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In this episode we meet a very interesting and fascinating woman, Maartje van Krieken. Maartje was born and grew up in the Netherlands. While a child she began to dream about traveling and seeing other parts of the world outside Holland. Her first major lone travel experience came while in high school when she participated in a student exchange program in Parris. After college she took a position with a firm in the Netherlands, but decided after a bit that she wanted more as she didn’t really like just working in one place. Besides, she met a man who worked in Scotland and as time went by they decided to get married. Maartje secured a job in the oil and gas industry that began to give her all the travel she wanted. Since her college degrees were in engineering she fit right into several projects around the world. In 2018 Maartje left her 20-year position in the oil and gas world. At the time she, her husband and three children lived in Pittsburg, PA. In 2020, after taking a 15-month work hiatus she began working with a nonprofit helping people to secure Covid support. In 2022 the family moved to New Orleans where they live today and where Maartje says they will stay for the next several years. Maartje now operates her own leadership and crisis management consulting company. We will get to hear about some of her successes in working to help organize chaos. I think you will find Maartje quite engaging and full of insights that can help us all live better lives and function better in our work situations. About the Guest: Maartje Jorritsma van Krieken is a seasoned professional with a remarkable journey through some of the most challenging environments in the corporate world. With over two decades of experience in the oil and gas industry, Maartje has honed her skills in navigating the complex and often chaotic world of global projects. Her expertise extends beyond technical prowess, encompassing leadership, crisis management, and strategic planning. Maartje's unique perspective is shaped by her experiences in diverse and high-stakes settings, from the rugged terrains of Eastern Russia to the dynamic corporate landscapes of Europe and North America. Maartje's approach to leadership and problem-solving is deeply influenced by personal experiences that tested her resilience and adaptability. From handling critical situations on sailing expeditions along the Scottish West Coast to making decisive calls in the high-pressure environment of oil fields in Iraq, her life stories are a testament to her ability to thrive in chaos. These experiences have not only equipped her with invaluable skills but also a profound understanding of the human aspects of leadership in turbulent times. As a speaker and consultant, Maartje brings a blend of authenticity, insight, and practical wisdom to her audience. Her keynote talks are not just narratives of her professional journey; they are rich with lessons on adaptability, resilience, and innovation. Maartje's engaging storytelling and actionable strategies provide her audience and clients with tools to navigate their own chaos, whether in business or personal life. Her teachings are an invitation to embrace the unpredictable, find clarity in confusion, and transform challenges into opportunities for growth and success. Ways to connect with Maartje: My LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartje/ My Website: https://www.thechaosgamesspeaker.com/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! 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Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Well, hello and welcome from wherever you may be to unstoppable mindset. I'm your host, Michael hingson, and today we get to have a chat with Maartje van Krieken van Krieken. I have to pronounce that right, otherwise she'll shoot me later, and she's tough. So she spent 20 years in industry and doing things like working with the oil and gas industry, and if that isn't a tough industry, I don't know what is, but we'll get into all of that so much. I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset, and thank you for being here. Maartje van Krieken ** 01:16 Thank you, Michael. I'm really honored to be here today. I enjoy I've enjoyed listening to some of your previous episodes and getting to know more about your personal story. So excited to spend time with you today. Michael Hingson ** 02:09 Well, I'm glad you're here and now we get to hear about your story a little bit. So why don't we start if you're okay, doing it by talking a little bit about the early Maartje. Tell us a little bit about you growing up and kind of where you, where you where you went, and why you did what you did. Maartje van Krieken ** 02:28 Okay, so the the name is very traditional Dutch. I'm originally from the Netherlands, born and raised there, and I grew up in a very stereotypical home, a mom and a dad and one sibling. Kind of upper middle class, probably good schools, friends, nothing very unusual, um, the only thing that maybe was more unusual is that at age we don't have a middle school, right? We have lower school in high school, so you change schools at age 12. And I went to a high school at a school that was attached to a boarding house. And there's not a lot of boarding houses in the Netherlands. There's really only two or three, and the one in our town had a lot of actual expat kids on it. So kids from oil companies and other employers abroad would come back to complete their school at home in the Netherlands, and I ended up in class with a lot of these kids. So these kids had lived their lives everywhere and listening to them and hearing their stories and hearing about their life. At that age, I was like, This is what I want. This is what I want for my future and and that dream continued. So at 16, there was an opportunity to do a school exchange, and for me to go a couple months of school in Paris. And so I did that, and the bug only kept growing. So that's where and then I achieved that by getting an international staff job for one of the main oil companies, living and working all around the world. So yeah, otherwise, not a not a lot of unconventional stuff in my childhood, I was intrigued or intrigued, but pleasantly surprised to hear your story of how supportive your your parents are always were of you and and how that, I think helped, got to pull your career and your choices in life, right? And, yeah, and I was thinking about that, and I think what's, what is relevant to my story is that I, I had practically, very caring presence, parents, um. And also very feminist. So I never thought that being a girl was necessarily restrictive to anything I could achieve in life I do. I did grow up feeling that I was, I definitely was a flawed human being in in many aspects, and so that I would going to be restricted in life by what I