Episode 7: From Corporate Chaos to Consulting Success: How Maartje Turned Crisis into Opportunity

Season #1 April 17, 2025

In this illuminating episode of the Thriving Through Podcast, host AJ Riedel interviews Maartje, founder of The Chaos Games Consulting, who made a significant career transition in 2024 after spending decades in the oil and gas industry.

Career Transition Journey

Maartje shares her compelling story of leaving a structured corporate environment where she felt increasingly misaligned with the company's direction. The breaking point came after raising safety concerns that went unaddressed, followed by a gas explosion incident on an offshore asset where her husband was working. Despite being in a leadership position, she felt unable to influence necessary changes, prompting her decision to leave. After departing from corporate life, Maartje took about nine months before fully committing to consulting work, initially accepting random contracts before strategically defining her business focus in 2024.

Consulting Focus

Maartje specializes in helping medium-sized businesses experiencing rapid scaling or operating in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) environments.

She works primarily with:

- Companies undergoing extreme growth

- Organizations navigating significant organizational changes or new partnerships

- Businesses in tech and innovation sectors facing scaling challenges

Her approach focuses on two key areas:

1. Decision-making mechanics - Improving prioritization, opportunity framing, and decision hygiene

2. People dynamics - Enhancing engagement, resource allocation, and addressing cultural issues

She typically engages with top-level leadership, board members, or investors when organizations have exhausted their internal resources and recognize they need external help.

Challenges as an Independent Consultant

Maartje candidly discusses several unexpected challenges:

- Building credibility without corporate backing

- The difficulty of securing speaking engagements and client opportunities without an established organizational brand behind her

- Finding the right peer network

- Initially joining groups with coaches and healers rather than other B2B consultants, which delayed her messaging development

- Self-motivation without financial pressure

- Having achieved financial freedom during her corporate career paradoxically made it harder to create the pressure needed to drive her business forward

- Gender barriers

- Navigating unsolicited advice from men and wondering if gender impacts client acquisition

- Work-life structure - Transitioning from a highly scheduled corporate environment to self-directed work

Valuable Advice for Aspiring Consultants

Maartje offers practical guidance for corporate executives considering independent consulting:

1. Gather assets before leaving - Collect testimonials, examples of your work, and build a portfolio while still employed

2. Don't completely abandon your previous industry - Your former employer and industry offer the easiest initial client opportunities

3. Declare your intentions openly - Tell your network specifically what you're looking for, as people can't help if they don't know what you need

4. Expect a longer runway than anticipated - Building momentum takes time, especially if finances are a pressing concern

5. Find peers in similar businesses - Connect with others who understand your market and can provide relevant feedback

Future Vision

Maartje reveals her long-term vision of living in 2-3 global locations while working 50-60% of her time. She's already established a home in France alongside her New Orleans base, and plans to create a globally distributed consulting practice after her children finish high school.

She also discusses her podcast, "The Business Emergency Room," which combines her childhood dream of being a radio DJ with her business expertise.

Connect with Maartje: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartje/

Website: https://www.thechaosgamesconsulting.com/

Podcast: https://www.thebusinessemergencyroom.com/

Episode Transcript

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yep.

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AJ Riedel: Welcome to this episode of the thriving through podcast today. My guest is Marcha.

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AJ Riedel: She is the a self-employed consultant, and her company name is the chaos games consulting which is really intriguing name. So welcome. I'm so glad to have you on the podcast.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Thank you for having me, and yes, the name is a bit of a hurdle. But yeah, March, if you go on Linkedin, I'm the 1st march that appears so we don't need to deal with the rest of the name. That's even more impossible.

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AJ Riedel: And you probably are used to your name being slaughtered by stupid Americans that don't know how to how to decipher their ways, and.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: No, I'm seldom offended by that. I always joke that I respond very well to, Hey, fabulous lady, or you can call me M. Because then I'm the boss of all the James Bond Division. Right? So I'll take any of it.

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AJ Riedel: I love it. I love it. I'm gonna call you both awesome, lady and Em, all right, and let's let's get right to it.

