Duration: 56:12
🧾 Analytical Summary
🏃 Context & Legacy
Jacques Borlée delivers an extraordinary masterclass on high-performance achievement, drawing from his remarkable journey coaching the Belgian "Tornados" relay team—including his own sons—to 58 medals over 20 years, with 33 medals accumulated across two decades of international competition. Self-described as "the father of guys who run in circles," Borlée brings humility, humor, and hard-won neuroscience insights to explain how Belgium's relay teams repeatedly defeated dominant American and Caribbean sprinters despite lacking the same genetic advantages.
The presentation transcends athletics, addressing business leaders and Odoo employees directly about what they'll change starting Monday. Borlée's central thesis: sustained excellence isn't about waiting for genius—it's about managing the brain, controlling emotions, and building systems that produce calm and serenity under pressure. This isn't motivational fluff; it's grounded in collaboration with neuroscience researchers at Belgian universities (KUL, UCL, VUB, ULB) who measured brain waves, studied performance states, and developed training protocols now used by elite athletes and business executives alike.
🧠 Brain Waves & Performance States
The presentation's scientific foundation centers on understanding brain wave patterns:
Delta: Sleep state
Theta: Orientation and navigation
Alpha: Relaxation, detachment, flow—the key to peak performance
Beta: Concentration, focus, rationality—the dominant state in modern work life
Gamma: Vision and peak awareness moments
Modern society suffers from beta wave overload. Smartphones, computers, constant concentration demands create chronic stress and burnout. Society runs on 700 years of Cartesian rationality ("I think, therefore I am"), building wealth through reason and analysis. But peak performance requires sensation and creativity, accessed through alpha waves.
The problem: too much beta makes people psychorigid (inflexible, anxious). Too much sensation creates dogmatism. Balance is essential. Champion tennis player David Goffin demonstrates this perfectly: before serving, his brain alternates alpha-beta-alpha-beta for 2-4 seconds. He blinks, enters gamma (vision), and serves. Success rate: 9 out of 10. Untrained 15-year-olds using the same pattern succeed only 2-4 times out of 10. The brain can be trained like a muscle.
🔬 Neuroscience Validation
Working with Professor Cheron and university researchers, Borlée's team discovered that successful performances are consistently preceded by high-amplitude alpha waves. When alpha is absent or weak, performance fails. This isn't speculation—it's measurable electrical activity detected one second before action.
In experiments, Olympic medalist Olivia Borlée showed weak alpha waves while running on a treadmill during normal testing. When asked to mentally re-run her Olympic race, her alpha-beta patterns exploded off the charts. The lesson: champions can access peak states by recalling detailed past successes. Everyone has powerful past moments—writing them down in detail and recalling them before stressful events activates performance brain waves.
Burnout sufferers consistently measure below 30% on a 0-100 alpha scale—always, without exception. A 28-year-old executive measured at 25%. Recovery requires systematic alpha development through specific techniques Borlée details later.
🎯 Philosophy & Values: The Foundation
Before technique comes purpose. Borlée emphasizes that no project advances without philosophy and values—but these cannot be imposed from above. They must emerge organically, "from the gut," co-created by the entire team. After disappointing results at Budapest 2023, Borlée spent months facilitating workshops where athletes, coaches, and support staff collectively redefined their philosophy and values. Three weeks after presenting these to the press, they defeated the Americans.
Core values the Tornados adopted:
Team Spirit: Essential when managing Flemish and Francophone athletes, multiple federations, Olympic committees, and a coach who's also the father of three athletes. Borlée organized extreme team-building—underwater Lego construction (cost: €18), glacier survival in Iceland (winds 100 km/h, -30°C), cycling in snow at the Grand Canyon, trekking to base camp Everest (seven people needed helicopter evacuation—pushing limits builds resilience).
Confidence: Created through regular brainstorming sessions focused on organizing the near future, not rehashing problems. Athlete Nafissatou Thiam's recent struggles exemplify the opposite: she started dwelling on past difficulties instead of future possibilities, creating anxiety spirals.
Respect: Difficult in Belgium's fragmented sports governance landscape. Borlée insists on speaking truth while maintaining respect—organizations must create spaces where people can identify what's not working without being labeled complainers.
Passion: If you're bored in your company, change jobs. Life's too short. You must wake up excited, saying "Yes, I'm going to Odoo—it's an incredible company!" Without this fire, you cannot sustain excellence.
Love: Borlée connected with Belfius CEO because he spoke about love in business. "We are animals of proximity." Buying a home trainer promising to exercise alone never works beyond three weeks. Humans need coaching, connection, community. Proper team functioning develops oxytocin—the greatest natural performance enhancer, creating calm, sublimation, and collective achievement.
