Episode 94

August 02, 2024

00:22:06

Episode 94 - Frank van den Horst - Balancing Ambition and Family: Frank van den Horst on Personal Growth, Creativity, and Play

Hosted by

Drew Deraney
Episode 94 - Frank van den Horst - Balancing Ambition and Family: Frank van den Horst on Personal Growth, Creativity, and Play
From Caving In To Crushing It
Episode 94 - Frank van den Horst - Balancing Ambition and Family: Frank van den Horst on Personal Growth, Creativity, and Play

Aug 02 2024 | 00:22:06

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Show Notes

This episode: Balancing Ambition and Family: Frank van den Horst on Personal Growth, Creativity, and Play. 

 

Here’s what you’ll learn about:

Personal growth and prioritizing family. (0:07)

  • Frank van den Horst shares his personal growth journey, from defining moments to becoming a father.
  • Frank recounts a defining moment when he became a father and realized the importance of time management.
  • He made a decision to leave his successful headhunting career and start his own business to prioritize his family life.

Personal growth, creativity, and playfulness. (11:56)

  • Frank shares his journey from consulting to embracing his authentic self.
  • He helps people unlock and activate their full potential.
  • Frank emphasizes the importance of play and creativity in adulthood.

 

To learn more about Frank’s mission, go to his LinkedIn profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/frankvandenhorst 

Or his website at http://www.frankwise.nl/ 

 

Frank’s Bio: Frank van den Horst

As a change consultant, teacher, clairvoyant mentor and guide, Frank van den Horst facilitates people to unlock and to activate their -untapped- potential so they are more balanced, playful, focused and effective in life.

Discover-Play-Flourish.

Looking forward to having a chat with you.

 

About your host: Drew Deraney is the proud father of three, and for most of his life he was concerned with what people thought of him and how he was supposed to act.

In a 9-month span a few years ago, he endured four faith-shaking life events that caused him to question his existence.

Drew was determined to find a better way to live. Through intense self-reflection and awareness, he realized that in order to be happy, he must adhere to his standards of honesty, integrity and truth and needed to break free from the belief system that was anchored in him for close to 50 years.

Now a Self-Discovery Coach, his men's group and coaching provide a safe space for men to learn to tap into their natural power through self-discovery to lead their life, write their story and live the life they want to live. Drew is the podcast host of "From Caving in to Crushing It" and the author of the #1 International Best Selling book I'll Have What She's Having - Memoir of a Reformed People-Pleaser. Learn more and connect with Drew at ProfitCompassion.com.

 

HOW TO CONNECT WITH DREW:

Website

https://profitcompassion.com/

Email

[email protected]

Free Webinar: The Mindful Man Movement: The Multi-Dimensional Man

https://profitcompassion.com/caveman-webinar

The Mindful Man Movement Men’s Group Membership

https://profitcompassion.com/mmm-signup 

Book a Coaching Discovery Call: https://link.mavericksystems.online/widget/bookings/netweaving/connect30

