A patchwork identity is still an identity
Growing up across cultures does not have to mean picking one version of yourself. The mix itself can be the strength.
Bennu by Flux Forward
Chapter Two · Episode 05
Everywhere and Nowhere
Ingrid Tappin joins Ben Brink and Alex Baker-Friesen to explore identity, belonging, leadership, and the strength we build through difference.
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What this episode helps you notice.
Main thing to notice
NavigationHow you find your way through unfamiliar systems, choices, and routes.
Related skill
TranslationHow your experience becomes understandable to other people.
What to do with this
Notice where this story points to a next step in your own context.
Browse related stories
Conversation frame
Everywhere and Nowhere
Why this conversation still matters
In this episode of Bennu, Ben Brink and co-host Alex Baker-Friesen speak with Ingrid Tappin, founder of Diverse Leaders in Tech and author of Exceptionals, about a life that has moved across countries, careers, identities, and communities, always circling back to the search for belonging.
Ingrid reflects on growing up across cultures and what she calls a "patchwork identity," and on the path that took her from media and entrepreneurship into leadership and inclusion work, and eventually into founding Diverse Leaders in Tech. She talks about how lived experience can become a source of strength rather than something to smooth over, and how the tension between who we are and how the world sees us can shape the way we grow and lead.
The conversation also turns to what it is like for internationals building a life in the Netherlands, the difficulty of starting again in a new context, and why belonging is not something anyone creates alone.
Topics in this episode include:
- growing up across cultures and countries
- the idea of a patchwork identity
- moving from media and entrepreneurship into leadership
- founding Diverse Leaders in Tech
- lived experience as a source of strength
- identity, perception, and leadership
- internationals building a life in the Netherlands
- belonging as something built together, not alone
Guest
Ingrid Tappin
A Bennu conversation about the human story behind a Flux Forward signal.
Listen for
Notice where this story points to a next step in your own context.
NavigationTranslation
What the episode reveals.
Main pattern
Your experience becomes easier to use when you can name what it shows.
Bennu holds the story. Flux Forward helps turn it into a clearer next step.
Main thing to notice
Navigation
How you find your way through unfamiliar systems, choices, and routes.
Related skill or context
Translation
How your experience becomes understandable to other people.
Context
Context matters
Ingrid Tappin joins Ben Brink and Alex Baker-Friesen to explore identity, belonging, leadership, and the strength we build through difference.
What to try next
Start smaller
Look for one conversation, one clearer explanation, or one better example that would make the next step easier to act on.
How this story maps into activation.
Main signal
Navigation
PrimaryNavigation
SecondaryTranslation
SupportingStability
Read: How activation actually happensWhat this means in everyday life
This conversation is about what it actually takes to belong: growing up across cultures, carrying a patchwork identity, and learning that lived experience can be a source of strength rather than something to explain away.
Lived experience is not a liability
The gap between who you are and how the world sees you can be exhausting, but it can also become the edge you lead from.
Starting again in the Netherlands is genuinely hard
Internationals building a life here are not imagining the difficulty. Naming it is part of getting through it.
Belonging is not a solo project
You do not create belonging by yourself. It is built with other people, deliberately, over time.
Everyday question
Everyday question: where do you feel everywhere and nowhere at once, and who is helping you build the belonging you are looking for?
What this conversation reveals.
Everywhere and Nowhere follows Ingrid Tappin's story across countries, careers, and identities, and keeps arriving at the same question: what does it take to belong. Ingrid is the founder of Diverse Leaders in Tech and the author of Exceptionals, and the conversation with Ben Brink and co-host Alex Baker-Friesen stays close to her own experience rather than her organisation's mission.
What stands out
Ingrid describes a "patchwork identity" built from growing up across cultures, and the shift from treating that as something to reconcile to treating it as a genuine source of strength. The tension she names, between who you are and how the world sees you, recurs through her moves from media into entrepreneurship, then into leadership and inclusion work.
Why it matters
For internationals building a life in the Netherlands, the conversation is candid about how hard it is to start again in a new context, and about a fact that is easy to skip past in advice about resilience: belonging is not something anyone builds alone.
Activation lens
The primary signal is Navigation. The route here runs through identity work and community, not procedure: understanding your own patchwork identity, and finding or building the people who help you carry it.
A question to carry
Where in your own life have you felt everywhere and nowhere at once, and what would it take to feel like you belong in both places?
Where to go next
Start with one small step from here. Check your situation, clarify your profile, explore the wider context, or keep following the stories.