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AJ Riedel: So when we talked earlier, you said you spent 10 decades in oil and gas before making them a major pivot in 2024. What finally prompted you to make that leap into independent consulting.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah. So

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: in oil and gas, there is quite prescribed career ladders. There is not necessarily a lot of

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: schools or education that really prepare you for the specific work in oil and gas and oil and gas companies typically invest heavily in the people that they hire. And they typically hire lifers. So the majority of people who work for oil companies start there and stay there and retire there. And so that means that there's lots of opportunity. Lots of good training, very diverse career opportunities.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: But if you're somebody like me, who's not, who doesn't really fit ideally in any of the career ladders that can also be difficult. I managed to carve out a career between the ladders, and I think that also cultivated the skill that I'm now selling.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and that so ultimately that started to rub. There wasn't the career paths that were there, and what I wanted didn't necessarily exist any longer, and it was also harder if you become more senior, to jump from ladder to ladder, one and 2. I was quite senior, specifically as a woman quite senior in a part of the business that has very few women, meaning also that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: they wanted me to maybe be more of a poster child than I wanted to be, and and what the company wanted with me and my career, and what I wanted really started to not gel. And so I'd been working on a path to exit. And so at some point, it was like, Yeah, this is the point where what they want and where I want is no longer reconcilable.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Time to go.

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AJ Riedel: Okay. So you had been working on it. What was the defining moment that made you actually make the leap.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, so sensitive, potentially. But the main thing really was, I think there'd been a build up, and I was starting to doubt whether the time had maybe passed my time already a little bit. But then the trigger event was that I'd made some comments about safety performance, and I was worried, and I wanted

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: some things to change, and although I was in a leadership position, I somehow wasn't able to influence that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: at all.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And within 6 or 7 weeks after having that conversation with a senior leader, my husband was actually offshore on an asset

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: where there was a gas explosion, and everybody had to get evacuated.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: At which point, and then that dealing with that aftermath for me it was the trigger that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I didn't have the influence

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I I had to. I wanted to make the changes I thought were needed. I wasn't in love with the role. I didn't think it worked it fit fitted, and any conversations about alternatives were about stuff that made me my toes curl, not in a good way. And so I thought, Okay, time to go.

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AJ Riedel: Got it.

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AJ Riedel: What has been the biggest surprise

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AJ Riedel: in your transition from corporate to independent consulting.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: The biggest surprise is, I don't know if it was a surprise, but maybe my under I underestimated

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: how hard is this to get in the door anywhere on your personal title. I'm a speaker also. I get paid to speak, but it's been a journey to put myself on the stage whilst I used to get put on stages by my employer all the time.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So I'm a good speaker. I'm a good I can do training, and I'm a good facilitator. I've done that for years I've been trained well in it. I've been in front of huge audiences, but then, putting yourself in front of an audience like that on your own title.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Wow! That's an entirely different beast. And because I didn't think about it, I didn't prepare for it. So I don't really have the legacy materials or the

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: yeah. I didn't prepare to carry that skill over in the way that I maybe should have right.

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AJ Riedel: How have you overcome that challenge?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, still working on it. But I

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I found, I think, the right the right help. I think that's 1 of the other challenges. I ran into big time. I do think if you make that transition, you need to pay for help

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: in certain things, there's things that you probably can do well, and others that you're going to need help to do well, but finding the right help.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: particularly after you've paid for the wrong help and no longer want to spend money right? That's really hard. So I do think I ultimately

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: did find the right people to help progress. My speaking career, or the part of my career. That's the speaking. But that's been an iteration and a journey, and and that for me was linked to finding out where where are the places I want to speak? And who are the players in that space? And how do I get

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: into that network?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Also because I live in New Orleans which I love, but professionally it doesn't necessarily make the most sense. I chose it for different reason. I knew that that was not going to be a challenge. So my networking is all more virtual, which sometimes is harder from a speaking perspective. Also, right? You don't meet people face to face, and so they don't know how you are in person. They get some idea from a screen, but it's not the same thing.

