At 7 years old, as part of Friday afternoons art hour, the teacher tasked us to make a drawing of a robot of choice. As a young visual thinker, highly imaginative but practical, I came up with a household robot that could do 12 things at the same time. Being rewarded with a high grade, I decided then and there that I wanted to become an inventor and start a business selling ideas. To me this dream job had everything I loved: ideation, drawing and talking about beautiful and helpful things that would optimise one's life.

As with all childhood dreams, I completely forgot about this idea and my focus shifted from optimising things to optimising people and (myself in) personal & professional relationships. Like many people, I developed a deep-rooted curiosity for why people think behave the way they do in the broadest and deepest sense of the phrase. I always tried to absorb as much knowledge as possible and was nicknamed  'the very hungry caterpillar' for that very reason. In university, I fittingly pursued an expansive undergraduate program of liberal arts and sciences and afterwards was able to narrow down to a masters degree in psychology.

After graduating from the University of Cambridge, I started working in consulting—first in Hong Kong, now in London. This time, the focus shifted from optimising people to optimising processes. I fuelled my drive to turn ideas into practical improvements by working with clients to improve their team capabilities. From developing codified methods to designing and facilitating learning programs, the expert role that consultants play when solving other people's problems proved to be both demanding and rewarding.

Wanting to bring back the focus on people and design, my childhood dream of starting a business selling ideas came back to me. I saw the opportunity to bring all my values of curiosity, growth, contribution, fun, creativity and trust that have sculpted me over the years into starting a business that followed this red thread of optimisation. But rather than selling my ideas, I also had learned that optimal comes from generating your own. Rather than drawing in a room by myself, I now knew that I thrived in social environments. And rather than just serving a client, I was longing for my own space to experiment and make and impact.

So I started an intensive and hands-on 9+ month coaching certification program, spending my late evenings and weekends, learning how to really listen and unlearning to think for someone else and give advice. I saw the power of creating awareness and facilitating change through conscious choice.

And now I'm here, certified by an ICF-accredited coaching school. Ready to live my optimal combination of personality traits, values and interests. Ready to support others in optimising their live through a creative and thought-provoking process. And ready to live up to my childhood dream in the process.