âMy mission is to touch the soul, and I wonât settle for less.â
My name is Julian. Sporty, curious, go-getter, ambitious. Entrepreneur and ex-pilot.
As a commercial pilot for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, I took people everywhere for 10 years.
All over the world.
What a privilege to see the world like this, including from above!
A real boyâs dream.
As a pilot, you get a unique perspective on the world.
The endless tundra of ever-wintering Canada. The gigantic lakes of the so diverse United States. The vast Sahara Desert of grand Africa.
The surreal, immense ice world of desolate, untouched Greenland with its gigantic, jagged snow mountains and uninhibited ice lakes.
Heavy thunderstorms, impressive but seen from a safe distance from above and from the side, at eye-level. Oceans. Bounty islands.
The Netherlands and parts of Europe submerged in a gigantic sea of fog, with only high towers and buildings rising above it.
World cities from above, by day and by night: The Eiffel Tower, Athens, Times Square, Las Vegas. Great natural parks.
The most beautiful sunsets, sunrises and planet rises â often in succession on one and the same long flight. Venus the morning star, followed by a heavenly spectacle of a new sunrise. Always on the front row.
Ever-changing phenomenal skies just above the horizon. Being able to observe the Milky Way in the clearest starry sky.
The wondrous spectacle of the Northern Lights, a magnificent performance of grand, green dance of light against the backdrop of the dark night near the North Pole.
It has always been my experience that as soon as you physically distance yourself from your familiar surroundings, you can suddenly have a very refreshing and clear view of things in life.
And also, how by zooming out and taking some distance, you paradoxically can actually experience strong connection.
The view from the cockpitÂı, high up in the sky, never gets boring. You look down on the earth and that literally enables you to see your own earthly life from a different angle.
It puts things in perspective.
Another day at the office: sunrise over Greenland during the
flight Calgary-Amsterdam.
Let alone when you consider that this same âbigâ earth is hurtling at an unimaginable speed through an infinitely vast, expanding, and for us largely unknown universe.
It makes you humble. It makes you grateful. Knowing that you are part of something bigger. It amazes.
All my life, I have been working towards becoming an airline transport pilot.
I had to go through countless selections, exams and applications, and it was hard work. But in the end, I was able to make my boyhood dream come true.
However, after a decade as a professional pilot, I unexpectedly had to stop flying because of a certain type of migraine.
Especially surprising for someone who has always been fit and vital and has been a sports fanatic since childhood.
Being a pilot is something you do for life; you have to make a big investment in time, capital and training to get there, and the chance that you will make it is small. Especially within the Netherlands.
Therefore, without a great passion, it is impossible to achieve it. It is much more than âjust a jobâ.
But life is so often what happens to you while you are making other plans.
Not everything can be planned.
Sometimes it is a matter of bending with the times. Keep faith. Something beautiful will come your way again.
One summer evening, during my last year at KLM, I read an interview with philosopher and writer Stine Jensen.
One of the questions was: âWhich event has impressed you most?â.
Her answer was that she had recently spent thirty minutes in a coffin for the series âSo I amâĤâ in South Korea, as part of an intense confrontation with yourself and what you live for.
I was fascinated by that answer and immediately watched the broadcast that evening.
And what I saw touched me.
I could see the images. I knew that if something like this had such an impact on me as an observer â from a safe living room â it had to be even more intense as a participant.
The broadcast kept lingering in my mind in the following days. I kept thinking about it.
In the past, I had had thoughts of such a direct confrontation with yourself and your finitude here.
I was curious to see how you would experience something like that and especially to appreciate life more. But at the time I found the idea so absurd that I never paid attention to it again.
Until I saw this documentary2. So it really existed. Unbelievable. On the other side of the world, of course, but still.
Following this aircraft in front while on our way to home base Amsterdam Schiphol, during a sunrise above the Atlantic Ocean
I knew immediately that I wanted to experience this myself, and so my last flight, on my very last days in the service of KLM, as a passenger, I flew to South Korea.
I experienced it there myself and it was a life-changing experience.
But I also know that a six-hour, very confrontational seminar, culminating in 30 minutes in a coffin â with the lid on â is a bridge too far for many people.
Understandable.
That is why, after years of experimenting and perfecting, I have made the experience as accessible as possible for you. Completely digital. So that everyone can experience it.
And this is where my lifelong interest in personal development comes together with the mirroring and coaching role that I naturally assume. Because I want to help people with that knowledge.
I canât do otherwise. It is second nature. It is my passion.
As a pilot, I have taken hundreds of thousands of people on a journey, and now I again want to take you on a journey. A very special one: one through your own life.
By zooming out, as if from a plane high in the sky, looking down on your life on earth from a safe distance.
And I will talk you through it.
As through the public address from the cockpit to the cabin.
But I have now hung up my pilotâs hats on the willows:
Grateful for all the special years.
So now you can only hear me through your earbuds, or headset:)
Letâs see together if you live for the things that are relevant to you.
âHow?â
Well, I have a special experience for you.
Special, but also very effective.
You donât have to go all the way to South Korea for it. That was quite an undertaking; I wrote a blog about it.
No, Iâve made it as accessible as possible for you, so that you can experience it yourself, in one hour â from the comfort of your home with your PC, tablet or smartphone.
A guided workshop.
Because it is my vocation to wake ourselves up and bring ourselves back to our essence. The heart. By zooming out and beginning with the end in our mind and thereby inspire each other along the way.
And if you conclude that things are fine in your life, then that is only wonderful. But maybe you want to change something.
While you still can.
Do you dare to look at the state of your life?
I invite you.
And I challenge you.
