This week's inspiration is Marie Hessel, who started in the Dakar Rally on a motorcycle and who chose to study abroad as an adult.
You started in the Dakar Rally. Impressive! What made you take on this challenge?
My mother and I had a tradition of following the rally on TV, after a few years I thought that this can't be impossible and decided to give it a try, without really knowing what was waiting. No sooner said than done, I bought a motorcycle and tentatively started learning to ride enduro, started in Gotland Grand National and other Swedish competitions, learned to repair, got the best advice from Olle Ohlsson who had started in the motorcycle class in Dakar before, talked to sponsors who wanted to join me on my adventure and submitted the application. The process of getting started took a few years, but eventually I stood on the starting line for the world's biggest adventure.

What lessons and experiences did you gain from this adventure, and how have you benefited from it in your professional life?
Starting in Dakar has above all given me the insight that dreams and visions can be realized, they can be transformed into our concrete goals that are also realized. Sometimes it may require a couple of course changes before you reach your destination, but it is rarely completely impossible. That insight has also helped me to accept that, in a professional role, I will not climb career-wise by staying in the same role or company for many, many years, something that I previously saw as desirable and also regarded as normal. Today I see that my qualities and characteristics are developed by changing environments, people and assignments, then I come into my own.

Later in life, you chose to study full-time and internationally outside of Sweden. What motivated you to make this bold choice?
A longing to develop and be challenged, to break away from what, at the time, was my everyday life. To let go completely. I have rarely chosen the easiest or straightest path in my life, many times my choices are about the unknown, the one that lacks a definitive answer. The same applied to the choice to, as an adult, study political science and live in Italy, Portugal and Spain for four years. The biggest challenge with moving to a new country is to cultivate new social contacts, and since I studied remotely, there was no natural network or platform to start from. But that is something that I am challenged by, to find the right forum, activities and places where meetings with new acquaintances begin, which are then transformed into lifelong relationships.