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AJ Riedel: Okay. So I want to go a little deeper into where you talked about

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AJ Riedel: as self employed consultants. We need to recognize that we do need to get outside help, and that we do need to pay for some things that maybe we are. We don't have the skill or the expertise to do? What

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AJ Riedel: what advice would you give? Other independent consultants in kind of how to identify that, and where to find where to find the right resources.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah. So one of the mistakes I made initially is that I joined groups that felt attractive to me, but were actually filled with people who are not at all in the same businesses or the same markets. So I and I learned plenty. But the fact that the rest of the people there were not in my markets, or my space

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: meant that I didn't work enough on my messaging. So the example is that I ended up in groups with a lot of coaches and healers

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: who work with consumers. I work in a business to business market. I work with medium sized companies. I work with innovators and startups or former startups in tech. And instead, I was working in yeah, also a very attractive space to me personally. But none of these people were my colleagues, and so how you sell yourself and how you sell your product. Some of it is transferable, but a lot of it isn't.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And it also meant that I wasn't improving and iterating on my messaging around my offering for a long time, because nobody in those groups could really give me good feedback about what I was doing. So I think that it's important that you find the help from people who work

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: with others like you. I think that's extremely important. And I think

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: there's also something about what is it that they guarantee in terms of the value that they'll actually deliver? Right? So I think if people are confident in what they can do for you, or what they offer you, there should be an opportunity to walk away. You're not immediately spending $25,000 with no opportunity to walk away. If you already in week 2, find out that it's actually really not a fit.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I think people who will do well by, you want to work with you and say, Okay, let's try this. I think I can help you. But it would also be okay if you didn't realize it isn't right. That should be sensible from both sides.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So yeah, I spent some money in the wrong places, and then I was frustrated about having spent that money, and I found it then really hard to spend more money whilst I didn't need to right, so that led to some more delays in getting to where I needed to get to.

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AJ Riedel: I can totally relate. I spent a ton of money on professional development

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AJ Riedel: and learned a lot, but probably didn't need to spend all that. And then I found out that a lot of what I did. I still wasn't getting the feedback, the personal feedback I needed.

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AJ Riedel: It's 1 thing for somebody to learn about how to define your niche. It's another to get people who are, you know, your peers or your potential ideal clients to give you feedback

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AJ Riedel: on that to see if it's if if it resonates with them.

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AJ Riedel: So I totally relate to what you're saying. Speaking of ideal clients, you you mentioned, you alluded to a little bit who

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AJ Riedel: or what kind of company? And then within the company which level, who is your ideal client?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah. So I have helped businesses turn chaos around. So I target medium sized businesses that are scaling that are operating what's called vuca environments so volatile, uncertain, lots of ambiguity

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: or businesses that have gone through extreme growth, or maybe have a big organizational change because there's a lot of new partnerships or new collaborations. So they've merged or they're outsourcing. So the way they operate in terms of people is changing

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and in those businesses I typically deal with the top level leadership, or I deal with their board members, or I deal with their investors, because by the time I come in

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: they're all human. They're all hard workers. They're typically also former startups, or in the tech space, or in a quickly evolving market. And so by the time I come in. They've tried really, for a long time to do it all themselves, and are finally at a point where they admit that they need some help. So then it's at quite a senior level. And then I typically come in to do some immediate triage. So that's typically a short term contractual arrangement.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: To get to a calmer place, and then sometimes there's a phase 2 or phase 3, and sometimes that's where we start referring out to other specialists who are better set up

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: to help these companies with their specific challenge at hand. Right.

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AJ Riedel: Okay, what?

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AJ Riedel: So you, you talked about that they're volatile, that they're in chaos, that there's been changes.

