The person behind Zen & Go.
Hi, I'm Sophie, the founder of Zen & Go, which I started in 2019. In 2018, I was a Marketing Manager at Siemens Healthineers, surrounded by people who were successful and quietly running on empty, and I was one of them. This is the story of how that changed, and what it turned into.
2018 was the year I stopped recognising myself.
I was in a new role, surrounded by capable people doing genuinely good work, and all of us were stressed in a way that showed up in how we treated each other. I noticed it in myself first. My elbows got sharper without me realising it. I couldn't sleep properly for weeks. I kept bringing creative ideas into a workplace that valued them, and still didn't feel like myself while doing it. And then a difficult breakup hit on top of everything, and the question wouldn't go away anymore: is this it?
So I started asking a different question: what do we actually do with the things we all carry chronically, the pressure, the responsibility, the ambition, and that quiet conflict between wanting to achieve something and wanting to still feel like a person while doing it? I started meditating every day and began a yoga teacher training. Within a few weeks, my sleep problems were just gone. And I learned there's another way to be genuinely high-performing: to love your work, bring your full self to it, and not just stay healthy, but actually thrive. What changed wasn't how much I did. It was learning to recover as deliberately as I performed, the way elite athletes train it. That became my work.
Alongside all of this, I'd started a small lunch-break mindfulness session for my own department at Siemens Healthineers. I never forwarded that invite again after the first time. It grew on its own, from 15 to 900 people, just through people passing it along, until it reached the CEO's office. The internal business case for a permanent role got declined in the end, and a two-month sabbatical in Bali afterward is where the first real ideas for my own business took shape. Zen & Go launched in mid-2019.
Angélique and I at a workshop with H&M Group in Berlin.
Read the full story, including the sound bowl I brought into the CEO meeting →
Thriving isn't doing less. It's recovering as deliberately as you perform.
Find the zen. Then go. Both are necessary.
Zen & Go is built on this order, not as a slogan but as an actual sequence. First, we tend to our inner world honestly: we perceive what's actually there, without reacting to it right away. Then we take that clarity back out into the world and act on it, in line with our own values. That second half is what actually creates something, whether that's in a person or in a whole organisation.
Only Go, no Zen
This was my own story in 2018. Ambition, responsibility, and creative energy are real strengths. But without contact with your own inner world, that same energy turns against you: reactivity, sleeplessness, success on the outside with nothing underneath it.
Only Zen, no Go
You feel your inner world clearly. You're calm, aware, present. But nothing moves. It's insight without impact. You stay comfortable in reflection and never act on what you know. Nothing changes, not for you, not around you.
This is also the PIN Method in practice, the same framework behind every Zen & Go programme. More on how it works →
Certified expertise, applied in the room.
I hold an MSc in Psychological Medicine (Distinction, London Metropolitan University) and roughly 890 hours of certified training across yoga, meditation, and mindfulness, including the 208-hour Trainer for Mindfulness in Organisations programme at the Mindful Leadership Institut Salzburg, taught in part by Dr. Richard Davidson. I come in from outside, as a trainer and facilitator, watching a room and working with what's actually happening in it.
Today that work also includes Senior Potential Programmes, teaching these methods directly to senior managers, including country leads and VPs, and Female Leadership Programmes, adapting the same methodology for those cohorts specifically.
What grounds me outside of work.
I live between Bali and Berlin, on purpose, so my life does not drift into being only one or the other.
Daily yoga is not optional for me, it is the practice everything else is built on.
I volunteer weekly at a school for children with disabilities in Bali, and support a local Balinese grandmother directly.
I also give to a school-building project in Senegal.
I recently started surfing, a new practice I am already learning a great deal about myself through.
I am always in some kind of training myself. Staying a student is part of staying a good teacher.
An afternoon at Sari Hati School in Ubud, Bali, filmed by my partner Nathan.
With the Sari Hati community, the school I volunteer at weekly. Click to enlarge.
At a Balinese ceremony with friends. Click to enlarge.
Learning to surf, one wave at a time. Click to enlarge.
A yoga session at one of our team offsites. Click to enlarge.
One of the take-home handouts from a session. Click to enlarge.
The people behind Zen & Go.
How people perceive me.
"This really gave the opportunity to learn and explore and find the methods that fit your needs or you enjoy most. I liked Sophie's openness and honesty: you don't pretend to be an almighty guru and you share from your own experience."
"Our five-week mindfulness programme provided our employees with important tools, combined with theoretical content and practical exercises. It was an excellent mix of content with a trainer who consistently adapted to the needs of the team."
"Sophie's approach to teaching mindfulness is down-to-earth and pragmatic, so that it's easily relatable for all of us. We've introduced Mindful Breaks at Batten & Company as a direct result."
"I highly recommend Sophie Bachmann for her exceptional contributions as a mindfulness trainer. Through our close collaboration over the last couple of years, I have observed the remarkable influence of her sessions on the well-being of our employees. Sophie brings a wealth of expertise, passion, and authenticity to each session, ensuring that mindfulness is both accessible and beneficial for individuals at all levels within our organization."
"Sophie's workshop provides a high quality and impactful experience. They are contributing significantly to well-being, emotional intelligence and mental health awareness. She is a highly qualified mindfulness professional who can tailor sessions to meet specific customer needs with the alignment of company culture."
"Sophie did a great job teaching our group some basic to advanced ways to increase focus, presence, as well as reduce stress. It was very helpful to hear from someone with industry experience, able to translate around individuals' needs and goals. Thank you Sophie!"
"We appreciated you doing all 5 of those things today, thank you so much for such an influential keynote speech!"
"We absolutely love everything you've outlined and couldn't be more excited to support this next phase of the programme. Your ideas resonate so much with us: embodiment, grounding, and creating a repeatable 'Zen & Go signature' that carries through. Thank you for trusting us with this incredible opportunity, it means the world."
Questions people ask about me.
Does Sophie deliver sessions herself, or does a team do it?
What do people say about working with Sophie?
Why is the company called Zen & Go?
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