Pick up a copy of Drew’s book: https://amzn.to/40dsbyR

View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to from caving in to crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host. Today's guest is Frank Vandenhorst. As a change consultant, teacher, clairvoyant, mentor, and guide, Frank van den Horst facilitates people to unlock and to activate their untapped potential so they are more balanced, playful, focused, and effective in life. Frank's catchphrase, discover, play, flourish. He's looking forward to having a chat with you. Enjoy the show. Frank, so good to see you, my friend. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Yes, wonderful to see you, Drew. How nice to be on your show. [00:00:58] Speaker A: Absolutely. So I've been wanting you on for a while, and in my mind I was like, okay, Frank's in the Netherlands. How do I do this? And I didn't have to stick to my Thursday afternoon eastern recordings. I said, you know what? We're doing 09:00 a.m. eastern. So right before Frank gets dinner in a couple hours, we're all set. So thank you so much for coming on. And I always like to thank the individual or the organizations that introduced me to my guests who, and you've become a friend and a mentor and a strong peer for me. So I have to thank master networks indirectly through Rick Gabrielli. So I am going to give Rick credit for introducing us because that's how I learned about master networks through Rick. So thank you, Rick Gabrielli, for the introduction to Frank Vandenhorst. I appreciate you. So, Frank, why are you here? You're here because I feel there's three different types of men, and we can be all three of these men in the same day. It depends on the level of our awareness. Now, when we're growing up, most of us, and this is throughout the world, are taught that life is linear. If we do certain things, A, B, C and D, in that order, things are going to be fine. And we believe it. And we're usually told it as a protection mechanism. It's not malicious by our caregivers. Ultimately, though, inevitably, an external circumstance comes and gets in the middle of one of those letters and kind of derails the course of our life, makes it more of a circuitous route. I'd love for you to reach back as far as you need to find that defining moment where you were man number three. Now, man number one is a man who doesn't even notice defining moments. He's got blind spots and he goes through life the same old way man number two sees something and doesn't see it as an opportunity. He sees it as a barrier that he's the victim and doesn't do anything about his life. You're man number three, where there were defining moments in life, and at some point in your life, you noticed it as an opportunity to create a better life for yourself. And if that's, that's the defining moment, I'd love for you to kind of educate the audience, tell your story and how that's made you who you are now. [00:03:30] Speaker B: Well, one of the defining moments is the moment when I became a dad. I became father relatively late in my life. I was always busy with my career. I was quite successful in corporate headhunting and stuff like that. I was, yeah, on the way to become a senior partner. But, yeah, something was missing in my life. And we, my wife at the time and I had difficulties to get children, so it was not sure if we could get a child. We really wanted that, but also decided that we're not going to do any artificial stuff, IVF, that kind of stuff. But you want to stick to the natural process. And one day it was bingo. Well, that's great. And bingo, you know, nine months. Bingo takes nine months to get the payout. And it was a wonderful son, and we really loved that. And that made me also humble. So one of the changing moments in life when you're so focused on your career and being successful, early money, stuff like that, having a nice house, you know, all the usual things you could say you do after you finished, for me, university. So that was a defining moment. A defining moment that I saw. Yeah, saw such a young child and have it in my arms and was really surprised. And I have still so much respect for women who give birth, give life to us man, to us people and what they do, what they go through in those nine months and the whole birthing process. So that was absolutely a defining moment. It made me more humble. It made me more focused on life. It made me more realize that it's not only about career and making money and being successful, but what do you, what kind of potter do I want to be? That was a question at that time. So I make. We made some tough decisions. So I decided not to have that five, seven days job, but to cut that job, even to leave that successful heteronic practice and started my own business, because the reason why is that I was much more in charge of my time. I wanted to be the guy who would pick up my son from school later. Not that dad, you know, was waiting later at the evening, and maybe after all his lunches and stuff and dinners. Okay. Okay. That happened, of course. But I made the decision. We made the decision, but I made a decision that was definitely a turning point in my life. [00:06:20] Speaker A: So you made that decision, and thank you for sharing that. And I. Now you have your own business and your son's growing up, something else came your way that you were not expecting. And my question is, when that happened and you have this different outlook in life, did you handle this next defining moment differently from what you would have had you not had that first defining moment of the fatherhood? [00:06:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. We got a second child, a second son, and one night he was about four years old, and one night we came home and we looked at him. He was sitting on the couch, and he wasn't feeling well. He had a little bit of fever and stuff like that. Now, to make a long story call short, he had meningitis and sepsis. So we had to. We run through the hospital and, you know, first responders, stuff like that one one, one, etcetera. We went to the hospital, and the doctor said, well, you better stay at the hospital because we don't know what will happen. So he was in tubes and stuff. I don't know what happened. My wife stayed at the hospital. I went home, and that night I went to his. That evening, I went to his room and I