Dennis Geelen

Business Coach | Keynote Speaker | Author of The Happy Accidents newsletter and The Accidental Solopreneur book

I’ve spent most of my career helping people navigate change.

Sometimes that meant working with leadership teams and organizations.
Sometimes it meant coaching solopreneurs who were building something new after an unexpected turn.
And more recently, it’s meant telling true stories that remind us how unpredictable, strange, and meaningful real life can be.

At the core of everything I do is one idea:
people don’t change because of frameworks alone, they change because of perspective.

What I Do

I’m a speaker, author, and consultant who helps individuals and organizations make sense of uncertainty, transition, and unexpected opportunity.

My work focuses on:
 • Leadership and change
 • Human-centered decision making
 • Serendipity, timing, and “happy accidents”
 • Stories that challenge neat narratives about success and control

I’m currently building The Uncanny, a storytelling project exploring true stories that sound impossible but actually happened.

Who I Work With
 • Event organizers looking for keynote talks that are thoughtful, grounded, and story-driven
 • Organizations and nonprofits navigating change, leadership transitions, or cultural shifts
 • Individuals who want practical clarity through focused, one-hour coaching conversations

(I’m no longer actively promoting large programs or long-term coaching, but I still take on select conversations and workshops when there’s a strong fit.)

What I’ve Created
 • Author of The Zero In Formula and The Accidental Solopreneur
 • Host and creator of story-driven newsletters, podcasts, and short-form video content
 • Speaker on topics including change, leadership, serendipity, and starting before you feel ready

Want to Connect?

If you’re reaching out about:
 • Speaking engagements
 • A focused workshop or session
 • A thoughtful one-on-one coaching conversation

Feel free to DM me.

And if you’re someone who loves true stories that make you pause and say, “That can’t be real”…
you’ll probably enjoy what I’m building next.

Founder

Coaching and mentoring to help you start and scale your one-person business.

Seven years ago, I was laid off and decided to try consulting.

What followed looked like a logical path (at least on paper):
- learning LinkedIn,
- building a personal brand,
- writing books,
- starting a podcast and YouTube channel,
- eventually speaking on a TEDx stage.

But somewhere along the way, I noticed something I wasn’t unexpecting.

I wasn’t just doing those things to support my work. I was falling in love with the act of creating itself.

Writing.
Thinking.
Trying to articulate ideas clearly.
Exploring questions that don’t have neat answers.

It got my juices flowing.

I’ve realized recently that I enjoy that process as much as (if not more than) the consulting and coaching it originally served.

That realization has eventually led me to a new side project called The Uncanny.

It’s a space where I explore strange timing, coincidence, human behavior, and the ideas and stories that make us question how predictable the world really is.

I talk about that shift (and what it’s taught me) in a short video I just published.

(Sharing it here for anyone who’s curious.)

Speaker | Author | Consultant - Guiding organizations through leadership transitions and complexity

If you are a relatively good employee you can probably relate to this

You get your work done ahead of schedule, that should be a good thing right?
But no, now you have to pretend to be busy.
And it's stressful.

Because if you are seen sitting at your desk and you don't appear to be busy then you are immediately labeled as lazy or unproductive.

This is a real problem and I bet many of you have felt it.

Am I right?

"Oh, I was a bit rude to the cashier today but it was because I had a terrible morning and was late for a meeting, I'm not normally like that."

2 days later... 

"I can't believe how rude that person was to the waiter in the restaurant today."

We live in 2 different moral systems.

We've been measuring intelligence completely wrong all these years.


Historically, we determine a person is 'smart' if either 
a) they are good at memorizing and regurgitating information or 
b) they speak confidently about their opinions

But does that actually make them smart?

I think there's a better way...

Most leadership training gets this backwards.

We teach people how to manage others…
before they know how to manage themselves.

And then we wonder why teams struggle.

There’re some uncomfortable truths we don’t like to acknowledge when it comes to leadership: 

- If you can’t manage your own reactions,
you can’t manage conflict.

- If you don’t understand your own personality, you’ll misread everyone else’s.

- If you don’t take responsibility for your results, you’ll blame your team.

- If you can’t prioritize your own time,
you’ll create chaos for everyone around you.

Contrary to what we like to think, leadership doesn’t start with strategy. 

It starts with self-awareness.

In my 12-week leadership coaching program through Zero In, the first four weeks are entirely about leading yourself.

It’s the foundation for everything that comes afterwards (where we then focus on leading individuals and then leading teams).

In those first four weeks, we dig into personality, stress triggers,
how others actually experience you,
how you respond under pressure,
and how you prioritize what matters.

Because once you can lead yourself…
leading others becomes exponentially easier.

If you’re serious about becoming the kind of leader people actually want to follow,
start there.

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Some of the most damaging leaders I’ve seen weren’t incompetent.

They were unregulated.

Don’t get me wrong, they were smart,  strategic, and experienced.

But they couldn’t manage themselves.

They couldn’t control their reactions in tense moments.

They took feedback personally.

They blamed circumstances when results slipped.

They said “yes” to everything and then created chaos trying to deliver.

And their teams paid the price.

Leadership isn’t just about vision or communication.

It’s about emotional control.
Self-awareness.
Responsibility.
Discipline with your time and energy.

If you can’t lead your own habits, emotions, and priorities, you end up outsourcing the consequences to everyone around you.

And that’s when trust erodes.

Have you ever worked for a leader who struggled to lead themselves?

What did that look like and how did it affect the team?

Not to self: do more videos on LinkedIn 

This one just doesn’t want to slow down
Almost 750K views (so far).

Are you doing videos here?

graphical user interface, application, website

Is it your goals?
Is it your habits?
Is it your purpose?

Or is it actually none of those things?

Is high turnover always a sign of bad leadership?

Some of the best leaders I know are losing their highest performers.

How can that be?

I saw this question on Reddit recently (see image), and it stuck with me.

Because here’s what I’ve seen again and again:
There are great organizations, led by well-meaning, values-driven leaders, doing their best to support their people…who are still losing high-performing employees.

It's not because the culture is toxic or because the manager is incompetent.

It's because the work slowly stops feeling:
• Interesting
• Challenging
• Rewarding

When that happens, high performers don’t usually complain or disengage loudly. They just… leave.

Retention isn’t a culture problem as often as it’s a work design problem.

Over the last year, I’ve been studying this pattern and turned it into a simple framework I call The Motivated Employee, designed to help leaders diagnose why good people are leaving and what to do about it before they walk.

In December, I ran a free webinar on this topic with leaders from several organizations.

👉 If you lead a team (or an organization) and would like a copy of the recording and the accompanying materials, comment “MOTIVATION” or DM me and I’ll send it along.

No pitch. Just something I genuinely believe more leaders need right now.

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