The Hardest Problems Were Never on the Whiteboard

Here is a thing the happiness research keeps finding: we make joy too conditional. We tell ourselves we'll be happy once we hit the next goal, land the next job, clear the next milestone. Then we hit it, and the finish line moves. I have chased plenty of those lines myself. The more interesting question, it turns out, is which lines are even worth drawing.

Beyond the Resume

For most of my life, I believed that success was about solving complex problems with logic and precision. As an engineer, scientist, and entrepreneur, I built a career that took me across the world: from launching rockets in French Guiana to simulating the International Space Station at NASA, studying medical robotics in Japan, and even volunteering in Honduras. Along the way, I also pursued adventure, earning my private pilot's license and becoming a cave diver, always curious how far I could push the next thing I picked up.

But life has a way of showing you that mastery isn't just about skills. It's about navigating uncertainty, relationships, and the deeper questions of purpose.

The Turning Point

When I applied to become an astronaut with the European Space Agency, I had checked every box I could. I had the technical expertise, the international experience, the resilience. I was not selected. Around the same time, two hard coworker relationships handed me a problem no equation could solve. And then the biggest variable of all arrived: I became a parent. None of it was on the whiteboard, which is exactly why it was so interesting.

The hardest problems were never on the whiteboard. They were at home and inside me, in exactly the places a career spent optimizing for external wins had taught me to ignore.

These moments changed my perspective. I realized that intelligence and expertise alone don't guarantee success or fulfillment. The real challenge isn't just figuring out the external world, it's mastering your inner world. So I got curious about a different set of problems. How does a setback actually reshape the way you see yourself? What makes vulnerability so hard for technical people, and what opens up when it finally clicks? What would it look like to choose a definition of success on purpose, instead of inheriting one?

From mastering external systems to exploring inner ones

Coaching found me through Martha Beck's work as it seemed the furthest out of my comfort zone. The first time someone asked me to “drop into my body and notice what was there,” I felt nothing. Literally nothing. That absence of sensation was the most important data point of my career.

I trained as a Wayfinder Life Coach. I studied somatic awareness, boundary work, creative expression. I learned that the engineering mindset I had spent decades developing was not the problem; it was actually a superpower when applied to the right questions.

Today I coach technical founders and senior tech leaders who are where I was: accomplished, capable, and quietly asking, “Is this really it?” I bring the rigor of an aerospace engineer and the presence of someone who has done the hard inner work.

The MindGym app, the Thinker's Compass, the Essential Self Diagnostic; these are all tools I wish I had built sooner, back when I first noticed I was laughing less than I did as a teenager and got curious about why.

I work with technical founders and senior tech leaders who, like me, are driven but also want more: more clarity, more purpose, more alignment between their ambitions and their personal lives.

Curious where you stand?