sat there, and that made me realize that there is something bigger than just being that there's something bigger. And I felt, I mean, you could. The voice of God is a little bit dramatic to say it that way, but I felt that there was something that will put me to a next level and was elevating me somehow. And I remember, and I shared this with the audience because it's quite personal, I said to him, if you want to go, go. Because it was serious. He was a serious ill, and that changed me profoundly. He stayed. You became a very strong guy. He had to go through all kinds of therapies. But now he became very successful, did college with honors, stuff like that. So he's a lovely person. But at that moment, that was a profound change moment for me in my life. [00:08:37] Speaker A: Wow. So now you. Thankfully, you have two healthy, grown sons. [00:08:42] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, after that transformation, you're still evolving. And I know that you, like, I ended up divorced, and that is another interesting turning point in your life that I wonder if your newfound mindset about what life is all about, how that impacted you, the way you found out. And because I know you're still friends with her now, can you go through that defining moment and how that even strengthened you? [00:09:19] Speaker B: We were together for 34 years, and at some point we have read the book. The book was. It was over, to put it that way. And actually she had the courage to tap me on the shoulder and tell me that. And it was, for me, a very tough thing to do. At the same time, I realized, through my intuitive skills I have, and connecting to my spirit, I realized that the contract we made in heaven, it was over. We were done for this moment. So I made one decision. We both wanted, okay, this will be rough for the kids. So we played. We do it in a fair and open way, we do it in a correct way, and also financially, stuff like that. It wasn't always easy, you know, it was not an easy, easy, easy road to travel, of course, but we did it. We still best friends. Our kids, in the beginning, didn't understand that mom and dad were occasionally having dinner with each other because they said, you were divorced, what are you doing together? So all kinds of mind frames came, of course. [00:10:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:30] Speaker B: You know, because they learned from school, wherever they were, that. Yeah, the world's appearance, they were fighting, going to lawyers and to court. We never went there. We had to deal with certain formalities, but we never went there. So we actually. Yeah. We're able to transform that defining moment in my life, in our lives, in my life, in a very harmonious way. That was a defining moment also. But something else happened to me. You know, when you're together, you know, you're trying to balance things out. You know, you can have it your way, she can have her way. So compromising and things like that. So you keep each other in a kind of balance, but it can also mean that you restrict yourself because of that balance. So the moment you're out of balance and so. And something new is. There's a new offering. You could say that moment. Something else happened in my life, okay. And my hidden potential, my hidden spirituality, started to blossom. I felt so much power, so much empowered in my intuitive skills, together with my coaching skills and consultancy skills, and I'm a college professor here in the Netherlands. So everything started to. [00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:55] Speaker B: To be taken to a kind of next level. It wasn't always sunshine. You can understand that. [00:12:02] Speaker A: Absolutely. That's what I actually wanted. [00:12:04] Speaker B: That was happening to me. Yeah. I actually. It was a bumpy road sometimes it is, but still it's elevating. I mean, that's wonderful. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Well, absolutely. I mean, that is where I want to get to now, is talking about the masks we wear in life. Because you started to realize all this intuition, all this spiritual stuff, that you had this talented, and you wanted to bring it out. You had a little fear of criticism, didn't you? Weren't you concerned about what people would say about you if you started saying you had all this intuition, spiritual stuff? [00:12:36] Speaker B: Yeah, because, you know, I came from a consultant. I was at my consultancy firm. I worked for organizations. And everybody who's working in a consultancy, whether it's Deloitte or PwC, whatever it is, you know, it's a tough world over there. It's a corporate world. You know, it's a fact figures world. Although we can say, well, it's also about emotional intelligence. Absolutely true. Talking about spirituality at that time, say, okay, well, I'm very spiritual and I can see and sense things and say, okay, frank, are you okay? You were a very nice guy, but, you know, we are not waiting for that kind of stuff over here. You know, we are just the figure guy. You know, we have to meet the quarterly results, you know, the whole drill. [00:13:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:19] Speaker B: So, for me, it was always, okay, I have to adapt. And actually, I wasn't being authentic. [00:13:26] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:27] Speaker B: I played a role. I did my best. I was successful at it, but actually, somehow, some way, I was denying a part of myself. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:13:36] Speaker B: And that's not a good thing to do. [00:13:38] Speaker A: No. [00:13:38] Speaker B: That's not a good thing to do. [00:13:39] Speaker A: No. So now I know that you are beginning and begin to remove those masks. And I. When we do put this on the video portion of the podcast, people will see in the background, you've got three logos there. So I'd love you to bring us into your professional life as a change facilitator, as an energy healer, and as a co host or three men with the road ahead cafe. Lead us into your professional life, Frank, and tell us what you're doing to help people. [00:14:11] Speaker B: Okay. So what I'm doing, the essence of what I'm doing is I help people. I help people to unlock and to activate their untapped potential so they can be more balanced, playful, focused, and effective in their life. Well, that's a nice sentence, but what does that mean? That means that we all have capabilities we maybe not be aware of, actually, we're not using. Not using to the fullest. And sometimes we know that we are there, but we don't dare to use them. Fear. Yeah. Fear of being rejected, not being accepted. And I know it myself, and I have been there, did it, done it. Still, sometimes I'm a little bit awkward to tell people about it. So it has to do to find your own superpower, embrace that change for the best and flourish and live it. So my three words are, discover, play and flourish. The essence is to take the COVID off, then play with it, to play with life and then flourish, to bloom, to show the best you can. [00:15:27] Speaker A: My favorite word of those three is the word play in the middle. Because when we were children, that was, the expectation was that we play. And all of a sudden when people tell us we're an adult, like we talked about the mindset before, people outside of us characterize what it is to be an adult versus a child. And it's usually shutting off that childlike instinct. And we don't learn. We don't play anymore as an adult. We take things too seriously. So I love how you have play in there that you could use that word for a variety of, of ways, but we didn't. We need to start letting that inner child of ours start playing again and stop saying no. [00:16:11] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that's what you see if he, for example, I've worked for all kinds of organizations in design apartments as a external tutor and teacher, teaching design teams how to do, how to create a team of designers and how to create and design storytelling. So what you tell about your newest device, you were designed. So it's about story telling and about teams. And the interesting thing is, when I was looking at those creative people, yeah. I asked them, are you allowed to play? Because they are in change. They are creators, aren't they? Yeah. Well, they said, yeah, we can sketch, we can create something, but we always have to be within a kind of boundary. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Absolutely right. [00:17:01] Speaker B: We have to be able to sell the stuff we design. Well, there is a logic behind that, of course. I really understand that. [00:17:08] Speaker A: Right. [00:17:09] Speaker B: Being playful is also being back to the playground. Just play with pieces of rock or a branch. You know what we did when we were kids? We didn't have to have Lego cars all running around. I didn't. So I played with stuff in nature, right? [00:17:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. So I love how you now are the authentic Frank. And I'm telling you, at least I embrace this Frank. I love learning about the change facilitation you do about the energy healing. It's fascinating. And tell you the truth, by now I believe the audience has captured somewhat, at least a little bit of the essence of Frank Vandenhorse. And they're going to want to get in touch with you. So audience Frank told me that on LinkedIn, all his information is there you can email him, you can call him, go to his website, reach out to Frank. We don't know what we don't know. So a conversation with Frank's going to unearth something that you're going to embrace. It's happened to me. So I strongly suggest. All right, Frank, so I have two questions to ask you. All right, are you ready to use your imagination? I'm going to have you play a little bit here. [00:18:26] Speaker B: All right? Do I have to buckle up or. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Just keep the seatbelt off? This is going to be fun. Play. All right, so you have the opportunity to sit with seven to ten year old Frank and give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him? [00:18:44] Speaker B: Stay playful, because once you go to school and once you go to high school and once you go to college or university, whatever you're going to do, you get serious. People want you to be serious, pay attention, do your homework, do your stuff, get good grades, stuff like that. That's serious business. It can be very funny. You can have a lot of fun, but serious, stay playful, please. Yes. [00:19:15] Speaker A: Love that. Great advice. And now you're going to put a different hat on. Now you're sitting with young Frank, the young businessman entrepreneur, and you want to give him advice about business. What are you going to tell him? [00:19:28] Speaker B: That's actually what you know, I've been now for three years working with you people in the US, and we have that podcast, road ahead cafe, etcetera. One of the things I learned very quickly when I was in the US, okay, what is that? That's something you have, that entrepreneurship. And then at one moment, the light went on. I looked at Nike, and the payoff, the pain with Nike is just do it. Just do it. You're great at it. And I think the advice will be, just do it. Don't wait too long. Just do it. Experiment. Dare to take a risk. Dare to live. [00:20:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. I love that. Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Frank. Listen, I want to thank you for a few things. A being here, but also being in my life. You are definitely a gift that keeps on giving. So thank you and keep doing what you're doing. You're a wonderful human being and you're doing a lot of good in the world. And I look forward to in the current and near future, I want to do a workshop with you where we combine our efforts and we can help change the world. [00:20:45] Speaker B: I have one thing for the audience, one quote I would like to share. It's from Neville Godard. He says, only limited by the weakness of your attention. And the poverty of your imagination. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Very true everybody. So there are no limits to what you can do. So release all of those negative thoughts about limitations and take care of yourself. Take care everybody. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:21:14] Speaker A: Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it. I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.prophetcompassion.com. feel free to also email [email protected] dot I'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.

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