More and more frequently in my conversations with clients, I find myself sharing anecdotes from my own personal journey of re-invention and what that has looked like in the context of where they themselves stand at the current moment.
In my case, August Jaeger was born out of a clear, but imperfectly formed desire to change direction and to build something I was truly aligned with. At the outset, I had no idea what that new business or category should look like, I merely had a deep inner conviction to follow my gut and go deep into the well, however risky it might prove to respond accordingly to this internal pull. There was no category, no blueprint nor a clear north star at that stage.
For 15 years, I worked as a head-hunter, partnering closely with high-growth technology companies across the US, Europe and APAC.
I thrived in that world and thoroughly enjoyed the cut and thrust of engaging with demanding board members, facing the complexity and challenge of solving “impossible” hiring problems. Working in partnership with some of the most intense environments taught me a great deal about what good looks like.
But more than anything, I was drawn to the human side - understanding what really drives people, connecting seemingly incompatible perspectives, and spotting potential that others couldn’t see. That was always the thread.
Around my twelfth year as a founder however, something shifted. What had once felt aligned no longer did. It wasn’t burnout per se - but something more subtle and a sense that I had simply outgrown the role. And that’s a particularly difficult place to be.
Because when there’s no clear exit and no obvious next move, the questions become heavier, for example:-
Where do I go from here?
How do I replace what I’ve built?
How do I start again without losing everything?
What followed was by no means a clean transition, and so began a long and winding road of experimentation, false starts, occasional breakthroughs and long stretches of doubt.
2025 in particular became a year which required bucketloads of grit, fierce determination and self-belief in equal measure.
One of the most valuable things I did during that period was simply, but uncomfortable.
I asked people I trusted for the unvarnished truth.
Where had they seen me at my best? Where did they believe I added the most value? And just as importantly, where did they not trust me?
I was effectively asking for tough love, honesty and a total absence of sugar coating. Collecting their answers effectively became “data gold.” I then went through a period of soul searching, asking myself some searching questions about where I wanted to be, what I wanted to be known for and the kind of life I wanted to create as I crept into my 40s.
It also occurred to me that harnessing the insights from psychometric tests and therefore exploring my own internal wiring could be another source of great value, so I went ahead and examined an additional collection of data points including my StrengthsFinder report, Myers-Briggs type indicator, Game Changing Index scoring and, with a little help from good old AI, got to work in synthesising all of that information.
Essentially, what I was aiming for was to create a working hypothesis framed around the following proposition: “given my unique set of skills, proclivities and experiences, how might I attempt to monetise this collection of abilities and objectively build a viable business around them?”
I should point out here that alongside these various thought experiments, I had also flirted briefly with the idea of securing a full time job, however the well documented challenges of the market proved totally ineffective and along the way, I realised somewhere that I’m more naturally suited to work that gives me autonomy and individual freedom. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy collaborating with others - far from it - however it is fair to say that I prefer to operate with as much freedom and autonomy as possible.
One clear advantage that emerged during this period of reflection were the rapid dismantling of entry barriers, directly resulting from a surge of AI tools. It was fast becoming clear that for a relatively small cost, you suddenly had access to tools that could compress time, extend capability and enable leverage at a level that simply didn’t exist even a few years ago.
In essence, everyone now has access, figuratively speaking, to a team of PhD thinkers that never require time off, never get sick, have access to probably 99% of all the knowledge that has ever existed, and crucially help you to rapidly set up flywheels for marketing, sales, PR, translation, legal, operations and much more. The key point here being that the possibility of running a highly efficient business with a small number of employees is now in the reach of virtually anyone with access to a laptop and a wifi connection. Notwithstanding the undeniable impact on the established order, I do see this as the great leveller of our times that has the potential to lift people out of poverty given the right combination of creativity, application and distribution.
Emboldened by these quantum leaps, I continued to test, iterate and experiment and by degrees, August Jaeger began to take shape. Not as a predefined idea, but as something discovered through action.
The reason I often share anecdotes from this journey is because I’m now seeing a clear pattern across the people whom I work with.
Many are facing a similar inflection point, and my belief - still forming - but increasingly hard to ignore is that we are rapidly moving away from a world where a single, stable career path is the default, and towards one where individuals build portfolios of value.
2025 might well have been the peak year for traditional full time corporate employment and therefore the new digital economy will more likely consist of the creation of new assets and IP, such as books, podcasts, youtube channels, seminars, training courses, speaking keynotes and trademarked consulting models. My sense is that people will no longer be able to rely on one sole income stream and will instead need to get creative and develop additional ones if they are to achieve a sense of balance and equilibrium in their lives.
What this means in effect is that we will all need to become entrepreneurs, in a sense. For a lot of people, such a prospect is understandably frightening. An unsettling shift in many ways.
Even large sections of the most accomplished, senior professionals I work with suffer from impostor syndrome and don’t like to “blow their own trumpet.” Not everybody is a natural salesperson, nor an extrovert and so in such situations the narrative of self-doubt is allowed to dominate - a pattern which has to be tackled if you are to break out of it.
The point I’m trying to make here is that if the route of full time employment truly isn’t available to you right now and therefore a personal reinvention of some type is necessary, I believe that everyone has it within themselves to find a way to strike out on a new path of opportunity. I say that fully cognizant of the state of the global economy, the manifest difficulties in doing business and the widespread sense of anxiety - yet, there are always opportunities to be capitalised upon; it all starts by cultivating a deep understanding of yourself and from there, developing unshakeable trust in your capabilities.
There is a quote from Carl Jung on the August Jaeger website which is very close to my heart:- “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” What does this mean exactly? In practical terms, Jung was saying that the patterns you don’t examine will quietly shape your decisions. But the moment you bring them into awareness, you regain agency.
Some of my readers will be familiar with my Stellschraube framework; one of the most satisfying moments that often arrives during the course of the work is the ‘epiphany’ or ‘eureka’ moment where a gentle challenge to an existing perception or a sympathetic reframing can often lead to a breakthrough moment for that particular client. It serves to reinforce my belief that when someone is totally blocked and can’t see the wood for the trees, it takes an outside intervention to get them moving forward once again.
So even if you find yourself at a moment of genuine despair, completely lost in the maze and unsure of where to turn, you’re welcome to get in touch and book a short, exploratory call. I’ll be happy to listen without judgement, to take an objective view and identify the immediate and obvious levers you’ll be able to pull in order to relieve pressure immediately.