LeadUp Welcome to the official page of LeadUp We have worked with 40+ global clients, many of them industry-leading companies.

We are on a heartfelt mission to enhance leadership and humanize work for organizations, and thereby contribute to a healthier and more sustainable society. We strengthen organizations, families, and relationships by helping individuals to expand their awareness, capacity, and resilience. More than 5.000 senior executives, leaders, talents, and employees in 15+ countries have participated in our R

esilience Programs. You curious to know more - go to our website:www.1change.online

All the best,

The 1 Change Team

🌍 Today is International Men’s Day - and this one’s for all men.Not just the quiet ones.Not just the struggling ones.But...
11/19/2025

🌍 Today is International Men’s Day - and this one’s for all men.

Not just the quiet ones.
Not just the struggling ones.
But also the strong men.
The successful men.
The men people rely on.
The men who lead, provide, protect… and rarely pause to breathe.

Because even the men who look powerful and unshakeable
carry battles no one sees.

The truth?

Strong men feel pressure.
Capable men feel doubt.
Reliable men feel alone.
And good men carry far more weight than they ever show on the outside.

And then there are the men fighting in silence - with depression, shame, exhaustion, addiction, or thoughts they’ve never said aloud.

But underneath all of it - strong or struggling - most men want the same thing:

To be seen.
To be trusted.
To have a place where they can drop the armour for a moment and still be respected.
Even the strongest men need that.
Especially the strongest men.

To every man reading this:

Your strength matters.
Your loyalty matters.
Your battles matter.
You matter.
You don’t have to carry everything alone.

To every woman:

Your understanding matters.
Your love matters.
Your presence matters.
Sometimes, feeling safe with you is what helps a man stay whole.

🌍 Happy International Men’s Day.

Here’s to honouring all men - the powerful, the quiet, the wounded, the brave -
and building a world where no man stands alone.

What We See Inside Senior Leadership Teams in Banks, Tech & PharmaThe 3 Behaviours That Quietly Kill Performance, Trust ...
11/18/2025

What We See Inside Senior Leadership Teams in Banks, Tech & Pharma

The 3 Behaviours That Quietly Kill Performance, Trust & Culture

After years of working with Senior Leadership Teams in leading Banks, Tech, and Pharma, one truth stands out:

Leadership teams don’t struggle because of strategy – they struggle because of human behaviours no one talks about.

Here are the patterns we see again and again:

1. Lack of Emotional Safety

People stay polite and professional, but hold back what matters most.
Hard conversations never happen.
Trust stays shallow.

2. Leaders Who Don’t Receive Feedback

Many can give feedback.
Few can receive it - without defending or shutting down.
When leaders can’t receive, the team stops telling the truth - and you stop growing.

3. Limited Human Connection

The pace of daily operations pushes humanity aside.
People collaborate, but don’t share what’s really going on.
Depth gets lost.

After going through our leadership journey, teams often tell us:

“For the first time, we have an intimate space to speak from the heart – about fears, challenges, and what truly matters.”

This shift happens because we bring leaders back to what’s real:

✨ The Love Chair - receiving appreciation
✨ Core Fear Sharing - understanding behaviour
✨ Feedback Rounds - directness with care
✨ Insight Walks - slowing down to connect deeply
✨ Resilience - building physical/emotional/mental/spiritual capacity
✨ And much more...

When leaders dare to be human, teams change.
When teams change, performance follows.
And when performance shifts, the business grows.

Share Your Purpose With the World - You Never Know Who’s ListeningBack in 2009, when I had just launched my company Ener...
11/17/2025

Share Your Purpose With the World - You Never Know Who’s Listening

Back in 2009, when I had just launched my company Energy Excellence, I was interviewed in the Danish magazine Next Station.

At the very end, the journalist asked me:

"So… what is your purpose?"

Without thinking, I replied:

"I want to start a school in India - and donate my time and revenue to make it happen."

The magazine was handed out for free on trains across Denmark. A lot of people read it. Including the man from my local grocery shop on Classensgade. He stopped me and asked:

"Is that you in the article? So… when are you starting that school in India? And suddenly, the purpose I had spoken out loud became real.

In the months that followed, while building my business, I kept asking myself: Where in India should I go? How do you even start a school? Who could help me?

