THE BIRTH OF THINKROOM

There's a moment that happens in certain conversations. The air shifts. The superficial falls away. Both people lean in slightly. What was an exchange of information becomes something else entirely — a genuine exploration, a mutual discovery. These moments have always fascinated me, because they're where real understanding happens. They're where we change each other.

I've been chasing these moments my entire professional life. And now, I'm building a home for them.

When Two Worlds Collide

I've always existed between two worlds that rarely meet.

There's the analytical world — the realm of strategy, frameworks, leadership models, and structured thinking. The world where clarity and measurable outcomes reign supreme. This has been my professional home for over a decade, the foundation of my company, my comfort zone.

Then there's the existential world — the space of deep conversation, personal revelation, and fundamental questions about what actually drives us beneath the surface. The world where authenticity matters more than authority, where we admit we're still figuring things out.

Most people choose one of these worlds. You're either the strategic thinker or the reflective soul. The framework builder or the deep conversationalist. The intellectual or the existentialist.

I've never accepted that divide. And THINKROOM is where these two worlds finally meet.

The Unexpected Gift of Authorship

When my book released in 2024, something shifted. I didn't anticipate how authorship fundamentally changes your perceived authority. Suddenly, my LinkedIn messages got responses. My lunch invitations were accepted. Doors that had been firmly closed swung open.

What happened next was entirely unexpected. I found myself sitting across from some of the sharpest minds in business and society, having conversations that went far beyond the usual professional exchange. These weren't interviews or networking opportunities — they were genuine explorations where both of us were thinking out loud, challenging assumptions, and occasionally stumbling onto insights neither of us had considered before.

I'd leave these conversations buzzing with energy, my mind racing with new perspectives. And a thought kept returning: These are the conversations people should hear.

Beyond the Rogan Blueprint

I've been an avid podcast listener for years, particularly drawn to the long-form conversation format that Joe Rogan helped pioneer. What Rogan understood — and what fundamentally changed the media landscape — was that audiences don't need artificial conflict or oversimplification. They don't need hosts who trap guests in gotcha moments or reduce complex ideas to sound bites.

What we need are spaces where smart, thoughtful people can actually think. Where ideas can unfold at their natural pace. Where contradictions and uncertainties aren't edited out but explored with curiosity.

This approach set the stage for a different type of conversation in the public space — one where the host's job isn't to "challenge" the guest through confrontation, but to create the conditions where the guest challenges themselves. Where they think out loud, reconsider positions, and reveal the actual complexity behind their ideas.

But even within this evolving landscape, I felt something was still missing.

Finding Our Voice in a Crowded Room

There are thousands of podcasts competing for your attention. So why add another voice to this crowded space?

The honest answer is that I didn't start with a grand vision. I started with conversations I couldn't stop thinking about. I started recording because these exchanges felt too valuable to be confined to the moment they occurred. And only as the audience grew did I step back and consider what I was actually building.

Quite early, when the podcast had fewer than a hundred listeners, I sat down and wrote an internal manifesto — not for public consumption, but to crystallize for myself what these conversations meant. What emerged wasn't just a content strategy, but a philosophy.

I realized that as you build a platform, and reach people's ears in the intimate way a podcast does, you have to reflect on the power and responsibility of that platform. Every guest I invite, question I ask, and theme I explore is a curatorial choice. And while I primarily follow my curiosity, there are values and ideas being promoted beneath the surface.

The Space Between Structure and Soul

What I've observed over years of working with organizations is that leadership and change are built on two often opposing forces.

There's the structure you build for change — the frameworks that force clarity, actionability, and accountability. This had been my professional ecosystem for years, the foundation upon which I built my company and reputation.

But I couldn't ignore a pattern I kept seeing: the same framework delivered wildly different outcomes depending on who was implementing it. Because leadership isn't just about systems and structures — it's about the human element. The authenticity of the leaders driving the change. Their capacity to connect, to inspire trust, to navigate complexity without resorting to false certainty.

When life forced me into a two-year deep dive in therapy, personal development, and confronting my own demons, I experienced firsthand how the growth that comes from adversity spills over into every aspect of life — especially our ability to lead and connect. With this insight, I started seeing the world through a different lens.

I saw that what leaders needed weren't necessarily more theoretical frameworks — they were role models. But the kind of leaders who are truly integrated, thoughtful, and heartfelt are seldom fame-seekers. They operate in their own ecosystems, making profound impact within their spheres of influence, but rarely step onto stages where their insights could reach a wider audience.

That became part of my mission: to bring these voices to those who most need them — the broader leadership community hungry for genuine wisdom rather than polished performance.

The Conversations That Matter

The conversations that truly matter aren't the ones that give you a list of five steps to success. They're not the ones that simply reinforce what you already believe. They're the ones that gently disrupt your worldview — that present a perspective you hadn't considered, that illuminate a blind spot, that connect dots you hadn't noticed were related.

These conversations don't just transfer information. They transform how you see.

That's why THINKROOM isn't just another business podcast with expert guests sharing pre-packaged insights. It's a space where briljant minds get to think out loud, without the pressure of having all the answers. Where leaders accustomed to projecting certainty can pause and reflect. Where sharp intellectual analysis meets genuine human experience — and both get equal time.

I'm fascinated by how strategic leaders think — but even more by what shapes their thinking. I want to understand the big ideas, the groundbreaking strategies, the invisible processes behind real influence. But I also want to understand what lies beneath: what drives their decisions, what they doubt, what they rarely articulate publicly.

Building Something Together

There's an interesting balance in creating any platform. You do it partly for yourself and partly for the audience. And those two perspectives don't always align perfectly.

THINKROOM, more than anything else, reflects my own hunger for these conversations — for the intellectual stimulation, the unexpected connections, the moments of sudden clarity that emerge when smart people think together without an agenda. I do this because I want to and because I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where I can.

But that doesn't mean I'm not listening intently to every message about how these conversations impact different listeners, or to suggestions for future guests and topics. I'm genuinely moved when someone tells me that a particular exchange helped them see something differently or gave them language for an idea they'd been circling.

This is increasingly becoming a co-creation. A community forming around conversations that matter. And I hope that together, we can shape this into something we all look back on as having genuine value — not just in our professional lives, but in how we understand ourselves and each other.

Thank you for the trust you place in me when you listen. I promise to continue bringing you conversations that break new ground — that challenge both my guests and myself to think in ways we haven't before. That teach us something new each time. And that give you the chance to do the same.

Because in the end, the most powerful shifts don't happen in grand announcements or viral moments. They happen in conversations. In the quiet space between a question and an answer, where we're all still figuring it out.

That's the think room I'm building. And you're invited.