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AJ Riedel: What problems do you solve for your clients?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So the the 2 prongs that I typically look at I start with what I call diagnostics. So actually plotting, what's all going on to find the biggest levers

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: that will get us to better, right, better, and calmer, and focused, and progress again. I think it all evolved so fast that I don't believe in fixing everything. Let's fix the big things, and then other things will start to work itself out. So I typically talk about decision making mechanics and people dynamics. To me a lot of what goes wrong or what is

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: wrong can be fixed with decision-making hygiene, because it will fix your prioritization. It will help you identify whether you need to redo some opportunity framing. Do you still know where you're going? Does your organization know where you're going? What are the challenges at hand. Which decisions do you need to make?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Are the right or the wrong people involved? Are you suffering from decision? Paralysis?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: It all comes back to good decision making and fast decision making under pressure. And then the people dynamics. Are your people engaged? Do they know where you're going? Are you resourced for this in these collaborations?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Is there a culture mix up that's preventing you from progressing? Did you grow to where you are with a certain team, but that's maybe not the team that you need to. Now take it to the next level, etc. So those are the 2 prongs that I typically tackle.

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AJ Riedel: Okay, I love decision making hygiene.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: personally, too. Huh! People are are quite poor at decision making. And if you add emotions and pressure and yeah, uncertainty, then it's worse.

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AJ Riedel: Yeah.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: No.

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AJ Riedel: When we were talking earlier, you said that you believe that your approach offers something different from the traditional consulting firms like Mckinsey.

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AJ Riedel: What makes your perspective unique.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Well, I always say I'm not married to solutions. I truly am not. There's a lot of people who have a lot of personal preferences.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I'm more interested if if you, if your reasoning is good and your decision making is good, you should be able to convince me that that's the right decision for you, right? What I do struggle with. If people say, Oh, we need to go left left is right.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: But everything you're saying is not actually in alignment with that. Right? Then then we need to do work. So I don't come up with

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: predefined solutions.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I do think everybody needs some kind of decision-making framework, but totally think that that's a code rack, and hence is tailorable to what's fit for purpose for your organization, and I build up what I do on the basis of combining actually having been trained

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: in Stanford decision, quality and strategic risk management, but also in disaster emergency training right from the Red Cross and from Fema, and as a sailor I'm a skipper. And so that decision making under pressure and with people involved right people who are dependent on you, and high running emotions, I think, combining those tools and plugging that now into business

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: is something that's very relevant. I think that combination is important in how the world is evolving, because everything's faster paced, and there is more uncertainty. And there's also more interdependency.

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AJ Riedel: Okay, yeah.

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AJ Riedel: We also talked when we talked earlier about kind of an interesting paradox in your story that you have financial freedom that came from your corporate career, but it has actually been a somewhat of a challenge.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I love work. And so it was intriguing when I resigned. My colleagues were a little bit in shock, and also assumed that I would be working within 3 months again. But I worked. They all know me. I worked the day I delivered my kids right. All 3 kids were born later in the day, and I clocked my full 8 h on the day I had them. I was back in no time.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I like work, and I can work quite hard at times, and that gives me satisfaction. I think I have a

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: for me a working balance, but from the outside it looks like somebody who loves their job and is professionally engaged all the time I actually stayed away from working longer than I thought, and everybody else thought it was probably about 9 months or so.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and then

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I didn't restart with a lot of purpose. So I just took on some random contracts that came on my path that people said, Hey, can you do this? Can you help out with this? And then, yeah, in 2024 made the pivot to say, Okay, I'm actually, really going to pitch my business in a certain niche. And that's what I really want to do instead of this random collection. But yeah, I made. I've made enough money

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: that I have some financial freedom. And so every time I struggle or

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: have to do a lot of pieces, bits, and pieces that I don't enjoy so much.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: There's not a lot of pressure behind it to get going right? I don't. Yeah. And and I need deadlines or pressure to perform. I come out of that kind of environment. So it's been a little tricky

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: to to create that. Yeah, to manipulate myself into feeling that kind of pressure to deliver, because, yeah, it self motivation should come from within.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: But sometimes we also need that external pressure or a bit of a crisis.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: to push ourselves over the edge and and out of our zone of comfort, right? And and so pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: has been a struggle to be honest, because I've not had that pressure or the need to do that.

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AJ Riedel: Right. You don't. It's it's not like, I gotta make money right now, or I'm not gonna be able to pay the mortgage or put food on.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: You've been free from.

