TEN TITLES. FIVE KIDS. ONE CANCER.
339 KILOMETRES OF OPEN WATER.
ONE PRINCIPLE: MAKE 5% YOUR 100%
THIS PAGE IS MY STORY. READ IT AS A BLUEPRINT, NOT A BIOGRAPHY.
I dropped out of school and went all-in on what mattered to me: water polo. Not because I was reckless. Because I had a target, and I refused to let the wrong environment slow me down.
After military service I moved to Innsbruck with one bag and one goal. What followed was years of building. Simultaneously.
Construction worker by day. Evening school by night. Water polo training after a full shift. Maths textbooks at 23:00 with burning eyes and a sore back. Not because it was easy. Because I’d decided.
That stubbornness earned me a law degree from the University of Innsbruck, a career in corporate leadership, and nine national water polo titles.
I became a husband. A father of five.
I was exactly where I had fought to be. Then the call came.
ATHLETIC EXCELLENCE
9 National Titles
DUAL DISCIPLINE
Law Degree & Leadership
When Life Knocks You Down, Set a New Goal
“Nobody spoke about losing the person you’d spent your whole life
constructing.”
In March 2016, at the peak of my physical strength and career momentum, I was diagnosed with
aggressive cancer.
Eleven days later, I got married. Two days after that, chemotherapy started. Within weeks, the body
that had won nine national titles could barely walk 500 metres.
I wasn’t just fighting a disease. I was watching my identity dissolve. But in that void, I set an irrational
goal: Win the 10th national championship.
During treatment, I set a goal most people thought was irrational: win my 10th national water polo title. Not
despite cancer. Alongside it.
Not because the trophy mattered. Because I needed a direction that had nothing to do with the illness. A Why
outside the therapy, outside the hospital, outside the question of whether I would survive.
I stood on that podium in June 2017. Not as a patient. As an athlete who had also survived cancer. Which is a
very different thing.
What followed was years of testing what the system could do. Different sports. A trail marathon. And
eventually the decision that defined everything: swim Lake Constance. All 65 kilometres. Non-stop. Without a
wetsuit.
S – Self-Leadership
W – Why
I – Inner Belief
M – Momentum Together
I needed to know the system actually worked. Not just in a hospital. At the edge of what a body can do.
So I started The Alpine Seven: seven crossings of the great Alpine lakes across Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. 339 kilometres in total. I’m still a manager. I train before and after work.
Lake Attersee
Lake Constance
Wörthersee
Lago Maggiore
Four done. Next: Lake Lucerne, September 2026.
These details aren’t about toughness. They’re about what a system allows you to do when conditions are never perfect. Because they never are.
That’s what 5%, applied consistently, produces.
THE CREDENTIALS BEHIND THE SYSTEM.
A battle-tested methodology grounded in executive experience, high-performance sports, and continuous learning under extreme constraints.
Law & order
Coaching & Human Systems
Performance & Resiliance
Mindset & Psychology
Who this is for — and who it isn’t.
This is for high performers. Managers, founders, leaders, athletes. People who have already proven they can push through, and who now want a goal bigger than their track record.
You don’t need saving. You don’t need motivation. You need the one goal that finally scares you again, and a system that carries you there.
Because here is what I see in almost every high performer I work with: the results are real, but somewhere between the achievements, the connection to why it all matters has gone quiet. Most people can’t name that gap. We don’t start there. We start with the goal. The rest follows.
This is not for people in an acute crisis, and it is not therapy. If that’s where you are right now, please reach out to proper professional support first. Come back when you’re ready to build.
If any of this felt familiar — you’re in the right place.
I work with people who take on the one goal that scares them. Not with inspiration. With an operational system, built during eight months of chemotherapy and tested across 339 kilometres of open water.
The best place to start: my weekly letter, The 5% Letter. One idea per week on endurance mindset and discipline. Subscribe and see if my way of thinking fits yours.
