, nothing is ever completely acquired in this sport, it makes you grow a certain capacity for resilience, which is very important in our profession!

I took great pleasure in sharing these few lines with you,

I wish you all a Merry Christmas,

- Xavier

Thank you Xavier for this interview!