as a human being was capable of, and I think that helped me back quite a long time. So that's that's something that listening to your story made me reflect back on where I came from. Michael Hingson ** 05:35 Well, when you say a flawed human being, what do you mean by that? Um, Maartje van Krieken ** 05:40 I think there was not with a bad intent, but there was a lot of emphasis at home, the things that you were not good at, or weren't doing well, or had messed up or should be better at doing so, comments like the fact that you were maybe lazy or a bad friend or poor communicator, or whatever it is that you'd done and things have gotten off the rails. I also feel like patience about how is your day, whatever you told that had happened that day. What got latched on to was this thing that had gone wrong. That makes sense. It does, Michael Hingson ** 06:29 yeah, I I hear what you're saying, and it's unfortunate that that some of that happens at the at the same time. I suppose it does toughen you when, when you let it toughen you to go through that were your parents? Though, do you think pretty much supportive, or was a lot of this from your parents? Um, Maartje van Krieken ** 06:51 I think my parents were supportive. I think I always say My dad's a bit the embodiment of Calvinism, and he lives by Murphy's Law, right? He's just not the most upbeat person, yeah. So it's always, don't go over, don't don't be special, don't be extra. And whatever will go wrong or can go wrong will go wrong. And I think the situation with my mom is, I think there's, there's some gas lighting that that featured into that aspect of things from a different place. So, yes, supportive. I was never stopped in doing anything. But I think I felt the opposite of unstoppable, Michael Hingson ** 07:43 supportive, but they probably could have been more supportive. Maartje van Krieken ** 07:48 Yes, I don't think they fueled my fire. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 07:54 although you become successful, they might feel that that they did, but that's okay. It's different perspectives. Did you go to college? Yes, Maartje van Krieken ** 08:03 I studied engineering. So I have a master's in Industrial Design Engineering, and I decided to study engineering because I liked solving problems and the technical stuff was were at school, what I found easier, and I had no idea what I wanted to be. And in the Netherlands, you don't do a degree first and then a master's later. You choose to stream into a five year program. So and if you fall out halfway through, you have nothing. So you better choose something that you're willing to finish. And I had no idea where exactly I wanted to go, so I figured if I did engineering, you know, I'd learned at least a trade that still left a little doors open and and I felt like the five years of studies would be around topics that I at least would remain somewhat interested in. So it was kind of a an easy choice. How Michael Hingson ** 08:58 did college help prepare you for life and and really doing something with yourself. And I ask that because I've heard different people say different things about college that, yeah, you study and all that, but it doesn't really prepare you for life. My experience was and is that, mostly in college, you study and and so on, but there are life lessons, if you look for them. So I'm always curious to ask that question, Maartje van Krieken ** 09:32 yeah, I think for me, college was amazing, or university I I lived in a house with eight other people, mainly guys, usually at least one other girl. I made lots of new friends, and the friends from that era I'm still friends with, and I learned what I like. I learned what I like to do, what was important to me. I learned that I was actually less weird than I'd always thought, that there was lots of other people who liked the same things I did, and I think that that taught me to see much more opportunity. And I, I, I always was interested in wanting to do sailing, which was harder to do at home or near home, but there was a student sailing club that I joined, and that opened lots of doors for me too, that I still enjoy today. I don't do as much sailing, but what came out of that? So, yeah, I think it was a very, one of the better periods of my life. I have many fond memories. I didn't I didn't have issues with the self motivation to keep my studies going, I was enough student without working myself to dead to death. I had well paying side jobs. I had a lot of good trips, good parties, yeah, good life. Cool. Michael Hingson ** 11:16 Well, I hear what you're saying, and I I feel sort of the same way. I learned a lot in college, and some of it, maybe a lot of it wasn't necessarily the pure academics, but the other things that went along with it, I worked at the campus radio station. Did a lot of stuff in radio for six and a half year, well, five and a half years, almost six years at the university, I took some courses outside of my academic strengths of physics and but I got my master's degree in physics, but I took some other courses as well, and found that helpful, and I got involved in some outside community organizations, like the National Federation of the Blind, and started To learn about blindness from the perspective of other people, as well as learning a lot about other things like legislation and becoming very actively involved in helping to deal with legislation from a blindness standpoint, which was a lot of fun, and I, too, would not trade the years of college for anything? Maartje van Krieken ** 12:21 No, I think it's amazing, and maybe it's some of the bigger universities, but I think it's, it applies to the majority that there's so many opportunities for students, right? And it lets you try things, and most of it, it lets you try things in a way that you don't need to be somewhere 12 or 24, months to be involved with something, which means that you it's a quick way to learn what you like, but also what you don't like, right? And what's maybe not for you. And there's always somebody proposing, you know, do you want to go here, or I'm invited to this, or we can go there. Do you want to try this? And you're not restricted by life or by other things, right? You don't have a lot of obligations, so you also have the time to try out these things and the energy and see what comes with it. Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 13:16 and that is one of the important things about college, and it's a matter of looking at it that way, and it's a matter of recognizing that life is always going to be an adventure, and college gives you an opportunity to explore various aspects, aspects of that adventure that you then may choose to follow up on when you leave college or Not. Yeah. Maartje van Krieken ** 13:37 Yeah. And I think the only stumbling block, I think that happens, is it's also agent which you self are changing and developing so much and trying to figure out who you are and and I did also very close up see those struggles, right? And I think for some for some people, all these choices are overwhelming, or the responsibility to make it all happen yourself, or some people fall in with slightly the wrong crowd. So I think I also learned a lot about life and people dynamics and to not take it for granted that I was doing okay in all that, Michael Hingson ** 14:22 can you learn not to take yourself too seriously? Yes, very much. Which is, which is important, I think, for any of us to not take ourselves too seriously and to allow us to explore how other people see us. And that is a wonderful lesson and great teacher that we can all take advantage of. Maartje van Krieken ** 14:46 Yeah, well, I can tell you, living together with eight other people and sharing your meals in your living room with them, and particularly if seven of them are quite blunt meals, there's no. Lack of feedback? No, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 15:01 well, and I lived in the dorm for three years and then moved to an on campus apartment with two other people, but wouldn't trade any of those times and and discovered a lot about me and learned a lot about other people in both situations. So I think that's that's pretty cool. Well, so you did graduate from college. You spent your five years there, and then what did you Maartje van Krieken ** 15:28 do? So I actually was hired by the company where I did my graduation project, and I love the work. It was a great employer, and I got lots of good opportunities, but that bug was still there, right? That I wanted to live and work internationally. And although I was working for a multinational and doing very well with them, it was a quite a stereotypical German company, which means that their headquarters is in Germany, and that if you move up the ladder, eventually you'll find yourself in Germany, and then that's where you will be, right? I also had met this guy who was living he was also Dutch, like me, but he was living in Scotland, and was it didn't necessarily have to stay in Scotland, but he definitely wasn't going to find work in Germany. So what I then did is said, Okay, well, he works in the oil industry. That's pretty International. Maybe I can find a job in the oil industry and we can find in a place where he can also work. And so as a Dutch person, the easiest way to try for that avenue and to apply as international staff with the Dutch oil company called shell. And so I I, I did, actually a lot of prep work, because fortunately, I knew a lot of people who've done that, who've gone that route, of course, and I applied, and I managed to get in. So that was my ticket to to go out in the world and work and live in many different places and with my husband, who wasn't working for the well, we then married not so long after that, but same guy for the same same same employer, but same guy Michael Hingson ** 17:22 we're talking about, right? Yes, same guy. Okay, okay. And so what did he do? Maartje van Krieken ** 17:27 Yeah, so that's what's closed. So, so what? Michael Hingson ** 17:31 What job did he end up taking? Or did he just stay where he was, or what? Maartje van Krieken ** 17:37 Yeah, so the way it worked with the international assessment is that you it was you didn't apply for a job. You just had to make it through, through and score a minimum number of points. And then they had jobs all over the world available that they would place you in, and you could either put your foot down on a location or put your foot down on a job. And actually they didn't have a job in the standard pot of jobs that fit me. So the lady said, Ah, I'll find you something close to him. I like you, Michael Hingson ** 18:13 alright. And only Maartje van Krieken ** 18:15 did four and a half years of commuting between countries come to an end, I got to call him and say, I have a job. I'm moving to you with a full expat package. House picked, I think, and we'll be together, and you don't have to change a thing. Michael Hingson ** 18:34 I bet he liked that. Yeah, he did like that. So did you? So you moved to where he was. But how did that affect your your wanderlust, or traveling all over? Maartje van Krieken ** 18:46 Well, so I moved over to where he was, Michael Hingson ** 18:49 and that was Scotland. That Maartje van Krieken ** 18:52 was in Scotland. And, yeah, I left him again too, because less than a less than two years later, I got offered a development position elsewhere in the company, and I took it, and he was still in there in Scotland, so it was going to be a travel job. So we said, Okay, we'll do that for a while. And it was a relatively short term position, so 18 months or something. I don't remember exactly what it was, so I said, Okay, well, we tried. We've done the long distance thing. I want to take this opportunity. And he never stopped me. He's never stopped me in anything. Best husband ever, um, and so I did that. I left him. He had to go and find a house again. Because, of course, we lost the mansion that the company was paying paying for, and I did that. And then at some point in that job, I had to step in for somebody who had a heart attack. So I had to interim manage a team, and I walk into that office and they. There's a guy there that I've never met, and he looks at me and he says, Oh, are you? Are you ilko wife, my husband? And I'm like, Yes, I am. He said, Oh, where is he? I said, Oh, he's still working in, living in stolen and he didn't ask me anything else, but within 24 hours, somebody else in the company had called my husband and said, Hey, I heard your wife has left you again. Are you interested in moving too? And so they head on to them into the same employer. Michael Hingson ** 20:32 So he moved to where you were. Well, then Maartje van Krieken ** 20:34 at least we were with the same employer, which is to be a good thing or a bad thing. He did a move to where I was, but we together moved to another major project in eastern Russia after my 18 months in the travel job were up, so that's when we were together. Michael Hingson ** 20:53 So that must have been a major change and a little bit of a cultural difference moving to Russia from more Western European type company countries, Maartje van Krieken ** 21:09 yes and no, because I always talk about the traveling circus in the oil industry. If you look at these frontier oil and gas projects, they're they're seldom in the middle of a big city, right? So there's somewhere in some outpost in some country, usually with a very small local population, and to build these mega projects, is hundreds of people. And so the I the Russian island we moved to, is an island that's north of Japan, there is very little on it. It's like 30 miles wide or something, and 600 miles tall or something. So not big at all. The city we moved to had