Clotaire Rapaille on Quantum & Codes

Dr. G. Clotaire Rapaille is the CEO and Founder of Archetype Discoveries Worldwide. His work, made famous in the 2007 book The Culture Code, focuses on understanding cultural codes and uncovering deep-rooted human motivations. He has discovered codes for over half of Forbes’ Fortune 100 companies such as Boeing, LG, P&G and many more. He just launched The Rapaille Chahal Quantum Institute with Ashu Chahal where he continues his research on quantum psychology. Dr. Rapaille has a background in psychology and social sciences from the Université Paris-Sorbonne.

I start all my conversations with the same question—one I borrowed from a woman I know who teaches oral history and helps people tell their stories. It's a big, beautiful question. I always preface it by saying: you have all the control. You can answer or not answer any way you want to. The question is, where do you come from?

I come from the war. I was born during the German occupation of France, and my first imprint of life was that the guy speaking German was in charge, and the ones speaking French were losers. That was my first imprint.

As a little boy, a few days after D-Day, I was in the countryside with my mother when suddenly I saw the Germans stealing bicycles, throwing their guns on the side of the road, and running away. I thought, "Wow, the world is different suddenly. This big guy who was in charge, now they're running away. Why? What is happening here?"

The next thing I saw was a big monster coming out of the forest—an American tank with a white star. I remember everything: the smell, the noise. That was my first imprint. A guy with a big helmet and flowers in the neck took me, gave me some chocolate and chewing gum, put me on the tank, and they took me for a ride.

How can you be that? I said, "Wow, one day I want to be one of these guys." They couldn't stay with me—they had other things to do. But I was waving goodbye saying, "One day I'll be on this tank, one day I will."

I think I've been an American before I became an American. This became my passion in life: discovering the first imprint that people have around the world of anything. It becomes unconscious after a while; I forgot about this story.

But one day I was playing polo at Will Rogers Polo Club in Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard. After a match, I was riding my horses back to the stable, and I thought, "Wait a minute, why am I here? I'm in America on my horse riding towards the sunset. I made it. It took me a while, but I made it."

I believe we are imprinted at a very early age without being aware of it, and we spend the rest of our life unconsciously trying to accomplish something like that. That became my passion: understanding how people are imprinted in a given culture. What made the Japanese Japanese, what made the Chinese Chinese, what made the American American—this is what really is my passion.

My next question usually is "What did you want to be when you grew up?" But I think you've already answered that.

Well, I have another answer today: I want to be quantum. I want to be Dr. Quantum. I want to be the one who understands the new perspective that quantum physics gives us to see the world.

I believe Western science is like a religion—there's a dogma, and if you disagree, you're excommunicated. The high purpose of Western science seems to be to increase your anxiety. One day they tell you coffee is bad for your health, so you stop drinking it. The next day, research shows six cups a day prevents prostate cancer, so you start drinking it again. They keep changing.

That's the reality of modern science—there's always one hypothesis, then another comes along, then another. Today, the latest wave is quantum physics. When you understand what quantum physics is doing to our way of thinking, you realize we have to start thinking quantum.

I worked for McKinsey in Europe a long time ago. They say when you give a problem to a quantum computer, it solves it in 10 seconds, while a regular computer would take years. So how do you want to think—like an old computer or like a quantum computer? That's my new direction, my new passion. I want to train people around the world to think quantum.

What was your first experience with quantum? When did you first encounter this new way of thinking?

Almost all my life, I wasn't satisfied with how people were thinking. I think I've been quantum before knowing I was quantum. For example, I worked with people in mental health hospitals—people who were supposed to be crazy. I think you're crazy as long as people think you're crazy. But one day you might be crazy and become a genius. My first experience was what I call "crazy genius."

Quantum physics talks about superposition, one of its core principles. When we apply quantum physics knowledge to human resources and human behavior, we realize we've been wrong for thousands of years. I know I'm going to make enemies, and scientists might want to burn me at the stake, but I can't help it—I believe in it.

This is my passion. If we put on quantum glasses and apply that to therapy, for instance—I was trained as a psychoanalyst, went through psychotherapy—they told me you have to fix your past problems, your relationships with your father, mother. But quantum physics tells me the past doesn't exist. It's something you recreate all the time. So let's concentrate on your future. Forget your past, but don't forget your future.

Take education—I have two boys who went to university, and people asked them, "What do you want to be? A doctor? An engineer?" They didn't know, and good for them! Because you can be anything you want, and it keeps changing all the time. We can transform education completely by giving people access to their quantum resources, quantum field, quantum possibilities.

