I thought I was pulling back. But I was actually launching the slingshot.

I'm so excited to share what’s coming next

A couple of years ago, I started walking away from a business most people would kill to have.

A million followers across platforms. Brand deals. First-class flights. Five-star resorts. National media attention. A luxury family travel brand that looked, from the outside, like a dream come true. But inside, I was unraveling.

When success becomes a prison

The travel itself was incredible and authentic—we weren't performing fake experiences for the camera. But every moment became content. Every trip had to serve the brand. Even my daughters, who I fiercely protect, were slowly becoming more visible in ways that made me increasingly uncomfortable.

What really changed everything was a moment on a press trip with other creators. I watched children of mega-influencers get swarmed by fans at Disney World—kids who couldn't take a single step without being recognized, filmed, approached by strangers who knew their names, their ages, their whole lives. These children couldn't just be kids. They were trapped in a gilded cage of fame their parents had built around them, brick by brick, video by video.

Looking at those children, my stomach knotted as I thought: "This could be Sean and Ella in a few years." That's when I knew something had to change. I couldn't let my success come at the cost of my children's right to an ordinary childhood.

When I imagined what our lives would look like five years down the line, I felt dread instead of excitement. So I made a move I've made before—but one that's still terrifying every time: I stepped back. I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't know what was next. I just couldn't keep doing something that no longer aligned with who I wanted to be.

Finding my way back to writing

And in that quiet space, I returned to the thing that had always grounded me. I started writing again. Not for performance, but for clarity. Writing to understand what had just happened and why I'd felt compelled to walk away from something that looked so successful from the outside.

That writing turned into this Substack. And somehow, it's turned into something I never expected.

I'm writing a book.

The Slingshot Effect will be published by Crown Currency, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The same publishing group that brought the world Eric Ries' The Lean Startup, Greg McKeown's Essentialism, and Keith Ferrazzi's Never Eat Alone. These are the voices that shaped my thinking on work, creativity, and reinvention. To now join that lineage—through a book born from my own pause—feels both surreal and perfectly aligned.

Because this book is my slingshot.

The pattern I kept seeing

Every time I've made a major career move, there's been a moment just before it when everything looked like a step backward. The lower income. The less impressive job title. The awkward conversations at parties where you can't quite explain what you're doing next. But I've learned something about those moments. They're not signs of failure. They're signs of a slingshot.

Think about how a slingshot works: You have to pull back in order to launch forward. The tension is what creates the momentum. The retreat is what creates the precision and force. And it's not just me. This pattern has shown up in conversation after conversation—with clients, friends, and readers. People who looked like they were stepping away from success, but who were actually creating space to come back stronger, clearer, and more aligned than ever before.

Eventually, I realized this wasn't just something happening to us. It was a framework. A name. A philosophy. The Slingshot Effect.

The pause that changes everything

The Slingshot Effect is what happens when you stop forcing a breakthrough and instead create the space for one. When you trade optics for alignment. Urgency for clarity. Performance for purpose. And when you do it right, that pause, that slowdown, that step back becomes the very thing that launches you forward—with power, clarity, and momentum.

The hardest part isn't the decision to step back—it's living in the tension of not knowing what comes next. When you leave something that defines you, there's a period where you exist in the space between stories. You're no longer who you were, but you haven't yet become who you're meant to be. During those months of transition, I had to learn to introduce myself without mentioning the business I'd built. I had to sit with the discomfort of not having a clear answer when people asked what I was working on.

This is where most people give up on the slingshot. The uncertainty becomes too much to bear. They rush back to familiar territory or convince themselves that the thing they walked away from wasn't so bad after all. But if you can stay in that space—if you can resist the urge to fill it with the first thing that offers itself—something interesting happens. You start to hear yourself think again. You remember what you actually care about, separate from what you think you should care about.

Photo by Sadie Ann

What emerged from the space

For me, what emerged was writing. The kind of writing that helped me understand my own experience instead of packaging it for consumption. That writing led to conversations with readers who recognized their own experiences in my words. Those conversations led to deeper thinking about the patterns I was noticing. That thinking eventually crystallized into a framework that explained not just my own experience, but the experiences of others who'd found their way to meaningful work through what looked like career detours.

The Slingshot Effect isn't just about career transitions. It's about any situation where you have to step back in order to move forward with integrity. It's about choosing temporary discomfort over permanent misalignment. It's about trusting that the space you create by saying no to the wrong things will eventually be filled by the right ones.

Writing this book feels like the natural culmination of everything I've learned about how change actually happens—as opposed to how we think it should happen. We're taught to believe in linear progress and strategic planning, but most of the meaningful changes I've witnessed have followed a different pattern entirely. They've required periods of what looked like regression in service of eventual transformation.

If you're in the tension

If you're in a season of pause—or considering a pivot that no one understands—I want you to know: You're not falling behind. You're loading the slingshot. The tension you're feeling isn't a sign that you're doing something wrong—it's a sign that you're creating the conditions for something right to emerge.

P.S. Huge thanks to my brilliant agent, David Moldawer at Writers House, for championing this project from the very beginning and to my editor, Amy Li at Crown Currency, for immediately seeing the potential and coming on board with such enthusiasm.

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Where in your life have you been pushing forward when what you really needed was to pause? What’s the “pullback” you’ve been avoiding—because it looks like failure, even though it might be your slingshot? Share below 👇

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A special thank you gift from me to you:

There’s no paywall on any of my writing. Paid subscribers aren’t paying for access—they’re investing in work that resonates.

As a thank-you, you’ll receive a special gift:

The Identity Reboot:
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If your sense of self has gotten tangled up in roles, titles, accomplishments—or the pressure to stay impressive—this guide is for you.

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If you’ve ever seen yourself in my writing, this is your next step:

And if now’s not the right time?
I’m still glad you’re here.

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Bring Carmen to your next event

Carmen Van Kerckhove is an author and keynote speaker whose work explores how technology, social class, and cultural shifts are reshaping work as we know it. Her upcoming book, The Slingshot Effect (Crown Currency), shows why pulling back isn’t a setback—it’s how every breakthrough begins.

Based in New York City, Carmen speaks at keynotes, conferences, leadership summits, and company retreats. Explore her signature talks here.

→ For speaking inquiries, contact info@topflightfamilymedia.com.

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