What happens when the life you thought you knew falls apart? And what if rebuilding it becomes the beginning of a freedom you never knew you needed?
Sometimes a freedom pivot begins with a dream: a new business, a different career, a life that feels more like your own. And sometimes it begins when the life you've carefully built starts falling apart.
For Heli Katajamäki, founder of Avec Heli Events, entrepreneurship became much more than a way to do work she loved. It became a path toward financial freedom, personal independence and the possibility of rebuilding her life on her own terms.
Behind a life that appeared happy and comfortable, Heli was navigating a relationship in which things were not what they seemed. When the truth began to emerge, she found herself facing financial uncertainty, caring for a young child and trying to grow a business while her personal world was in turmoil. Today, she runs an international boutique events agency, works with clients whose values she shares, and has begun creating the kind of life she once imagined during some of her darkest moments.
There was no overnight success here, only the small, sometimes painfully difficult steps between losing your footing and learning to stand on your own again.
In this episode of The Freedom Pivot, Heli and I talk about what it means to turn pain into purpose, why financial freedom can become so personal, and how rebuilding after a life crisis can change who you understand yourself to be as well as what you do. We also talk about intuition, self-worth, unhealthy relationship dynamics, and the courage it takes to trust your own experience when everything around you seems to suggest otherwise.
And we ask a question that doesn't always get enough attention: what if success isn't about achieving more, but about finally being free to live according to your own values?
When a Successful Life Isn't What It Seems
Before her life took an unexpected turn, Heli had what she describes as a fairly ordinary adult life. She worked in sports organisations, had a steady job and followed a path that made sense on paper.
But something wasn't quite right. She felt overworked and constrained by organisational cultures that didn't fully align with her values, and she was increasingly aware that she wanted to do more than her existing roles allowed. She could picture a future version of herself growing frustrated and resentful if nothing changed.
So she took a leap. She left her nine-to-five job and began working independently, at first freelancing in the field she already knew. Like many entrepreneurs, she felt the uncertainty of moving from a predictable monthly salary to a business where income depended on finding and serving clients. There were moments when she wondered whether she'd made a terrible mistake, but she rarely regretted leaving. Somewhere beneath the uncertainty, she sensed the decision had been right for her.
At the time, she believed she had the support and financial security of her relationship while she built her business. She didn't yet know how dramatically that assumption would change.
A Life Crisis That Changed Everything
From the outside, Heli's life looked happy: travel, a comfortable lifestyle, the appearance of stability. Underneath, things didn't quite add up. There were inconsistencies, situations that felt strange, details that didn't make sense.
Looking back, Heli recognises that her intuition was already trying to tell her something. She noticed the warnings, but the life she could see seemed to contradict them.
Isn't that one of the hardest things about intuition? Sometimes what we sense doesn't fit the evidence we believe we have. We tell ourselves we're imagining things, that we're overthinking, that we should be grateful for what looks like a good situation.
For Heli, the truth eventually came out in a devastating way. She discovered that important parts of the life she believed she was living were based on deception: serious lies involving her relationship, her finances and even the identities and stories of people around her.
It was profoundly disorienting. When your understanding of reality is shaken, the crisis isn't only practical. It can affect your sense of identity, your confidence in your judgment and your ability to trust what you see and feel.
Heli describes years of emotional turmoil, when situations seemed to improve and then fell apart again. She tried to understand what was happening. She searched for information, hoping that if she found the right explanation, perhaps she could fix things. Gradually, she began to recognise the patterns of manipulation and how much they had affected her.
This is one reason conversations about toxic relationships and toxic family dynamics matter. When unhealthy patterns become part of everyday life, they can be hard to recognise from the inside. Financial dependence, emotional pressure, conflicting information and repeated cycles of hope and disappointment can make even apparently straightforward decisions feel impossible. When children, shared responsibilities and financial uncertainty are involved, the consequences reach far beyond the relationship itself.
Recognising what's happening is not the same as being immediately able to leave. Sometimes understanding is only the first step.
Why Financial Freedom Became Her Way Forward
At the time, Heli was caring for a young child and working part-time. The early stages of entrepreneurship had already stretched her savings. The apartment she was living in cost more each month than she was earning, and the financial security she had expected wasn't there.
She had always considered herself financially responsible. She knew how to manage money, had kept savings and was used to taking care of herself. Yet she found herself financially vulnerable, in a situation she had never imagined. There was shame, confusion and an overwhelming sense of uncertainty. What could she do? Where could she begin?
Amid all of it, one goal became surprisingly clear: she wanted to earn enough through her own business to stand on her own two feet.
Financial freedom was no longer an abstract aspiration or a number in a bank account. It meant independence and having choices. It meant not having to rely on someone whose support could no longer be trusted, and creating a secure foundation for herself and her children. In the middle of a life crisis, that concrete goal gave her something to hold on to.
The Dreams That Kept Her Going
During those difficult years, Heli spent many sleepless nights imagining a different future. She wrote down her goals. She pictured herself running a successful business, with clients she loved, meaningful work and enough income to provide for her family.
