About

Smile to the world, and it will smile back

That is what I was told as a child. So I smiled, smiled and smiled. It took many years to learn the difference between being brave and simply being myself.

I was born in Bern in 1974 and had five idyllic years in the Swiss countryside before we moved to Heimdal, outside Trondheim in Norway. A new language, a divorce, and four months in a cast after a major hip operation – I had to learn to walk again at six. On the outside I kept smiling, even though my heart didn’t smile as much anymore.

The violin became my language. I made my solo debut with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra at 15, studied at Barratt Due and took my master’s at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. I have since played with orchestras including the Oslo Philharmonic and the Tromsø Symphony Orchestra, where I was concertmaster. I led the string quartet Nordic Strings and was concertmaster for four Michael Bublé concerts in front of 25,000 people.

But I know the opposite too: lying backstage in Amsterdam five minutes before Brahms’ violin concerto, wishing for the biggest black hole in the universe. The road from there to standing calm and present on stage is what I now help others with.

One summer evening I stood in the middle of a pool at a Finansavisen event, in high heels and with my violin, playing Vivaldi’s Summer while the host swam out toward me. I closed my eyes to stay focused. When I opened them he was smiling back. I didn’t have to be brave to get through it. I just had to be myself.

An executive I worked with once told me he hadn’t felt so light and happy in thirty years. His problems at work had eased, his usually withdrawn eleven-year-old son had opened up at home, and he was making clearer decisions under pressure. He said the spark of life had returned.

Today I work with leadership teams, teams and individuals – from engineering teams in oil and gas to leaders in transition and musicians with performance anxiety. I don’t believe it is possible to truly touch other people unless it comes from a real place inside us. When we tune in to ourselves and our surroundings – then we talk business.