about 200,000 Russians living in it. And then Exxon and shell both had a project presence there. So and the shell present was actually quite large, and this included people from all over the world, right? So, this included Koreans from the Korean construction contractor, and Filipinos from another contractor, and then a whole bunch of expats from all over and then a whole bunch of local Russians, but not quite local, because they came from all over Russia, usually not from the island, right? So it's its own little weird community, um, that that puts quite a mark on the local presence there. So yes, you live in Russia, but you're also living in a very weird world that's probably not representative of anything really. Michael Hingson ** 22:51 So you though had to put up with a lot of interesting challenges and so on. Maybe you might even call it sort of chaotic. Why did you like chaos? Maartje van Krieken ** 23:07 Yeah, I that that's not necessarily where I learned to like chaos, but I would say that that's one of the places where, for me, everything kind of came to a grinding holder or where the moment happened. Um, so, I mean, it's a, it's a extremely male dominated part of the industry, right? The oil and gas industry generally is male dominated. But then if you're in these frontier projects, it's even more so, and it's high pressure, right? The Russian government was trying to blackmail its way into a larger part of the project. So there, there was politics going on. The project was already it costed billions. It was the biggest at the time. It was way over budget, way behind schedule, arctic conditions never been done before, you name it, right? Everything was happening. And I I kind of hadn't really thought about my career in oil and gas beyond having this international lifestyle, right? And I have quite a wide interest. So whatever they were asking me to do is like, Oh yeah, I could do this or I could do that, but I was starting to get to the point where I realized that me trying to climb a standard prescribed career ladder was maybe not The most logical fit. One, two, I was finding out that I did have some limit of how much in the deep end I wanted to be thrown and being given a job that was actually two levels above where I was with not enough staff and a lot of unhealthy work culture. In my direct teams and stuff. That's a lot, right, especially then if you're also living with all your colleagues. So where do you then? Where? Where is this the safe space to say, Hey, I can't do this today, or it's too much today. And on top of that, we decided that I never knew I wanted to be a parent, but somehow, in that in that era, I'd also decided that I did, and we, we hear one of these couples who were pregnant within week one of trying. So this island where they didn't want you to be pregnant, so I hadn't told anybody. And then not, you know, I had to get off the island for a checkup. And so that happened at four months, instead of at three months, because that was the first time I was off the island. And then I found out that things were not okay with the baby, and so I had to be aborted because the baby was not alive, but also not coming out. And so I think everything came in, and for me, that that created the moment of clarity that I did like my career, but I did not like my job, and that there were some things I wanted changed in the way I did my job. I also learned that I wanted to be me, rather than trying to be what I thought I needed to be to fit in with everything, right and and I also really realized that the only one who was going to take a step forward in that moment and create structure in that chaos was me, and that I had to take charge. And so and so I did, because I did think I learned from being thrown in the deep end so many times that I could Yeah, Michael Hingson ** 27:06 what did you learn about yourself and about you've mentioned many times that you were in a very male dominated environment and so on. So what was it like? Or what did you learn when you were the probably the lone woman, or one of a very few women in that, that whole environment, it had to, it had to be a little bit of a challenge, or at least mentally. Did it even bother you? Maartje van Krieken ** 27:34 Yes and no, I think I learned a lot, and I get this question a lot, and I think the answer is not what people expect. So I think the education system in the Netherlands segregates you out pretty early, because if you want to study something technical, then you're in the science streams in high school. So from age 13 or 14, I was in classes with less than 20% girls. My university was a technical university, less than 20% girls. And then once I started working, the percentages steadily went down the more senior I became. Michael Hingson ** 28:13 So it was nothing new. No, Maartje van Krieken ** 28:14 it was nothing new. And, and I don't know any different, right? So I've also learned the hard way, after leaving shell and then starting to work for myself that I, for instance, don't really have the skills or know how to operate in all female networks. I'm clearly not the most effective there, because it's so unknown to me. But I think when I did learn, because I think there's challenges there, right? There's, if you're such a minority, then there's challenges. But it's, it's not the man, and it is the man, right? It's not the man because it's not the individuals. I made so many friends and the majority of the guys I work with are absolutely amazing, and at a personal level, they're willing to help you and step up for you and step out for you. I think the main challenge is that if the the critical mass of women or others in any others of any kind is so small. I don't know how that you know it it takes more than it's going to take more than a generation to change. Yeah, it might take a shock to the system, right? And I, I think, I thought I could try and and be that, but I learned that there is things there that are bigger than me, right? And there's also I worked also in Iraq and in the Middle East. And so there is and Russia itself also a very male dominated history and culture. And so you can employer who, on paper, has all these ideas about EK. Inequality, but it doesn't quite work that way. If you're in eastern Russia, also lots of Asian construction workforce and with very different norms and values. So it's the it's not the guys itself, right, that create I think the challenge. I think it's the dynamic of the group. You know? Michael Hingson ** 30:30 Yeah, I would say it's not always the guys. Sometimes it can be, but it is the environment very much. I interact with people all the time who are blind, who have guide dogs, and talk about traveling to other countries, and they learn that the laws in those other countries are not the same as, let's say they are here in the United States. And it amazes them, and they