I believe everybody should have the same access to possibilities and opportunities. Quantum gives you so much more. For me, this is one step further in becoming an American—pushing in this direction. It's a new frontier.

The launch of the Rappaile - Chahal Quantum Institute at Delmonico's in the city was wonderful. What's next for the Quantum Institute?

The Quantum Institute launch was a big success. People came from everywhere—Brazil, China, Europe, Mexico. It was amazing. I didn't realize all these people were my friends somehow. I was overwhelmed by that.

Now that we've had this success, the next step is implementation—putting it into practice. I want to design a program to train people to think quantum. Let me give you an example: In quantum physics, there is no opposition. There are no people fighting against each other. There are only complementarities.

If you make a list of all the contradictions in your life—one or two pages in a notebook—and then realize they're not oppositions but complementarities, it opens up new perspectives. For example, "men are from Mars, women are from Venus"—I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Consider yin and yang: the yin designs the yang, and the yang designs the yin. We cannot understand male without understanding female, and vice versa. We are complementary. Even biologically, you need both to create life.

Looking at things as oppositions or differences is such a waste of time. Let's be creative. My point is that quantum physics creates quantum creativity, and quantum creativity is looking at problems as complementary.

I live in Hudson, New York, just north of RPI in Troy. They have the only IBM quantum system one computer on a university campus. It's in an old church, and it's apparently the coldest place in the world. So tell me, where are you now?

When people ask me where I live, my answer—and it's not a joke—is in an airplane. I have clothes everywhere I can. I think it goes back to when I was a little kid during the German occupation in France. My father was a prisoner, my grandfather was a prisoner, and I just wanted to travel around the world. I made a wish that one day I would travel all the time. Almost unfortunately, my wish was granted.

I'd love to have one place where I can stay and have my dog and horses, but that's my destiny somehow. I like it because I always learn new things when I travel. I have a place in France where my family comes from—that's where I go when I want to write a book. I like it there because it doesn't change. The French are supposed to be revolutionary, but they don't like change at all. I like going back and finding exactly what I'm used to.

But for dynamic power, changes, vibration—there's no place like New York. It's amazing. My wife is American, from New York, and she can't stand staying too long away from it. There's a vibration here. At the same time, when the weather is too hot in Florida, I go back to France, and when it's too cold in France, I go back to Florida. Even with many New Yorkers moving to Florida now, I still like New York.

I'm going to hold the first workshop on teaching people to think quantum at the beginning of next year in Southampton. It's at the Southampton Inn—a very nice, simple, convenient, and affordable place. Anyone interested in learning how to think quantum is welcome to come.

I first encountered you with "The Culture Code." As someone who explores people's experiences through conversation, I admire your work. Could you talk about how you developed your approach to imprints and codes? Could you explain your methodology as basically as possible?

First of all, I believe in first imprints. I was working in Switzerland with autistic children—children who have difficulty speaking or communicate differently from us. I discovered that what was missing for creating an imprint was emotion. Emotion is the energy. For example, how do you learn that glass is breakable? You have to break one. Your mother says, "Don't do it again." But how do you know all glass is breakable? You have to try again, going against your mother. There's always an emotion you have to deal with.

Then I was working with children learning French, Italian, and German. There's another language in Switzerland called Romansh, though very few people speak it. I realized that the moment when you learn something—the precise age—varies from one language to another. Take simple things like the moon and the sun. When do you learn about them? Maybe when you get a suntan, but there's more.

In French culture, the sun is male. My first professional encounter with this was through Publicis, a big advertising agency. Blanchet was the owner, and I became friends with him. He represented the sun—the male. The moon is female. I know people, especially American women, dislike when I say this, but in this framework, the woman doesn't shine by herself. She receives the sun's light and is active at night.

But in German, it's the opposite—maybe that's why the French and Germans never got along! The sun is female. Germans say, "Of course, she's the one that makes things grow. She feeds people. She's warmth. She's life." And the man is the moon. When I was studying philosophy at university, my professor told me, "If you don't speak German, you'll never learn philosophy. You need to understand the German soul."

I realized how deep this goes. The Germans are like the moon with its ups and downs. When they're up, they want to be gods. When they're down, damnation is the solution. The Flying Dutchman is a perfect example—eternity and damnation. For Germans, death isn't enough; it must be damnation. When you learn the words "moon" and "sun" in a given culture, you learn all of this. It's a package.

This is quantum thinking. I believe we have a fourth brain. We've always talked about the cortex, limbic, and reptilian brains—the classic theory. But I'm adding a fourth: the quantum brain. The quantum brain is around you—the paintings in your room, the furniture—it's all in your brain. We know matter is vibration, so there's a connection.