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AJ Riedel: And nice as that is from a peace of mind standpoint. It sounds like it's kind of gotten in your way from a motivation standpoint, because you

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AJ Riedel: to work.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: It feels like a bit of self sabotage.

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AJ Riedel: Well, we we humans are really good at doing that.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes, for sure.

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AJ Riedel: We talked a little bit about how you initially, when you were networking, you were finding yourself with healers and coaches, and before finding your true peer group, which, when we talked earlier, you said it was innovators and former C-suite executives.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes.

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AJ Riedel: Why was finding a peer group so important to you?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So I like being around other people. I'm an extrovert introvert. So I need big groups of people around me. And I've always worked in project offices, etc. So these are the 2 small Porta cabins, where everybody has half a desk and is in each other's business all day, and although there are days that I didn't want that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: going from that to being by myself at home.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and then having a lot of clients that I interact with virtually.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I missed having a peer group around. I I had a I have.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I'd always had a bit of a schizophrenic distribution between my friend Group and my work colleagues because I worked with a lot of men, and I was friendly with them. And then I had a lot of friends outside work who didn't necessarily yeah, who were in very different careers. And so we talk about work as in this annoying colleague, or but not necessarily content, wise.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And so I was missing that replacement from my peers in the office.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I do better also when I see others thrive. Or yeah, what you're trying to do with this podcast right, see others going through these journeys

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and be reminded that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: other people are going through the same things, or doing it differently, or or are not absorbing things, or taking it as personal and just

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: going on and reading situations differently. All of that I think it helps with the self-doubt. It helps with the motivation it helps with the energy.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: helps with the laughs.

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AJ Riedel: Love it. How?

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AJ Riedel: What was the journey of finding your tribe like.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, a little painful, because

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I think, knowing I was going to come back to New Orleans and stay put here for a while I knew that it was going to be slim pickings here.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and then I think I just assumed it wasn't there. So in hindsight, and I wish I started looking immediately when I came back here, because it is here, and I'm so glad I found these groups, but I'm also like Oh, I should have found them sooner, I would have been further along, but I feel always as if I could have been further along.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And and I also realized I should have.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I always. I didn't practice what I preach, because what I preach is, if you know what you're after. But you don't know how to get there. You need to say it out loud, because then other people can help you get there. And so I should have told the world I'm looking for better peer networks, because as soon as I started doing that, I started to get some really good leads on groups or networks, or places or people to connect with.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And so again, I wish I'd done that sooner, and recognized that sooner.

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AJ Riedel: I love that piece of advice.

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AJ Riedel: and I'd like you to say it again that when you don't know where to go.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Know if you know where you're going, but you don't know how you need to declare intense. You, if you tell people this is where I want to go, or I need to know. Turn my business around to XY or Z, or this is where I'm trying to head, or I'm trying to head into a new market or new. What then happens

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: is that people are starting to well, 1st of all, that empowers people, people want to help. And so people will start to tap into their own network and their own ideas and their own skills and say, Okay, how can I help Marty get there right? And so I even had friends who are in completely different space. Who then said, thought, Oh, actually, I know this guy who's my brother-in-law, or whatever he's in that space. I'm just going to ask him for her right?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: You don't know where it's going to come from, and it sometimes comes from very unexpected places, so I should have declared my intent sooner.

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AJ Riedel: That's great advice from somebody who's experienced it to others is to declare your intent out loud to your networks, so that they know how they can help you.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes.

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AJ Riedel: Yeah.

