What a Year of Conversations Has Taught Me About Change

About year ago, I launched The World of Liesbet Podcast because I was curious about people who are trying to make a difference in the world around them. Many of my guests have been entrepreneurs, community builders, researchers, artists, or people working on initiatives that challenge existing ways of thinking and doing. I often refer to them as "agents of change", not because they all operate on a large scale, but because they have decided to actively shape the world they live in rather than simply accept it as it is.

Today, I recorded an unplanned solo podcast episode (link) in which I reflected on what I have learned from these conversations. As I looked back on the past year, three observations stood out. They are not necessarily groundbreaking insights, but they are themes that keep resurfacing, both in the stories of my guests and in my own life.

Reflection 1: I Am Becoming More Interested in the Person Than in the Work

When I started the podcast, my questions were often centred around what someone was doing. I wanted to understand the initiative they had started, the project they were working on, the problem they were trying to solve, or the impact they hoped to create.

I still find those topics fascinating, but over time my attention has shifted.

Increasingly, I find myself far more interested in the person behind the work. I want to understand how they became the person they are today. What experiences shaped them? What values drive them? Why did they choose this particular challenge out of all the problems they could have devoted their energy to? What fears did they have to overcome? What assumptions did they have to question? What gave them the courage to take a path that often looks different from the one society expects them to follow?

Looking back at some of my favourite podcast moments, I realise they rarely involve discussions about project plans, organisational structures, or measurable outcomes. The moments that stay with me are the ones where people share something more personal. A story about a turning point in their life. A period of uncertainty. A difficult decision. An experience that fundamentally changed the way they look at themselves or the world around them.

I have also noticed that this shift is changing the kinds of questions I want to ask. In the beginning, I often asked questions such as: What do you do? How did you get here? What advice would you give to others? Those questions still have value, but now I am increasingly drawn to questions about identity, motivation, and personal transformation.

Who are you, really?

How would you describe yourself if your job disappeared tomorrow?

What is the deeper thread connecting the choices you have made throughout your life?

What is it about this particular issue that keeps pulling you back, even when solving it is difficult?

These questions feel more interesting to me because they acknowledge that meaningful work rarely emerges in a vacuum. It emerges from a person.

Every project, every movement, every initiative begins with someone who sees the world in a particular way and who decides to act on that vision.

The more conversations I have, the more convinced I become that if we want to understand change, we first need to understand the people who create it.

Reflection 2: The People Who Inspire Me Have Learned How to Slow Down

One pattern that keeps appearing in these conversations is the role of slowing down.

When I look at the people who inspire me most, I notice that many of them have, at some point in their lives, stepped outside the race that so many of us are running. They have questioned expectations that most people simply accept. They have resisted the pressure to constantly move faster, achieve more, and optimise every aspect of their lives.

This doesn't mean they are not ambitious. Quite the opposite.

Many of them are incredibly active, productive, and engaged with the world. Yet there is often a moment in their story where they realised that continuously doing more was no longer enough. They felt a need to pause and ask deeper questions.

What actually matters to me?

What do I believe?

What kind of life do I want to live?

What contribution do I genuinely want to make?

These sound like simple questions, but they require something that is becoming increasingly scarce: space.

The systems we live and work in are often designed around efficiency, productivity, speed, and measurable output. From an early age we learn to focus on achievements, goals, performance indicators, and results. Many of us become very good at playing that game. The problem is that when we are constantly moving, we may no longer hear our own voice.

We become experts at responding to external expectations while losing touch with our internal compass.

One of the reasons this observation resonates with me is that it touches a tension I currently experience myself. I often feel a strong need to contribute. I want to create value for my family, my community, my colleagues, and society more broadly. I genuinely believe that contributing to something larger than ourselves is an important part of a meaningful life.

At the same time, I also notice how easily I connect my sense of worth to my level of productivity.

When I am being productive, it is easy to feel valuable.

When I am not, I find myself questioning whether I am doing enough.

That is where the idea of slowing down becomes challenging. Not because slowing down is difficult in itself, but because it forces us to confront the possibility that our value might not be entirely determined by what we produce.

For me, slowing down can mean going for a walk, reading a book, spending time with my horses, practising yoga, meditating, listening to a podcast, or simply creating enough space to think. None of these activities produce an immediate result. None of them would look particularly impressive on a productivity dashboard. Yet they often allow something important to happen.

They help me return to the core.

The core of what matters.

The core of what I believe.

The core of who I am.

And from that place, it becomes easier to act with intention rather than simply reacting to whatever demands attention first.

What strikes me is that many of the people I admire seem to have discovered the same thing. They are willing to step outside dominant narratives about success long enough to figure out what is genuinely important to them. Not because they reject the world, but because they want to engage with it more consciously.

Reflection 3: Being an Agent of Change Is Not About Visible Impact

The third reflection is perhaps the one that gives me the most hope.

When we hear the phrase "agent of change", it is easy to think of famous figures whose work had an obvious and visible impact. We think of people who founded movements, transformed institutions, published influential books, or changed the course of history.

The implicit message is that significant change only counts when it becomes visible.

I increasingly think that this perspective misses something important.

The defining characteristic of an agent of change is not impact.

It is agency.

By agency, I mean the belief that your actions matter. The belief that you are not merely a spectator in the world, but someone who can help shape it. Agency is the conviction that even though you cannot control outcomes, you can still choose how you participate.

The reason this distinction matters is that impact is incredibly difficult to measure.

Take the example of an author. We can count how many books were sold. We can count social media followers, downloads, speaking invitations, or reviews. These metrics can tell us something, but they tell us surprisingly little about what truly happened.

A single book might fundamentally change the way one person sees themselves. It might help someone through a difficult period. It might offer comfort, recognition, inspiration, or courage at exactly the right moment. Years later, that person may make different decisions because of what they read, and those decisions may influence the lives of many others.

Most of that will never appear in a spreadsheet.

The author may never know about it.

The impact exists, yet it remains invisible.

The same can be said for many forms of contribution. A conversation, a kind gesture, a podcast episode, a workshop, a volunteer initiative, or a simple act of encouragement can create ripple effects that are impossible to predict or measure.

This realisation has changed the way I think about change-making.

If impact is impossible to fully observe, then visible success cannot be the criterion for deciding whether someone is an agent of change. What matters instead is the willingness to act. The decision to participate. The choice to contribute from a place of hope rather than cynicism.

Seen from that perspective, being an agent of change becomes accessible to everyone.

You do not need a large platform.

You do not need thousands of followers.

You do not need to start a movement.

You simply need to believe that your actions can matter and be willing to act accordingly.

Whether those actions ultimately create a measurable impact is something none of us can fully control.

A Final Thought

As I recorded my recent solo episode, I realised that these three reflections are deeply connected.

The more I focus on the person rather than the achievement, the more I notice the importance of slowing down. The more I appreciate the role of slowing down, the more I understand that genuine change is rooted in agency rather than visibility. And the more I think about agency, the more convinced I become that meaningful change often begins long before anyone notices it.

Perhaps this is also why my interest as a podcast host is evolving.

I still want to talk about ideas, initiatives, and projects. But increasingly, I want to understand the human story behind them. I want to explore the questions, doubts, beliefs, and experiences that shape the people who decide to step forward and create change in the first place.

Because if the past year has taught me anything, it is that change rarely starts with a strategy.

More often, it starts with a person who pauses long enough to listen to themselves, finds the courage to act on what they discover, and accepts that the true impact of their actions may never be fully visible.

And somehow, I find that thought both humbling and deeply hopeful.