Filip Moeykens: “People have immense resilience. The trick is to use that professionally.”
Filip Moeykens, CEO of Patronale Life, the lender in the mortgage market specializing in higher-risk cases, is a true entrepreneur who also shows great social commitment. “I have wanted to be involved since my childhood, and I continue to do so today. I feel like I belong to a privileged generation that, thanks to my parents and society, was able to study and gain professional knowledge. That’s why I want to give something back. There are still many organizations working towards a better world that can really use this knowledge.”
Leadership Was a Logical Step
“I was partly shaped by the scouts in Brugge,” says Filip Moeykens during a beach walk in Knokke. “My totem there was ‘steadfast glutton’. The adjective refers to my character, and the noun to my physique. After I joined the leadership there, it made sense that I would take on a leadership role in the student association and later in business. But the scouts' motto ‘we do our best, best, best,’ which says you must truly do your best three times a day, has always remained a part of how I approach life. Every day upon waking, I tell myself I want to do something meaningful, even if it’s just guiding others so they can grow into who they are.” What likely also plays a role in his commitment is that Filip Moeykens has been a heart patient since his youth and had to undergo heart surgery at age 30, with doctors giving him only a 60% chance of survival. “I am very aware that our time is very limited. A life expectancy of 70 years for a heart patient like me means that at 54, there isn’t much time left. That also drives me to make the most of it and to be socially engaged.”
Entrepreneurship Is Always About Solving New Puzzles
“The most fantastic thing about entrepreneurship is that you can keep doing new things, albeit within specific niches. For example, by combining old and new technologies. We are now working on some alternative energy projects. I would wither if I had to do the same thing for ten years. Entrepreneurship is also about making decisions and then working toward your goal with discipline. But that doesn't mean being stubborn. There is, of course, such a thing as evolving insight. Essentially, as an entrepreneur, you are always putting together new puzzles. And as you grow older, you can rely more on experience. You find yourself in situations you’ve already encountered or that seem familiar. That also gives a certain peace of mind.”
Trust Is a Cornerstone
Filip Moeykens also connects experience with the network that people build throughout their careers. “Eventually, you’ve worked with so many people that you know who to call to fill a specific role. But the network is important not only for recruitment but also to find people who can serve as sounding boards for you as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs who consciously choose a strong board of directors, I value more than those who prefer to be dominant in their board. In the short term, the latter might help, but in the long term, a company benefits much more from lively discussions in the boardroom. Many people with whom I used to work at my accounting firm have returned. That’s also about trust. Trust is a cornerstone for any organization, but it obviously also revolves around people. You build trust through what you do and how you treat people. Before deciding whether to do business with someone and therefore give trust, I, as a numbers person, might look too much at the numbers and less at the emotional connection. Yet, that is also very important. That’s why I also like to seek advice from my father, who is on the board of directors. Through his long career as a lawyer, a profession where you are uniquely confronted with lies, he can almost see through people.”
Ebb and Flow
Filip Moeykens compares life as an entrepreneur and as a human being to the tides. “It’s only when the tide is low that you realize the tide brought many beautiful things. In other words, it’s important to realize that you first need certain setbacks to later see that they brought good things. We certainly sometimes live too much in the hustle and bustle of the day, which causes us to miss the pure beauty of certain things. That symbolism often brings me to the sea. If you can clear your mind here for two hours, your mind finds the space to look at things from a different perspective and come up with solutions you wouldn’t see at your desk or while driving. Because, in all these years as an entrepreneur, I’ve also realized that we, as humans, have immense resilience. We saw that again during the COVID-19 crisis. We are capable of adapting to big changes and continuing on. Teams that demonstrate the same resilience in their organizations make those organizations future-proof.” As Darwin also said: it’s not the strongest who survive, but those who can adapt best.
