The moment you stop playing the game.

For years I played the game. Certifications, audits, guidelines, exams, accreditations, endless boxes to tick just to be allowed to exist in the room. My whole life actually.

And yes, some structure belongs in life. I am very happy my surgeon and my pilot actually know what they are doing and are being challenged to keep learning.

But somewhere along the way, control systems multiplied and quietly took over. More rules. More measuring. More proving. More pressure. System layered upon system. Until you forget what you actually wanted to do, and more importantly, who you wanted to be. Háve you actually ever really found out what you wanted to be and do in life? Without the context of all the grades and money?

I only see now how deeply this has shaped me. Layer after layer of trying to be acceptable. Professional enough. Legit enough. Safe enough. I defended those structures because I believed my right to exist depended on them. It made people understand me, like me, hire me.

It was exhausting. And honestly, it made me physically sick.

Looking back, I see this step of actively choosing to stop playing the game wasn't courage. It was survival. Staying would have cost me my health. Leaving gave me my life back.

Walking away from that world while building a new business from scratch is not exactly comfortable or the easy way out. Standing outside the system feels risky. Especially after seeing how harsh the consequences can be when you speak up or choose differently.

But something shifted. After being cancelled, judged, or misunderstood while I was only asking questions, there is strangely nothing left to lose. And that is incredibly liberating.

Now I create from somewhere else. Not from job titles or predefined boxes, but from my own source. Conversations happen. Words flow like water. Stories are wanting to be told. I meet people with instant resonance. Sometimes paths drift apart again, and that is fine. Not everyone has to agree on everything. No clinging. No forced belonging. No groupthink.

At the same time, responsibility still matters. Skill still matters. Care still matters. LOVE matters (most of all!). But we have pushed control, grading, testing, competing and auditing into almost every corner of life. From the moment we are born, we are measured and compared.

And in all of that, we forget something essential: we are natural beings trying to live inside a million abstract systems we created ourselves.

Concepts, rules, rankings, frameworks. Money, governments, education. Useful sometimes, but never meant to replace life itself. When those structures become more important than the humans inside them, friction appears. People crack.

I have seen burnout. Illness. Relationships collapsing under the weight of performance and compliance. Suicide even.

We can do better than this. We need to. But first we have to admit we've gone too far. And that we participate in it, often without even noticing.

This is not rebellion for the sake of rebellion. This is choosing health. Freedom. Choosing to create from truth and love instead of fear.

Raw, imperfect, sometimes pretty daunting. And also the most alive I have felt in years.

And if something in you feels friction reading this, maybe that friction is worth listening to.

Love, Annemarijn

PS. If something in here stirred, there are a few ways to go deeper, all free.

UNLEASHED, a 7-day email challenge, one sharp question a day.

Treasure Hunting, where it all began.

Newsletter, more of this in your inbox, regularly.

All you need is honesty, a sense of adventure, and a little fire starting to glow in your belly.