I worked professionally in 'Sales and Information Technology' in the City of London for a number of years, before quitting my job to travel Asia and write 'Why You Don't Need Shoes'.

I was born to an American father and a German mother in Duesseldorf, Germany, where I spend my childhood and teenage years. In 1991, when I was 20 years old, I moved to London, England, to take on a position as AuPair. After my one-year-long commitment ended, I decided to extend my stay in the U.K. to study for a Bachelors Degree in Business. I specialised in Information Technology, Sales and Marketing. The course incorporated a one-year work placement, which I completed at Hewlett-Packard, assisting to run Event Organization for their Healthcare Department. After my graduation in 1996, I was recruited into the IBM Client Management team, where I worked in a high-profile Investment Banking environment in the City of London, client-managing multimillion pound IT and consulting projects. I was the first graduate to have been awarded this position straight from University.

Despite my young years, enterpreneurialism, tenacity and a touch of magic allowed me to be very successful in a cut-throat, male dominated environment. I won three Awards for outstanding achievement in under four years.

At the age of 29, I had what most people wish for. I owned my apartment, had a nice car and went on nice holidays. I had status, a good income and a prosperous career ahead of me. - But something was missing. I didn’t feel fulfilled in what I was doing, and after four years in my job I longed for a drastic change. I contemplated changing careers or quitting altogether and taking a break. As I looked into new job opportunities, all offers led to the same end: more money and even less time to spend it.

I thought long and hard about career implications and in the end decided that I needed to go away for a while. As I had always wanted to travel, I left my job and, sold everththing I owned, and to my mother’s woe, bought myself a one-way ticket to Asia. In January 2000 I left the UK to go and taste a different way of life. I travelled extensively over Asia, visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, India, Nepal, Tibet and China, submerging myself into vastly different cultures, different ways of living and thinking.

One of my missions was to learn as much as I could in each country. Massage, Yoga, Shiatsu, TaiChi, Reiki and so much more. Some things came to me as formal courses, some from living with the elders, some from wonderful people I met on the road, some just came to me. I would like to stress that I had a business background, not a spiritual background (so you an do this too!). I was just open to receive what came to me. I explored, learned and practiced A LOT! I first practiced my new knowledge and skills with friends and then more formally to help support my travel fund.

I gave Healing Sessions, spiritual guidance and life counseling sessions for a year at a Wellness Spa, nestled amongst coconut trees on a beach, tucked away in south eastern Thailand. In Delhi, I worked for two weeks with an Indian Reiki Grandmaster, teaching and healing as many people in town as possible. Wherever I could, I worked in various healing arts, which I had leared during my travels, continuously refining my skills, gathering experience and knowledge. My work culminated in creating my own healing art, Dharma Loca, which I have practiced and taught ever since.

In my spiritual endeavours as well as in my Healing work, one of my personal interests was to experiment with new ideas, theories and approaches, to find easier ways of practicing and teaching them. Time and time again I challenged myself and conventional beliefs, questioned and played, until I found a repeatable shortcut, a blueprint, a deeply profound, yet straight-forward method that worked for myself and others.

During the past seven years of my journey, to my great pleasure and surprise, I did in fact happen upon a vast treasure of just such shortcuts, a little wormhole into a fascinating new Dimension of the Mind and the Universe, which ‘Why You Don’t Need Shoes’ invites you to experience (read more in:'The Book' and 'Behind the Scenes').

For the first few years I still considered going back to my previous, more conventional life, whereas now, whenever I catch myself out thinking such a silly thought, I laugh...

Even though I still travel a lot, since 2000 my main residence has been in Thailand. Over the past few years I have also spent a lot of time in San Francisco, which I now regard as my second home.

I have actively experimented with the concepts of Co-incidences, Intuition and the Mind for many years. As my life and my Being changed with the insights I gained, people began to comment on how lucky and happy I was; the sceptics asked if I was involved in some kind of magic or cult. Well, I was neither, I was just actively playing with Co-incidences and the inner depths of my Mind and my Emotions.

I have developed and examined everything within the pages of this book first hand. I have turned it up-side-down, experienced it, played with it and practised it diligently. You might like to know that I would in fact call myself a pretty rational person. I ask questions and seek my own proof wherever I can, rarely simply taking somebody else’s word for anything. Every ounce of ‘Why You Don’t Need Shoes’, is based on my own practical, real life experiences.

People ask me, ‘But how did you work all this stuff out?’ Simple. I came up with a bunch of far-out theories, experimented, found some explanations, came up with some more ridiculous theories, tested them again and again, never taking ‘no’ for and answer and never accepting any logical limits. I played with my theories until they worked, then fine-tuned them until they were fool-proof and repeatable. With time practical, workable blueprints would emerge, which had been tried and tested on myself and others, some of which you can share in ‘Why You Don’t Need Shoes’.