About

• About How to be an Original
• Short bio
• The name Lodewijkvdb explained
• The old (and long) bio

About How to be an Original

The title of the blog is How to be an Original. Being an original doesn’t mean you have to come up with original new ideas all the time, or that you have to be different or behave different. Being an original is about discovering and being connected to your authentic self, to your own values, needs and wants.

How to be be an Original aims to help people (including myself) to get to know WHO you are, WHAT you want and HOW to get there. It’s about being successful in accomplishing those needs and wants, by changing habits, setting and achieving goals, learning, growing and being successful. To accomplish this How to be an Original covers three main topics:

• Discovering WHO you are - Authenticity
• Deciding WHAT you want - Goal Setting
• Learning HOW to get there - Self Improvement and Productivity

Short bio

My name is Lodewijk van den Broek. I live in the Netherlands, married to a loving wife, daddy to a wonderful boy. I’m a projectmanager, blogger, entrepreneur and an aspiring runner, trainer, coach and writer. I’m passionate about people, about their astounding abilities to accomplish almost anything, as long as they set their mind and heart to it. And I like technology too

The name Lodewijkvdb explained

I’ve been getting a lot of remarks about my nickname, mainly about the number of consonants at the end of it. It may look random, but in fact it’s an abbreviation of my last name. My full name is Lodewijk van den Broek.

Lodewijk is the Dutch version of the German name Ludwig and the French name Louis, the name of kings. The name comes from the Germanic Hludwig, which means “famous warrior”. I have yet to live up to that expectation

The old (and long) bio

This is the original bio I wrote for the blog in April 2007.

You can read about how this biography came to be in this post.

The past: It took me a while to wake up
I was born in the spring of 1976 in the Netherlands, 10 days late, and sleeping. The hospital did not believe my mother would go into labor and gave her something to calm down. It worked…for me anyway. Caused by my relaxed birth or not, I have adapted a relaxed attitude in life. In my pre-teen years I cruised through life and through school without a sweat. I had a happy time as a kid, and we were outside seeking adventure all the time. Somehow, somewhere halfway along my teen years, I lost interest in stuff. My relaxed attitude gradually turned into passiveness, and I wasted a lot of time on video games, listening to music, watching tv … mind numbing entertainment. Not that I was depressed or something, I just wasn’t enthusiastic or passionate about things.

At the end of my schooldays, my parents made it very clear that it was not an option to not go to university. Without having a real passion for something, making a choice that defines your active life for years to follow, is hard. I chose by down selecting from the list of available studies, and came up with Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences. This was broad enough to basically postpone a real decision, and with an acceptable (i.e. low) amount of math (I knew what I didn’t like). However around my 18th birthday some things changed, I started to practice taekwondo, I met my girlfriend Lianne, and I was allowed to drive a car. I actually had passionate feelings about all three of them. I cruised through my study, still without enthusiasm.

In 1999, I had to finalize my study. This was done by writing a graduation thesis, based on research in a company. This is where I really started to wake up. The people who worked in that company, scared the living daylights out of me. They were unhappy, cynical, unsatisfied, uninvolved and passive. They did not care about their work, and all the joy in their lives (if any) came from the time not at work. This made me feel so sad. I decided then and there that I would not let that happen to me. I actively searched for a job that would encourage me to change towards an active enthusiastic attitude for work. My first job was at Ormit, a network for management development, that hired trainees for two-year jobs with very intensive training and coaching. In my two years, I learned a lot! I owe them a great deal. After this, my life and my career have been evolving around actively finding my path, and learning life’s lessons (and boy, it does present a lot of them…).

The present: Awake, and actively creating
Not long ago, I overcame my tendency to avoid or postpone decisions. I finally proposed and married Lianne, the love of my life. Shortly after getting married, we became parents to a wonderful little boy Jesse.

Currently I work as Operations Manager project manager IT at Adimec Electronic Imaging. Adimec is a fascinating company. Why fascinating? Well for me it’s very ambivalent, it inspires, frustrates, tires and energizes me…all at the same time. I learn a lot, that’s for sure. In the long run, this is not the right job for me, but as long as we create value for eachother it will fit.

Some hints on my circuitry: INFP, enneatype 7, (very) dominantly yellow (profile dynamics), Aries (ascendant Virgo, element Fire) and Dragon (element Fire).

The future: Wide awake, and a catalyst for authentic change
I’m passionate about what it is that makes people achieve greatness, while maintaining their authenticity. This is what my active life in the future will be about, how can I help people in achieving authentic greatness. Authenticity is only part of the equation for me, being passionate about something and striving to be the best you can in that something are equally important parts. My passion is to gather wisdom about these topics, and to help people in their path of discovery and success.

…..Inspired by People:…..
Richard Branson, Paulo Coelho, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Peters, Majora Carter, J.K. Rowling, Oprah Winfrey
…..Quest for Wisdom:…..
Psychology, Neuro Linguistic Programming, Getting Things Done
…..Path of Vitality:…..
Martial Arts, Organic Food