say, Well, why doesn't anyone fix that? And the reality is, that's not the way the system works. Maartje van Krieken ** 31:00 No. And you and I think what I learned is to be realistic about what I what I can change and cannot change, and really learn to to not get upset about what I can change, but also be kind to myself if I then need help, right? I remember a one of my first jobs, I would get sent to an industrial state in Germany, and there was all also only guys at the hotel, and there were a bunch of older guys who were there all the time, and they would uninvitedly Join me for dinner. And it would freak me out. I was 2324 and I'm like, Who are these? I would call them dirty old men at that age anyway, so I would go back to my room and have my dinner in my room, and then the corporate expense department would say we were not paying out your meal expenses because Room service is not allowed, right? And so it's, it's these battles that can just consume your energy. So I did learn that if you that, that I that you really need good self care, if you are the minority in a group like that, because yes, you can find allies, and yes, you can choose how much you want to fight, but what you can't choose is one when stuff happens to you that hurts you or depletes your energy, and you need to have some tools and systems in place to then overcome that moment, because if you let it all get to you, at some point, your your your backpack with luggage is just too full, right, and you don't purchase it, And you don't have the energy to keep going. So you need a different or a better support system in the moment, and you need to be able to take a day off or something when something happened that you really need to take a minute to come down for from and not take it back to work. Michael Hingson ** 32:56 One of the most important things that I learned from the World Trade Center, at least I learned to articulate it, but I think I really learned it a lot more in a solid way there than anywhere else, is that you don't always have control over what is happening. Like you said, people join you for dinner, just different things that happen. You may not have control over them doing that or different things that occur to you or happen to you, but you do have control over how you decide to deal with it, and it really is mostly a mental issue more than anything else. We had no control over September 11 happening, and I am have not seen anything that convinces me to think differently, but we do have control over how we decide to deal with it since it occurred. Maartje van Krieken ** 33:48 Yes, yes, and you and I think you should also allow yourself to shamelessly take advantage in the situations where you can right where there is a situation that something good happens to you because you are the lone women woman, then enjoy it, right? Rather than feel like, Oh, I didn't quite deserve it. Take it, because you take the crappy stuff often enough so take the good stuff. You Michael Hingson ** 34:12 can decide how you want to deal with it. You can decide what your mindset is. You know, we've been talking about what, what the different environments and so on you've had but what was your job? What did you actually do? Maartje van Krieken ** 34:25 So I always work in major projects. I started out in capital contracting, so major contracts for new projects and procurement, etc. And then I moved more into project controls, so scheduling and risk management and estimating and stuff like that. And then eventually I moved into development management, which is kind of an early form of project management, with projects that are not quite being constructed yet, where they're looking at really the scenario. Level of evaluation. So it's like, okay, there is oil and gas in the ground. We know something about it. The respective country is willing to give us a contract like this, but then we need to produce this much by then. Can we do it? Can we not do it? What would it take is your capacity in country to build it, not build it. What can you do? And so, yeah, that type of new oil and gas field development work is what I did. And then eventually I spent also a decent amount of time in more change management oriented scopes, but always also related to the way projects are delivered and new technologies implemented in that, etc. And Michael Hingson ** 35:46 it sounds like all of those were gradually increasing in responsibility and took advantage of the fact that you were gaining a lot of experience. So it wasn't like you were just footing from one job to another. I would assume that, in a sense, they were sort of promotions, or the company had more trust and faith in you, yes, Maartje van Krieken ** 36:05 definitely, yeah. So my teams would get bigger, my reach would get bigger. But yeah, it's, it's a part of the business where there's, there's never enough people. I think I quite quickly had global reach, or I became once I chose my own path and kind of modeled a bit between the fixed career ladders. I became known as somebody who could do complex collaborations. I once got labeled as the best virtual community leader in the company, I think I was able to pull people together around things, and communicate joint objectives and bring people on board better than most of my peers, so that, yeah, it's the the breadth was always there. I think that the dollar amounts right and the risk associated with the scopes would go up as I went up. Michael Hingson ** 37:07 Well, you said you did that for 20 years, so eventually you left. Maartje van Krieken ** 37:11 Yes, I think at that point in Russia, I did learn some things about the company and the industry, which made me realize that if I really wanted to stay on this path of being groomed for the top, that there was going to be a point where what I was willing to do and what I would need to do for my career would not no longer fit. But I also knew there is still so many interesting and different jobs and places to go. So I'm like, Okay, I'll stick around for as long as I enjoy it. But at that point, I started to develop an idea of what would I do if I wouldn't work for the company. And I think it reached a point where, as a senior woman at my level, they wanted me in a, you know, in a display case type job, right? They wanted on air, invisible headquarters type roles, and I simply do met better in the messiness further out there. So I think what the company wanted with me and what I wanted started to diverge significantly enough that I thought, You know what? There's some little things that happened. I'm like, Oh, I could find another role and move again, or we could split weight, and I can carve out my own path. So I did. Michael Hingson ** 38:34 So you left, and what did you go do? Um, Maartje van Krieken ** 38:37 so I decided to. I did nothing for a while. I did nothing for a lot longer than I thought. Everybody also thought I was a workaholic, and I would be in a new job within weeks. Then I managed to do nothing for, I think, about 15 months or something, surprising myself to do it. I loved it. I of course, I didn't do nothing, but I did nothing seriously, professionally that got me paid, which is lovely. Michael Hingson ** 39:02 Now, when did all this happen? When did you leave shell? 