I started my company, 42 mountains, after a long journey of starting as a lawyer at an international law firm, leading teams and lots of soul searching after important life events. The name of the company contains two elements: the number 42 and mountains.

Let me start with the word ‘mountains’. You can of course link many clichés to the mountain: ‘It’s about the path, not the top itself’, ‘Life is full of peaks and valleys’, ‘It’s about what’s underneath the ‘iceberg”. These sentences are all correct, but for me the mountains mean much more than that. It is the place where I prefer to be, where I can really relax. The world is constantly in motion, but the mountains always stand there with all their grandeur and pride. 

“The mountains give me peace and space for reflection.”

Then the numbers ’42’. That figure comes from the book ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ by Douglas Adams. In the book, after millions of years, a computer has the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. That answer is 42. The characters then realize that the answer is unfortunately not very useful, because the question was not formulated clearly and precisely. In order to understand the concrete question that is linked to the answer 42, the computer says it will have to become a new version of itself. This new version of the computer turns out to be earth…

I think this is a nice story that also links coaching with my tech-savvy background as a privacy lawyer. Furthermore, I firmly believe that everyone already has in their possession the answers to their life questions and it is up to the coach to bring this knowledge to consciousness. I do this by first clearly determining the coaching question with you, then setting up a yardstick (what are you going to do differently) and then we look at what you need to move forward.