52 Weeks

Roughly three hundred and twelve weeks have gone by since I left my leadership position in the corporate world. When you do the math, that’s six years. During those six years, I’ve often mentioned to family and friends I wanted to write a book.

“One day, I will write a book.”

One day never came. But the little voice in my head never went away. That little voice told me that I had the wisdom, the experience, the stories, the creativity, the conversations, the network, and the determination to make it happen. One day.

I started writing stories already in 2018. I wrote my first story sitting in Cafe Belcampo in Groningen, the Netherlands, while waiting in anticipation of the promotion ceremony of a former corporate colleague. Writing that story was a magical experience. I had walked through the city of Groningen that morning, relived many memories from my six years of studies, and remember having an enormous boost of inspiration.

I enjoy the writing process. I enjoy sitting in a place where I get inspired by the surroundings, the conversations happening around me, and the excellent coffee. Coffee has helped me to write hundreds of stories since the eleventh of January 2018. Hundreds of stories about self-awareness, leadership, teamwork, culture, and ordinary and extraordinary experiences. Sometimes, it is written well in advance, sometimes in the spur of the moment.

During those years of writing, I received positive feedback on my stories. People liked it. That kept me going. I started posting the stories on websites like Medium and Substack and started to make small amounts of money. Strangers were reading my stories and clapped for them.

That was and still is a funny feeling. To receive feedback from a friend is one thing. You never really know whether they compliment you or the story’s content. A stranger has no agenda other than learning and growing from the content they’re reading. I received feedback when I least expected it, and I received no feedback when I thought I had written a good story. Writing can be rewarding and cruel at the same time.

Over those years, I’ve created enough content to write even three books. But I never made the time to put it all together in a book. Writing the stories is one thing. Doing the editing and…