I work with executives, athletes, and professionals who are already good at what they do, and want to understand themselves well enough to sustain it.
My work draws on 30 years of coaching, mentoring, and lived experience. I don't just work with frameworks, I bring my own journey to the conversation. What I've learned from navigating pressure, setbacks, and transitions informs how I listen, how I challenge, and how I support.
I work in Dutch, English, and German, in person in the Eindhoven and Roermond area, and remotely with international clients.
We take the time to understand where you are, what's getting in the way, and whether working together feels right. No pressure. Just an honest exchange.
2.
Understanding the full picture
We establish where you are, what patterns are getting in the way, and what success actually looks like for you.
3.
The work itself
Regular sessions, honest reflection, and between-session practice. The pace is yours. The direction is ours to navigate together.
4.
You stop needing me
Good coaching ends with the client not needing the coach. We close with clarity on what you've built, and how to sustain it.
About Jean
Still learning. Still moving forward.
I've been doing this work since 1996. Not because I had it all figured out, but because I kept finding it mattered.
My background spans mental performance coaching, executive coaching, and prevention, working with athletes, leaders, and professionals across the Netherlands and internationally.
I'm a certified Mindboxing® trainer, and a member of the IAC, LVSC, IMGCA, the International Association for Counselling, and the VvEd, Vereniging van Ervaringsdeskundigen. But what I bring to the work isn't primarily credentials. It's 30 years of working alongside people in the moments that actually matter.
"At Numidia, we take the sustainable employability of our people seriously. Jean's approach gives our people the nudge in the right direction they need, and genuinely moves them forward. I can recommend Jean wholeheartedly."
— Han van Hagen, CEO at Numidia
"I came to Jean with a completely confused but exhausted mind. After working with him, I was able to clearly articulate the root cause of my problems. I would highly recommend him for anyone looking to make changes in their life."
— Qingqing, International professional
"The multicultural depth Jean brings to this work made all the difference. He understood my context, not just my situation."
— Anna
"Jean doesn't give you a toolkit. He gives you a mirror. The work we did together completely changed how I handle pressure and how I lead."
— Andreas
Insights
On performance, pressure, and the space between.
Mental Performance · June 2026
The stress container. A simple idea that changes the conversation.
Most people know they're under pressure. Few know how to talk about it, with themselves or with others.
The Gallup 2026 report reveals something that should concern every organisation, and every leader.
One number stood out.
20%.
That's the share of employees who are engaged at work. The lowest since 2020. Down for the second consecutive year.
But this is the finding that really landed for me. Leaders report higher life satisfaction than those they lead. And yet, compared to individual contributors, they are significantly more likely to report stress, anger, sadness, and loneliness on any given day.
Higher up. Better story. Harder days.
That gap between how we think our life is going and how we actually experience it day to day, that's the territory I've worked in for 30 years. Most of the leaders I've coached weren't struggling with performance. They were struggling with what high performance costs them.
The leadership paradox
Gallup calls this the gap between the reflective self and the experiencing self. For leaders, that gap is wider than for anyone else in the organisation. The largest single-year drop in manager engagement was five points, between 2024 and 2025.
The question I keep coming back to
We invest heavily in developing leaders. What we give them far less of is space, space to be honest about what the role is actually costing them.
Who coaches the people at the top? In my experience, not enough people do.
We keep trying to fix it with better time management. The research, and 30 years of practice, suggests otherwise.
Your most committed employees are your highest burnout risk. Not the disengaged ones. Not the clock-watchers. The people who care deeply about their work.
This is the burnout paradox. And it's one that most organisations are still not equipped to see.
What the research actually says
Christina Maslach made a point that still doesn't get enough attention: burnout is not a personal failing. It is a response to chronic, poorly managed work stress. The problem lives in the system, not the individual.
What actually helps
The solution is not better time management. It starts with honest conversations, about what the work is actually costing, about where the energy is going.
That's not soft skill work. That's sustainable performance.
Most high performers already know what they should do. The question is never the knowledge.
Most high performers already know what they should do. They know they should delegate more. Sleep more. Say no more often. Have the difficult conversation they've been avoiding.
The question is never the knowledge. It's what gets in the way of acting on it.
What actually closes the gap
The gap closes when people develop genuine self-awareness, not the kind that involves knowing your Myers-Briggs type, but the kind that allows you to notice, in real time, what is actually driving your behaviour.
More information was never the answer. It rarely is.
Edith Schippers noemt sportverenigingen het cement van onze samenleving. Ze heeft gelijk. Maar cement scheurt ook onder druk.