We think we have a very limited way of looking at the world. The world is constantly sending us messages, but nobody ever taught us how to read and decode these messages. That's what I love about quantum—suddenly I'm looking at things in a very different way. I realize how rich and powerful this perspective becomes when you look through quantum glasses.

When did you first discover you could make a living finding these codes? How did you develop the approach to discovering them with people?

That's a very interesting question. I was lecturing at a university in Switzerland, explaining imprints and how first imprints create mental hardware that you use for the rest of your life. One of my students asked his father to come to my lecture. Afterward, the father said, "I might have a client for you."

I assumed he meant an autistic child who didn't speak. But no—it was Nestlé. I had no idea what I could do for Nestlé. They asked if I could help them discover why they couldn't sell coffee in Japan. They'd been trying to get Japanese people to switch from tea to coffee—a big mistake, because tea is sacred there, it's a ritual.

It was an offer I couldn't refuse. The opportunity to make a living doing something I really loved was incredible. I went to Japan, started learning Japanese, created a team, and we began studying people's first imprints of tea and coffee.

Our conclusion was that Nestlé needed to think long-term. Japanese culture is long-term oriented, while American culture wants everything now. We recommended starting by creating coffee-flavored desserts for children to create an imprint of something nice and rewarding. From there, move to coffee-flavored drinks, still targeting children, and then create coffee time rituals. Today, coffee is big business in Japan.

Nestlé liked our work and connected us with L'Oréal. I never went back to working with autistic children. After L'Oréal, I moved into technology, working with IBM. Today, 50 of the Fortune 100 companies are almost permanent clients.

The stories about the codes are beautiful and powerful. Your company is Archetype Discoveries Worldwide. Can you tie together archetypes, codes, and brands? What's the relationship between these three ideas?

In quantum physics, they say everything is connected. There's an incredible connection between how we use archetypes—structures that are sometimes unconscious but strongly imprinted—and culture codes, because each culture names these differently.

For example, a warrior in French culture is a "chevalier" (horseman), while in Japan it's a samurai. Look at "The Magnificent Seven"—it was a Japanese story adapted for Americans. The content is different, but the structure is the same. That's the code. When we discover the code, it's amazing how it varies from culture to culture.

Then you arrive at the quantum code, which shows how this connects with so many other things around you. People want to be in contact with these permanent structures that are unconscious to them because they feel comfortable with that.

Can you say more about that or give an example?

Take food around the world. Americans—and I'm American, I'm not criticizing—we are originally poor immigrants. When we arrived here, we expected abundance. How much food do we want? Everything! "All you can eat for $9.95." The buffet story—people want more and more. This is deeply part of the culture.

In Japan, aesthetics are what's important. You have a little piece of sushi, a little ginger, a little wasabi, and the way the master—because he's a sensei, a master—arranges it is an art. Everything is placed in a certain way. It's beautiful. This notion varies dramatically from culture to culture.

I used to work for AT&T when they were selling underwater cable to the Japanese. They had detailed specifications for performance and appearance. When they sent the cable to Japan, the Japanese sent it back. This was in Akron, Ohio, if I remember correctly. AT&T asked, "What's wrong? We did exactly what they wanted." The Japanese said, "Ugly." AT&T responded, "But that wasn't part of the requirements!" For the Japanese, it cannot be perfect if it's ugly. It's that simple.

I personally study Japanese calligraphy—it's an art. I practice kendo—it's an art. There's this notion of the beauty of gesture and movement. I admire that in Japanese culture. I'll never become Japanese or live in Japan—that's not what I'm saying. But in terms of aesthetics and the power of beauty, they are among the best.

You've been at this for so long, and now you're talking about a new era of quantum. When you encounter a team that invites you in, what do you see in terms of how they're currently trying to understand their consumer?

The problem I have with many clients is that they don't really try to understand their customers. They think they do, but they don't. One big mistake they make is believing what people say. I don't believe what people say because people try to please you, to look intelligent.

In quantum physics, we have what's called the observer effect. If customers perceive you as someone with a political agenda, they'll try to please you. So how can you believe that? I try to go beyond it. You can ask people what they want, but don't believe them.

When you have a powerful brand that's really part of a culture, it should own an element of that culture. Take Nike's "Just do it"—that's America. Don't think too much. Just do it. Do what? I don't know what I'm going to do, but do it! Where are you going? I don't know where I'm going, but I'm going! There's this element of challenge, but at the same time, we're still the best country in the world and the most powerful in many ways. There's a reality here.

