This was always where I was heading

There's a thread running through everything I've been doing. It took me a while to see it clearly, but once I did - it was impossible to ignore.

What

It started in early 2021 when I wrote about my miscarriage - the absence of stories around pregnancy loss, the unrealistic expectations that followed, and how sharing my own became both part of my healing and a way to create awareness for others. From there: learnings on leadership, representation, parenthood. And eventually, conversations about the silence between generations in migrant families.

In all of it, the same pattern: experiences that often go unspoken - not always by choice, but because the space for them is not a given. And what becomes possible when that space is created. Identities that find more depth. Understanding that replaces assumption. Cycles that don't have to repeat. Connection.

That's what I've been moving towards. Making space for those stories.

Looking back, this was probably always where I was heading. But understanding why took longer.

Why

For as long as I can remember, I loved winning. Not to show off, but to prove myself. Gallup later labeled it: Competition as my dominant strength. I recognized it immediately and yet, for years it hadn't felt quite right anymore.

Then I read *Exceptionals* by Ingrid Tappin, just when it came out. Ingrid and I met at Accenture, back when I was on the edge of my first management role and she was a leader I admired mostly from afar. Her IdQ framework gave me language for something I was already in the middle of.

My identity advantage was forged as the Underdog - someone who grows with a need to prove worth through results - and it doesn't stop there. As I grew into a manager and later senior manager, something shifted. I moved into what is described in *Exceptionals* as the Outspoken Challenger: more direct, more visible by choice, from a place where I'd found my voice. But that identity also felt situational - something I could step into.

And something else kept pulling at me. A different kind of ambition - not to win, but to build. Not from a role I hold, but from who I actually am.

After more than a decade, I left corporate life to create something with my own story. Ingrid calls it the Personal Breakthrough. For my Underdog core that means leaning into the Visionary Translator archetype: stepping out of proving yourself and into shaping shared meaning.

That's what Verhalen voor Verbinding is, quite literally. I'm taking my lived experiences and translating them into concepts that are also meaningful to others.

How

Starting with conversation cards - the first shape my mission is taking.

Some conversations don't happen - not because we don't want to have them, but because we don't know where to begin.

The founding edition is for second-generation migrants and their first-generation parents - about roots, legacy and everything in between. Built from my own experience. From silences I know personally, and that I know many others carry too.

What I've come to believe: identity is not only the foundation of good leadership. It's the foundation of meaningful work.

Verhalen voor Verbinding is mine.

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