Dit artikel is gebaseerd op een interview met Edith Schippers, gepubliceerd door het RVVB naar aanleiding van het Landelijk Impactonderzoek Sportverenigingen. Lees het volledige interview →
Het interview sprak me aan op twee niveaus, niet alleen als beleidsadviseur sport bij Gemeente Best, maar ook als coach en mentor.
Ze zegt het goed: sportverenigingen zijn meer dan plekken waar mensen trainen. Ze zijn plekken waar kinderen leren presteren onder druk. Waar volwassenen buiten hun eigen bubbel komen. Waar vooroordelen wegvallen omdat je elkaar simpelweg kent. Cement, inderdaad.
Maar cement scheurt onder druk.
De mensen achter de vereniging
Wie houdt die verenigingen draaiende? Vrijwilligers. Bestuursleden. Trainers. Mensen die er naast hun werk, hun gezin en hun eigen leven nog een tweede, soms derde, rol bij nemen. Vaak jaren lang. Vaak zonder dat iemand vraagt hoe het met hen gaat.
In mijn werk als beleidsadviseur zie ik hoe groot de druk op verenigingen is geworden. Verduurzamingseisen. Stijgende kosten. Ruimtegebrek. Vergrijzing van het vrijwilligersbestand. Schippers benoemt het allemaal. En ze heeft gelijk: algemene oproepen landen nergens. Je moet specifiek zijn over waar het knelt.
Maar er is iets wat zelden benoemd wordt in dat gesprek. De mensen die die druk dragen.
Presteren onder druk zonder coach
Als coach en mentor werk ik met mensen die presteren in omstandigheden die van hen vragen dat ze altijd beschikbaar zijn, altijd oplossingen hebben, altijd door kunnen. Executives. Atleten. Professionals.
Maar ook: de voorzitter van een voetbalvereniging die elke week vergadert over financiën, conflicten en vrijwilligers die afhaken. De trainer die twintig jongeren begeleidt terwijl zijn eigen leven ook doorgaat. De penningmeester die 's avonds laat nog de begroting probeert sluitend te maken.
Schippers zegt dat we zuinig moeten zijn op vrijwilligers. Daar ben ik het volledig mee eens. Maar zuinig zijn betekent meer dan waardering uitspreken of subsidies toekennen. Het betekent ook: oog hebben voor wat het kost om dit werk te doen. En investeren in de mensen die het cement bij elkaar houden.
Wat ik meeneem
Het impactonderzoek maakt zichtbaar wat sportverenigingen maatschappelijk betekenen. Dat is waardevol. Maar de volgende stap is zichtbaar maken wat het vraagt van de mensen die die waarde leveren, en wat we kunnen doen om hen te ondersteunen voordat ze breken.
Cement scheurt niet in één keer. Het begint met kleine barsten. Die zie je alleen als je goed kijkt.
Herken jij dit, bij jezelf of bij mensen in jouw vereniging? Ik ga graag het gesprek aan.
The stress container. A simple idea that changes the conversation.
Most people know they're under pressure. Few know how to talk about it, with themselves or with others.
I came across this concept recently, in an article by Jane Holden, published on parentsinsport.co.uk. It gives clarity, not because it is a new idea, but because it names something in a way that makes it immediately accessible to anyone.
The idea is simple. We each carry a container. Life fills it. Work, expectations, relationships, performance, uncertainty. The container has a tap, our coping mechanisms, the things that help us release pressure before it overflows. And when the tap isn't working, or the container fills faster than we can empty it, we overflow. That's when we see the signs, in our behaviour, our emotions, our body.
What this means in practice
In my work as a coach and mentor, I rarely meet people who don't know they're under pressure. What they often don't have is a way to talk about it, with themselves, or with the people around them.
The stress container gives you that language.
It works for executives who need to understand why they snap at their team on a Tuesday. It works for athletes who perform brilliantly in training and freeze in competition. It works for parents trying to support a child through pressure they can barely manage themselves.
And that last point matters. When someone else's container overflows, it doesn't stay contained to them. Stress pours into the people closest to them. The parent who is anxious about their child's performance. The leader whose team absorbs their tension. The partner who carries what isn't theirs to carry.
The oxygen mask principle
There's a reason the safety instructions on a plane tell you to put your own mask on first. You cannot effectively support someone else from a depleted state. This is not selfishness. It is a precondition for being useful.
The most important question the stress container raises is not "how full is yours?" It's: "what does your tap look like, and is it actually working?"
In my experience, the people who navigate pressure best are not the ones who feel less of it. They are the ones who know their container, know their tap, and have learned, often the hard way, when to ask for help before the overflow begins.
Inspired by an article by Jane Holden, published on parentsinsport.co.uk
Still learning. Still moving forward.
What fills your container? And what helps you release the pressure? I'd like to hear.
