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The Pink Mouse – Keeping Your Soul in Consulting
Early in my career, a mentee left consulting after less than two years. She told me something that stayed with me ever since. “I feel like I have to change too much. If I stay here, I will lose myself.” I remember feeling sad when she said that. She was talented, thoughtful, and clearly capable of building a long career in consulting. At the same time, I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. Did she mean consulting itself? Or did she mean the quiet, male-tailored behavior that – at least back then – often seemed required to reach leadership roles? I never found out. She left, and I let her…
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You need to love the process over the result
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How to Say No Nicely (When “Yes” Would Cost You Your Future)
There’s a version of adulthood nobody warns you about: You don’t burn out because of what you’re paid to do.You burn out because of what you do on top – the extra mile, the “quick favor,” the “step-up opportunity,” the “can you just…” that quietly eats your evenings and your nervous system. And in consulting, leadership, and any high-performance environment, the extra mile is currency. Sometimes it buys trust, visibility, sponsorship, promotion.Sometimes it buys you… nothing. Or worse: it buys someone else relief while it buys you a problem. So the real skill isn’t “working hard.” The real skill is discernment – and the ability to say no in a…
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How to handle pressure
Sometimes life sucks
My life is f***ed
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The Most Fun Promotion Strategy No One Teaches You
Become the missing puzzle piece – on purpose. A lot of people think promotions happen because you work harder, longer, louder. Sometimes they do. But often, promotions happen because a senior leader looks at you and thinks: “If this person is in my orbit, my life gets easier — and my outcomes get better.” Not because you’re a helper.Not because you’re “nice.”But because you’re useful in a way that matters. Here’s one action that is both powerful and fun: Find what your leader is missing – and fill that gap with your strengths. Not by guessing what “the business needs.”But by spotting what your boss and seniors struggle with –…
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The Leader Who Loved Like Santa Claus – How I learned to protect team culture without burning out
There was a time when appreciation was my default operating system. I would wrap a Christmas present for every single person on my team.Handwritten cards. Personal words. Small details that said: I see you. I know what you carried this year. And I meant every word. Then my career grew. Suddenly it wasn’t 8 people. It was 20. Then 50.And alongside my team, there were clients. Stakeholders. Leadership peers. Family. Friends. At some point I looked at my December and realized: I had turned into a full-time Santa Claus. And what crushed my heart wasn’t the workload.It was the fear of losing what I knew was a success factor: A…
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How weakness could be our strongest teambuilding (Part 1)
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Problems Never Go Away — They Only Change Their Shape
There is a particular kind of conversation leaders tend to avoid. Not because it is technically difficult. Not because it requires a formal decision. But because it is uncomfortable. It is the conversation where opinions surface. Where loyalties become visible. Where it becomes clear who stands on which side of an argument — and why. These are often not decision conversations yet. They are alignment conversations. Exploratory. Early. Seemingly harmless. And precisely because of that, they are easy to ignore. The Quiet Calculus of Avoidance Most leaders do not consciously decide to avoid these moments. The avoidance happens through a quiet internal calculation: What if this person no longer likes…
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“I’m Not That Important.” Or Am I?
“I’m not that important.” I’ve heard this sentence many times from leaders. Usually said with good intentions. A wish not to appear arrogant. A desire to stay humble. And yet, every time I hear it, something feels slightly off. Because in leadership, it is never really about importance. And at the same time, it absolutely is. One of the most important distinctions we need to make as leaders is this: the difference between the person and the role. You are a person. Whole. Complex. Valuable. Independent of any title you hold. And then there is the role. Team lead. Programme lead. Managing Director. CEO. A role you stepped into —…
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Why Leadership Always Starts One-to-One
Many people associate leadership with scale. With responsibility for many. With titles, headcount, and large organisations. And yes — careers often grow in that direction. But what is often overlooked is this: you don’t learn how to lead 200 people by starting with 200 people. You learn it by leading one. If you want to lead a larger group one day, you need to be clear on how you are steering people in general. Once you have learned how to lead small groups you can start scaling – and correspondingly adjusting your style. That’s why every sustainable leadership model starts small. At some point, you will need your circle of…
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It always starts with you
Large transformations might look like complex machinery — dozens of teams, hundreds of people, timelines, milestones, dependencies. But beneath all the moving parts, transformation leadership begins exactly where small-team leadership begins: with you. Your clarity becomes the organisation’s clarity. Your discipline becomes the team’s discipline. Your consistency becomes the culture’s consistency. If you are not on point, your programme won’t be on point. This is not theory — this is physics. The behaviour of a leader cascades, always. Your people look to you for: How you show up. How you communicate. How you plan. How you prioritise. How you handle pressure. How you treat others. And they follow that cue.…
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How to … appreciate people
My job adds value
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Freedom redefined
She once believed freedom meant palm trees. Warm sand. A laptop in a beach bag and the promise of working from anywhere, anytime. So she chose the travel industry — the world at her fingertips, assignments in sunlit places, pictures that looked like postcards. She moved lightly from team to team, country to country, believing this was the life she had dreamed of. But after a few months in each new role, she noticed something she hadn’t expected: the learning curve flattened. The excitement dimmed. And sometimes, the teams she joined didn’t truly work together — they only occupied the same place. Palm trees can’t fix a team that doesn’t…
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What it takes to make a career
What social work on sunday morning at 6am taught me
Will your tombstone inspire others?
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The Power of Small Things
It began on a small Danish island. Waves rolling in and out like slow breathing. Soft sand under bare feet. The kind of morning where the world feels gentle, almost quiet enough to hear your own thoughts. He knelt down, opened an empty box, and started filling it — handful by handful — with sand. Nothing rushed. Nothing dramatic. Just a simple, almost childlike act. Someone walked by and asked, “What are you doing with that?” He looked up, smiled, and said, “Preparing for something.” At the time, no one knew he would soon speak on a stage. No one knew this small act would become the heartbeat of his…
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Attention: trap ahead!
Are you smarter than a 4-year-old?
Walking with purpose
