Coaching .. what a great job!
Who am I:
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My name is Ben… I am a man, father, son, friend, colleague, coach, consultant, entrepreneur, and always engaged with people. I am curious, enthusiastic, eager to learn, creative, and driven. Love connection, autonomy, and authenticity. I enjoy nature, music, travel, and sports.
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In the last five years, I have invested a lot of time and energy in my personal development and choose to expand my professional repertoire to include coaching. This choice means that I will continue to develop myself in this field, that feels good!
Some aspects of my life:
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From a young age, I was very good at keeping many balls in the air, I combined my studies in Economics with family and work; I was very good at going on and on, I wanted to do everything perfectly. I was very good at focusing on others, I had a fantastic helicopter view as a manager and with my many thoughts, I was very much only in my head, especially the left brain.
A busy life has brought me a lot - I have two wonderful children, know many beautiful and lovely people and built a large professional and social network, have had wonderful opportunities and business challenges, have experienced various professional growths, have expanded my personal qualities and skills, and have been blessed with a varied career in Finance, HR and interim management.
It also cost me a lot.
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In the years after the onset of the 2009 financial crisis, many things did not go well and, despite my hard work and due to a combination of circumstances, I lost a lot. Personal and professional relationships, my company, as well as my health. A wake-up call, but one I only saw much later. It took me a long time to realize that I had to take a completely different path. Burnout and depression ensued. Recovery took a long time but it was the beginning of a journey of discovery. My body had warned me. This is when I identified, partly after good conversations, that I had a combination of ADHD and ADD.
Wow, that explained a lot. I often had a too "full head" and this made it more difficult to focus; sometimes resulting in my having stressed and overt reactions to others, as a result of which people found me "different" and sometimes even avoided me. From an early age I subconsciously felt that I was slightly different from others, and during those years I had learned how to expertly adapt myself and attune well to what other people expected. This adaptation and survival strategy increasingly stopped working, resulting in anger and frustration. My proverbial "bucket" was increasingly overflowing. Time for change!
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After an introduction to NLP in 2013, my interest in deeper personal awareness was awakened. From that moment on, I gained a lot of insight by delving into where I came from, my childhood, and how I was raised. For example, I learned to look at (with my deeper personal awareness) what was and was not healthy and where my historical loyalties lay. At a later age, I worked hard to deal with and escape from unhelpful thoughts and behavior that could be traced back to a strict childhood.
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You can be so caught up in thoughts and I noticed that awareness is the beginning of change. Growth begins when you are willing to find new answers to the questions in your history. And with these new answers, there is more individuality and freedom in who you are now.
I started to realize that my busy brain (which is programmed differently) had positive sides! I became much more aware of my creative side, triggering other (fun) natural chemicals and responses in my brain. I love music, and singing, regularly performing with groups in theaters where we provide the most amazing musicals and performances. A huge resource for my full head, music and friends gave me that much-needed relaxation and kept me going; resources, and especially awareness of them, are so important!
"I discovered that when I believe my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being." - Byron Katie
My further studies in Coaching, NLP and Systemic Work at, among others, the “1e Verdieping” in Delft, gave me many new insights and tools. I learned to accept myself, trust again in feeling and body, no longer just trusting my overcrowded head.
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Just some aspects of my life, I am very curious about your journey….