“The problem is that I cannot feel motivated…” “Generally speaking, what would make you feel motivated?” “When my manager tells me what to do (husband/wife/parent/child/friend/etc.), then I know I really have to do that…” “Is that what really motivates you?” “Well, it’s a pressure that makes me do what I am supposed to do….” The discussion above is an except from a coaching conversation. I think everyone on this planet knows the pressure when we are expected to do things – th

At a recent session at the ESPC conference, I took the stage to discuss something incredibly fundamental: wellbeing. Taking inspiration from my professional journey as a consultant and coach at Search Explained, coupled with my personal experiences, I navigated through the importance of nurturing our well-being. In my consulting work, my approach has always incorporated the human perspective. Beyond the professional layer always lies an essential human connection – the enrich

It was March 4, 2020, when my almost empty flight from Copenhagen, Denmark landed in Budapest, Hungary. The pandemic already had been around us, and already had impacted my travel plans for the rest of March and April — but I had no idea the magnitude of its impact on our lives in the following months. I think, nobody had. March 4, 2020 was 300 days ago. Before that, I had had a life with frequent travel opportunities: mostly for work, but also to relax. In 2019, I traveled

I made a mistake recently. Yes, I did: over-committed. I did more workshops in the first three months than I did the previous six months in total. Traveled for 31 days in the first 80 days of the year. I had projects from last year being postponed and delayed until everything had to be done at the same time. And like a domino, my schedule collapsed. I did not have time to write. Not here, not in my professional blog either. The only thing I kept more or less alive was my In

When I was a child, I wanted to be like everyone else. But I could not, even though I tried hard. I tried to prove I am like everyone else. Then slowly, things changed. After a while, what I wanted to prove was that I can do things that nobody else. I wanted to prove I can win math competitions. — I did. I wanted to prove I can code. — I did. Then I wanted to prove I can get applied to the university. — I could. There I had to prove that as a minority (girl) I can be “good en

As a mother of three who runs her own business and travels a lot and still keeps sanity I get the question quite often: “How do you do that?” To be honest, sometimes I don’t know :) When I analyze how we live, our family schedule, the way me do exception management (there’s always something unexpected happening in a family of five!) I always conclude the number one “secret formula” is time management. My task lists I have two primary task type: work and personal. I know there

As a mother of three, unexpected things are constantly part of our lives. Someone gets sick. Something is needed for the school — the very next day. Something gets lost. You name it. The only way I’ve found to work for us is to expect these unexpected things. Of course, I don’t mean to worry all day and night about what can get wrong the next minute. Not at all! But getting prepared, and being flexible to make a plan “B” or plan “C”… or even plan “Z” (the alphabet has 26 lett

I have to admit it’s not easy to focus here while I’m writing these words. Although I’m sitting in my home office, there are too many distractions. My youngest boy is sleeping in the room next to me, and there’s a good chance he wakes up in only a few minutes. My eldest son is watching the Olympic games next to me, and one of his judo friends is fighting now. Therefore my son is more than excited. I guess he’s got an almost as big adrenaline rush as if he were the one on the

Being quite addicted to traveling (yes, I have to admit that!), I love taking my luggage and heading to the airport, visiting new countries or getting back to familiar places. Although I was over 25 when I took my first flight, travel became an addiction soon. I’ve been to more than thirty countries in the last few years, visiting some of them dozens of times. I have friends, sisters, and brothers around the world. I always look forward to seeing them and spend some time toge

Recently, I’ve been asked this question: “My productivity has been shot the past two days. I am feeling pretty overwhelmed, alone, and depressed. What do you do when you are feeling this way?” I answered this personally of course, and I thought, this is actually something which we all deal with from time to time, so I thought I would share my expanded thoughts here on my blog. When I analyse what I do, I’ve found that it is actually a little strategy comprising of three thing

I share the (quite common) belief that if you don’t have a habit of open and continual communication with your kids, then neither will they with you. I don’t intend to simplify the syndrome typical to many kids who, upon reaching teenage years, think that the last (cool) person on earth to talk to is their mom. What I do hope though, is as my children grow, and grow away from me, when their sense of independence and new influences begin to take precedence, that they will stil

Making a plan vital in order to be able to meet all the children’s needs. If you have to drive the kids to school as well as afternoon activities like we do, it needs to be feasible. First, because you cannot be in two places at the same time. Second, because driving always needs time and you have to be able to allocate this time every week, for years. This is one reason why I work as an entrepreneur — working from home gives me the freedom to be able to spend the afternoons

Some of you might know that I’ve been a Certified Scrum Master for several years. Being passionate about agile techniques has its own benefits in my professional work, but also in my everyday life. Sure, we don’t live our family life in sprints, and don’t start our days with stand-up meetings. But we definitely have some nice challenges that we solve by using agility: I am a working mom and usually travel a lot, about one week per month on average. Sometimes it’s less, but so

I am a busy consultant. I run my own business. I have two little children. We live in a big family house with a small garden backyard where there’s always lot to do. Yes, I am always busy… My TO DO list is always long, sometimes maybe a bit longer than I would have liked. Sometimes, the unexpected happens. One or both of my kids get sick. I get sick. My laptop goes wrong. Flight delay. Traffic jam. — Anything you can imagine. Or even more… I’ve been trying several ways of tim