All good stories contain turning points - plot twists. Moments when the story suddenly takes a turn. When the protagonist's way of seeing the world changes. That's when the protagonist suddenly learns something new, starts doing things differently. Exactly that happened to PR man Jacob Lange three years ago. Suddenly the world looked completely different. His new way of doing things includes short, effective workdays and a Danish Coronet houseboat from the 70s, which customers back then thought was way too ugly. Today, it's a cult and super rare.

Stories are important in Jacob Lange's life. Everything in his surroundings has a story. The American glasses, for example.

"I think it's cool that things have a narrative and a story. It's the same with these glasses, which I bought from Moscot in New York. I remember walking up the stairs, and I couldn't make it fit that it was an eyewear store, and then you enter this time capsule," he says enthusiastically.

As a PR man, he also makes a living by telling the good story about his clients' businesses and products. Editors receive thousands of emails daily from people who want to be in the media. Very few of them become articles in Børsen and features on TV2News. Jacob Lange is the man to go to if you want to ensure success in the media landscape. He has been doing this work for almost 25 years – and he's good at it. He especially loves the slightly difficult stories.

"I've always been focused on PR and communication for technology and industrial companies. Or those working with space, robots, or IT. The stories have always been a little bit difficult to explain, and it can therefore be challenging for these companies to get their place in the press. But I think it's a huge challenge to find the good stories in these companies, which are a bit engineering-like and a bit nerdy. That's my track," as he says.

Flying Start

Jacob Lange has been on the move since he graduated from Aalborg University in 1996 and moved to Copenhagen to start his career. For the next seven years, he worked at various agencies before moving back to Aalborg to start as an independent. He got off to a flying start.

"I was sitting at home at the kitchen table, and in the first month, I invoiced 120,000. It was an absurdly easy start as an independent. And then it's really just been one thing after another since," says Jacob Lange.

He didn't have trouble getting clients, so he continued to work hard, as he puts it, "200 percent for too many clients – and they were all happy." It would later prove costly.

At 120 km/h, He Hit the Wall

There wasn't much money in Jacob Lange's childhood home. As a child, his mother knitted a yellow sweater for him. They found a crocodile label in a sewing shop. The crocodile was facing the wrong way, and Jacob's mother sewed it on the wrong side, but that was the closest he got to Lacoste.

But in the early 2000s, Jacob Lange was successful, and he could buy the nice things with history that he wanted. But he worked way too much. It went really fast – but then it also hurt that much more when you hit the wall. Jacob Lange literally hit the wall.
A week when his wife was abroad with their eldest daughter, the turning point occurred for Jacob Lange.

"In that week when I was home alone, I was supposed to build a playhouse and renovate a staircase to the first floor. I also had to manage my insanely busy work, and then I came up with the idea to knock down a huge wall in the living room. It was completely crazy. And when I stood in the middle of that knocked-down wall, I'm telling you, there were bricks everywhere, and I was sitting on the floor sobbing when my two big girls came home," says Jacob Lange.

A Houseboat and Less Work

The breakdown in the middle of the living room floor was a wake-up call for Jacob Lange. He slowly began to create a completely different life for himself. He expresses it himself that he is only now learning how it should be to be independent. The day BARONS talks to him, he has to pick up his youngest daughter from kindergarten before 3 PM.

"I think many independents overlook that when you become independent, you often just become employed. It's the clients who control your time. There's not much independence in it if it's not you who decides. And I know many independents, and they earn significantly more on average, but they're also a bit slaves to their existence, and they completely forget to reap the benefits of it. Take a kayak trip or go for a walk before lunch," he says.

Jacob Lange is determined to reap the benefits of his life as an independent. Besides fewer, close clients, shorter workdays, and more time with family, the most important step he has taken is that he has spent a year creating the optimal workplace for himself. He has found and rebuilt a houseboat, so today it serves as an office for himself, clients, and partners who drop by.

"I actually wanted to find an old backyard office with a wood stove and exposed beams. But suddenly the opportunity arose to get a houseboat spot in Aalborg, which is otherwise difficult. I got in touch with two architects who collect these Coronet ships. So I went up to an old barn in Tversted two years ago, and there was a houseboat that really needed to be restored. I found some videos of it. It's Danish-built from 1970, and only 30 of them were made because people thought it was incredibly ugly. Today, there are only five left in the world, and the boat is nearing cult status," says Jacob Lange.

 Since then, with good help from architects and craftsmen, he has completely rebuilt the boat. Today, it's his office and workplace. He can sit inside the ship and feel the waves and the wind. He can also sit out on one of the terraces and enjoy the sun if it's out.

Listen to Yourself

Jacob Lange is still learning to be independent in a way that is good for him. If he could jump back in time and give his younger self a good piece of advice, it would be to listen to himself. It sounds like he's speaking from bitter experience when he says.

"If you're hardworking enough, you stay too long in something that doesn't feel quite right. And you probably also know that image where there's a frog living in a pot of cold water. If you heat the water, the frog stays in the water until it almost boils, and then it jumps out. But if you took a frog from outside and put it in almost boiling water, it would jump out immediately. I think many of those who end up getting stressed are frogs that stay too long in the hot water. It's extremely unhealthy – work-wise and privately. It really means something to let your gut feeling guide you, even though I'm still learning how to do it," he says.

Jacob Lange has changed many things in his life over the past three years. But not everything has changed. He wants to meditate. He also has the app that reminds him every morning. He just doesn't listen to it. Instead, he can now look out over the water while he works. He can think about the angle of a press release while taking a walk on the quay. He can consider a communication strategy while taking a trip in the kayak he got for his 50th birthday. Jacob Lange himself says that he's not there yet – but he's well on his way to a healthy work life as an independent.

 Jacob Lange in The Founder

MAN IN THE SHIRT "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood" - quote by Theodore Roosevelt in Paris, 1910. In the portrait series "Man in the Shirt," BARONS meets business people who have put themselves in play and at risk. Where do they find courage? What is the most important thing they have learned along the way? And what can the rest of us learn from them?