CHANGING ALTITUDE. To live a better life
Foreword by Matthieu Ricard
Rights sold to Italy (Armenia) and Korea (Tornado)
Bertrand Piccard has the right pedigree. His great-grandfather, Auguste, visited the stratosphere in 1931; his father, Jacques, the world’s abysses in 1960. He himself flew around the world in a hot air balloon in 1999. He has great plans for late 2015: to make another round-the-world flight but in a 100% solar powered plane. It’s a means for him to explore new territories but more importantly to demonstrate that there are other ways of doing things, and in a variety of fields – including our own minds.
Bertrand Piccard has always made a point of mistrusting assumptions. He tirelessly re-evaluates our convictions, our comfortable ideas and our soothing, reassuring customs. In this book he asks himself, and us, a thousand questions. How can we shake off our social status? break away from religious convictions? How can we beat the inevitable? overcome grief? come to terms with doubt? learn about risk? Should we favour emotions or intelligence? Would we rather sail against the winds of life or embrace them so fully we surprise even ourselves?
Never actually taking the reader’s hand, the adventurer/doctor/psychiatrist and hypnotherapist Bertrand Piccard travels alongside us on the path of “better-being”. With ourselves, with others, with the world. And he highlights for us some of the keys to what he calls the “pioneering mindset”, a mindset he celebrates on every page.
Bertrand Piccard, born in 1958, lives in Switzerland. His great- grandfather visited the stratosphere in 1931; his father the world’s abysses in 1960. He himself flew around the world in a hot air balloon in 1999and his book Tour du monde en 20 jours, co- written with Brian Jones, became a worldwide success. He is currently doing another round-the-world flight but in a 100% solar powered plane.