A powerful brand owns an element of culture that can be perceived around the world by people looking for the same thing. When Japanese wear Nike shoes, they don't become American, but they inherit some of the power of the brand—the mystique of the brand. That's what's key here.

I remember from "The Culture Code," the code for beer was "gun." Is that correct?

Yes—"give me a shot." A shot of beer, a shot of whiskey. There's this notion of scoring and shooting. But the key element of beer for me—and I've worked for almost all the beer brands—is Middle America. When Budweiser started targeting minorities to try to be fashionable, they lost 20% of their market.

I worked for them and told them: Americans are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. That's what Churchill said. Go to the ordinary people and treat them as people who will do extraordinary things. Don't try to get them to be "woke"—I'm not against it, I'm just saying this isn't the market. Unfortunately, the brand isn't dominant anymore.

As a researcher, I'm fascinated by your methodology. Can you talk about what your interviews are like? What's your approach when a client comes to you?

I mentioned that I don't believe what people say. What people say is at the cortex level—they try to be intelligent, logical. It's a bit like artificial intelligence—going very fast nowhere, with no emotion. So I try to turn off this part of the brain.

I use relaxation techniques, taking groups of people back into an almost dream state. It's anonymous, with no judgment. For example, I'll take them back to their first imprint of experiencing coffee. Once I discover the code, I can guide my clients to succeed.

Take Folgers coffee—if you read the book, you'll remember the first imprint of coffee isn't the taste, it's the aroma. Once you understand that, you can build the strategy around aroma: the packaging, when you open it, the commercials, television ads—everything reinforcing aroma, aroma, aroma.

Folgers owned the aroma concept for about 15 years. For 10 years, they were number one in coffee, which is a commodity. Once we get the code and verify it—because the code was there all the time—we can see that successful brands were on code, unsuccessful brands were off code. We can build analysis that confirms everything we say.

I've done a lot of work with cars too. I worked for GM when they told me they were going to copy Europeans and make small cars because "people want small cars—they use less gas and are easy to park." I said, "This is America—you don't want anything small. That's a mistake." You might have a small niche market, but no, make it big—bigger is better.

The result today? The number-one selling vehicle in America is the four-door pickup truck. And bigger is better. I love cars, and I think this four-door pickup truck is a marketing beauty.

When clients come to you, what are they asking? Is there a difference between what they ask you for and what you feel you hear from them?

It's always interesting that pain is what makes them act. When they lose clients, they're in pain. I know that when people are in pain, they listen better. "What did we do wrong? How come we lost all our clients?" Take luxury, for example—people aren't spending money on luxury now.

Take luxury, especially in China. When they ask me what they can do, I tell them I've discovered the code for luxury—and they're off code. When you offer rebates and special prices, no, no, no. What you want is to be top, top, top.

Look at Hermès—the only luxury brand truly successful today when others are down. Their code is "hand, right hand." Everything is made by hand. In their commercials, someone is always sewing something by hand. There's something unique, something very reptilian about this. We know babies don't survive without being touched by hands. To be manipulated—which means "by hand"—is what we need as children. We might not like it as adults, but we want to be manipulated. This reptilian dimension of "done by hand" is absolutely powerful.

How has the marketing world changed? Are there things that have changed and things that haven't? What are the implications for codes and imprints in the quantum era?

Things are changing, already very fast. The number one big issue is China. China has been the major source of money for many clients worldwide, but now it's shrinking because they're dogmatic—there's a dogma you have to follow.

What's next? India. India is the next big market for most of our clients. The problem is they were successful in China, invested heavily there, but they don't understand India. For me, India is already quantum—there is superposition. The big challenge is clients adapting to changes occurring around the world. It's a big mental switch from China to India.

When you say it's a superposition, what do you mean?

When you toss a coin in the air, while it's airborne, it's both heads and tails simultaneously. That's superposition. This state lasts until the coin hits the ground and the superposition collapses. We're always in superposition, but we're pushed by the environment—our parents, the police, whatever—to collapse, to stop.

In quantum physics, you have a particle that's moving—we are particles—and you have a wave. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that when you want to know what a particle is, you have to stop the wave. If you stop the wave, you don't know what the particle is. You cannot know both exactly at the same time. That uncertainty dimension is powerful.

We need to create products and brands that are both particles and waves. But clients don't understand the wave. They always focus on the particle: "This is my product, this is how much it costs, what it can do." Today, people don't care about that. They want to know: What is this product becoming? Where are you going? What is this transformation?