39:05 2018 Okay, summer of 2018 so Michael Hingson ** 39:09 five years, five and a half years ago? Okay, yeah, yeah. And then, Maartje van Krieken ** 39:15 and then, just as I was kind of starting to get moving again, my husband was offered a move, and he'd been following me around for a while, so I did not feel the freedom to say no. So we moved to Pittsburgh, which is a place where I had no network, no sense of what I could do there, and then covid happened. Yeah, so that made my professional choices a little complex, because I was doing a lot of virtual work, but I really missed only being around others, so I actually quite quick. Lee, through some volunteering that I was already doing, landed with a job in the covid response. So I did that for almost two years. Michael Hingson ** 40:08 So what did you do? What was that? Maartje van Krieken ** 40:11 Yeah, so I worked with 211, which is a national crisis line in the in the US, for individuals, but the based out of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh services almost all of Pennsylvania, and was doing for Pennsylvania the covid response, but they were also in the process of upgrading all their tech systems and their phone systems and stuff. So this is a 24/7 phone line, right? And and they were tripling or quadrupling their volumes, and there was new programs being offered every day, and then that all needed to be pushed through the system. So I worked with them to help achieve all of that and the and the vaccination scheduling and all these kind of things. So project management stopped reading Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 41:03 And I was going to say little different than what you had been doing in the oil and gas industry, but at the same time, not totally, because it's all about management, Maartje van Krieken ** 41:15 yes, and, and I mean organizations like that are so these are non profits, right? They have there is no fat at all. So there is phone operators with huge hearts and lots of willingness who work a gazillion hours but don't necessarily have any project management skills, right or and then there is in a situation like that, of course, completely overworked Health Department workers, etc, and it's trying to get all these different groups to work together who are not necessarily used to each other, and who are under resourced. And so to me, that was a lot more of the same, to be honest, because it was different groups who speak slightly different languages and operate slightly differently, trying to do something that they hadn't done before. The energy and the intention was there, but the pressure was also nuts, and, yeah, making it work with what you have. Michael Hingson ** 42:10 So what did you do after the two years doing that with two and Maartje van Krieken ** 42:17 one? So then when that was finished, I start, I picked up some more regular consulting clients, companies in crisis and and my husband's job in Pittsburgh also came to an end, and that coincided with a point that I have now kids who are in middle and high school. So we have to choose a place that we were willing to live and stay put a little longer. So we've chosen to go back to New Orleans, because that's where my husband could work, and that's where I loved living, Michael Hingson ** 42:53 and my kids, you had been there before? Yeah, Maartje van Krieken ** 42:57 so we there. We'd spent two short years here before. So we came back to New Orleans. This is now where we'll be for another six years or so, and I am pivoting my consulting business from one to one more to one to many, so offering master classes in the around the subject of structuring chaos and mastering uncertainty in business, right? I think we all feel that the world is spinning around its axis faster and faster, and I love working with leaders and entrepreneurs who are in fast paced business environment, but feel that there is so much thrown at them that they're busy fighting today's fires all the time and and don't have enough time to actually work on the innovations and the projects that they want to deliver. And so I offer some really practical tools to get set up in a manner that it's easier to deal with the unexpected, and then I offer some implementation support beyond that. And as a as an aside, coming from my passion around women in male dominated industries, I do do some work with women leadership programs and with coaching of groups of women who are going through major pivots in their personal lives or in their careers, but work for employers where there's not enough Coaching and Mentoring internally available to help them through that. Michael Hingson ** 44:44 And what's the name of your business? Maartje van Krieken ** 44:47 So the name of my business is my name, but I do everything I do under the header of the chaos games. Michael Hingson ** 44:53 Okay? And why did you choose that? Maartje van Krieken ** 44:56 Because I do still. So, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 45:00 you love chaos. Maartje van Krieken ** 45:01 Yeah, I love chaos. I love structuring chaos. Actually, I would say that I realized from sailing and from being thrown in at the deep end at my job time and time again, if you talk to me about what are the highlights of my work in the oil and gas industry, I loved probably best, the projects that landed off my plate, that didn't the homeless projects right, the stuff the four o'clock calls that there was a repair needed on an offshore platform, and there was nobody left in the office, and I was the absolute Junior, but there was nobody else that could be reached. So it ended up being my project, and I got to work it and figure it out. I learned that I love that, and I also learned that my head is cooler and calmer than most when you know the the stuff hits the fan and and that I can I can help temporarily or longer teams who find themselves in these situations. You know that I could be kind of the power bank for the energy booster that then steps in helps to kind of get out of the eye of the storm today, get some things moving again, and get it to the point where the energy and the team collaboration and the focus is such that people say, Okay, I think we can now carry this torch ourselves again. Michael Hingson ** 46:24 If you have, oh, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. Maartje van Krieken ** 46:28 So for me, chaos is is not a scary thing. I see the light at the end of the tunnel or the dots to be connected, I think, quicker than