Hello, we’re Monica and Stephan. We’re delighted to meet you! Here’s a bit about ourselves…

On our lives

We met at university in Switzerland, in the late 80's. Ecuadorian by birth, Monica was a visiting student from the US. Stephan was a student from Ticino, the South of Switzerland. Things were meant to be, and we fell in love…  after dating for a year, Monica returned to the US to graduate. Stephan went to Argentina for an internship. The year of distance relationship was a tough experience, it taught us lots about ourselves. We met again, felt ready, and got married, pretty much on the spot, in Ecuador. On love and a dream, with no money, no house, no job, in the early 1990s.

Followed corporate life, travelling the world for the first 10 years. Switzerland, then four years as expats in Japan where our first two daughters were born. Then student life at Harvard Business School in Boston. Then London where our third daughter was born, and then a year in Sydney and a year in San Francisco, before returning to Switzerland in the early 2000s, where our fourth daughter was born.

In 2004, we started the children’s relief association Help-for-Hope www.help-for-hope.org, with health and education projects in over a dozen countries and four continents now. And in 2007, we launched our own company, with Monica coaching couples, and Stephan coaching executive teams around the world. We currently live in Lausanne, Switzerland.

On our mission to serve couples

We’re now going on 30 years of marriage. And boy, did we have our ups and downs… we had to learn the hard way how to make it together, mostly through trial and error and flying by the seat of our pants. We wish we had tools and guidance to help us navigate those years more smoothly!

We also witnessed too many couples, including our very closest friends, who ended up in painful divorces. Their pain was ours, we were so close, and yet not able to help...  Thinking of it, we haven’t yet met a couple who proclaimed “Yes!! We’re getting married, so we finally can get stuck in a mediocre, boring relationships. How wonderful!!” Nobody wants that, really!!

Truth is, no one has ever taught us how to build a thriving relationship. So we both certified as coaches. We also travelled the world and studied in person with some of the best and leading pioneers in the field, including the Gottmans, the Hendricks, the Parrots, etc. The result of this is a toolbox for how to build happy relationships, that we have tested and refined on ourselves, and with couples Monica has coached over the years.

The coronavirus crisis has accelerated our intention to “go live”, offering this toolbox online, with a practical 3-step roadmap to help couples build the relationship they always wanted – the relationship of their dreams. We want to help couples like you to take these difficult days of confinement, and transform them into an opportunity for a wonderful relationship with the person you love most. This is our mission, and we’d love to hear from you!