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AJ Riedel: I you mentioned, too, that you don't like being beholden to anybody. But you also don't like working alone, which is kind of a

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AJ Riedel: so how are you balance dependence with collaboration in your practice?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah. And with that I mean, so the one of the last jobs in my corporate career that I absolutely loved was a piece of work that they typically would have given to a Mckinsey or somebody else. Right and just by virtue of the space I was in and how it came about. I was doing that project, and I led that project, and I loved it. But I also realized an opportunity like that wasn't coming again. So.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And and it comes back to that. I do believe in frameworks like decision making frameworks. I do believe in tools right? I think they help people communicate, and structure which can be helpful.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I do not believe in prescribed solutions, and I see that so often, and I'm also not willing to sell my soul. So there is a point where I disagree with

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: the ethics and the decisions being made, and often the the disrespect for individuals involved.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and I can work in that space, having worked internationally in very complex climates. Yes, I can bite my tongue, and I can adjust, and I can. But I cannot do that indefinitely, and and I always make the joke that if.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: as a Dutch person, if I'm on a charter flight full of Dutch tourists who are misbehaving. I feel that right. I feel personally responsible. If I'm on a charter flight full of American tourists flying down to Mexico, and they're misbehaving. I'm like, well, they're American, and I'm not. And I think that's human. But but then, being associated with an organization where you

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: yeah, it's that that's the part where I struggle. I love collaborating. And yeah, and and so, and I don't mind if collaborations are temporary, because I love people, and I've moved so much, I believe you can have a really good, constructive, positive experience with others that is temporary.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and you don't need to know each other a hundred years to be effective together, or to be have a very fun event together, or to have a magical moment, as just 2 humans who are enjoying the same thing.

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AJ Riedel: I love it.

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AJ Riedel: Are you ahead or behind of where you thought you would be by now?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Light years behind. Yeah, yes, I definitely behind where I want to be.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: probably also where I thought I would be. But in other things. I've made also leaps and learned stuff that wasn't on my radar at all.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And some things have come full circle. So I've I've decided to start a podcast so, mid mid last year, I started a podcast I'm into the thirties of terms of episodes. It's called the Business Emergency Room. And it was only partial, partially strategic. As a kid, I always wanted to be a radio. Dj, I love talking, and I love

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: putting stuff out there. I love having guests. And and so I've been loving that whole journey. That was not on my radar. But it feels so right. I'm not entirely sure it makes 700% business sense. But it also makes at least some sense. And I can make it work.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So yeah, there, there's been some happy.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: happy, surprising developments. But yeah, I'm I'm hopelessly ambitious, and I'm almost every day disappointed with how much

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I didn't achieve. Yeah, I but in in all aspects of life my kids are harsh to me on that, too. I live far from reality. How much I can get done in a day. And the hilarious thing is that. Yeah, as we talked earlier about how I was known in my career, people are all like, like, Okay, how do you have 3 kids and then work all those hours, and then you're also out with your friends all the time, and you're dressed up for every party, and you're you know you're in everything.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and all I think is, but I haven't done this, and I haven't done that.

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AJ Riedel: Yeah, you have a tech task master in your brain.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes.

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AJ Riedel: Looking ahead. You said that after your time in New Orleans

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AJ Riedel: that you're there for another 5 years.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I'm there till the kids are done with high school. I didn't want them to be nomads through high school. I didn't think it was fair. So yeah.

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AJ Riedel: So. But you have a vision of living 2 to 3 places lo globally while working 50 to 60% of your time kind of a longer.

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AJ Riedel: How are you structuring your business to make that possible?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I think it's already a little bit the case, right? Because I don't work necessarily locally, and I I I travel to my clients, but I don't. Not all of the time has to be in person or in

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: in in direct contact. Typically so far, a lot of my clients also have present presences in multiple continents. So I think that's also the attraction to me, right that I can work in in different places and and really understand

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: how they how they work so. And then, if I'm looking for speaking engagement and teaching engagement coaching engagements, I think I can also take that to different places. Fortunately with the type of clients I have, there's globally some very clear hubs where that

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: this takes place and the leading language of work in work is typically English there. So yeah, I have confidence that's doable. And I think it's already happening to an extent we already have

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: since 10 years a place in France. And and so that's part of our lives.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I can be there. Work from there.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I can be here in the Us. And yeah, hopefully, that becomes less ordained by school holidays soon. Huh?

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AJ Riedel: Right.

