20 years of building. Multiple burnout. A trip to Bali that changed everything. This is my story, and perhaps you'll recognize more in it than you expect.
Over the past 20 years, together with two partners and a strong team around us, I have built one of the country's leading financial advisory firms. From the ground up. Working harder every day, aiming higher every month, growing further every year. And it worked. We became big, we got noticed, we built a network that others envied.
From the outside, I had everything. The business was running. The results were there. People looked at me and saw success.
But what no one saw was the price I paid for it.
I dismissed the first burnout as a slump. Everyone has a tough time now and then, right? I rested for a few weeks and then carried on. Harder than before, as if I wanted to prove to myself that it was nothing. The second burnout was more severe, but I brushed that aside too. Busy period, too much on my plate, it would all be fine again.
When it happened for the third time, I could no longer ignore it. This wasn't about workload. This wasn't about putting in too many hours. This was about me. About who I had become. About the fact that I was functioning, performing, but no longer living.
I knew: something had to change. Not a little. Everything.
The realization brought me to Bali. Not for a vacation, not for a weekend retreat. For four weeks. Four weeks in which I left everything behind and went inside. It was the hardest choice I ever made and at the same time the best.
During those four weeks, I went through an intense inner process. Layer by layer, I peeled away what I had built up over years. Not the company. Not the network. But the beliefs that drove me and simultaneously held me captive. The fears that I had carried with me for so long that I no longer recognized them as fears. The image I had created of myself, which I kept trying to live up to, even when it was destroying me.
The result? I found my true self. Not the entrepreneur. Not the achiever. Not the one who always had to be strong. The person underneath. And from that place, something arose that I had never felt so clearly before: purpose. A deep, powerful purpose. To help others experience the same liberation. So they don't have to wait twenty years.
I coach because I've lived it. Every resistance you feel, I have felt. Every excuse you use, I have used. And every breakthrough that is possible, I have experienced firsthand.
For the past 25 years, I have trained myself with dozens of coaches and mentors. In the last 18 months, I have worked full-time with one of the top 10 coaches in the world. Not because it was fun, but because I knew I had to operate at the highest level myself before I could bring others there.
In addition to Elevate60, my intensive 1-on-1 coaching program in the Netherlands, I have also created a retreat in Bali. A seven-day program where participants make significant leaps in their personal growth. Where they break through barriers and step into a life they only dared to dream of.
Today, my mission is to guide entrepreneurs, leaders, and high performers toward an authentic and powerful life. Not with theories. With experience, directness, and full commitment. I want to help them reach their Full Potential and live a life that is truly aligned with who they really are.
