I’m not drawn to people who use language to dominate. Those who network to display their credentials, who rely on clever words or name-dropping to establish authority. I’m more interested in what cannot be seen or easily proven, the quiet undercurrents that shape who we are and how we lead. For me, life is less about what we know and more about what we don’t yet understand.
From a young age, my mother introduced me to spiritual practices, things you cannot touch or point to. At times, it frightened me. It would be easier to live as if only the visible world exists. But how can we assume that our limited human senses capture everything? I’ve never fully believed that. I sense there is more beneath the surface.
Creating Space Beneath the Noise
As a child, I learned Transcendental Meditation (TM). This practice creates space, space beyond mental noise, beyond immediate reaction. It strengthens focus, supports creativity, and opens room for insight. Over time, I’ve come to see it not simply as a technique, but as a discipline of awareness. A way of leading from a deeper place. Leadership often rewards speed and certainty. Meditation reminds me that clarity sometimes comes from stillness.
The Courage to Work With the “Bad” Ideas
Artists like David Lynch and Marina Abramović have explored this invisible dimension in their own ways. Abramović’s work, in particular, has long fascinated me. In Rhythm 0, she tested presence and vulnerability. In The Artist Is Present, a documentary Marina Abramović where she demonstrated the power of simply holding space.
What moves me most is an exercise she gives her students: write down your ideas, divide them into “good” and “bad,” then discard the good ones and work with what feels uncomfortable. The ideas that feel unrealistic or frightening are often the ones that stretch us. They demand courage. They create growth.
Reframing What You Think You Cannot Do
During our Women Emerging expedition, we were invited to explore similar questions: What do we believe we cannot do? What traits do we dismiss? What might become possible if we looked at them differently?
What do you believe you cannot do?
We reflected on how perceived limitations can be reframed into strengths — or woven together into something uniquely powerful. Around that same time, Abramović visited The Merode, where we gather. I later saw a photograph of her seated at the same table where we had met just days earlier. The coincidence felt symbolic — a reminder that growth often happens in layers, some visible, some not.
On my next visit, I took a photo at that same table. Later, I placed the two images side by side. Different moments. Same space. Separated only by time. It made me reflect on how leadership is rarely linear. Growth doesn’t follow a straight path.
Leading From the Unseen
We often hear that we know more about outer space than about our own oceans. I feel the same about the human interior. There are layers beneath the surface, in ourselves and in others, waiting to be explored. I am endlessly curious about what else exists. About people who dare to look into the unseen rather than just the obvious, people who revisit familiar situations with new eyes and different parts of the brain, uncovering new patterns, new opportunities, new forms of innovation.
Leadership, like meditation or art, asks us to pause. To question what feels certain. To sit with discomfort long enough for something new to emerge. That unseen space; quiet, reflective, unfolding, is where I feel most alive. And increasingly, it is from that place that I choose to lead.
