Godelieve van der Leij

Experience Expert in Recovery

Godelieve van der Leij obtained a Master's Degree in International Business in the Netherlands. After graduation she followed her dreams; started a sales traineeship at IBM and build a career in both Sales and Digital at Nike. To her own surprise, she even made it to Nike's World Head Quarters on the US Westcoast.

But then she got sick. Until her diagnosis with a mental disorder, her life had been linear, but the ups and downs of recovery taught her life is like a set of waves, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. However tough the years that followed, she never gave up and always kept looking for opportunities, since she is a true optimist.

For the past eight years she followed many courses on personal development and did volunteer work for various organizations, mainly focussed on social work, administration and digital support, given her own background. During this process she became the founder of a website (2014) and a blog (2018) called The Surf of Life, and started to advocate her lessons learned from her own recovery process and that of the Recovery Movement as a whole. It includes stories about personal growth and enlightenment, but also about the comparison between the (Mental) Health Care and Business Industries.

Moving forward she will continue to spread the word about the parallels between life and surfing, and share her stories and experiences. She knows like no other that getting sick does not just mean you might lose your job, but also your habitat, your relationships and your social status. She has gained thorough 'lived experience' in how to overcome adverstity and how to re-invent yourself in a changed reality. As an Experience Expert in Recovery she hopes to support as many people as she can during their recovery process and to connect both Business and (Mental) Health Care, since she speaks the languages of both worlds.