And what did Michael do in his life?
Well, I started my career as a stubborn baby
With a mother called Nel, who was a house wife and a dad named Henk. He was a soldier, a painter and a shop keeper. As a stubborn baby I cried when I should be sleeping and slept when I should be eating. And even now that I’m older, I still like to eat during the night and sleep until noon!
14 years later - Dropped out of school
I loved primary school and hated secondary school, so at the age of 14 my dad dragged me out of school and put me to work in one of his shops. And you know what: I loved it! It taught me that if you do what you like, no job is too hard.
7 years later - Started teaching academy
I got a chance to become a primary teacher when the teaching academy in my home town started night classes. For 5 long years I worked during the day and studied my ass off during the night. It gave me the chance to find out that teaching was something I really, really, really liked and up to now still love to do.
5 years later - Started as a primary teacher
I started my first job as a teacher in the capital Amsterdam and moved on to other bigger cities in The Netherlands. I worked in different kinds of school systems and specialized myself in classroom management, adaptive learning, positive reinforcement and behavior management.
10 years later - Got the best chance of my life
After 10 years working in different school, I was ready for a bigger challenge. I was offered a position as an educational advisor at the Ministry of Education in the Republic of Maldives. My job was to train teachers and work together with management and parents to improve the quality of education in six different island schools. Those two years were some of the best years of my life.
2 years later - Started an English language school
At the end of my contract I decided to extend my stay in The Maldives and started an English Language school in Kulhudhuffushi, the island where I was based. To cover the expenses, I started to build websites for customers in my home country.
That went awesome!
In the years that followed, I slowly expanded my online business. The island I was living on didn't have any bars, clubs or other kind of entertainment, but I just loved the people and the simplicity of island live!
7 years later - Fell in love with Cambodia
In 2015 the Maldivian story came to an end. I left some awesome people behind and took hundreds of special memories with me. I stayed six months in Sri Lanka, travelled back to The Netherlands and worked in Peru. My next stop was Cambodia where – for the second time in my life – I fell in love with a country.
At present
At the moment I am redesigning my online business so I can combine it with my teaching skills and experience. I’m developing online courses, in Dutch and in English.