Surfacing
Why I went quiet for a few months, and what divers know about coming back up
It has been some time since I wrote and published anything on Substack. A lot has happened in my life over the last two to three months, and I felt like I needed a reset. Not only in my writing, but in the direction my professional life was steering.
I write about growth, about intercultural challenges, and how they influence our decision making and behavior. I write about private encounters that show me how important it is to embrace change as a way to grow. But when you’re in the middle of such a growth moment, it rarely feels like growth. It feels like being lost.
If you have followed my journey for a while, you know that I started my solopreneurship two years ago. At first, I was convinced that my new business concept to sell intercultural marketing consulting would work well. Why? Because I had encountered a lot of external and internal intercultural challenges when I worked for global companies, trying to expand to new markets.
My plan was nice. Reality wasn’t. I realized that in the midst of an economic downturn, combined with groundbreaking new technologies that completely changed the way we think about business and marketing (namely AI), offering services like mine wouldn’t work. No company was willing to invest in my guidance, because they either didn’t have the budget, or they believed that generative AI could do at least a good enough job.
So I had to research the market again and tweak my offering. I started working with trainers, consultants, and solopreneurs on their positioning. How they could differentiate themselves from their competitors. How they could communicate their uniqueness in a way that led to more customers.
And I loved this work, because it made me feel my immediate contributions to the success of others. But I was new in that field, and business was growing slowly.
Then fate knocked on the door. Last year I had sent out initiative applications for lecturer jobs. And a newly founded institute was interested in hiring me, not as a lecturer, but to build the career consultation and marketing part from scratch.
I was beaming with joy, because suddenly I was seen again. But I also had doubts, because I loved being self-employed (well, the good sides of it). It took me some time to reshape my thinking about this opportunity. During this time, I didn’t feel like writing or posting anything. I was in digital detox to find myself again.
Divers know this state. After a deep dive, you don’t swim straight to the surface. You stop at five meters and hang in the water for three minutes, doing nothing, while your body releases the nitrogen it collected at depth. It feels like wasted time. Your dive is over, the surface is right there, and still you wait. But this safety stop is what makes surfacing safe. Skip it, and the ascent itself can hurt you.
My weeks of silence were my safety stop. Two years of solopreneurship, a pivot, a difficult decision. That was a deep dive, and I needed time to let it work through my system before coming up.
If you’re in a transition yourself right now, a new role, a pivot, a decision that took more out of you than expected, maybe the quiet phase you’re in isn’t a lack of progress. Depth needs to leave your system before you can move on. Give it the three minutes it takes.
Since July 1st, I have surfaced. I’m building the marketing of a young education institute from scratch, and I advise people on their careers and further education. In many ways, this is a return to my roots. Education, marketing, branding, these are the fields where I started and where I feel at home.
And the advisory part gives me something I’ve missed. I believe the strongest impact happens within three feet of influence. Real change begins in direct conversations, in small, human spaces, and I consider that closeness essential for success, in any role and any market. Now I have those conversations every day, with people who are figuring out their own next step.
VKG Consulting and this newsletter continue alongside. So no, this is not the plan I started with two years ago. It’s the plan that fits the conditions I actually found in the water. And for the first time in months, I’m not just okay with that. I’m curious where the next dive will take me.
The newsletter is back to its rhythm now. Thank you for staying subscribed through the quiet!
I’d love to hear: what did your last safety stop look like?