The Own Your Story Method
Time, work and the systems we live inside
Own Your Story does not begin with visibility, marketing or skills. It begins with time — and with the reality that a large part of our lives is spent working inside systems we did not design.
Own Your Story does not begin with visibility, marketing or skills. It begins with time — and with the reality that a large part of our lives is spent working inside systems we did not design.
For most people, professional life occupies decades. Roughly forty hours a week, year after year, often at the centre of adult life. That time is not neutral. It shapes how we think, what we learn to tolerate, what we postpone, and what gradually becomes normal. Whether we engage with it consciously or not, work leaves a mark.
For some, work remains purely functional. It provides income and stability, and little more. That is a legitimate choice.
Own Your Story is for those who sense that if so much of their life is spent working, that time deserves clarity, coherence and meaning. Not as self-expression for its own sake, and not as optimisation, but as a way of inhabiting professional life without disappearing inside it.
For most people, professional life occupies decades. Roughly forty hours a week, year after year, often at the centre of adult life. That time is not neutral. It shapes how we think, what we learn to tolerate, what we postpone, and what gradually becomes normal. Whether we engage with it consciously or not, work leaves a mark.
For some, work remains purely functional. It provides income and stability, and little more. That is a legitimate choice.
Own Your Story is for those who sense that if so much of their life is spent working, that time deserves clarity, coherence and meaning. Not as self-expression for its own sake, and not as optimisation, but as a way of inhabiting professional life without disappearing inside it.
The Congruence Wheel: where the work starts
The method does not start from techniques or templates, but from the person doing the work. At its core is what I call the Congruence Wheel.
We begin with the humus: background, experience, accumulated knowledge, and everything that has been built over time. From there, we look at mindset — the lens through which decisions are made and interpreted. We surface an unfair advantage, often rooted in what was not easy or obvious early on, and examine conviction: the values that genuinely guide behaviour, rather than merely decorate it.
From the interaction of these layers, a unique point of view can emerge. Not a borrowed framework, not a licensed methodology, but a perspective that looks beyond one role, one sector or one moment in time. This point of view is not invented; it is clarified and strengthened by widening one’s frame of reference and resisting the comfort of staying under a single professional roof.
From the interaction of these layers, a unique point of view can emerge. Not a borrowed framework, not a licensed methodology, but a perspective that looks beyond one role, one sector or one moment in time. This point of view is not invented; it is clarified and strengthened by widening one’s frame of reference and resisting the comfort of staying under a single professional roof.
From internal coherence to outward expression
Only when internal coherence is in place does outward expression make sense. Style — speaking, writing, behaviour, visual presence — is not an afterthought. It is translation.
Style allows what has been clarified internally to take shape publicly, across contexts and over time, without distortion or performance.
Domains of application
Own Your Story is a worldview put into practice. That practice unfolds across different domains over the course of a professional life.
Authority is the primary domain today. It concerns credibility, direction and responsibility in professional roles, expertise and leadership. Authority here is not about reach, recognition or personal visibility, but about the ability to stand for something consistently and with integrity, over time.
Not to accumulate followers.
Not to market oneself more effectively.
But to resist a form of professional mediocrity that often emerges when comfort, habit or compliance replace conscious choice.
Looking ahead, the same worldview will increasingly extend to the domain of career transitions and portfolio-based lives. As careers grow longer and less linear, questions of continuity, identity and authorship become structural rather than exceptional. This domain is already embedded in the thinking, even if its full articulation will follow later.
Looking ahead, the same worldview will increasingly extend to the domain of career transitions and portfolio-based lives. As careers grow longer and less linear, questions of continuity, identity and authorship become structural rather than exceptional. This domain is already embedded in the thinking, even if its full articulation will follow later.
A practice, not a performance
Own Your Story is demanding work. It does not require perfection, ambition or constant growth. It does require a willingness to take ownership of how your time is spent, and what that time comes to mean.
For those prepared to make that choice, it offers a practice — not a performance.
Meet the creator and founder
ianka fleerackers
The Own Your Story Method was developed by ianka Fleerackers through decades of work across writing, public speaking, leadership development and portfolio entrepreneurship. It emerged not as a theoretical model, but as a way to make sense of recurring questions around time, work, authority and identity — and to turn lived experience into a coherent, transferable practice.
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