If a recruiter looked at my CV, they'd get nightmares. Over 20 years, I've had 15 jobs, across 5 careers.
Trainee. Consultant. Startup founder. Google. Head of Remote, then Chief People Officer. And now finally a life coach in Malaga. Good luck finding the red thread.
For a long time it looked like I couldn't make up my mind. It looked like I was starting over, throwing away years of experience. Re-starting at the bottom of a new ladder. That was the story. And I almost believed it myself.
But I'm a pretty good storyteller. And at some point I realized: I don't have to rattle off my CV in chronological order. I can choose how to tell my story. And so can you.
So I went back and looked at my "eras" one by one. Not as a list of jobs. But as a chain of experiences that made me who I am today.
The red thread, era by era
Consulting (logical brain). GE, then Accenture. Suits and strategy decks across Riga, Tokyo, Copenhagen and Stockholm. This is where I learned how to think. How to walk up to any problem, take it apart, and present a solution with a straight face. It made me a great facilitator, and the international travel gave me a set of perspectives that are invaluable today.
Startups (creative brain). I founded Seed Nordic, built products at 29k, tried a food startup in New York. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. This was zero to one. Building from nothing, learning the hustle. The consulting and corporate years gave me credibility to stand on. I could take real risks because I had something solid underneath me.
Google (logical + creative brain). I love Google. Still the best company I've worked for. And I got to use both sides of my brain. My consulting experience helped me navigate a complex multinational, while my startup skills kept me innovative, fast and nimble, allowing me to eventually own Google's relationship with Spotify, who wanted nothing to do with a big corporate.
People leadership (bringing it all together). After leaving corporate, to prioritize a life in Malaga, I became Head of Remote and later Chief People Officer, leading 60 to 75 people through a culture change. I led, inspired by the great leadership I'd seen up close at GE and Google. Mixed with the reality of building fast-growing startups, where structure can get in the way. My crazy list of experiences let me relate to every person across every function.
Coaching (giving back). They say those who can't do, teach. I don't believe that. But I do believe the best teachers are the ones who have done it. My coaching era is all about giving back. Not only have I reinvented myself five times, I also understand my clients' reality. I've climbed the corporate ladder. I've felt the chaos of hyper-scaling. I draw on years of leading teams, on facilitation, on the cultures I got to see up close at GE, Google and Spotify. Nothing got thrown away. It all showed up here.
Same facts. Completely different story.
The past is fixed. The meaning is not.
You can't change your past. The job you lost, the marriage that ended, the career you spent twenty years building and now feel trapped inside. Those are facts.
But the meaning of those facts? That's a story. And you are the one telling it.
Most of us don't notice we're telling a story at all. We think we're just describing reality. "I'm the responsible one." "I peaked at that company." "I'm too old to start something new." These sound like facts. They're not. They're interpretations. Somebody wrote them. Probably a younger version of yourself. Or your parents, or a boss you stopped working for a decade ago.
Here's a question that might change things: who's holding the pen now?
Why this matters for reinvention
When I work with people who want to change something big in their life, the real blocker is almost never the plan. It's the story. Or, in coaching terms, "your beliefs".
You can't build a new chapter while the old narrator is still talking. If your story says "I'm a finance person, that's what I am", every idea outside finance seems like an unrealistic fantasy. If your story says "I already had my shot", you'll stop looking for the next one. The story sets the boundaries of what you'll even consider.
And I want to be clear about one thing. Rewriting your story does not mean pretending the hard parts didn't happen. The difficult things were real. Learn from them. Turn them into a part of your story. The same setback can either be the chapter where everything fell apart, or the chapter where the old life ended so a more authentic one could start. Both versions are honest. You choose.
Try this
Take ten minutes and write the short version of your career. Ten lines, max.
Then write it again. Same facts. But this time, write it as the story of someone who was slowly collecting exactly what they'd need for what comes next.
The first version is probably the one you've been carrying around. The second one is just as true. Notice which one gives you energy.
That gap, between the story you inherited and the story you could be telling, is where reinvention actually starts. Not with a new job title. With a new narrator.
You don't have to rewrite it alone
One more thing I've learned the hard way: other people see your story more clearly than you do.
Every time I've reinvented myself, I've done it through conversations. I make a list of people I find inspiring, and I ask them about their story. Halfway through, I show them mine: what I care about, what I'm good at, what lights me up. Then I ask what they see. That process is how 50 Lunches started, and every single round of it has led me somewhere I couldn't have planned.
Why does it work? Because the people across the table aren't loyal to your old story. They just see the raw material. They'll connect dots you've been staring past for years.
I've rewritten my own story a few times now. It never gets less uncomfortable. But every time, the new version made moves possible that the old version had quietly ruled out.
So... what's the story you've been telling about yourself? And if you're honest, who wrote it?
You're holding the pen. You always were.
