Thank you for your interest in me and my vision – Quest For You.

I grew up in a small town in former Eastern Germany, near the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic. My childhood was spent roaming forests, listening to pop music on a transistor radio, and dreaming of a world beyond the walls that confined me. Posters of the Golden Gate Bridge hung on my wall—a distant dream that once felt impossible.

But walls fall, regimes change, and the world has a way of turning toward the good. I arrived in California with one suitcase and an unshakable belief that life could be more. As my plane descended into San Francisco, an overwhelming joy filled me—a feeling that never left. 

Through hard work, relentless determination, and the kindness of others, I built a life—earning my degrees, growing in my career, and checking off the traditional markers of success: a house, a family, a dog. It looked like the perfect Hollywood ending—until it wasn’t. What took years to build unraveled much faster than I ever imagined.

That’s when my real journey began.

For years, I tried to make my circumstances fit into my vision of happiness. But real change doesn’t come from controlling the external. It comes from within. Facing myself—my pain, my fears, my patterns—was the hardest and most fulfilling work I’ve ever done.

Along the way, I started my Quest For You podcast, capturing the lessons I was learning on my own self-help journey. I honed the art of public speaking through Toastmasters and Heroic Public Speaking. And then, unexpectedly, I found climbing.

I didn’t seek it out. I didn’t dream about it. It just appeared.

And it changed the entire trajectory of my life. 

Climbing became more than a sport, more than a hobby, more than adventure, — iit became a teacher. It mirrored life in ways I never expected. It taught me lessons I had read in books but never truly grasped—acceptance, patience, presence, and trust. Not just in the rope or my partner, but in myself. It showed me that fear doesn’t have to stop me, that plans don’t always pan out—and that doesn’t mean failure. That the summit isn’t the only goal—the journey itself is where growth happens.

And I believe something similar is happening on a global scale. People are waking up. The old “standard recipe” I once longed for no longer satisfies. We crave more—more fulfillment, more purpose, more realness. We want to know who we are and what we are meant to contribute to this life.

Quest For You is my contribution to this awakening. I pursued my coaching certification not because I had it all figured out, but because I didn’t. I felt lost, uncertain of what was next—until my friends encouraged me to take this step. Since starting my podcast, I knew I wanted to help others. I also knew that my story, my struggles, and my experiences held value. But it was in coach training that I discovered something even more powerful:

Change starts with me.

Coaching challenged everything—my beliefs, my assumptions, my patterns. It showed me that true transformation doesn’t happen overnight. It happens one thought at a time.

Life has a way of guiding us toward something better—if we’re open to it. That has certainly been the case for me. Every desire I’ve pursued, every risk I’ve taken, every challenge I’ve embraced has led me here. And now, I want to help others do the same.

This is my vision for QFY—to be your companion on this journey.

We are all here to shine, to contribute, to create something meaningful.

So dust off that old dream of yours—the one that once lit up your nights with music and possibility—and let’s go after it, together.

Much love

Janine