CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

Year of birth: 1971
Zodiac sign: Libra
Favourite colour: Green
Favourite school subject: History
What I wanted to be when I grew up: Soccer professional at Werder Bremen

What I’ve become:

Rudi Völler took my place at Werder Bremen under Otto Rehhagel. And that was a good thing in the end, for both his and my career. He became world champion in 1990, and I started law school. I have been a lawyer since 2001. I held professional positions in Frankfurt, New York, London and Zurich at major international law firms. I have been living and working in Switzerland since 2010. Based on my own extensive experience, I am passionately focused on the area of ​​crisis management. “Crisis is a productive state. You just have to take away the taint of catastrophe.” This is how Max Frisch aptly describes the concept of crisis. While catastrophes are always associated with damage and loss, crisis describes the culmination of an event with the chance of a good turn and profound learning. 

I have been managing crises professionally for over 20 years as a lawyer, so it was obvious that I should focus on mentoring at some point. However, it was only through my own painful personal experiences that I became what I am today. And this was the seeding point for the creation of Pontinova Experience. With great passion I show my mentees how to turn a bad day into a good one. My area of expertise is self-actualization – an inward-looking view to perceive and release one’s own strengths and become the captain of one’s own ship again.

In my Self-Actualization Mentoring (SAM) sessions, my mentees are made familiar with pragmatic ways of dealing with private or professional issues or crises. SAM has its roots in humanistic psychology, where self-actualization is the fundamental motive of human action. It denotes the principle of lifelong striving for self-determination and further development. The method, that I developed further, is suitable for acute crises as well as for prevention and personality development. Furthermore, my mentees quickly find access to an unknown inner strength, flow and serenity through mindfulness training, meditation elements, breathing exercises, stress reduction, anxiety reduction and focusing. Afterwards, they keep a cool head in every situation, the goal firmly in sight. This leads directly to private satisfaction and professional success. 

Besides that, I am highly passionate about Biohacking and Longevity and always seek for holistic ways to support humans and life in general in its unfoldment including optimizing and supporting the body-mind-system to enable the unfoldment of its highest potential. I believe strongly, that only if our foundation is healthy, we can go through everything that life is presenting to us and to deal with it in a conscious manner. Including all the crumbling experiences – as at the end these are often just healing storms that push us forward in our evolution.

 

Who is my favorite hero:

10 years ago, my ego would have urged me to name myself. Then my ego got crushed through an extreme private crisis. Now, I have numerous hero`s who like to stay anonymous. However, if I must name one, it is Mahatma Gandhi. He is considered a role model through propagating adherence to truth, to nonviolence, to compassion and to love even under unbelievable misery. His simple teachings include living life to the fullest, being the change, we want to see in others, believing in love, being positive and learning to forgive. I wish, I can be like him someday.

 

What is my favorite book:

Currently “Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse. It is the legend of the self-liberation of a young person from family and social heteronomy to an independent life though – a provoking impulse for radical change and renewal. Siddhartha is looking for peace, the way, the redemption, in which he becomes Buddha and can thus rise into Nirvana. He is looking for his solution to cope with life, he goes his way and, in the end, he experiences an enlightenment similar to that of Buddha.