🏔️ Looking to the Summits
Philosophy must include seeking the best. As Francophones, Borlée declared the Flemish were superior and arranged training camps with Flemish athletes—federation refused, so he found sponsors and paid himself. After Beijing 2008 Olympic success, his sons said: "Papa, you taught us to learn from the best. The best are Americans. We're going to the USA."
They trained at the NCAA championship university, learning cutting-edge techniques: body harmonization focusing on head-shoulders-pelvis-feet alignment through fascial work. Borlée calls it "yoga for sport"—45 minutes daily harmonizing the body for optimal function. This technological approach, combined with Belgian university research, enabled four white Belgian sprinters to compete with Black-dominated sprint events—not through genetics but through science, technique, and mental mastery.
🎓 Emotional Quotient Over IQ
Society obsesses over IQ. Champions focus on EQ (Emotional Quotient)—the ability to understand and manage emotions. Five keys to emotional control:
Empathy: Listening capacity and understanding another's emotional tone
Clarity: Under stress, people don't hear negatives. Borlée told his son (European favorite): "Don't start too fast" (headwind first straightaway). The son exploded off the line, finished fourth. Under stress, the brain filters out "don't," "no," "not"—only positive, clear instructions land.
Reciprocity: If reciprocity breaks down, break the ice immediately. Ego delays destroy progress.
Honesty: Transparent communication builds trust.
Exchange: Open yourself to the best. Never win alone. Learn from others constantly.
Borlée gives a football example: Raymond Goethals (coach) told a defender panicking before the AC Milan final: "His first dribble will go like this—put your foot here, everything will be fine." It happened exactly as predicted. The defender blocked it, gained confidence, dominated the game. How? Goethals analyzed thousands of videos to understand the opponent's patterns, then translated data into a single actionable sensation the player could feel in his body.
A coach who cannot connect emotionally wins zero medals. A coach who connects emotionally but lacks technical expertise still wins gold—because emotional connection creates sublimation, the sensation state where peak performance lives.
🧘 Techniques for Developing Alpha Waves
Borlée uses specialized equipment in five centers (including one at Belfius headquarters for managers) applying proven techniques:
Ventral Breathing & EMD: Using biofeedback machines, athletes train respiratory patterns that 99% reliably generate alpha waves. The brain is like a muscle—if you score 30/100, that's your baseline. Train systematically to reach 100/100. Before Olympics, every athlete must be at 100, because pressure will come—if not at 100, they collapse into counter-performance.
Underwater Breathing & Apnea: Training continues underwater. Borlée's athletes hold breath for 4 minutes at -10 meters without strain through alpha-based tranquility.
Hyperoxygenation: Working with oxygen supplementation at 120 BPM (accessible to cardiac patients, 120kg individuals, everyone). 20 minutes equals 1 hour intensive training. Stimulates mitochondria, reduces free radicals (anti-aging), improves protein synthesis (muscle development and injury recovery), improves glucose synthesis (dropped Type 2 diabetics from 129 insulin to 10.2), stimulates melatonin (skin health—"baby skin"), shows promising cancer treatment results when combined with chemotherapy. Must be structured: twice weekly, 20-30 minutes, spaced 2-3 days apart.
Hyperbaric Chambers (Djokovic's technique): Pressure treatment improves calcium cellular absorption, stimulating mitochondria with incredible effects on relaxation, recovery, ankle sprains, prostate issues. Athletes use for recovery—these methods done correctly only help, never harm.
Body Scan: Close eyes and walk as slowly as possible. No stress (fight, flight, freeze)—only sensation. Footballers receiving a pass must feel their body flowing to their foot—pressure makes them forget body awareness, ruining control. Same for tennis: the racquet must become a body extension, requiring complete relaxation and body consciousness.
Practical exercises anyone can do:
- Close eyes during cycling, weight training, walking—develops body scan
- Walk backwards/run backwards—forces body awareness
- Walk 4-5 meters eyes closed before presentations—instant body scan/calm
- Attend cultural events—concerts, classical music—humans are vibratory animals, rhythm and vibration restore balance
- Stretching fascia: We carry 20kg of fascia (connective tissue wrapping muscles). Malfunction causes heart attacks (fascia around heart), back pain (fascia around lower spine). Borlée's team has nearly 1000 exercises harmonizing the four zones.
- Monocular vision training: Wearing glasses with one lens blocked (alternate daily) forces development of peripheral vision. Elite athletes have 15% greater peripheral vision than average people because they develop body scan. Costs €10, use while playing sports.
