Hi …,
I am Arnaud and growing up in a beautiful country in west-central Africa named Cameroon, I had an extended family. You know, when they say it takes a village, it really does. I grew up with the expectation of my parents and my extended family to go to school, get A grades, always be the first in my class and someday become a doctor or an engineer.
During my whole childhood, I was focusing on meeting those expectations and I have done it most of the time or at least so good that 20 years ago the village put money together to send me to Europe after I graduated cum laude from school in order to continue my education in a German university to become an engineer.
During my farewell ceremony in the “place du Village” I got remembered from the village’s chief, that with the village sending me to Europe, I am not only the hope of my parents but I became yet the hope of a complete village for taking the village out of poverty.
Although it was my first time to leave my village, my country, my first time to travel by airplane, it was not the excitement that kept me awake during the 8 hours night flight from Cameroon to Düsseldorf Germany but also the added pressure to be now the hope of a village and when I landed at the Düsseldorf airport on October 22nd 2002 with my luggage and my suits without any jacket by minus ten degrees celsius, my first intention was to get back into the airplane and ask if they can bring me back to Cameroon or to a warm place :-) but I knew that I should not disappoint my village and most important I should not bring shame to my lovely parents.
I started my adult life in a literally *fucking* cold country without speaking a word from the language, without a jacket in winter, without money. The only thing I had was a thirteen square meter room in a student residence, a thought to not bring shame to my parents and my strong will to meet the epic expectations towards myself.
I worked hard, I had some time three jobs to pay my student fees and pay the bill in order to keep the right to stay and study in Germany and yes I became engineer and as expected I climbed the career ladder.
I was succeeding remarkably well, I was crushing it at the job, I was making great money, I loved my colleagues and teams, I became senior Manager and part of the executive team of one of the biggest consulting firm in the world and I was enjoying my leadership role build upon more than 10 years of international experience in global and large-scale transformation programs with a proven ability to combine strategy with organizational change and people till I walk to my breakdown with a divorce few years ago.
In order to get to the breakthrough I started a new type of work on myself – and I learned about what the human experience is meant to be, I learned to change beliefs that have been limiting me, I learned to create report with anyone and I got great coaches on that journey, and that led me to become a Certified Professional Coach myself.
I took a sabbatical to travel and find some answers in the stillness of the road and on that journey began my very own INNER hero’s journey and the answer became Crystal clear that my unique gifts was given to me to share and not to keep and when I came back to my sabbatical I decided to quit my job and open my own coaching practice with the intent on helping others to do the very same:
