About me

Call it passion. Call it an obsession. I am fascinated by the human psyche. Why do people do what they do? Why does one person break free while another stays stuck, even when they have everything they need on the outside?

This question has driven me since I was a child. I wanted to understand life, deeply. I thought a psychology degree would give me the answers. It didn't. I learned about human behavior, yes. But nobody taught me how to actually cope with life. How to feel okay in your own skin. How to find peace inside your head.

That part I had to figure out myself.

For years, I looked for happiness in the wrong places. High grades. The right degree. A successful career. Travel. Status. On the outside, I was doing fine. On the inside, something was missing. I felt restless, unsatisfied, disconnected from myself - without really understanding why.

I kept thinking: when I achieve this, then I'll feel good. Then I'll be happy.

It never worked.

The turning point

What changed everything wasn't a new goal or a better strategy. It was learning to listen inward. To my feelings. My intuition. The parts of myself I had been ignoring for years while chasing everything on the outside.

When I discovered yoga and understood that mental fitness works exactly like physical fitness, something clicked. I could stop waiting for life to get better. I could start building it, from the inside out.

That insight changed everything. And it became the foundation of everything I now teach.

Mental fitness as the foundation for a life that actually fits

Since then, I've spent over 25 years studying what makes people genuinely happy and mentally strong. Not the Instagram version of happy, but the real kind. The kind that doesn't depend on your salary, your relationship status, or whether you finally hit that goal.

I combine western psychology with eastern philosophy. Practical, grounded, never vague. The result is a framework of 6 pillars: know yourself, heal yourself, take care of yourself, accept yourself, connect yourself, strengthen yourself.

These pillars form the backbone of my book Happy from Within - and of everything I do.

A global movement, not just a method

My dream is bigger than one-on-one sessions or a single book. I want mental fitness to become as normal as going to the gym. I want people everywhere - regardless of background, income, or status - to know how to make themselves genuinely happy.

Not because life is always easy. But because you have the tools to navigate it.

This matters just as much inside organizations. Mentally fit people perform better, get sick less often, and lead with more clarity and connection. Not as a strategy. As a natural result of people who actually know themselves.

Why I do what I do

I've guided thousands of people over the past 25 years - as a psychologist, coach, trainer, author, and speaker. I've also lived through my own version of this story. That's not a detail I share lightly. It's the reason I know this work is real.

If someone had given me this framework twenty years ago, my path would have looked very different. That thought is what gets me out of bed every morning.

My book

Happy from Within is available in Dutch (hardcover and e-book). An English e-book version is coming soon.

Want to connect? Find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok. Or read one of the hundreds of blogs I've written over the years - that's probably the fastest way to understand who I am and how I think. (Mostly in Dutch)