Mentor · Room for inquiry
For people who have started seeing a great deal and no longer want to choose only from opposition, urgency or certainty.
You do not have to call yourself a leader. Perhaps others carry a great deal from you. Perhaps you simply notice that your familiar answer no longer fits while a new one has not appeared.
Schedule a confidential 30-minute introductory call to explore whether there is enough trust and connection. → View the options
Division
We see division between people: conflicting interests, stalled conversations and groups facing each other across a divide.
But division also begins when something does not fit the story we tell about ourselves. Fear, anger, dependence or the need for control can fall out of view.
What slips outside our awareness does not disappear. It shapes how we look and what we notice far more sharply in someone else than in ourselves.
This does not mean every conflict is projection. Interests can clash, power can be uneven and behaviour can be harmful. That is precisely when it helps to see what is happening accurately, without reducing yourself or another person to one story.
The space between
I call this the space between: your familiar way of choosing no longer works, while you do not yet know what will take its place.
Familiar stories offer less support while the desire for a clear answer grows stronger.
Uncertainty does not necessarily mean something is lacking. The familiar options may no longer fit. You may still have to act. We examine what you want to do and how much of the urgency comes from wanting the discomfort to end.
We therefore take time to see more fully first.
After a conversation
A conversation does not always give you an answer. It can show what you have been treating as if it were the same thing.
Some uncertainty may remain. The difference is that you can see more of what is at work and what cannot be resolved in advance.
Becoming less divided
An identity offers support. It also often tells us who we must not be. Anything that does not fit can fall out of view: fear, dependence, anger or the wish for control.
What falls out of view does not disappear. We often notice it more sharply in someone else. We therefore examine what your judgement, certainty or urgency does to you, without reducing conflict or unequal power to something merely inner.
Allowing is not the same as approving or acting something out. When more of you can be faced, it is less likely to determine your choice without your knowledge.
Freedom follows from that. Plenty may still be unresolved, but less of it shapes your choice without your knowledge.
How I work
Each question shapes the course of a conversation. Three movements return almost every time. They are not a step-by-step method. We move between them and stay where something needs more attention.
Face what had remained outside your awareness.
What remains outside our awareness does not disappear. It colours how we see, respond and choose. In a conversation, we try to see that first.
Nothing has to disappear in order to be seen.
Allowing something does not make it true or right. Nor does it mean you follow it. We simply make sure that what is at work does not have to remain outside awareness.
Act with more of reality in view.
What became visible may call for a boundary, a conversation, a decision or for waiting. Integration does not mean everything carries equal weight. It means you have to exclude less in order to act.
Everything can be heard and examined. Not everything needs to lead.
This work may touch old pain or trauma. I do not treat trauma. If therapy or specialist support is needed, we name that.
My role
I am not here to make a better version of you. A choice becomes clearer when what had fallen out of view can take part too.
I listen to what you say and what you leave out. I pay attention to recurring patterns, shifting arguments and the difference between what you explain, do and may already know.
I do not give advice as if I know your situation better. I keep several perspectives open, ask questions when you move around something and help distinguish fact, assumption, preference, concern and valid risk.
You see more clearly what you follow, what you avoid and what you are willing to carry. The choice remains yours.
What I bring
I lost my mother when I was fourteen, became addicted, lived on the street and began a long recovery. Later, I sought freedom through faith and entrepreneurship. I let my company go bankrupt when a safe takeover did not feel right and moved to Portugal with my family without a detailed plan.
My thinking grew from the question of why freedom could keep turning into unfreedom. I discovered how convincingly fear can present itself as reason and how an identity can make parts of a person invisible.
I have been an entrepreneur for decades and led a digital agency for many years. Leadership, autonomy, ownership and personal patterns also came together there.
I have not arrived. The same questions return for me. This allows me to stand beside someone without pretending to possess the answer.
My own question changed too. I first searched for freedom. Now I more often explore how people can live less divided lives. I suspect freedom is a fruit of that.
Confidentiality
I do not share anything from our conversations with an employer, commissioning organisation or anyone else without your explicit permission.
Even when someone else pays for the conversation, its content remains confidential.
Ways to work together
All conversations take place online. You do not need to prepare.
A fixed price for every conversation does not fit how I want to do this work. The same amount does not mean the same thing to everyone. Pay what you want is my attempt to give that a different form. After a single conversation, you therefore decide what it was worth and what you can afford. For The Gate, we agree an amount together beforehand.
A confidential 30-minute online call to explore what you are looking for and whether there is enough trust and connection. Afterwards, you decide whether you want to continue.
An online conversation of around an hour and a half, focused on one essential question. One conversation may be enough. Afterwards, you pay what it was worth to you and what fits your financial situation.
A deeper mentoring process for a transition that does not become clear in one conversation. After each conversation, we examine whether another would be helpful and, if so, when. We agree the price beforehand.
Frequently asked questions
For people who notice that a familiar answer no longer fits and do not want to make an essential choice from urgency, opposition or certainty. Some carry a great deal of responsibility for others. That is not a requirement.
I do not work with a fixed development goal or competency profile. We start with what is happening and examine what you find difficult to see in yourself. I do not give you a step-by-step plan or make the choice for you.
Every question, person and situation is different. Seeing, allowing and integrating give the conversation direction, but do not determine in advance where it will lead.
You can know what you want to do differently and still repeat the same response. We therefore examine what drives that response. Once you can see it, you have something to choose.
No. It is enough to notice that your usual answer no longer works. During the introductory call, we explore what is happening and whether my way of working fits.
No. Mentoring may touch old pain or trauma, but it is not treatment. If your question mainly calls for therapy or other specialist support, we name that and look at what would be appropriate.
Yes. All introductory calls and mentoring conversations take place online. You are always very welcome to visit us in the Algarve.
We do not know in advance. After each conversation, we examine whether another would be helpful and, if so, when.
After a single conversation, you decide what it was worth and what fits your financial situation. For The Gate, we agree an amount together beforehand. All amounts exclude VAT.
Yes. I do not share anything from our conversations without your explicit permission, even when an employer or commissioning organisation pays.
Contact
It may begin with the question of why your familiar answer no longer works. Write to me about what is happening. When you send, your own email app opens with your message, ready to go.
You can also email contact@floris.pro directly.