How meaningful do you want to be?

We all want to be meaningful. Meaningful as in: of significance to someone else. Whatever your status or intention, it is a common drive. Even if the intention is in my opinion a reprehensible intention. To be meaningful. To mean something to others...

Young CEOs

Is it just me or are CEOs getting younger? This is not my question, dear reader. Three of my coachees wondered out loud. Gerard, Niek and Tom were the ones. Don't search among my contacts, because I'll give them a different name. But for now: Gerard,...

The reptile in you

How many times today have you done something without using your brain? Once? Three times? Five times? Not at all? Whatever your answer is, it probably doesn’t make sense. A lot of the decisions you made today were made completely without reasoning. Without even...

The corona crisis. What are you waiting for?

This is not a pleasant article, dear reader. I am going to shake you awake. You may wonder why this is necessary. Why do I have to shake you awake? You are sitting at home and waiting. Idleness is slowly taking hold of you. Well, you do a few things. You maintain your...

Scarcity. Abundance. Corona.

Scarcity rulezzz… I ran into an old acquaintance. On the street. It was only a short while ago, and at the same time it seems like an eternity, because before the C-crisis. C = corona. We can hardly bear the word anymore. “Hey. Hans”, I heard behind me. I looked around...

The forest, the hunt and bold leadership

The forest, hunting and bold leadership I grew up in a forest. That's true, because my parents had a campsite. Yet for years I had no interest in a forest. All that greenery, quite beautiful. But ultimately nothing more than an oxygen production company or...

The refrigerator and your high-level job

The Refrigerator and Your High-Level Job Are you a CEO? Or a CFO or a COO? Or any other C-level function? I’m curious to know what your job has done to you over the past – let’s say – two years. Maybe you’ve managed some really exciting projects. Some of those...

You don't build a cathedral in one day

A generation currently lives for about 85 years. My own mother, now 91, brings the average up and it looks like she won't be leaving us anytime soon. I thought of that when I read that building a cathedral in previous centuries also took about a...

Dealing with your email. Part 2

The greater the demands that willpower makes on you, the more powerfully the chains of habit rattle. They are not exceptional; men and women who check their e-mail boxes 36 times an hour during their commercial time*. *Note that the hours with the greatest commercial...