📊 Mental Techniques: From Recall to Visualization
Past Success Recall: Write detailed descriptions of past peak moments. Before stressful events, recall them vividly—reactivates performance brain waves.
Self-Coaching Videos: Borlée's son threw tennis racquets constantly. Borlée had him explain on video how to manage emotions, breathing, rituals. Before matches, the son watched himself coach himself. Racquet-throwing episodes: 7, then 2, then 0. Now stopped completely.
Pre-Competition Mental Preparation: Three weeks before Rio Olympics, Borlée recorded athletes explaining how they'd behave in the final. Just before the race, he showed them their own videos—"you're coaching yourselves now." Professor Cheron confirmed this returned athletes to tranquility brain waves, accessing alpha for peak performance.
Virtual Environment Training: Like Formula 1 drivers visualizing circuits eyes-closed, creating virtual environments removes inhibitions and creates flow—a slow-motion mental state enabling self-mastery in high-pressure competition.
🎭 Process Management: Adaptability & Relativization
Olympics destroy athletes who can't adapt and relativize. Thinking "Olympics are the most incredible thing" guarantees failure. Borlée uses structured methodology: List 15 advantages of competing at Olympics (easy). List 15 disadvantages (harder—must search). Then: How to transform each disadvantage into an advantage?
Dutch heptathlete Anouk Vetter (NCAA favorite) fell on first hurdle during finals, came to Borlée for World Championships preparation in panic. Borlée asked: "What's the advantage of falling?" She looked terrified. After 3-4 sessions, she understood: the failure forced her to master relaxation techniques and emotional management—making her stronger.
Anticipation is critical. Before Berlin championships, Kevin warned brother Jonathan Sacoor: "The moment you enter the warm-up box, Hon Smith (European champion) will come provoke you." Smith approached immediately. Jonathan laughed—they'd anticipated it, removing its power. Sacoor humiliated Smith in the final stretch, Belgium became European champions.
Borlée prepares for Olympics by gathering experts, anticipating every possible scenario. With four sons competing, he became an orchestra conductor of scenarios and responses. Business leaders working with Borlée report: "I've gained incredible resilience handling financial problems, union tensions—I can control situations, find ways forward toward the best outcomes."
🎉 Celebration & Organizational Rituals
Celebrate victories immediately, then forget them. Medals belong to the past. Create rituals: crucial moments for CEOs mirror Borlée's 7:00-7:30 AM training start. Belgacom CEO John Goosen spent one month arriving at 7 AM to work underground with laborers. Result: he could change anything he wanted—because he gave them consideration.
Monthly expert consultations: At Juventus Turin (1999) with Ancelotti, Zidane, Deschamps, Borlée asked: "How do you always return to top level?" Answer: "Every month we bring experts completely unrelated to Juventus—expose our problems (marketing, physiology, medical, programming)—listen to experts, take what works, leave the rest."
Borlée adopted this: monthly expert roundtables. In 2007, before European Junior Championships (Kevin and Jonathan favorites), Borlée wanted complete program changes. Experts unanimously said: "Hold your line." Four weeks later, Olivier won the family's first medal. Kevin and Jonathan, watching from stands, said: "Papa, next year we're going to the Olympics."
Weekly brainstorming sessions: Regular future-focused meetings prevent crises and build confidence. Belgian sports federations go to World Championships and Olympics with zero meetings before, during, or after—shocking organizational failure. Too many companies lack brainstorming and future-oriented planning.
🏆 Pride & Belgian Excellence
Borlée expresses frustration with Belgium's lack of pride: "33 medals in 20 years, one person claps. Incredible. Total lack of pride." To Odoo employees: "You must be proud working at Odoo. It's an incredible company. Show this pride."
He created striking photography with the Atomium, transparent tracks for underneath shots, making his athletes believe: "What you do is the most beautiful thing—the search for excellence, the search for absolute."
Belgium lacks adequate stadium facilities ("post-fascist King Baudouin Stadium"). Unlike those hitting yellow balls or big balls (sports like tennis, football), running seems "rather stupid—running in circles." But it's HOW you do things that matters. Creating pride, purpose, beauty, meaning transforms mundane repetition into excellence.
💼 Applications for Business
Every principle translates:
If bored, change companies immediately—young people especially, but everyone. Without morning fire, you cannot sustain excellence.
Develop alpha capacity: Burnout endemic because society doesn't alternate alpha-beta. Schools need 10 minutes daily relaxation—without it, youth mental health crises will worsen.