One dream was very specific. She wanted to take her children on an expensive holiday, paid for entirely with money she had earned through her own business. Luxury itself wasn't the goal. The holiday stood for something bigger: freedom, independence and the ability to create beautiful experiences without financial fear.
And eventually, she took that holiday. Everything hadn't magically become easy, and she hadn't suddenly built a multimillion-euro empire. The small steps she'd taken over time had begun to change her reality.
This part of Heli's story moves me. We often talk about dreams as though they need to be enormous, visionary and impressive. But sometimes a dream is being able to pay your bills without fear. Sometimes it's a peaceful home, or taking your children somewhere beautiful and knowing you made it possible. And sometimes those dreams carry more meaning than any conventional definition of success.
Turning Pain Into Purpose Doesn't Mean the Pain Was Necessary
During our conversation, Heli shares an idea that carried her through the difficult years: turn your pain into purpose. She began to wonder whether something meaningful could eventually come out of what she'd experienced.
That doesn't mean the experience was good, or that anyone needs to suffer in order to grow, or that every crisis comes with a hidden gift we're obliged to find. Once she began rebuilding her life, Heli wanted the experience to shape something better. She wanted to create beauty from what had been painful, and over time that intention began to influence how she approached her business.
Today, she cares a great deal about how people feel when they work with her. She wants clients to feel heard, respected and supported, and she wants events to create real human connection rather than only deliver content or generate sales. She has become especially drawn to smaller, more intimate events where meaningful relationships can develop.
There's an irony in that. During difficult periods in her life, the scale of her business and the value of smaller projects had sometimes been belittled. Today, she sees those intimate experiences as a distinctive strength. The very thing that had been dismissed became part of her vision for doing business differently.
Heli is careful not to claim she's discovered her one final purpose. She is still exploring, learning and changing, and I think that's an important part of the story. Turning pain into purpose doesn't have to mean arriving at a perfect explanation for everything you've experienced. It can mean letting what you've learned inform how you choose to live now.
Intuition, Self-Trust and Learning to Recognise the Signs
One of the most fascinating parts of our conversation is how Heli describes the relationship between intuition and self-trust. Before the crisis, she had noticed signs that something wasn't right, but she didn't yet know how to interpret them or how much attention to give them.
Today, she understands much more clearly how certain situations affect her. When a potential business relationship creates anxiety, when she notices herself becoming mentally preoccupied, or when someone repeatedly creates tension and then temporarily relieves it, she pays attention. She doesn't automatically conclude that the other person is doing something wrong. Instead, she asks herself what is happening in her own mind and body.
What am I feeling? What is this situation bringing up? Does this relationship feel healthy for me? And what do I want to do with that information?
Sometimes the answer is to walk away from a business opportunity that looks perfectly reasonable on paper.
This is what I mean when I talk about learning your own intuition language. We all have different ways of noticing when something deserves our attention. For some people, it's a bodily sensation. For others, it's a persistent thought, a sense of ease or discomfort, or a subtle recognition that something doesn't fit.
Of course, a physical or emotional reaction isn't automatically proof that an intuition is correct. Anxiety, past experiences and stress can influence our responses too. That's why discernment matters. The invitation is not to stop thinking but to become curious about the information your thoughts, emotions, body and lived experience are offering, and to examine it with care.
Sometimes your rational mind has an excellent explanation for why a decision makes sense. And sometimes another part of you is asking, more softly, whether it's the right decision for you. Both deserve a place in the conversation.
Rebuilding Self-Worth After a Toxic Relationship
Self-worth is another important theme in Heli's story. She speaks openly about the shame she experienced and the way her confidence was affected. When someone repeatedly minimises your achievements, questions your value or makes you doubt your perceptions, it can leave lasting traces. Even after the outside circumstances change, the inner work may continue.
Heli is refreshingly open about this. She feels much more confident today, but she doesn't pretend that everything has been resolved. She still sometimes looks back at her former self and wonders why she didn't recognise certain things sooner, why she didn't act differently, why she stayed as long as she did. She understands much more about the situation now, yet offering that earlier version of herself complete gentleness is still a work in progress.
There's something very human in that honesty. We can understand something intellectually long before we've fully integrated it emotionally. We can recognise that we were doing our best with the information and resources we had, while still wishing we'd known more. Perhaps learning to trust ourselves again includes making room for both.
Purpose and Profit: Why You Don't Have to Choose
Today, Heli runs Avec Heli Events, a boutique agency creating corporate events and executive experiences for clients in Finland and internationally. She loves her work and loves bringing people together, and she lights up when an event she's spent months creating finally comes to life.
What makes her business particularly interesting is her relationship with money and purpose. After everything she experienced, financial independence became essential. Yet she doesn't want profit to be the only reason her business exists. She wants to work with people whose values she shares, treat clients and partners fairly and create experiences that matter. And she wants the freedom to make decisions that reflect those priorities, even when they don't maximise short-term profit.
For Heli, entrepreneurship offers the chance to build a business in her own way: one where commercial success and human connection can coexist, and where purpose and profitability don't have to be enemies.
