Heart of Man Bjoern Keune: When Chasing Success Costs You Integrity & Freedom — and How to Reclaim It | EP 47
Bjoern Keune is a successful entrepreneur and investor with over 13 years of experience founding and managing companies—and someone I am proud to call a dear friend.
Leaving business school before graduation to immerse himself in real-world entrepreneurship, Bjoern co-founded and served as CEO of Invincible Brands, a direct-to-consumer platform that he scaled from zero to €120 million in sales within just five years.
Despite his extraordinary achievements, Bjoern’s relentless pursuit of success came at a significant personal cost. Along the way, he created numerous personas, or false images, of how he believed he needed to show up to fulfill the role of leading the company.
To cope with the intense demands of running the business, he developed several addictions, which, in his own words, ruined the health of his own body and mind.
The emptiness of this reality and the worsening of his life circumstances forced him down a path of self-discovery in the search for answers. After exiting the company and finally achieving the business success he had always believed would bring him the freedom he was looking for, he realized this achievement did not offer him the liberation he truly desired.
Overwhelmed by stress, disconnected from his true self, and burdened by the weight of the inauthentic personas he had created, Bjoern recognized the need for radical transformation and a return to integrity with himself and his environment.
It was during this time that he explored various ancient wisdom teachings, coaching, and connected with the life-altering practice of Connected Breathwork. These tools allowed him to reclaim his sense of self and uncover a deeper connection with his inner truth. Through this journey, Bjoern gained a new perspective on life, realizing that the happiness and freedom he sought could not be achieved through his old methods alone.
In our conversation together:
- Bjoern and I dove deeply into his personal journey as he pursued external success.He acknowledged that, along his journey, he lost sight of the very freedom he had been searching for. Instead, he became trapped in a system that left him feeling anything but free— living by the assumption that he had to be and show up in a certain way.
- We explored the roles and personas Bjoern adopted - repeatedly affirming to himself that he needed to be someone other than who he truly is.
- We also unpacked the weight of the demands he was experiencing and the vices he subsequently turned to—such as pornography, sex, and drugs—to manage the overwhelm of his circumstances and the pain of disconnection, as well as the challenge of letting these vices go when he had relied upon them to self-soothe, self-regulate, and meet unmet needs.
- We dove into his journey of change, including how he stepped out of the roles, personas, and identities he had created for himself, and how he embraced the emotions he had long disconnected from—particularly in relationship to grief.
- We discussed the power of radical honesty and what it looked like for Bjoern to return to integrity and become a man he could truly be proud of.
This has been an incredible conversation with someone I deeply value in my life. I trust that his personal journey will support and inspire your own.
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Connect with Bjoern Keune
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bjoernkeune/
Discover more about 'Acta': https://www.acta.so/
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Connect with Alex Lehmann:
Website: https://www.alexlehmann.co/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexlehmann_
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@HeartofManPodcast/featured
Listen to this conversation on Apple Podcasts and leave a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/heart-of-man/id1697289478
Email: alexlehmanncoaching@gmail.com
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