Measure what matters: Artificial intelligence and rationality enable verifying you're improving—body scan during exercise, home training with eyes closed, walking backwards.
Don't empty your head—fill it correctly: Feed the brain information creating tranquility, not anxiety.
Master emotions through humor: Borlée seems terribly serious? "Come to my trainings—we laugh constantly." Laughter, fluidity, alpha waves, fascial work all interconnect scientifically.
Create governance systems supporting people: Belgium's fragmented sports federations provide zero support. When icon Nafissatou Thiam struggles, why do Olympic Committee president, ADEPS director, Sports Minister say nothing? Without organizational support, individuals cannot sustain excellence under pressure. Directors must support their people proactively.
🇧🇪 The Nafissatou Thiam Situation
Borlée addresses the recent controversy with Olympic heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam, who withdrew from World Championships. She's won everything but "can't take it anymore"—not from the public (who are great) but from internal system failures. She spends months in South Africa escaping Belgian federation politics: Flemish-Francophone conflicts, power struggles, impossible bureaucracy.
Recent crisis: Flemish technical director (Dutch national) said she couldn't compete without signing a code of conduct. Federation president consulted lawyers: "You'll pay €500,000 damages." Flemish relented, but the director said "her or me"—internal battles exploded. Arriving at championships, nothing was organized. Her personal physiotherapist (she paid) wasn't accredited—only Nafissatou experiences this; other athletes had their own physios. Then: "You owe €6,900 for training camp."
Instead of saying "She's our icon, exemplary, incredible—how do we support her to win more medals?"—systems create obstacles leading to withdrawal. Systems must question themselves. Brussels needs courage to consolidate 19 communes. Belgium must wake up: Europe lost 9% global GDP (25% to 16%). Better Africa strategy needed, better functioning required. Wake every morning with fire, wanting to win, looking toward summits.
🧠 Viewpoint: Odoo Perspective
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated creative perspective inspired by Odoo's vision.
Jacques Borlée's insights validate everything we believe about sustainable high performance. His emphasis on systems, measurement, and continuous improvement mirrors exactly how we think about software and organizational excellence. The alpha-beta brain wave framework explains why our philosophy emphasizes simplicity and flow—when software creates cognitive overload (beta), users burn out. When tools disappear into intuitive experiences (alpha), creativity and productivity flourish.
His point about pride resonates deeply. Odoo employees should feel what Belgian athletes need to feel: you're part of something excellent, purposeful, and worth celebrating. The monthly expert consultations, weekly brainstorming sessions, detailed anticipation of scenarios—these aren't athletic methodologies, they're organizational excellence principles applicable to any high-performing team. And his insistence that "you never win alone," that exchange and openness to the best drive progress—this is open-source philosophy, community-driven development, ecosystem thinking. Borlée proves that the principles enabling four Belgian sprinters to compete with global sprint powers are the same principles enabling any organization to achieve disproportionate impact: measurement, emotional intelligence, systematic preparation, and teams genuinely caring for each other's success.
🏢 Viewpoint: Competitors (SAP / Microsoft / Others)
⚠️ Disclaimer: AI-generated fictional commentary. Not an official corporate statement.
Borlée's presentation offers valuable insights but highlights challenges scaling high-touch coaching methodologies to organizations of 10,000+ employees across dozens of countries. The neuroscience is fascinating, and the brain wave monitoring equipment shows promising applications. However, enterprises need structured change management frameworks, standardized training programs, and scalable interventions—not artisanal coaching requiring monthly expert consultations and weekly team brainstorming for every unit.
The emphasis on emotional quotient over IQ is well-taken, but modern organizations require both: emotional intelligence within governance frameworks ensuring compliance, auditability, and risk management at scale. The Belgian sports federation dysfunction he describes (fragmented governance, lack of coordination, political conflicts) mirrors exactly what enterprise software must solve through systematic process automation, transparent workflows, and enforceable standards—not relying on charismatic leaders creating pockets of excellence.
That said, the alpha wave research is compelling, and forward-thinking organizations should explore how workplace design, meeting structures, and productivity tools can reduce chronic beta-state stress. The measurement imperative—"if you don't measure, you can't know"—aligns perfectly with data-driven management. Perhaps the most universal takeaway is structural: organizations claiming to value high performance must genuinely support their people when pressure intensifies, or even elite performers will burn out. That lesson transcends athletics and applies everywhere.
Disclaimer: This article contains AI-generated summaries and fictionalized commentaries for illustrative purposes. Viewpoints labeled as "Odoo Perspective" or "Competitors" are simulated and do not represent any real statements or positions. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners.