Amsterdam with Coach Friends (September 2, 2025)
Perhaps the most incredible part of this world tour is all the amazing human beings I have the privilege of spending time with along the way. While it’s wonderful to see so many cities, incredible architecture and the canals that wind their way through the city of Amsterdam, nothing compares to breaking bread with friends who are brave enough to build a better future for all of us.
Catching up with Dorthe Schipperheijn and hearing her vision for NL
In total, Violet and I met with 6 different coaches from the Netherlands, some who drove two hours from their hometowns to meet us. Starting with Dorthe Schipperheijn who I first met in March 2020 (PQ Cohort 1). In addition to being a PQ Pioneer, she was among the first coaches to complete PQ Mastery and declared that she would be leading the mental fitness movement in the Netherlands. To her credit, she’s doing just that working with various government agencies here and helping to shape the future of workplace cultures. She’s also wrote a book that will further support this movement.
Adding Julia Schwoerer and husband Giangaddo Prati with Dorthe Schipperheijn
Both Julia Schwoerer and her husband Giangaddo Prati (aka Gaddo) recently left their corporate jobs and have become full-time coaches. Each has such a powerful story that will serve so many in the very near future. Gaddo has served in the C-Suite at a family business in the food industry and Julia is a veteran marketing expert having served both L'Oréal and Barilla. Both have so much to offer their respective niches and it was excited to speak with both of them about their plans for their future.
What I love in particular is hearing how each of them sees the deep connection from their respective paths toward the future of the coaching practice they wish to pursue. I urged them both to tap into my book (now the audible version is free and read by via my AI agent) Sage Business Development and AskBill.us (also free) for specific applications on their niche, offer, generating and converting appointments.
I’m truly excited to witness what each of them will build in the coming months — despite an uncertain economy and challenging headwinds. I was shown (convinced really) by Tony Robbins that any business that is launched and/or grown in “winter” (i.e. the most difficult season to build a business), will thrive and grow exponentially in the “spring” which always follows the winter months.
After lunch, despite having dessert, Violet and I had a fresh stroople wafel from “Miss Wafell”. Yes, we totally overpaid for this experience both because this was the “high end” of the stroople wafels and in the heart of the tourist district, but it was delicious and fun to watch it being made from scratch.
Those stroople waffles they give you on United flights are fine, but these ones are twice as big and several times more gooey. Most certainly a 2-3 napkin affair. I had the rasberry version and Violet took to the strawberry (the house recommended option).
And yes, I had to put on the giant wooden shoes. We’re in the Netherlands afterall. Home of cheese, chocolate, windmills, tulips and wooden shoes (not to mention so much cannabis that you get a contact high from all the smoke).
Time for dinner with Marc Rijnen, host Sandra de Gelder and Ben Kosse
After a fun stroll through Amsterdam one more it was time for dinner with our friends Marc Rijnen, host Sandra de Gelder and Ben Kosse. We roll up to this incredible looking historic building right in the downtown area of Amsterdam. And wouldn’t you know it, this building is hiding one of the most incredible courtyard gardens for the residents to enjoy.
Only now do I realize I missed my opportunity to take some “centering shots” of this gorgeous backyard garden. Sure, you can get the gist of it with the selfie and picture of us standing there in front of it, but this in no way does justice to the immense secret garden tucked away behind the historical architecture. In fact, I was told that these gardens are used as a “get away” for famous people, their families and government officials when extra precaution and advanced security measures are needed. I totally see it. Back here you are in a mini fortress surrounded by neighbors willing to help you out.
While Sandra de Gelder was “officially” the host of the evening having been the one to reach out and invite Ben Kosse, Violet and me to dinner, it was Marc Rijnen who cooked a fabulous multi-course meal and organized 12 questions for us to use to deepen our intimacy with each other.
Marc curated several different questions to choose from for each of us, and they all allowed us to share deeper of ourselves. It reminded me of the card game Hygge, which I love. Each person chooses a question from among three and each person shares their answer. Love it.
We met at around 5pm and pulled ourselves away by 10pm. Violet was such a trooper this day. She spend a few hours at lunch and 5 hours at dinner deep in conversation with each of these incredible humans. While this is most certainly my thing, I’m going to have to throttle this a bit going forward so as not to burn out Violet who’s just getting acclimated to all these new places and faces.
Regardless, she did a marvelous job sharing her perspective on the future of artificial intelligence, acknowledging all the good things my generation has passed down to her generation (along with the burning trash fires), and shared her experience and interest in living abroad — especially as the US considers 981 anti-transgender bills across 49 states.
I loved listening to her perspective and engaging with my coaching peers. Despite being 5 hours long, she added so much to the conversation and the many, many topics throughout the evening’s discussions.
