About Me – My Journey

Throughout my whole life, I have attempted to understand the meaning of this journey, decipher the lessons from the experiences we go through, elaborate tools, theories, and formulas to help organize the complex world we live in, and provide a roadmap to navigate our way.  So how did I find myself standing there, on the edge of the cliffs of Bonifacio, Corsica, contemplating how the previous life I had built was coming to an end?

This was not the first time I was faced with a major turning point in my life. The first took place at the age of five when I moved from the bustling dusty streets of Arusha, Tanzania, to the clean and organized streets of Geneva, Switzerland. My father, who was most recognizable by his corduroy pants, jacket, and Indiana-Jones-felt hat, was at the time working on his Ph.D. in rural agricultural development, while my mother had moved to Africa to teach English as a volunteer in the Peace Corps. The change of continent, climate, and language, combined with moving from a third world to the developed world, while experiencing as a young child the angst of divorce and separation, had a deep impact on my sense of identity. Growing up in multi-cultural Switzerland, I became very aware of the contrasts and disparities in the world, between the haves and have-nots, as well as the different political, economic and legal systems. This led me to pursue a university degree at the prestigious Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva with a focus on International Economics, International Politics, International Law, and History.

My father, who amassed in his lifetime a collection of over 30, 000 books, had instilled in me an urge to always question and search for deeper answers, to read and research before jumping to conclusions, to deconstruct life, and question both my personal beliefs as well as those communicated by society. Over time, I became known in school as the kid with the theories, which I formulated from observing behaviors and trying to uncover underlying patterns and rules. Armed with the idealism of youth and an insatiable hunger to discover the world, I took on pretty much any job to finance travels across Asia, Europe, and the United States.

With this longing to find deeper meaning, I embarked on journeys that would take me off the beaten path and, even, at the age of nineteen, around the world. These gave me a significantly broader real-life laboratory to test my theories as well as develop new ones. Along the way, I learned about eastern and western spiritual teachings, I hiked along mountains and volcanoes, and even found an incredible sense of purpose living for a year in a remote Central American city off the meager salary of $400 per month. I dissected the world around me and filled page-after-page of moleskin notebooks with observations. Some of the realizations came to me in severe circumstances, including experiencing being held at gunpoint in an office in Guatemala City with my mouth and hands duct taped. Every experience, research article, book or conversation with teachers and mentors, brought new insights into the inner workings of this journey we call life. Collectively they opened my eyes to some of the truths that were captured in the pages of my leather notebooks, with some of these draft concepts later being included in the 7 pillars framework (which later developed into the 7 Pillars Framework).

I started my professional career with a real hunger and drive to continue this journey of growth and continuous learning. My career brought me from working in a large International Financial Institution to a small Start-Up in Central America, to later spending over 25 years at a Fortune 500 company. As I made my way up the corporate ladder, with ever larger teams, responsibilities, countries and even regions, I was fortunate to interact and work with truly inspiring and visionary leaders and learn the inner workings of the business world. This experience had me living and working on both sides of the Atlantic, in cities as diverse and fascinating as Miami, London, Zurich, Brussels and Paris. Moving countries allowed me to further hone my language skills, the latest being the addition of conversational Dutch to my English, French, German, and Spanish skills.

Somehow, albeit all the lessons learned, throughout both my early days of discovery and wonder and a successful career, my life over the preceding few years shifted into auto-pilot; a fog settled over me. Albeit my rapid rise through the ranks in the company and becoming at the time one of the youngest General Managers in Europe, I noticed in the world around me a disconnect between the lives we are encouraged to pursue, and the sense of satisfaction and fulfilment that many of us feel. Without noticing, I myself had initiated the slow downward slide into living a life on auto-pilot and repetition. I was starting to lose that inner flame, that inspiration and drive, that quest to go deeper, and that belief that anything is possible. And as I looked around me, I suddenly saw similar signs in the faces and tired eyes of so many others.

When, confronted with the dissolution of my family, as I stood there on the cliffs of Southern Corsica, I finally woke-up and asked myself, “What happened?” I took a hard look at my life, and as I looked around me, I was confronted with the hard reality that many of the ways we operate in modern life are broken and require new approaches. When looking at the statistics and data from the so-called civilized world, I saw the shocking negative trends and figures. The mainstream solutions being offered were simply not working.

I set upon the arduous path of building a framework to guide individuals who, like myself, got lost in the fog of modern society’s aspirations and numbing escapism from reality, away from the truth of our lives; I was determined to assist them through the difficult choices available. I attempted to deconstruct the complex and reassemble it into a comprehensible framework with tools and formulas to help navigate the contradictory messages and recommendations we are given. The 7 Pillars Framework could be considered a roadmap, a philosophy, or way of life. It is a seeker’s guide to an inspirational life of fulfillment. The framework provides tools and recommendations to progress towards your goals, and hopefully your dreams. Rather than vague advice, it offers concrete ways to change your life in small, large, and meaningful ways.