Think Like a CEO: Take Charge of Your Life

Confront

The first step of a transition is to confront: to be honest with yourself and ask the questions that have gone unasked. This is where real transformation begins. Confronting sometimes means honoring a closure; drafts blow through the doors we haven’t closed. Sometimes it is an “aha” moment that comes from a question someone else asks; the difference between looking and seeing. In the book, I gathered the question sets you can ask at every turn of your career into a roadmap.

Connect

After confronting, the real work begins. In the moment of transition, you need to allow yourself to hang in that void for a while and take stock. Transitions don’t always happen all at once; sometimes they move in small steps, sometimes through big turning points. Support from a coach, psychologist or mentor is very valuable in this period, because on our own we often can’t widen our perspective. What is changing, and what do I need to let go of? We find deeper answers to these questions with support from many sides.

Commit

The last C is deciding and taking action. If we don’t act, that awareness can turn into regret. The question sets in the book work like traffic lights at these turning points.

When I think about the emotion behind action, I find anger. If you want to change something, what is the issue that gives you goosebumps the moment you touch it? Finding it makes taking action much easier. Constant complaining and making excuses don’t make a difference; you need to do something different. That is also why my path crossing with ActionCOACH is no coincidence.

The power of vulnerability

I opened up a lot in the book. While working in organizations I went through a breaking point and realized how exhausting the role of the “compliant, well-behaved, smart girl” had become for me. I had to leave an organization against my will; you start questioning yourself. Failing to meet success criteria, on paper or in life, can be deeply destructive. In that period I said to myself, “I exist too.”

I truly lived what Brené Brown calls “the power of vulnerability”. My inner peace depended on showing not only my successes but also my failures, without any filter. We also made room for amor fati in the book: loving your fate, being able to accept it even with its bad sides, even when you are angry at it.

The interviews in the book speak from a similar place. I didn’t plan from the start whom I would talk to; after the interviews, I placed each one in the relevant chapter based on the content and what I knew of the person. Thanks to coaching tools such as mirroring, each turned into a deepening, coaching-style conversation.

The writing process

During my coaching training we once designed a book: its cover, its title, its content. Seeing that concrete output, I said, “I can do this.” First you make it concrete and announce it to the world. Once I set out saying “I’m going to write a book”, I saw that the process was not only about writing; finding the right publisher and learning a new vocabulary were part of it too. Writing is said to be a lonely job; I never felt alone in this process.

In the episode we also shared a new project for the first time: a new book on motherhood and leadership, with a strong research component. We hope to meet you in bookstores in 2027.