Featured Interview With Anna S. E. Lundberg
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in the UK and my parents are Swedish, so I’ve grown up bilingual and bicultural. After studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, I moved to Geneva to do my masters in International Relations, with the aim of working at the UN. Instead, I ‘ended up’ in a marketing role in the private sector, and I stayed on for nine years.
When I quit my job in 2013, I initially returned to the UK and set up my own consultancy; I then took my business on the road and became a ‘digital nomad’; and lately, I’ve returned to London as my base again as I fell in love with an Englishman 🙂
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I always wanted to *be* a writer. Growing up, I created a pretend newspaper where I interviewed my dad (fake news actually, as I made up his answers!) and I also wrote some pretty awful Sweet Valley High-type teen romance stories. I didn’t study English at university, but I did study Politics and Economics and I thought that was a great basis for going into journalism. Although I didn’t pursue it professionally on graduation, I did a lot of courses, from a magazine journalism course with the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) to many mini-creative writing courses.
It was when I took my sabbatical in 2013 and travelled across South America that I launched a blog and began writing publicly for the first time. This gradually evolved from the personal travel diary that it had started out as to increasingly reflect my musings on career choices and personal development, and ultimately it became a platform for my business. This has been an organic process from the start, where I have written about whatever I was interested in at the time, but I have focused my work in the past couple of years to be more intentionally designed to support my clients and grow my business.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I have an endless list of non-fiction books on my Kindle app, which I have either read cover to cover or, more often than not, dipped into from time to time. I would love to make time to read more
I couldn’t really pinpoint any specific author or book that has influenced me in the kind of writing that I do at the moment. However, I have read a lot of books about writing and my favourites include On Writing by Stephen King, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is Leaving the Corporate 9 to 5: Stories from people who’ve done it (and how you can too!).
In 2013, I took a leap of faith, leaving my corporate job without a clear plan as to what I was going to do next. One of the first ideas I had after leaving was to talk to others who had done the same. To be perfectly honest, this stemmed from a selfish desire on my side to be inspired, to find the courage to do what I wanted to do, and to learn from other people’s mistakes! In sharing the interviews on my newly established blog, however, I was able to broaden my reach to inspire and help other people like me in the process.
The first interview went up on the blog in January 2014 and, in the years since, I’ve spoken to 50 different people. With a range of experiences and fantastic advice hidden away in these old blog posts, I thought it would be valuable to collect all the interviews in a book. I called this interview series ‘Fearless Fridays’ on my blog, and I do love a good alliteration, so Fifty Fearless Fridays just sounded like it was meant to be!
I’ve also learned a lot from my own experience of the various twists and turns since I first made the decision to quit. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to understanding who I am, what motivates me and what a fulfilling career looks like for me as an individual. I’ve become passionate about helping others do the same, and I now coach people through their own transition out of the corporate 9 to 5. I’ve framed the 50 stories in this collection within my own personal experience and what I’ve observed in coaching clients, adding some guidance as to what you can do to start creating your own career transition story. My hope is that this book will offer both reassurance and inspiration on the one hand, and concrete tips and action steps on the other, as you create your very own career transition story.
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