Take vehicles—they're going through a transformation, a becoming. Will they be electric? People aren't sure yet. I worked for Aptera in San Diego—we created the first solar vehicle. The roof is made of cells; park it outside, even at night, and the next day you have 25 free miles. That's big innovation—using light energy to transform transportation completely.

People ask limiting questions: "How long can I drive? Can I drive for two days without recharging?" But remember, when the first automobiles appeared in England, you needed someone with a trumpet and red flag walking in front of the car to cross villages—it was the law! People said, "Cars will never be common." We're in the same situation now with quantum computers.

The key point is that things are changing so fast that planning becomes futile. In quantum physics, we say, "When you make plans, God laughs." The only thing you must learn is how to improvise, because things will happen that you cannot anticipate. It's very difficult to predict human activities and interactions.

India has this facility to adapt, to improvise—they call it "Jugaad," the art of doing everything with nothing. I'm more concerned about Germans, because I don't see much future for them with their focus on order, order, order, planning, planning. When I organize sessions in Germany, if I say we'll have 25 people and then try to change it to 35 three months later, they refuse—"No, we organized for 25."

This rigidity can be good, but in my experience, Germans are very good at planning, organizing, and engineering, but terrible at marketing. Look at MINI—they own MINI, and now they have a big MINI. What? A big MINI? The brand is destroyed. It's like having a small limousine. They don't understand the soul of the brand, you know, the brand itself, the soul, but what people are used to and react to.

Some of what you're talking about with countries having codes reminds me of Elias Canetti. Did you ever read "The Crowds in Power"?

Maybe, I don't remember, really.

It was a long time ago, but he wrote a beautiful book, like a taxonomy of crowds, and gave each country a symbol. I think Germany was the forest, and England was somebody on a ship, like a captain of a ship... I wanted to ask about this idea that clients' mistake is believing what people say. So much research money is spent on self-reporting, and I feel like the research culture is really resistant to psychology, to the kind of depth that you bring. How do you articulate the value of knowing a code over all the other money they spend? Like for a small company that wants to grow—how do you convince them that going deep into a psychological exploration has value in a culture that often discounts it?

I might not be the best at selling myself because I connect too many things at the same time—sometimes I confuse people. But my clients are my best sales force. I've done 25 codes just for P&G. When GE heard about that, they said, "Come discover the code for GE." That's how I worked for Jeff Immelt and others.

After a while, there's a group of people passionate about what I've done for them, mainly because when I discover a code, I don't discover it alone—we discover it together. Part of the methodology is that we need ownership and alignment of the people I work with. When I'm gone, these people keep pushing and become champions of the code. That's the best motivation, that's my reward—when people use the methodology, apply it, and promote my methodology and ideas with others.

How do you know when you've discovered the code? What's the moment like when you realize, "Oh, okay, it's hand" or "it's aroma"?

It's a very interesting moment. At a certain time, we—a team including the clients—go into the imprinting stories that people handwrite, and we discover the structure. Then people say, "Wow, oh, I knew it!" I call that the "wow, oh, I knew it." When we discovered that the code for Jeep Wrangler was a horse, people said, "Sure, of course, I knew it!"

We know we've got a code when we don't need to convince people anymore because they know it inside—it resonates with them. After that, we can check if people buy it, if it sells, if people agree. Some companies want numbers, so we give them numbers, but there's this aha moment that sounds so familiar. They say, "Yes, I know, I knew it!"

How did you come to call it code? Was it obvious you were going to call it that?

That was before "The Da Vinci Code," by the way. My insight came from thinking about a door with numbers—you have to put the numbers in a certain order to open it. I discovered that even if you have the numbers but not the right order, it doesn't work.

Then I discovered something I call the logic of emotion—it's emotional, but there's a logic in it. For example, I did the code for Chiquita Banana, and mothers would tell me, "This is the best food I can prepare for my child," but then they'd say, "I want my children to grow, and I don't want them to grow."

That's already quantum—that's superposition. Mothers want their children to grow, but at the same time, they're so cute when they're little. They want to keep them; they don't like that they're aging so fast and one day will be gone. It's a very interesting tension. There's a code at the intellectual level and a code at the emotional level. If you don't understand these two sides, you make a mistake.

Beautiful. Well, listen, I've taken up a ton of your time. I really appreciate your generosity in showing up and accepting my invitation to talk. I really appreciate it.

My pleasure, my pleasure. You see, as you know, I'm sure now you're aware that's my passion, and this is it. If you're passionate about something, there are no limits. Thank you so much for having me in this program.

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