We sometimes talk about meaningful work and making money as though we have to choose between them. But money can also support the very freedom that makes purposeful work possible. It can create stability and give us choices. It can allow us to say no to relationships, projects or circumstances that aren't right for us, and make room for the things we value.
Financial freedom, in that sense, isn't necessarily about accumulating as much wealth as possible. It may be about having enough independence to make decisions that fit the life you want to live.
A Different Definition of Success
Heli makes it clear that her story isn't about becoming a millionaire or travelling on private jets. She's still building her business, still working toward new goals, still balancing entrepreneurship, motherhood and the wish for a more spacious life.
But when I listen to what she's already created, I hear a remarkable success story. Success can look like building a business you love and choosing your own clients. It can look like having the financial independence to make your own decisions, or a holiday with your children. And it can look like finally having enough peace in your life that you no longer need to live in constant survival mode.
When I ask Heli what freedom means to her today, she describes a life with stability, balance and the ability to live according to her values: a life where she can enjoy her work, her family and the world beyond her business, and one that isn't driven by constant stress. And yes, preferably with a few holidays somewhere sunny. A perfectly respectable ambition, if you ask me.
What If Your Life Crisis Isn't the End of Your Story?
Heli has big dreams for her future. She wants to develop her business, work with more international clients and create events that bring people together in meaningful ways. She imagines spending more time abroad and wants greater balance between work and family life. And she's curious about what the next five or ten years might bring.
Heli isn't pretending to have everything figured out, and she doesn't need to know exactly where every road leads. She has learned that life can change in ways we never anticipate. Perhaps that awareness can make us both more careful and more open: more attentive to our own experience, more willing to question assumptions, more interested in what might still be possible.
I find myself returning to this again and again in these conversations. We often imagine that finding our purpose means discovering one clear destination. But what if purpose is also something we discover through the way we live? Through the choices we make, the people we choose to work with, the boundaries we learn to honour, and the small moments when we realise we're no longer living according to someone else's expectations.
You don't have to know the whole map to begin finding your way.
If You're Rebuilding After a Life Crisis
Toward the end of our conversation, I ask Heli what she would say to someone currently experiencing a toxic relationship. Her message is gentle and practical: start with small steps, look for information, find support, don't expect everything to change overnight, and try not to blame yourself for how difficult the process can be.
When someone is navigating manipulation, financial insecurity or unhealthy relationship dynamics, the path toward independence is rarely as simple as making one brave decision. There may be children to care for, practical arrangements to make, financial realities to navigate and emotional consequences that take time to understand. Support matters. So does safety. And so does recognising that progress doesn't always look dramatic from the outside.
Sometimes it looks like gathering information or making a plan. Sometimes it looks like reaching out to someone trustworthy, or taking one small step toward greater independence. And sometimes, much later, you look around and realise that those small steps have brought you somewhere you once could only imagine.
Listen to the conversation: From Life Crisis to Financial Freedom
In this episode of The Freedom Pivot, Heli Katajamäki and I explore:
How a life crisis became the turning point on her way to financial freedom.
What it takes to rebuild self-worth and independence after a toxic relationship.
Why intuition and body awareness can be useful parts of decision-making.
How she built an international events business while navigating difficult personal circumstances.
What it means to turn pain into purpose without pretending that the past was easy or necessary.
Why purpose and profit can belong in the same business.
How her definition of freedom has changed, and what she's dreaming of next.
This is an honest conversation about the parts of entrepreneurship we don't always see: the tears before a client call, the small victories nobody else knows about, the practical decisions that gradually create independence, and the surprising ways life can invite us to question what success means.
Listen to the full episode of The Freedom Pivot with Heli Katajamäki.
Sometimes we begin a new chapter because we're excited about what lies ahead. And sometimes we begin because the old chapter has become impossible to continue. Neither path comes with guarantees, but both can invite us to ask questions we might never have considered before.
What does freedom mean to me?
What am I ready to choose for myself?
What have I learned about my own voice?
And what kind of life do I want to create from here?
Perhaps you don't need to know exactly where the story ends. Perhaps the next small step is enough. You don't have to be lost to explore. And you don't have to have everything figured out to begin again.
About the Guest: Heli Katajamäki
Heli Katajamäki is a Finnish entrepreneur and founder of Avec Heli Events, a boutique agency specialising in corporate events, executive experiences and meaningful brand connections. Working with clients in Finland and internationally, she brings together business strategy, hospitality and a strong belief in human connection.
Her approach to entrepreneurship is shaped by her commitment to fairness, meaningful work and creating experiences that bring people together.
About The Freedom Pivot
The Freedom Pivot is a podcast hosted by Hannele Korhonen, exploring the moments when people question the expected path and begin creating a life or business that feels more like their own.
Through honest conversations about intuition, entrepreneurship, personal transformation and freedom, we explore what becomes possible when we're willing to question the map.
Curious about learning to hear your own intuition?
Start with The Intuition Starter Kit for Very Rational and Serious People: five unconventional experiments in attention, insight, money, timing and coincidence.
Your rational mind is very welcome.