1. What makes you happy and what makes you feel successful?
I wish I could say that I’m enlightened enough to not need any external validation, but if I’m being honest, I love the moments when clients (or strangers) reach out to me to tell me that my work matters and has made a real difference in their lives. It makes me feel happy AND successful at the same time.
Moreover, my love language is “words of affirmation”, so no wonder this is making me feel great.
2. What inspired you to become who you are and to do what you do today?
I think if I hadn’t had a near-death experience in the form of cancer when I was 28, I might be a completely different person today. While it certainly wasn’t fun, it was pretty transformative.
When you’re confronted with your mortality, it often allows you to shift your focus from all the things that you fear or lack to what you actually have or want.
It forces you to ask the tough questions and it puts things into perspective: Suddenly you understand that some things that seemed so important before were only ego-driven pursuits, while other things that you neglected were actually the things that fed your soul.
It allowed me to understand that there’s more to living a successful life than academic achievements, checking things off your to-do list, curating your CV & fulfilling everyone else’s expectations.
So today, it’s my mission to coach other people to live happier, healthier, and more creative lives without sacrificing their health, relationships, or happiness.
3. Who would benefit most from your work and message?
The people who benefit most from working with me are the Type A entrepreneurs who excel at their work but struggle with the human side of entrepreneurship (emotional mastery, stress management, effective communication, burnout prevention, smart productivity, leadership…).
They are mission-driven and hard-working but realize that even though they might have achieved the financial success and status they were looking for, this external success came at a huge cost: They feel wired but tired, disconnected, restless, and strangely unfulfilled. They think that they should be happy with what they have achieved and feel guilty for feeling empty and numb instead.
I help them understand why they are feeling the way they feel and how to get out of that frustrating state so that they can create more with greater ease & flow.
4. What is it like working with you from a client’s perspective?
I don’t believe in tough love because I know that my Type-A people are already their own toughest critics who put immense pressure on themselves.
Instead, I create a safe, judgment-free space for you that allows you to take off your mask and just BE yourself. No need to impress anyone. No need to protect anyone.
Even though I don’t believe in tough love, I will absolutely tell you the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable, so that we can work through the discomfort together. With kind curiosity, we explore your goals, motivations, triggers, mindset, personality, preferences, and routines to separate the things that are working for you from those outdated, maladaptive ones that are no longer serving you.
Research has shown clearly how important the mind-body-connection is for overall health & well-being and that’s why we leverage psychology & physiology simultaneously to get you into a positive upward spiral of improving holistic health.
Depending on your preferences and what you’re trying to achieve, we incorporate tools like cognitive behavioral therapy, neurolinguistic programming, or hypnotherapy to help you re-program your mind for success.
We’ll also explore simple daily biohacks that help you raise your energy level, focus & motivation and help you be happy, healthy, and productive in the long run.
5. What are some of the misconceptions most people have about healing?
Type-A entrepreneurs often believe that if they let go of their tension - even just a little bit – everything will come crashing down like a house of cards. They hold onto everything with a very tight grip because they fear losing their competitive edge if they start to be kinder to themselves and others.
This is a myth. You do your best work when your mind and body are in a relaxed and nourished state, not when you’re run down, sleep-deprived, and stressed out of your mind. If you have achieved amazing things so far – how much more could you achieve if you optimized your systems?
6. What does emotional freedom look like? How can your work help?