What it took to get here - my most personal podcast interview so far.
I was recently a guest on the podcast What it Took with Mikaela Seger Nälgård. And no, this is not one of those shiny success-story podcasts where everything magically worked out in the end.
This one is about what actually happens behind the scenes.
As Mikaela puts it, the show explores the internal journey behind visible success. The doubts, the resilience, the moments where you seriously question your life choices. That framing suited me just fine. My story has never been glossy.
By the age of 27, I had already started and shut down two companies, one of them ending in bankruptcy. Not exactly LinkedIn headline material. I could have edited that part out of my story. Instead, I chose to own it. Because pretending things didn’t happen rarely makes them disappear.
If you want to learn from me about personal branding, strategy and visibility, you’ll find plenty of talks and content from me on YouTube.
But this podcast is not that.
In this conversation, Mikaela and I went somewhere much more personal. We talked about what it takes to go through life as a human, not just as an entrepreneur with a to-do list and a vision board. Yes, we talked about entrepreneurship and ambition. But we also talked about some of the hardest moments of my life. About going through a divorce while losing my father at the same time. About the world shutting down during a pandemic while I was alone in a new city, trying to function like everything was fine.
We spoke about loss and failure. About hitting what felt like a fatal fall. And about what happens after that moment, when there is no big comeback montage, just the quiet work of getting back up again.
This episode isn’t about branding tactics or five-step frameworks. It’s about resilience, identity, and redefining success when life doesn’t follow the plan you so carefully made.
This is the most personal podcast I’ve done so far. I’m deeply grateful to Mikaela for holding space for me, and for conversations like this one. If you’re building something big, or rebuilding yourself, and quietly wondering what it’s costing you on the inside, this conversation is for you.
/M.