When I was 16 and already a voracious reader, my uncle gave me his ten life-changing books for Christmas. I had been raised by a deeply caring, loving mother and a “tough love father” who helped me to understand that “I’m ok, but I can and should do a lot more”. Today we would call this “radical candour”. Those ten books introduced me to Buddhism and thinkers like Jean Paul Sartre or Albert Camus, further affirming my thought patterns: You are already whole, but have to awaken to it (Buddha), you have to create your own meaning in life (Sartre). This is why today I believe I can do anything and I am responsible for it. I had always been active in sports, and during those years played basketball. My team advanced 5 leagues to the Bundesliga in 10 years with more or less the same players. So, overcoming your limitations, refusing to accept external voices saying “you can’t do that”, and practise, practise, practise, team play, a winning spirit and striving for personal mastery were all written epigenetically into my DNA and prepared me well for adulthood. Whatever that may be.

At the age of 23 I was studying the boring and flat subjects of economics & business, but was really more interested in complexity or evolutionary sciences, neuroscience, psychology and all the holistic stuff, mainly Ken Wilber with his integral thoughts. I co-authored my first book “Sinnergie -Wendezeit für das Management” with Prof. Arnold Weissman, taking the knowledge of these natural and social sciences to leaders and entrepreneurs. “Sinnergie” combines meaning and energy to from what we now call purpose-driven leadership using the patterns of evolution. Based on this concept I launched my consulting career.

At about the same time, driven by a passion for helping people and companies to set out into to future, I started to work with futurist Matthias Horx and his Zukunftsinstitut. We worked together until 2008, discovering the future possibilities waiting for many well-known companies in social patterns called “trends”. This was when I first realized: People want to change but are afraid to, and don’t have the tools to do it.

After a consulting mandate with Consors Discount Broker, I joined their executive board in 1997. I was responsible for corporate development, internationalisation and the brand. We grew from 70 people to 1100 in 4 years. It was a lot like my experience with basketball: We were a great team; people overcame their challenges and grew and grew. Incidentally: At that time we had the chance to invest in PAYPAL and did not do it, because it was not part of our business. Well, yes I know: Your own thoughts are your own limits.

After 9/11 and a self-discovery in the Himalayans, I began the next phase of my consulting career with Brand Trust. In over 1000 projects we enabled leaders to transform companies using their values, mission and vision under the concept called “brand”. We reframed the concept from the advertising-diluted communication focus to a holistic management system for owners and CEOs, building trust, orientation and attraction to create desirability. In 2007 while with Brand Trust, I wrote my book “BrandFuture”, integrating trends with brands and using Carl Jung’s archetypes, the sociological concept of culture codes, to develop a deep and comprehensive branding and positioning model, integrating cultural and personal sub-consciousness in brand development beyond the flat-branding model.

But this was still not enough for me. My hungry spirit wanted more to discover and decode, to help leaders and their organisations strive for their highest potential. So in 2010 I returned to studying Ken Wilber, Spiral Dynamics, Robert Kegan, Richard Dawkins “Memetics” and all the psychological vertical development sciences of societies, people and organisations. This new inspiration engendered my third book “GOOD BUSINESS – Das Denken der Gewinner von morgen”, which applies integral theory, spiral dynamics and the sustainable triple profit line “People, Planet, Profit” to brands and general management. This concept is still used to turn profit-driven companies into purpose-driven companies, where profit follows purpose.

Leaders loved the concept. Climbing the ladder from being an egotistical profit brand or company to seeing and integrating one’s impact on people and society is the tough part of (self) leadership.

I don’t know any leader or manager who has seen this growth potential and does not want to achieve it. Unfortunately, they just don’t know how. Going through a personal (growth) crisis at the same time, I discovered BIGMIND by the American Zen Master Genpo Roshi, a concept that integrates “Zen-the fastest way to enlightenment” with western psychology traditions like gestalt therapy and voice dialogue. This struck me. I had never seen people getting unstuck by speaking to their inner selves, shadows and problems, transcending and transforming into positive empowering voices that helped them to act more freely, with more wisdom and compassion.

I am still studying this today and, after 9 years, I am certified to teach it. I help leaders discover the easiest and fastest road to liberation. If your mind can shift, if you can see and feel more, you are in the driver’s seat to rewriting your narrative instead of living your father’s, or society’s standard life. With BIGMIND everybody can do it.

Seeing a whole new possibility of helping people and leaders to get unstuck, I am digging deeper into the whole self-optimisation and biohacking movement in the US.

They have once again moved the frontier of possibilities. Along with the exponential technologies in Silicon Valley, they are searching for the transformation code that will unleash exponential human possibilities. Besides the anti-human singularity concept, I discovered the Flow Genome project by Jamie Wheal and Steven Kotler, who are taking Mihaly Cziskentmihaly’s concept of flow to the next level.

Flow is an optimal state of consciousness where we feel and perform our best. It is the “runner’s high”, or being “in the zone” and sinking every throw in basketball, or thinking deeply and writing an article, forgetting about time as we become aligned with rich feelings of easiness and forgetting ourselves. This is a state where we are most productive, creative and loving. It is THE source code of intrinsic motivation (please listen, HR leaders).

After studying in the USA and becoming a certified peak performance coach, I am bringing my knowledge home to Europe, helping leaders & organisations to get unstuck and have more flow in life and business.

Now I’m over 50, and have 25 years of strategic and leadership consulting at all levels under my belt.

I have worked with everything from DAX, ATX SWX CEOs to industry-leading German Mittelstand entrepreneurs and digital startups, have approached them from several perspectives and know now how to unlock the inner codes of personal and organisational growth.

I am eager to take the “art of transformation” in Europe to the next level. To that end, I am integrating my experience from professional sports, complexity and evolutionary science, the integral framework, the idea of GOOD BUSINESS, the fastest way to liberation (BIGMIND) and using the power of flow to create a new post-conventional advisory concept for helping leaders and their organisations to thrive. Guaranteed. If they do their inner work and practice, practice, practice.