others, and I love doing that, and I love helping people with that so they can get back on their feet Michael Hingson ** 46:45 without mentioning names or anything like that. But do you have a story you can tell us about one of the companies or people that you helped that that where you've made a big difference and things got better? Yeah, so Maartje van Krieken ** 47:01 one of the more recent jobs I did was a company, a new tech company, and they developed something, thought it was mature enough to take it to market. So they'd gone public, raised lots of money, and then set up kind of joint ventures or collaborations on every continent to implement this technology and do some kind of proof of concept, right? So they gone really fast, spread that money over the five continents, and one of their collaborations in Europe had, within six or seven months, spent produced absolutely nothing that coincided with them starting to be investigated by the SEC for fraud and because of some production issues associated with China. So the whole company was turmoil. So I was brought in to look at the European entity and say, Okay, are we just gonna cut it off? Is there anything left to be done here, right? And so I went in there to try and assess, what was there, what the people who were there said about things they'd kicked out some of the senior leaders, but of course, there was lots of people working there too, with and so I think, very quickly, because the other challenge was, because the company was so new that in headquarters, I'd say 60% of the people I was working with had been on the job less than Three months. So they all said, Well, this happened before my time. And equally, in the the joint venture in Europe, they'd, they'd hired all these people to do this, right? So also there, 60 or 70% of the people were new, right, and hadn't necessarily played a full role in any of this, or knew exactly what their job was, etc. And I think the main things that I made very quickly is that I restructured all the communication because everybody I talked to was giving me a different story. And then when I asked where they got their information or who they talked to, it became clear that very few people had talked to each other, right? Michael Hingson ** 49:22 They're making it up as they went along, yeah, and, Maartje van Krieken ** 49:26 and largely the folks hired in the US were all former corporate types. So they were, you know, it's like one guy came from GE, and he still talked in GE operational report lingo and etc, right? And then all the folks in Europe came from small family businesses and tiny companies and didn't really speak corporate lingo, and most of them had also not chosen to do their job in English, right? So, yeah, just I put people around the table, and that. That immediately started to create all sorts of clarity, and that meant that we started to be able to get to at least shared versions of the truth right, or at least share sets of facts, which can then facilitate actual quality decision making, right? Because if it's all based on he said and she said, and and it the decision criteria are also not clear. Then, yeah, what are you going to decide? How are you going to decide whether you do anything or not? And then we put some interim leadership in place that was actually there and on the ground. And then once things calmed down a little bit we started to cut through things and look at the losses and say, Okay, what's possible, what collaborations? Who knows what right. But I think the main thing was about putting the communication in place to to get to a shared version of the story that could facilitate decision making. Michael Hingson ** 51:01 And did you get to resolve the things that were going on? Is the company doing okay? Is the SEC satisfied? And so on? Maartje van Krieken ** 51:10 Yeah. So the worked with them, not till the point the SEC cleared them, but they were well on their way to getting cleared. The European entity stayed in existence, what their what their objectives and targets were, got revised to something that was actually realistic and achievable, and they've since delivered on that. And long term, they came up with a different decision model. So I would say there was I've managed to help them avoid unnecessarily, you know, or avoid more losses than needed, and avoided laying off more people than was needed. Help them create clarity with the SEC and other auditors, to get the time and to start creating to believe that they could just get back on track. And Michael Hingson ** 52:10 clearly, one of the advantages that you had is that you were used to working in all the different environments in the US. You learned and knew how to work with a European company and so on. So you were in a great position to figure out what was going on. That's pretty cool. Maartje van Krieken ** 52:25 Yeah, yeah, you could, you could, you could almost see the miscommunications, right? If Yeah, I could, somebody would tell and and so I started inviting myself to meetings, just listening on the you know, and then you're like, Okay, I hear what you're both saying, and I get how what you're hearing from each other, but it's not actually what either of you are saying, right? It's just lack of shared language is is so often the cause of many challenges. Well, Michael Hingson ** 52:57 yeah, it's, it's amazing how people don't know when they're not communicating and and it's not magic, but I'm glad that you were able to work with them and deal with it. How, how does being a mother help? And what have you learned about yourself and about being in the corporate world and so on, from from being a mother and how many? How many children do you Maartje van Krieken ** 53:23 have? I have three kids, and I think, as I said earlier in the in our conversation, I didn't know if I wanted to be a mom. Yeah, I was, did not want to repeat history, and I wasn't sure if I could offer my kids something else than I had had and but at some point that clarity and also looking at my husband came to me and I thought, Yes, actually, I do. I have three kids, and I think it changed me in ways that I hadn't necessarily seen coming. I continued working full time after I had kids, so that's that's a lot of the change that people expect that once you have kids, that you start working less or prioritize that differently. That's not a change that came. What did come for me was one, my tolerance for nonsense has gone down drastically with that. I mean, is that there is behavior that I wouldn't tolerate from my four or five year old kids, and I would see managers at work or, you know, or people that I had to work with who are taking home a quarter of a million a year and have been through every leadership training possible, display the same behavior and get away with it. Michael Hingson ** 54:50 There's something to be said for you can fool some of