Speakers on this subject usually come from the monastery or the laboratory. I came to it out of necessity, and by an unusual route: economics, consulting, the stage, and a psychotherapy practice.
My talks give leaders a small number of practices that hold up on a hard day, the reasoning for why they work, and at least one guided exercise done live in the room.
Twenty-five years ago I was told I might lose my voice for good.
I now make my living with it.
Personal storytelling rather than borrowed anecdotes — the practices as they held up in my own working life.
Insights shaped by years of coaching and therapeutic work, translated into clear, accessible language.
Concrete practices that can be used the next morning, without simplistic formulas.
A year of full-time actor training, work as a public speaking coach, two decades of classical singing.
Leaders are told that meditation would change their working life, and are then shown a version of it that does not survive contact with their calendar. This talk sets out the smallest routine that still makes a significant difference, roughly ten minutes a day. The case is not for more ambition, but for a dose that survives a hard week.
Stress is rarely caused by one event. It accumulates in increments one barely notices until the body reports them. This talk works at that scale: the early signals, the ways the cycle can be interrupted, and recovery inside the working day rather than after it. Calm is treated as a skill under load, not as an evening activity.
Achievement does not quiet a critical inner voice. It raises the bar that voice measures against. This talk examines why neither success nor positive self-talk settles the question, what the inner critic is actually doing, and what changes when self-directed kindness is treated as a trainable capacity rather than a matter of temperament. Confidence here is a by-product, not the target.
Two rules govern most speaking anxiety: I must not make a mistake, and they must like me. Both turn attention back on the speaker at the moment the room needs it. “Just be yourself” is not the solution, however. This talk shows why authenticity is a mature discipline rather than a license to be spontaneous, and what changes when the goal shifts from being liked to being useful to the room. (Includes the story of the workshop I gave when I could only whisper, and how the audience responded.)
Most self-management runs on pressure, and pressure produces compliance followed by relapse. This talk sets out the structure common to every failure of willpower, why harsh self-treatment reliably lowers self-control, and the paradox that acceptance is the faster route to changed behavior.
I came to it by the long route.
I skipped a grade, studied economics at an elite university, and received offers to pursue doctoral research with professors in Europe, the United States, and Asia. Things looked great.
Then, at twenty-five, my father fell while we were climbing. I was holding the rope. As he fell, I was certain I had killed him. He survived, and it emerged that the rope had been tied into a gear loop, meant for carrying carabiners and other equipment; it tore the instant it took his weight.
Knowing that changed nothing. For the next two decades, I lived with recurrent depression, and my voice went with it. Persistent hoarseness, repeated inflammation – a tool I could not rely on when I needed it for work. Speaking hurt, so I spoke less, and my friendships thinned out. After three weeks in a specialized clinic, I was told I might lose my voice for good.
I went after the problem with everything I had. I worked with several psychotherapists and underwent eight years of psychoanalysis at four sessions a week. I exercised, ate well, kept journals, and tried meditation. In those same years, I transitioned from science to consulting, then to coaching, and finally qualified to practice psychotherapy. By then, I had gained a thorough understanding of how I had become who I was. But nothing stopped the depression from coming back.
Eventually I started meditating seriously. Half an hour a day for a year. Ninety minutes a day for the year after that.
Something fundamental shifted. The depression began to feel foreign to me. It still found the occasional opening, but it could no longer take hold. I could watch it happen from the inside, week by week, as the mental mechanisms that had held the depression in place lost their grip. One morning, I woke up and was struck by how different the world looked. Then I understood: The depression was gone.
The condition never disappeared completely. What disappeared was its power over my work. One of the best workshops I have given was one in which, during the last hour, I could only whisper. The group pulled their chairs into a tight circle and listened harder than most rooms I have ever spoken to.
I had assumed the voice had to carry the work. It turned out that intention and attention do.
The development did not stop there. Over the years, it moved off the cushion and into the day, so that mindfulness has become less a practice I do than a way of walking, listening, deciding, and waiting. It also changed direction. It is no longer about removing something. What the practice produces now lies on the positive side: creating, sharing, enjoying. And I can watch that on the same fine-grained scale, from the inside, as I once watched the depression lose its grip. When I reflect deeply on my values in the morning, a difficult conversation in the afternoon can take a different course. That is where mindtraining shows its returns: in the texture of an ordinary day.
Ninety minutes a day was what I needed because I had a long way back. Most of the people I work with begin from a different place. They are leaders who already function at a high level and want to make fuller use of their potential. Through coaching, workshops, and talks, I share what I learned the hard way: how to train the mind in order to work more productively, lead with greater clarity, passion, and presence, and become happier in the process.
I love this work for its own sake, for the fascinating people I meet, and also because when people in positions of influence change the way they think, decide, and act, the effects travel far beyond their own lives.
Studied at the University of St. Gallen and earned a doctorate in economics in 2004. Numerous publications in academic journals and newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Süddeutsche Zeitung. Senior Fellow at the think tank ECIPE in Brussels. Speaker in workshops, conferences, panel discussions, and public hearings in Europe, America, and Asia. Contributions for radio and TV. Pitching to foundations for grants.
Management consultant and facilitator at Malik Management (a boutique consultancy for systemic management) and The DO School (a global organization promoting sustainable entrepreneurship). Networking and fundraising for a start-up and advising a start-up incubator. Created a tutorial on business writing that ranked #1 on Udemy in Germany for several years (until AI arrived and I dropped it). Lecturer at Bachelor and Master level for business schools such as the ESCP. Leadership coach and workshop instructor helping individuals in the public sector, in civil society, and in business, ranging from start-ups to multinational corporations.
Completed a year of full-time actor training. Worked as a public speaking coach and trainer. Produced a rhetoric tutorial on Udemy. (And my personal favorite: 20 years of classical singing, first to reclaim my voice, now just for the pleasure.)
Training in hypnotherapy and body psychotherapy, complemented by psychoanalytic supervision. Extensive study of the psychotherapeutic literature (I have read more on the mind than on economics, my doctoral subject). State-licensed psychotherapy practitioner, with private offices in Berlin and Potsdam.
Talks are given in English and German.
Talks run from 15 to 45 minutes, with time for questions, whether as the keynote of your event or as one session within it. The extended format of 90 minutes gives more room for practice and discussion.
I am based in Berlin but can travel internationally.
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