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AJ Riedel: I,

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AJ Riedel: what advice? This is our wrap up question. What advice would you give? Corporate executives who who are feeling like you, felt like that. Environment just doesn't fit them anymore. What advice would you give them

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AJ Riedel: in making the leap to independent consulting.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Some. Some have a really clear idea about what they want to do. Right? I

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I had some idea, but not very clear, but I also didn't want to stay any longer, so I I was ready to jump, and I did, and I don't think

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I could have stayed around or in staying around and then trying to in parallel develop what I wanted to do. I don't think that would have been a working formula for me.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I do wish that I'd taken away a little bit more, or thought about that.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: So I don't think I actively and enough asked for some recommendations from colleagues that I gathered some footage and stuff from things that I'd done.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I didn't really think through how poorly your record and your image from within. A big corporation carries through to the outside world. And although I knew that and, for instance, I got a coaching accreditation because I knew my people skills didn't ooze off my Cv. But it was very much or my resume, but it was very much what I was known for the people. Dynamic side on top of all the technical stuff and the general management stuff.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: But yeah, I could have gathered more that would have helped me

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: build my business quicker in terms of also referrals and stuff, because at some point it's too long ago that these people worked with you right. But I could have gotten some good

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: snippets from that, and and maintain some of these contacts with that in mind, and your former industry and former employer is also the easiest way to get some quick work initially. Huh? And I kind of really turned away from that industry. And now I'm like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't have turned my back on it completely, because that probably cut into my own success some.

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AJ Riedel: Okay. So what? What I'm kind of hearing is build sort of build a runway and anticipate

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AJ Riedel: what you're going to need to build your credibility and your brand authority.

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AJ Riedel: Once you're out of the, you know, sort of safety net of the company.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yep.

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AJ Riedel: And and look at what assets you can bring from your time in the company.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes.

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AJ Riedel: Host, time.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah. Yeah. And and then and then, once you've decided on your your niece, and what you want to do don't shy away from turning back to the industry you left, where? Where your background has more meaning than a new industry, right? Because that will be an easier door to knock on

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: than others.

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AJ Riedel: Yeah. Good advice, good advice. Any other

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AJ Riedel: last words of advice for self-employed consultants.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah, I think it's hard. It's harder than I thought. And every time I ask myself, I also don't want to do anything differently. I want to also very much prove to myself that I can do this, and that I gave it an honest go.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I struggle as a woman a little bit with the fact that we that I think women in our position struggle with all around is that I get a lot of unsolicited advice from men.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: I also wonder whether there is work I don't get, because I'm a woman sometimes, and I don't like that. I think that way and ultimate. But ultimately I need to keep reminding myself that I need to go back to saying I can actually help businesses, you know, survive.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: And that's what I want to do, and those people need me, and so I need to find them, and I need to help them, and it will make them happy, and it will make me happy.

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AJ Riedel: Yes, you are providing a service to them, which is

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AJ Riedel: when you're self-employed, consultant, and we're busy

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AJ Riedel: worrying about all the marketing and the messaging and the client work.

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AJ Riedel: It's easy to kind of forget

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AJ Riedel: the bigger picture, which is, we're providing a really important service, yeah, to companies out there. And if you're working with a prospective

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AJ Riedel: company. And there is.

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AJ Riedel: you know, there is the sexism going on. Well, maybe they're not your ideal client. No, and maybe you don't want.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: No. And and these thoughts can. They just are noise? Right? So I try to tell myself in in weeks that everything is good, and I'm energized, and I'm excited to try and capture that a little bit, so that the weeks that I'm not there I can kind of play back to myself

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: and say, Hey, remember?

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yeah.

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AJ Riedel: Remember like sophomore.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Motivation? Huh?

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AJ Riedel: Yeah, yeah, well, thank you. That's a wrap for today. And thank you for being on the podcast we will include your linkedin and your website links in the show notes. So

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AJ Riedel: I encourage all the listeners to go in and

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AJ Riedel: make contact or connect with Marcha on Linkedin.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Yes, please, MAAR. TJE.

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AJ Riedel: MAAR. TJE. Remember that, and connect with her on Linkedin, and thank you for being a guest on the thriving through. Podcast I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day.

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Maartje @ The Chaos Games: Thank you.