the people some of the time. You can fool some of the people all the time, but you can't fool mom. No, Maartje van Krieken ** 54:59 I. No and also the stupid rework that shouldn't be needed, right time is fresh. Yes, I did. I do love work, and I do love my perfect the professional me, right? And I'm totally okay to miss out on things with my kids because I'm working. I'm not okay to regurgitate the same thing 15 times because, because of what really right, if there is no good reason so that that kind of nonsense, I lost my tolerance. I also became a lot kinder to my son that I think was a big surprise, because I was I'm quite a tough cookie, and I can be really hard on myself, but I was also putting up with things happening to me that once I had kids and once I maybe became older, and also started mentoring really younger girls who were maybe older than my Kids, but still young, I realized, as I was telling them to not put up with stuff that I was putting up with myself. I thought, hey, this is interesting, right? It took this to see this. It took this, this, this different emotional bonds with other humans that I care for so much for me to see how not okay this is and also not accepted for myself. I found that a very interesting, interesting perspective. So I don't know if I got necessarily softer at work, but I got Kinder towards myself. And I do think in certain cases, also kinder to other people, because I could better realize what maybe was going on in the background, right and right and and have that tolerance, because I could understand it better, Michael Hingson ** 56:57 right? Have you written a book, or anything about your experiences or any of this, Maartje van Krieken ** 57:03 yeah, well, yes, it's not published yet, so I'm working on the story part with you know, all the collection of the crazy stories. Michael Hingson ** 57:11 Well, you'll have to let us know when it comes out so that we can tell people about it as well. Yes, but you and I met through patapalooza, and we've talked on unstoppable mindset before about patapalooza, which is a fun way to introduce people to podcasting, people who want to be podcasters, or people just who want to be interviewed. What took you to pada palooza? Maartje van Krieken ** 57:37 Um, so I ended up portapalooza The route of working with Kimberly Crowe and Ginny Trask on a speaker Playhouse as a woman in the oil industry, and also because of the nature of my role, because I was a subject matter expert on various topics and stuff, I used to give a lot of training. I also used to be at a lot of conferences or on panels, etc, right? And when I was employed by multinational, you get placed or invited for that. And once I started working for myself, that fell by the wayside some. And of course, my CV very clearly said, Oh, project management, etc. What it didn't say is that I think the people aspect of it is where my superpowers are. So I decided to get a covid meditation and continue doing mentoring, etc, through women leadership programs, associations and stuff. And then I realized that actually I really also missed the part of my job that's the sharing with what I have to give around this structuring of chaos and around quality decision making tools and how to deal with ambiguity, and you know, the others that get thrown at us. And so I decided that I wanted to figure out a way to on an individual basis, right? Find these platforms where I could share the stories and my wisdom in that respect. And so that's how I also ended up Corona because I think you know, the sharing of experience and stories is how humanity learns and gets better, right? Well, Michael Hingson ** 59:45 I hear you, and it makes perfect sense. Well, I want to thank you for being here, and we need to do this again. I think we have lots of things we could follow up on, and if you'd like to come on unstoppable mindset again, I think we should explore that. But. I want to thank you for being here today. Well, Maartje van Krieken ** 1:00:03 thank you very much, Michael. I've enjoyed this. And yeah, there's more that I want to learn from you, too, and I would love to talk to you about so let's do it for me accept the invitation to come back some other time. You have Michael Hingson ** 1:00:16 the invite to Maartje van Krieken ** 1:00:18 follow you, and I hope that we meet in person one of these days, at one of these events in this small world Michael Hingson ** 1:00:26 well, and if nothing else is, I think I mentioned, I will be in New Orleans in July, so I will make sure that we touch base before then. Okay. Well, I want to, I want to thank you all for listening. We really appreciate you being here, and I hope that you enjoyed everything that Marte had to talk about today. We'd love to hear your thoughts and your opinions, and I know that she would if people want to reach out to you, how do they do that? Maartje van Krieken ** 1:00:55 I'm very active on LinkedIn. There is not a lot of marches, so it should be easy to find, M, A, A, R, T, J E, and I have a website that is the chaos games speaker. So that's pretty easy. The Chaos games speaker, games Michael Hingson ** 1:01:18 with an S at the end, yeah.com, Maartje van Krieken ** 1:01:22 so yeah, I checked it out. I connected with the other two marches that are professionally active in the US. They're also really nice. So if by accident, you end up at the wrong one, you're not in a bad place, but you should be able to find me pretty easily. Michael Hingson ** 1:01:38 Cool. Well, thank you again, and thank you all for listening. We'd love it if you would give us a five star review. Wherever you're listening to unstoppable mindset, please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. We value that, but we also value your comments and your thoughts, so please leave us reviews. You're also welcome to email me. Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's M, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I B E.com, or go to our podcast page, w, w, w, dot Michael hingson.com/podcast, Michael Hingson is spelled M, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, O, N, and you've heard me say this before, those of you who are regular listeners, I also travel and speak, talking about things such as moving from diversity to inclusion safety and emergency preparedness and leadership and trust and teamwork. If you need a speaker, I'd love to hear from you. So you can email me again at Michael h i@accessibe.com or you can email speaker@michaelhingson.com would certainly love to hear from you, and whatever capacity you'd like to email and reach out, and I know martay would as well. So we really, again, appreciate all of you being here. And Maartje, I want to thank you one last time for being here yourself. 1:02:56 Thank you so much. Have a good one. You Michael Hingson ** 1:03:03 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
