From Books...to Experiences

In the meantime, I moved from books to experiences, attending therapeutic seminars across nearly every stream of humanistic psychology, particularly the family constellation work of Hellinger. And slowly - very slowly - I began to heal and understand both myself and the world. It was the work of decades, not years.

I learned to cry again - and cry I did. Sometimes it came in quiet waves, other times in sudden bursts that caught me off guard. I stopped running from the pain and began to embrace it. That shift changed everything. I learned to forgive - not to forget, but to integrate. Pain, I realized, is not the enemy. It is, in fact, one of the most alive feelings we can have. And when you embrace it, when you bow your head in front of death - the great equalizer - you find a strange gift: peace.

Not all challenges were emotional. After my army service, an accident damaged my trachea, and one of my vocal nerves was severed - leaving only one vocal cord working. My voice has been rough ever since. For six months, I could barely speak at all - and in that silence, I learned volumes about people.

I spent several years in intensive speech and breath training, the same kind singers receive. That discipline not only restored much of my voice but also became part of what I teach today - how presence, physical self-awareness, breath, and voice shape how we show up in the world.

At 22, I began organizing personal development seminars for fellow students through the student organization AIESEC, bringing in professional corporate trainers to teach presentation, communication, and conflict resolution. That was the first time the thought occurred to me: I could do this. I would enjoy it. But it would take decades before I stepped fully into that role.

Around this time, I also began practicing TaeKwonDo. The discipline, structure, and relentless focus it demanded gave me something the books alone could not: a lived experience of persistence and respect for mastery. It taught me to push beyond perceived limits and to show up, no matter the resistance - lessons that would later echo in my teaching.

“You Don’t Belong”

My next big lesson didn’t come from a book or a seminar - it came from a single sentence. After finishing the first stage of my economics degree, I wanted to study abroad. To do that, I needed the recommendation of one of my professors. The problem: between my inability to concentrate amidst everything going on and my struggles with math - largely because I wasn’t using the right learning methods - my best grade was a C+ in Microeconomics.

Still, I dared to ask my Microeconomics Professor, Prof. Spahn, for a recommendation. Almost in passing, he said, “Of course - what was your grade?” assuming it must have been a strong one. When I replied “C+,” he froze mid-step, turned to me, looked me in the eyes, and with a tone of disgusted surprise said, “We should only send our best abroad” – and that was obviously not me. Then he turned away.

The implication was clear: I did not belong. My dream died that day, and for days afterward I felt crushed.

But bear with me, the story didn’t end there. Three years later - after transforming my learning techniques, learning to meditate, and working deeply on my mindset - I found myself writing my diploma thesis at his department, under the guidance of an associate professor who reported to him. Professor Spahn wouldn’t have recognized me anyhow among hundreds of students.

It was a personal victory when he wrote in his evaluation: “This diploma thesis is one of the best I have ever read and could, in principle, have been accepted as a Ph.D. thesis.” He never knew who I was - but I knew. And a chapter closed. I still have that thesis.

Leading under Pressure

Over the years, I took that drive into leadership roles where the stakes were high and results mattered. For five years, I built a business school from scratch - a joint venture between Duke University and Frankfurt University. Later, as Vice Dean Education at one of Germany’s top three private business schools, I led major change initiatives, transformed the program portfolio, improved efficiency by 40%, and increased both student and faculty satisfaction. Moments like the day a student with dyslexia hugged me at graduation with tears in her eyes and said, “You changed my life,” are why I do what I do.

As Executive Vice President of EBS University, I closed one of the largest corporate customized education deals in the region - worth around €4 million - and later served as Director of Executive Education at the University of Liverpool, a top-100 global university, and at THNK School of Leadership in Amsterdam.

For the past eight years, I’ve worked with companies and startups to design strategies, business plans, financial models, mission and vision statements, and product portfolios - always with the same question in mind: What will actually work under real-world pressure?