Genuine attention
is scarce

Without realising it, you are actually always looking for attention. In my opinion, it is the best fuel for growth. Sometimes you get so little of it that you (usually unconsciously) fall into unhealthy repetitive patterns. Attention doesn’t always have to come from others: often the problem also is that you don’t give enough attention to yourself. Selecting an experienced coach is then a good, first step towards your growth.

As a coach I listen to you with compassion and without prejudice. At the same time, my attention is by no means non-committal: I encourage you to break new ground, and if you can handle it, I confront you with the meaning of your statements, patterns and behaviour. I can draw on a wide range of tools because I have been coaching for over 25 years and have done countless studies in the field of personal and professional growth. I always find the most appropriate or effective ones for you. So that you can continue to grow.

Nelson Mandela is a great inspiration to me. He could not have articulated the coaching profession better than in his book ‘The Long Road to Freedom’. It’s about attention, compassion and gardening. Click here if you want to read more about it

The metaphor:
My garden path

Gardening for me is like coaching and leading workshops. As soon as you walk up my garden path you immediately see what I mean; it’s a colourful and expressive garden. Because I work in it every day (I fertilise, prune and give all plants and trees lots of attention) you see and feel, that my passion radiates from it. Playfully, the first tentative budding twigs sprout. Regularly I am rewarded with unexpected turns. Then, of course, I move along, carefully adjust and intensely enjoy the process. The budding, the germination, the growth, the weeding, the flowering, the decay, the digestion of what has passed as compost for new growth… I enjoy every aspect. The energy it gives is tangible for me and my clients. This is how we grow together.

Your talents are my central focus point. Together, we seek to develop them further. But we also work on building safety nets for your pitfalls. You become more aware of your qualities and the stress behaviour you have in certain situations. I encourage you to take on personal challenges. In doing so, our conversations are of varying character. Often inspiring and encouraging. Sometimes following and then directing. In any case, they are never boring.

A series of
meetings

A coaching process always starts with an introduction without any obligation afterwards: you don’t have to pay if we decide not to set off together. In this way, the threshold to your first step forward towards growth is low. Usually this is followed by a series of ten sessions of an hour and a half. Sometimes the path is shorter.

Two personality tests give us both more insight into your motivations, your qualities and your challenges. Together, we sharpen your personal goals and work on them. In the last session, we check whether your goals have been achieved and what the next steps might be.

Years ago I developed this workshop for senior professionals who experienced that getting people to move in the desired direction doesn’t always work well nor easy. All the knowledge and experience they had was not enough. Rusty patterns in ourselves – and in others – keep teams from doing what is really needed. It ended up being my most booked workshop for leaders, managers, consultants and coaches who are looking for their personal leadership.

We all spend a lot of time on what is literally said in meetings. Too little attention is paid to ‘why’ and ‘how’ we say things. Transactional Analysis shows us how this can get us caught up in stuck patterns. In this workshop, we look at the psychological layer beneath the words. What are we actually saying to each other when we don’t just take dialogue literally? What messages are we sending out? Which messages are we receiving and which ones do we block? Are we playing games with each other? Are they healthy games? I’m sure we can do things differently. And more effectively.

We discover practical models of Transactional Analysis such as ego states (who in us is talking), the OK quadrant, the drama triangle, the winner’s triangle, our repetitive behaviour, the drivers & stoppers (what should we do from ourselves and what should we not do from ourselves) and how we deal with positive and negative attention. The Enneagram with its nine drives is also discussed. We alternate theory with practical exercises where participants work with each other and contribute their own experiences. After the four study days, insight into communication patterns has increased enormously. You recognise how things get stuck and you know how to make break throughs. You can deal with conflicts much better. You motivate colleagues. You know yourself better and from now on you tackle things differently.

Costs:

€1,595 excluding 21% VAT, including study materials and lunches.

Location:

Het Broekerhuis, Leeteinde 16, 1151 AK Broek in Waterland.

Charisma is not an innate quality; nor is it a gift from the gods. On the contrary: you can develop and strengthen it.

Finally, you get to talk about that new campaign, a new programme, strategy or product you are so proud of. Or about the new direction you want to take your employees in. You have a huge appetite for it and you dare to climb the stage with confidence. Not only because you know better what you want to say, but especially because you understand how to touch the hearts of your audience and motivate people. In this workshop, we will show you that your story will have more impact by presenting it with more charisma. The book Strengthen Your Charisma is the inspirational guide for this workshop. Click here for a short video (in the Dutch language) about this book. And with it, charisma is within your reach.

Maximiliaan Winkelhuis (often also called Max) has over twenty-five years of experience as a leadership coach and communication trainer. This makes him a highly experienced support for professionals in business, media, politics, government and the dance world. In his first career, he enjoyed leading as a communications specialist at leading advertising agencies.

During these years, he attended an intense leadership program at INSEAD. He then started training in Transformational Psychology with Shakti Gawain in Hawaii and simultaneously did the three-year course at the Institute of Transformational Psychology. Maximiliaan then spent many years training in personal growth techniques such as Transactional Analysis, Self-Directed Learning, the drives of the Enneagram, Voice Dialogue and Nonviolent Communication. Maximiliaan is a specialist in developing charismatic leadership.

Discover how to present your story more playfully and convincingly. Strengthen your charisma is a guide with many practical examples, tests and tips to help you to show yourself, enjoy it and touch others with your story.

Watch the video in which Petra Stienen and Maximilian talk about this book (in Dutch). >>

This book is full of practical tips to increase your job satisfaction. Maximiliaan made this book in cooperation with Lodewijk van der Peet and Esther Jansen.
Click on the following links for Dutch videos of tips to stress less while working, meeting and presenting: Tip 13, Tip 49, Tip 67.

Together with Sophia Strydom, I have created an extremely practical and, above all, cheerful booklet that will assist you in starting and concluding conversations, meetings, and presentations. This booklet was printed in a limited edition for MaximuM clients in 2023 and is still available for purchase.

This card game gives clear insights into your behavior and that of others.

Maximilian published this culinary book with Margot Roggeveen. He also wrote culinary books like ‘Flaters & Foefjes’ and ‘Toeters & Bellen’.

Maximiliaan wrote a coaching book for top dancers at the turn of the century that has become the international standard (and has been translated into many languages).

This book explains to dancers what stress is, how to measure it and it gives 100 ways to escape from it.

This book from 2023 helps the reader become a persuasive dancer. It teaches you that you as a dancer shouldn’t only focus on choreography and technique: there are a total of five ingredients and five inner voices that make your dancing more appealing. Click here for reviews on this book.

The team I enjoy working with is pleasantly diverse. We differ enormously as people and as coaches. They all have had impressive work backgrounds and positions before walking the coaching path. As a result, we reinforce each other and healthily challenge each other. Fortunately, we also have strong similarities: we are all heavily trained and have enjoyed the 10,000 hours of experience. We all work with the same insightful models such as the Enneagram and Transactional Analysis. This works more pleasantly: it avoids confusion of tongues when several coaches from MaximuM are working for the same client.