At the same time, I was questioning my role models in my family - and the kind of man I wanted to become. Then everything aligned. One September day, my uncle invited me to speak at his school. One of the exercises was simple:

Share a dream you haven’t pursued yet. After the session, a woman pointed at my uncle and said:

"He wants to go to India." I asked him: "Per, what do you want to do in India?"

And he said something that changed everything: "My grandmother’s aunt, Anne Marie Petersen, was a missionary in India. She was close friends with Gandhi.

And she founded a school that today has more than 2,000 students." In that moment, everything made sense.

The purpose I had spoken out loud suddenly had a history, a guide, and a destination. This is how Periamma was born - a Danish/Indian/American charity that today supports: Anne Marie Petersen’s original school, Women’s empowerment programs, Education initiatives, Sustainable development projects across India, Kenya, Uganda, and Thailand.

All because of one truth:

"When you share your purpose with the world, there is always a receiver on the other end -
and life begins to move faster than you ever expected"

If you’re curious about the projects we support: 👉 www.periamma.org

To learn about the extraordinary woman who started it all - Anne Marie Petersen: 👉 https://periamma.org/our-story/

To read article from DR about Anne Marie Petersen: https://www.dr.dk/event/danskere-i-verden/danske-anne-marie-blev-gandhis-gode-ven-i-dag-fejrer-de-stadig-hendes

And the most important part:

Share your purpose.
Say it out loud.
You never know who’s listening.

⭐ Near-Death Experiences – and keeping your employees on boardI recently revisited a powerful conversation between Hiten...
11/13/2025

⭐ Near-Death Experiences – and keeping your employees on board

I recently revisited a powerful conversation between Hitendra Wadhwa and a leading researcher on near-death experiences.

Hitendra Wadhwa and Mentora has always been a big inspiration in my work. I’ve had the privilege to work with Hitendra in London and Copenhagen, and I was invited to deliver a ½-day Resilience Training for his Executive MBA students at Columbia University in Upstate New York.

What struck me is how similar near-death experiences are across cultures.
When people come close to death, they don’t feel regret about:
❌ promotions
❌ bigger houses
❌ titles
❌ or the first million they earned

Instead, they experience a profound clarity:
- the power of love
-the importance of connection
- the meaning of relationships
and what truly matters - always human, never material

This connects directly to leadership and retention.

In 2025, people stay where they feel:
✔ valued ✔ connected ✔ inspired ✔ part of something meaningful

They leave when work lacks humanity and purpose - even if the salary is great.
Purpose isn’t a slogan. It’s something leaders create through presence, recognition, emotional safety, and genuine connection.

Because in the end, none of us look back grateful for our job title -
we look back grateful for the people who made life meaningful.

🎧 Full podcast:
https://lnkd.in/dDWSKTi3

Your Heart Leads Before You SpeakWhen you walk into a room, your presence speaks long before you say a word. People can ...
11/12/2025

Your Heart Leads Before You Speak

When you walk into a room, your presence speaks long before you say a word. People can feel you.They sense whether you’re calm, open, and grounded - or tense, distracted, and rushed.

That’s not intuition.
It’s physiology.

Research from our partner HeartMath shows that your heart generates a measurable electromagnetic field that extends several feet beyond your body.

That field changes with your emotional state - and it directly influences the people around you.

When you’re stressed or anxious, others pick it up immediately.

Their nervous systems start to mirror yours. Tension spreads. Communication narrows. Creativity shuts down.

But when you are coherent - when heart and mind are aligned - something completely different happens.

Your energy calms the space.
People start breathing slower.
Conversations open.
Trust rises.

When I visited HeartMath’s headquarters in California, it truly felt like stepping into a big warm heart - so much wisdom, science, and genuine care gathered in one place. They’ve spent decades researching how coherence transforms the way we lead, connect, and perform.

And here’s what the science shows:

When you downregulate your autonomic nervous system, you regain access to your prefrontal cortex - the part of your brain responsible for executive functions such as focus, empathy, creativity, and decision-making.

That’s where your true leadership capacity lives.

At LeadUp, we help leaders train this awareness - not only through HRV tracking and HeartMath sensors, but also by helping them notice the positive signals that begin to appear: how their teams relax in their presence, open up, contribute more, and mirror their coherence.

Because culture isn’t built through values on a wall - it’s built through your nervous system, moment by moment, breath by breath.

