From KPIs to Canvas: Why I Started Painting as a CEO

The most important shift I ever made didn’t happen in a boardroom. It happened with a brush in my hand.

In 2019, I did something strange.

While leading 2,000+ people, running board meetings, and tracking KPIs…

I signed up for an oil painting workshop.

Why?

Because something in me was starving.

Not for data. Not for goals.

But for depth.

The atelier was in Vienna.

The master? A former board member.

He understood the corporate world. And more importantly — he understood the cost of living in the left brain too long.

We painted.

Hours and hours.

My back hurt so much I had to take painkillers.

But I couldn’t stop.

I was in love.

Something strange kept happening.

Each time I came back from painting, I’d sit in the boardroom and think:

“What the hell are we even doing?”

We’re so obsessed with progress,

we forget presence.

We measure everything,

but feel nothing.

We chase numbers,

but lose meaning.

I began to see it clearly.

Most leaders operate from the left hemisphere of the brain:

• logic

• language

• goals

• short-term thinking

But the right hemisphere?

That’s where long-term thinking lives.

Imagination. Vision. Purpose.

The part of you that connects dots instead of controlling them.

In most corporations?

That part is sleeping. Or worse — rejected.

Canvas became my mirror.

A place where there were no KPIs.

No deadlines.

Just truth.

The images I painted changed over time.

Because I changed.

At first, I was just a CEO holding a brush.

Later, I became a human again.

I didn’t know it then,

but painting was the most powerful leadership tool I ever picked up.

Not because it made me more productive —

but because it made me more present.

It helped me stop competing…

with others,

and with myself.

It helped me connect.

And that’s the question I want to leave you with:

Are we building connection or competition?

Are we thinking long-term, or just reacting short-term?

Are we leading with soul — or just spreadsheets?

Sometimes the map to your future…

is hiding inside a blank canvas.

Pick up the brush.

Reply or share: What “creative portal” changed your life?

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