“Why not me?”, the question that changes a trajectory

There is a precise instant when a possible life starts to exist. For Domitille Kiger, it is a meeting, on the other side of the world, with people who turned their passion into a trade. That click, “if it is possible for them, why not me”, is the starting point of all daring: giving yourself permission for a path nobody mapped out for you.

A podcast about people who dared listen to their inner voice

Pourquoi pas moi? is Charlotte Desrosiers's podcast, devoted to people who dared change direction and listen to their intuition. The format is an uncut, no taboo interview, trying to understand what happens between the moment you say “why not me” and the moment you make the thing possible. An ideal setting to hear Domitille trace her choices back to their source.

The trigger: “if it is possible for them, why not me ?”

Before 2008, her road looked mapped out: history studies at the Sorbonne, the wish to go into research, a master's in audiovisual, documentary work. Skydiving was a passion, not a professional horizon. In her family there was no example, neither in this sport nor in sport in general. Making a living from her passion seemed light years from her reality.

Then comes that trip to the United States, where she meets people who make a full living from freeflying. The tipping point fits in one sentence she says to herself: if they can, why not me. That is not recklessness, it is a permission you grant yourself. The first act of daring is not the jump, it is allowing yourself to aim.

When the want becomes total commitment

Saying “why not me” is not enough, you still have to commit. At twenty-three, a place on the French national team comes up, an opportunity she refuses to let pass. She takes on a form of precarity: training, coaching, sleeping in her car or in caravans on dropzones, earning a modest living. In exchange, she does what she loves with the people she loves. From those years, she says, she drew a reserve of joy and confidence that carried her for a long time.

Her signature shows up here: the collective as the engine. Commitment is not a solitary bet, it gets lived with a team, and it is that bond that gives the courage to hold. It is the material of perform together.

Daring, while keeping a parachute

That is the phrase that sums up her philosophy of risk, and it is clear. Dare, yes, but never cut your safety net. Do not confuse daring with carelessness. Take the risk that makes you grow while keeping something to catch yourself with if it does not all go to plan. That is exactly the distinction Fatal / Vital at the heart of her keynote: telling the risks that destroy from the risks that propel, and giving yourself the means for the second kind.

The conversation also touches on resilience, on the ability to get back up after trials. Here again, it is the same clarity at work: looking at things squarely, and moving forward.