When Did You Last Spend 24 Hours With Yourself?Over the past few months, I’ve invited many leaders - and men I work with...
11/11/2025

When Did You Last Spend 24 Hours With Yourself?

Over the past few months, I’ve invited many leaders - and men I work with - to spend 24 hours completely on their own.
No phone. No meetings. No distractions.
Just a notebook, simple food, and time in nature.
It sounds small - but something remarkable happens when you give yourself that kind of space.
Questions you’ve carried for months start finding answers.
What’s next becomes clearer.
You begin to see what needs to be cleaned up - and what you need to bring more of into your life.
Because when you step away from the noise, you start hearing the quiet voice that’s been there all along - the one that knows what truly matters.

And when you come back, you’re different.
- More grounded. More alive.
- A more present husband.
- A more patient father.
- A better leader for your people
- And a more joyful and happy man

This isn’t about escaping life.
It’s about returning to it - with clarity, purpose, and peace.

If any of this resonates, feel free to reach out - I’d be happy to share a few ideas on how you can best design your own 24-hour inner journey.

Walking back from my workout this morning, I was met by this incredible light - the kind that makes you stop for a momen...
11/10/2025

Walking back from my workout this morning, I was met by this incredible light - the kind that makes you stop for a moment.

It made me reflect on how often we forget to shine our own.
As leaders, we’re wired to see what’s missing - to fix, improve, or prove.

That drive makes us high-performing… but often restless.
No matter how much we accomplish, it rarely feels like “enough.”
There’s nothing wrong with drive or performance - they’re powerful forces.

But what truly matters is where they come from.
When fueled by fear or the need to feel worthy, they drain us.
When they come from the heart - from purpose and service - they lift everyone around us.

Through one of our Senior Leadership exercises, The Love Chair, I’ve witnessed how difficult it can be for even the most accomplished leaders to simply receive - to let others shine light on them.

Yet that’s where transformation begins.
Because the most powerful leaders don’t strive to be more.
They finally realize - they already are. ✨

And if we can’t fully acknowledge our own light, we’ll never be able to truly see and celebrate the light in others.

How are you planning to shine your light on yourself and others today?

💭 Stay Curious for a Bit LongerHappy Friday everyone - some food for thought to bring into your weekend 🙂1️⃣ “The moment...
11/07/2025

💭 Stay Curious for a Bit Longer

Happy Friday everyone - some food for thought to bring into your weekend 🙂

1️⃣ “The moment you give advice, you take responsibility for the other person’s problem.”

2️⃣ “Curiosity is a leadership superpower - but it starts with staying curious just a little bit longer.”

3️⃣ “When you rush to give advice, you’re saying, ‘Let me be the hero.’ When you stay curious, you’re saying, ‘Let me walk beside you.’”

4️⃣ “Who are you to give advice? You don’t have to have the answer - you have to have the courage to hold the space.”

5️⃣ “Coaching isn’t about fixing; it’s about helping people find their own light switch.”

After 18 years of coaching and mentoring leaders and talents around the world, I can say these words couldn’t be more true.

The biggest transformations I’ve witnessed didn’t come from advice or clever frameworks - they came from moments of deep curiosity.
From slowing down.
From listening - not to reply, but to understand.

I am not here to give advice, but If you’re a coach or a leader, and this resonates with you, I invite you to listen to this powerful conversation - and reflect on how you can stay curious just a bit longer.

👉 Brené Brown - Dare to Lead Podcast: https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-with-michael-bungay-stanier-on-the-advice-trap-and-staying-curious-just-a-little-longer/

Tough Feedback. Tough Love.The feedback that’s shaped me most has also been the hardest to hear – the kind that makes yo...
11/05/2025

Tough Feedback. Tough Love.

The feedback that’s shaped me most has also been the hardest to hear – the kind that makes you pause and think: they’re right.

“You care deeply about everyone – but sometimes forget yourself.”
“You push hard to prove your worth – though your impact already speaks for itself.”
“You’re ambitious – but less can be more.”
“You’re full of ideas – but focus drives your greatest impact.”

Each one stung.

And each one helped me grow more than any book or course ever could.

Tough feedback is truth spoken with care, not judgment.
It’s uncomfortable - but it’s the fuel for real growth.
Because leadership doesn’t grow in comfort.
It grows in courage.

What’s the toughest feedback that’s helped you grow?

