OUR STORY

Who are we to develop an education program and putting it out into the world.

Great question.

But you might also ask who are we not to do it? Who are we not to share this knowledge that might help you to live more meaningful and joyful?

Well, both questions ask "Who are we?" so let us explain.

Where we started our journey

We are Fabian and Jonas. Two high school friends who grew up together in a quiet and peaceful suburb of Münster, a city most known for its university and famous as Germany's bicycle capital.

Having such an environment and quality of life during our childhood was nothing short of the pole position for 'the good life'. Our parents raised us to be humble and curious, but it was still difficult for us to appreciate everything we had.

Looking back on this time in life, we both are incredible grateful for what we have been given by the lottery of life. Despite that, it proved to be invaluable for us to get out of this bubble to 'explore the world' a little more.

Climbing the corporate ladder

When we both left our hometown in 2012, we actually just made it 300 km to Hamburg, where we both started to do an intensive dual work and study program - Fabian studied a industrial engineering degree, Jonas went for business administration.

For both of us, we realized, it wasn't what we wanted to do later in life, so we kept exploring after the program.

Jonas then went on to do some internships and then to study a Masters degree in Madrid, Spain, Fabian also did some internships and then opted for a Master in Lisbon.

During our master studies, both of us started to change our way of thinking. Societies definition of success: a house, a car, a wife, two kids and working until retirement did not really speak to us. And after all, there are so many urgent problems in this world to be solved first.

First taste of with self-discovery
After the time in Madrid, Jonas went on to volunteer at hostels in South America, reading about social entrepreneurship, starting to journal, getting in touch with the practice of meditation, and learning how to surf. All in all a classic journey of "finding himself" and finding out what is meaningful to him.

Fabian experienced a wake-up call when his Instagram got hacked and, in consequence, decided to quit social media shortly before an exchange semester in Toulouse. During that time he started to think more about philosophy, especially about philosophy of life. He also started to meditate and to question what it means to life a meaningful and joyful life.

Back to climbing the ladder
After Jonas came back from his journey and started to work in a marketing agency back in Münster, we both kept in contact. We talked about our experiences, things we learned, shared out knowledge and questioned one another. Back then we also talked about business ideas, but most didn't go further than the hangover next morning - you could call us "cocktail preneurs" ;-)

In January 2019 Fabian was visiting Jonas in Münster and we decided we want to stop talking and start doing. It was a slow process at first but then we founded a "MasterMind" group to check in regularly - holding each other accountable and boosting each other's courage to work towards our goals as well as sharing what we have read and learned.

Vision for an alternative path
In all change in May 2019, when Jonas came to Lisbon to visit Fabian and to see how to go from there. A few decisions were made.

1. Jonas would move to Lisbon so we can work together on our ideas
2. We were going to buy an old van and build it into a camping van
3. We will keep up the Mastermind as they have been a key for accountability and taking actions

And so we did. At that time, Fabian was working on his idea of creating mindful coffee breaks that were location independent. Jonas started a blog for German Lacrosse players to improve their game.

An upward-spiral to overcome ignorance
Challenges came, such as a knee injury on Jonas side, and a tough Master Thesis on Fabians side as well as doubt from some parts of friends and family. But we overcame them and reunited in Lisbon anyways in September 2019. We both accepted our own ignorance and consciously became lifelong learners.

Why we do what we do
One day in October, we took out the Van to the coast to spend a day thinking about what will be our next move.

Writing down all of our ideas and ranking them according to two dimensions:

1. Are they in line with our values?
   
2. Are they feasible?

What came out was the first iteration of what you are looking on here.

Then we got to work: With the help of an innovation specialist from beta-i, we started to define and pinpoint the societal problem we want to solve:

People's inability to deal with change.

We both see so many people around us overwhelmed with technological, social, environmental change, leaving them with insecurity and anxiety like we experienced. This motivates us to face this challenge.

Walking the Talk
We have spent two years learning, thinking, questioning and learning more. Our mission is to raise awareness about the existing problems, by relieving information asymmetries that work against us, and to challenge implicit beliefs so that people accept their own ignorance. We co-create personal and fun learning experiences to overcome these beliefs and the underlying ignorance.

Becoming part of the solution
But only overcoming ignorance doesn't to the trick, there are so many demands in our daily life that make it hard to change oneself. Therefore we provide the accountability and guidance to make personal changes in your life so that you gain back the agency to live a meaningful and joyful one.

We address a societal problem and are building a social business around it in order to scale and reach more people with our impact. We define ourselves as Social Entrepreneurs and focus on the UN sustainable development goal #4 - Quality Education.