“We often meet people who have amazing potential but let themselves be restricted by self-limiting ... [+]
I’ve never written a book review before, and I’ve rarely take the time to read one of the many self-help books that tell us all how to lead our lives. Maybe I’ve been put off by the big smiles and glowing perma-tan of the authors.
Marshall Goldsmith’s ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’ and the late Clay Christensen’s ‘How Will You Measure Your Life' are worthy exceptions.
But when I received a copy of 'Making Your Way’, a book written during the first wave of the pandemic lockdown by two remarkable women, Marion Debruyne and Katleen De Stobbeleir of the Vlerick Business School in Belgium, I read the introduction at the start of a two hour train ride.
"Dreaming big propels you forward. But it is often a bumpy road. Is the perfect job out there? How do you define success? Does everything have to be planned out, preferably before your thirties? And what about so-called work-life balance? A book about dreaming big, lifelong learning, and daring to leap.
Two hours later I was two-thirds of the way through the book, and almost missed my stop. What makes 'Making Your Way’ such a compelling read?
For a start, the voices of Marion and Katleen are filled with warmth, encouragement and a relatable mix of personal stories, stimulating testimonies and relevant scientific knowledge (they are after all esteemed academics). But they also write with disarming authenticity, sharing their self-doubts and hesitations with a humility that is a far cry from the over-confident voices of self-proclaimed coaching gurus.
And they inspired me to try my hand at my first book review.
"What we want to do is show to people that there are many different ways in which you can build your ... [+]
“We wrote Making Your Way for any young or not so young person trying to make it in this world,” explains Marion Debruyne, who has been Dean of Vlerick Business School for the past seven years. With a background in engineering and marketing, Marion’s own path includes years spent as a visiting Doctoral Fellow at The Wharton School and Visiting Scholar at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, and an assistant professorship at Emory Goizueta. Her research focuses on the challenges companies face as they deal with fundamental industry shifts – and her award-winning work has been published in several renowned academic journals.
Widely recognized as a shining star among the leaders of business education, she also holds a variety of independent directorships on the boards of publicly listed companies.
“We often meet people who have amazing potential but let themselves be restricted by self-limiting beliefs about what success or happiness should look like,” continues Marion Debruyne. “We want to set them free and make sure they forget about these myths so that they are able to realize their full potential.”
Akin to Lennon and McCartney, Marion and Katleen joined forces to write Making Your Way on Sunday mornings from their respective homes, sending each other ideas back and forth based on their own expertise and style, and complementing each other’s words like a jazz combo, as they write in the preface.
As a Professor of Leadership and head of Vlerick’s Centre for Excellence in Leading Adaptive Organisations, Katleen De Stobbeleir’s professional goal has always been to help organisations unlock their full potential – and her research, teaching and coaching focuses on building stronger, more innovative and sustainable organisations. She’s an expert in adaptive leadership and helps teams build the mindset, skillset and toolset to adapt quickly and effectively to change.
“If you look at our society today it looks completely different than 20 or 30 years ago - way more diverse,” she says. “Yet when we think about careers we look at them in a very homogenous way – you graduate, you start working and then you have a smooth path preferably going up until you retire. What we want to do is show to people that there are many different ways in which you can build your career.”
“We hope that people by reading this book dare to take the next leap forward and realise their ... [+]
Making Your Way is built around 3 key messages: Live your dream, learn every single day and leap with confidence. These are coincidentally the credo at Vlerick - Live Learn Leap.
In the 15 chapters of the book they give 15 pieces of the advice, and at the same time tackle 15 myths that we often encounter and that restrict people in realizing their full potential.
Katleen’s favourite myth is about reflection. “I watched an inspiring Steven Spielberg movie that said a dream will rarely shout you in the face, it is a whispering voice and you need to listen to that voice. The advice I would give my younger self is to make it quiet every now and then and to really take time for reflection and listen to that whispering voice.
But as we know from research is easier said than done, and there is a study that shows we actually prefer to give ourselves an electro-shock than to take an hour for reflection.”
What these two brilliant and generous individuals hope to achieve with Making Your Way is to inspire people and maybe trigger an aha moment through the stories they bring or the research they talk about. Like the aha moment Marion had years ago when she read about imposter syndrome and realized she was suffering from that.
“We hope that people by reading this book dare to take the next leap forward and realize their dreams and their full potential,” urges Marion Debruyne. In line with that mission the authors are donating the proceeds of the book to the Vlerick student scholarship fund.
Making Your Way is a book that everyone can and should read. Or listen to, on the freely available podcast.