Grateful for the Men Around MeIt started in Copenhagen.Then San Francisco.Then New York.And now Lisbon and Ericeira.Sinc...
11/03/2025

Grateful for the Men Around Me

It started in Copenhagen.
Then San Francisco.
Then New York.
And now Lisbon and Ericeira.

Since 2004, I’ve been part of men’s groups - spaces built on honesty, accountability, and support.

Over the years, these circles have shaped me more than any leadership program or book ever could.

They’ve given me:
💬 Honest feedback - the kind that helps you grow, not impress.
🤝 Support and guidance through life’s transitions.
🔥 Tough love when I needed to face my blind spots.

But the deepest insight of all has been this:
When I fully trust and lean into a group of men, I realize they often see me more clearly than I see myself.

Being surrounded by men who dare to show up fully — strong, vulnerable, and committed to growth — has shaped me deeply as a leader, mentor, husband, and friend.

And over time, it’s become so much more than a circle - it’s a family of men (and their families) that I’m still deeply connected to.

To every man who’s walked beside me - thank you. 🙏

🌳 Each morning begins the same way for me.A park.A workout.A podcast.A meditation.It’s my way of starting from presence ...
10/31/2025

🌳 Each morning begins the same way for me.

A park.
A workout.
A podcast.
A meditation.

It’s my way of starting from presence - body awake, mind clear, heart open - before I step into the day: engaging with clients, my team, and all the exciting challenges that come with being an entrepreneur in tech and leadership.
This morning, walking through Jardim da Estrela, I listened to David Whyte in conversation with Tim Ferriss - a beautiful reminder that poetry isn’t just words on a page, but a way of being in dialogue with life itself.

Listen here on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/dcecfWWg
Two of Whyte’s reflections really landed in my heart:

“Reality is the conversation you’re having with life - whether you know it or not.”

For me, this means that every challenge I face right now isn’t against me - it’s speaking to me.Each situation is an invitation to listen, learn, and grow - and an opportunity to truly connect with my heart and intuition.

“Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life - with what we love, with what we desire, and with what we’re afraid of.”

I’ve come to see that purpose isn’t something far away - it’s revealed in how we meet what’s right in front of us. In how we handle the hard things, extract meaning from them, and use those insights to move forward.

These mornings remind me that awareness and leadership aren’t about control - they’re about participation. Staying in the conversation. Showing up. Letting life teach you.

Why do employees really leave companies? It’s rarely about pay, perks, or policies. They leave because they don’t feel s...
10/29/2025

Why do employees really leave companies? It’s rarely about pay, perks, or policies. They leave because they don’t feel seen, heard, and listened to.

In fact, studies show that over 70% of employees leave primarily because of poor leadership or lack of connection with their manager. In short - people don’t leave companies; they leave conversations that never happened.

At LeadUp, we help leaders turn those moments into meaningful human interactions - using our 3-Step Model for Meaningful Interactions:

1️⃣ Attunement
Connection begins with presence.
Before engaging your team, take a moment to ground yourself - feel your breath, your body, your energy.
Attunement means allowing your internal state to resonate with the person in front of you. “When we attune with others,” says Dr. Dan Siegel, “we allow our own internal state to shift - to come to resonate with the inner world of another.”

2️⃣ Empathic Reflection
Let people feel that you see them. Reflect back what you hear - not just the words, but the emotion beneath them. “It sounds like this project has been exciting, but also stressful for you. Did I get that right?” That simple act makes someone feel seen, heard, and understood - and that’s what builds trust, loyalty, and engagement.

3️⃣ Embodied Active Listening
Listen with your whole body. Notice tone, posture, and energy - while staying connected to your own sensations. When you listen this way, you perceive not just what is being said, but why it matters.

💡 In Practice
850 Senior Leaders at Deutsche Telekom have been practicing this model through our Effortless Leadership Program - and many shared that the presence and active listening elements had a profound effect on how they connect with their employees and teams.

If you lead a team, here’s a simple but powerful practice to strengthen connection and trust. Have one 15-minute “check-in conversation” with each team member and ask:

1️⃣ What’s energizing you right now?
2️⃣ What’s draining or blocking you?
3️⃣ What would help you perform and feel at your best this week?

Then - simply attune, reflect, and listen.
No fixing. No rushing. Just presence.

Because real leadership isn’t about managing performance - it’s about helping people feel seen, heard, and listened to, and creating the conditions where they can truly thrive.

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