Coincidence, Intuition and Numbers

Some coincidences do not call for a quick conclusion, but they do deserve our attention.

IF — What if…?

There Is No Such Thing as Coincidence

Over the years, I learned that people have different ways of searching for connections. Sometimes we notice a meaningful coincidence. Sometimes our intuition speaks before we can name all the reasons. Sometimes we see a pattern in numbers that helps us look at our own lives.

My date of birth, 5 June 1948, led me, in my own numerological method, to the numbers 11, 22 and 33. To me, they became mirrors of intuition, building and service. They did not dictate my life. They helped me find words for strengths and contradictions I already knew.

The number 11 fits IF in a special way. Two ones stand side by side like two pillars with an opening between them. I see the bridge again: the visible on one side, what we suspect on the other, and between them the space in which a person searches. There is no such thing as coincidence is a conviction that often returned in my life.

By that, I do not mean I can fully explain every event. I mean that I want to pay attention to encounters and coincidences that teach me something. Meaning emerges when I listen to what they touch in my life. “There is no such thing as coincidence” is a thought that belongs to my way of seeing.

It invites me to pay attention to encounters and events that affect me.

A Meaningful Coincidence

I use it here as a personal motto, not as a law proving that every event was arranged beforehand. Sometimes meaning only emerges when I look back. The round stains took on a different place in my memory after the observation above Liège. The year 1981 also touches me because of the correspondence between my age of 33, my numerological calculation and the crisis I was going through.

I am not claiming that a number caused that crisis. The difference between cause and meaning matters to me. With cause, we ask what made something happen. With meaning, we ask what it awakens in us and what place it takes in our life.

An event can become deeply meaningful without our having demonstrated a hidden cause. Not every important decision in my life began with a calculation. Sometimes there was a feeling first. An almost inaudible signal.

Or a quiet confidence telling me to explore a particular path. That is what I call intuition. To me, intuition is not a magical voice that is always right. Nor is it an excuse to ignore facts.

I see it as a quiet voice arising from experience, love and attention. Everything we have lived through leaves something within us. Conversations. Glances.

Mistakes. Disappointments. Moments when we were right to trust someone.

The Quiet Voice

And moments when we later realised we should have been more careful. Our reasoning minds cannot keep naming all those impressions one by one. Yet they are stored somewhere within us. Sometimes they come together in a feeling that arrives faster than a complete line of reasoning.

I often experienced this during my career. I would meet someone and feel almost immediately whether there was room for genuine cooperation. I would listen to a new idea and notice something awakening within me. Or I would sit in a meeting where all the figures seemed correct on paper, while an inner unease still prompted me to ask one more question.

Not every feeling proved right. My intuition did not protect me from every wrong decision. I trusted people who did not deserve that trust. I believed in certain projects for too long.

And sometimes I mistook hope for certainty. That is precisely why I believe intuition must always stand alongside honest investigation. We should listen to our feelings. But we must also examine the facts.

Ask questions. Make agreements clear. And be willing to revise our first impression when reality shows us something different. Intuition is not a judge delivering a final verdict.

It is more like a faithful adviser who quietly says:

Looking, Then Looking Again

“Look again.” “Listen more carefully.” “There is something here you do not yet fully understand.” I believe the best intuition grows from attention to people. Someone who truly listens notices more than words alone. A silence at the wrong moment. A look that does not match what someone says.

A voice that suddenly changes. Or, instead, the calm and simplicity with which an honest person speaks. These are not proofs. But they are signals that may invite us not to move on too quickly.

After Marco’s death, intuition took on another meaning for me. There were moments when a memory would suddenly surface. A thought. A feeling of closeness.

I cannot prove where such moments come from. Perhaps it is my memory. Perhaps it is the love that lives on within me. I do not have to find a final explanation.

It is enough that those moments help me live more attentively and humanely. For intuition should never remove us from other people. When it has real value, it makes us more sensitive to what someone else needs. It helps us notice that a person is hiding sadness behind their smile.

That an employee has not only made a mistake, but may also be afraid. That a friend is not asking for advice, but for presence.

My Date of Birth

And that sometimes a child needs above all to hear that they are loved, even when not everything goes well. The older I became, the more I came to value silence. Not because silence automatically provides answers. But because, in silence, we can hear more clearly what is drowned out by noise.

Our fear. Our hope. Our conscience. And sometimes that gentle inner question:

“Am I acting out of love, or out of fear?” That may be the most important question intuition can ask us. It does not always tell us which path carries no risk. Such a path usually does not exist. But it can help us feel which choice stays closest to the person we want to be.

That is why I kept listening to that quiet voice. Not blindly. Not without thinking. But with the respect we owe to everything life has taught us, often without words.

For most people, numbers are practical signs. They tell us the time, what something costs, how old someone is or on which day an event took place. For me, numbers acquired a deeper meaning over the years. Numerology is neither a game nor an infallible prediction of the future.

I see it as a person’s spiritual DNA: a symbolic blueprint of talents, tensions, tasks and possibilities. A blueprint is not a prison.

The Numbers 11, 22 and 33

We retain our freedom and remain responsible for our choices. But just as physical DNA tells us something about our predispositions, I believe numbers can reveal something of the inner structure with which we move through life. My own date of birth, 5 June 1948, is the clearest example for me. The day, 5, stands for movement, curiosity, freedom and change.

I recognise in it my need to discover new worlds: technology, espresso, ceramics, software, artificial intelligence and spirituality. The number 5 does not like standing still. I too spent my whole life seeking what could be better, different or still possible. The month, 6, stands for family, care, responsibility and harmony.

In it, I recognise the other great force in my life. However far my work took me, my deepest motivation remained my family. Dorina, Marco, Michael and later my grandchildren formed the centre around which everything else revolved. The tension between 5 and 6 is recognisable too.

The 5 wants freedom and new paths. The 6 wants to protect, hold on and take responsibility. My life has often unfolded precisely between those two forces. In this calculation, my birth year carries the master number 22.

This number is often called the master builder. It connects vision with the task of bringing something concrete into being on earth. Here too, I recognise my life’s course. I did not only dream.

The Number 11

I built businesses, brands, relationships, presentation systems and, finally, together with Marco, the Glass Pyramid and Piramedia. Not every structure survived. But every attempt left behind experience, knowledge and human connections. The shadow side of 22 is the tendency to carry too much responsibility and to believe for too long that every problem can still be solved.

I recognise that as well. Perseverance was one of my greatest strengths, but sometimes also a burden I carried alone for too long. When I bring together the day, month and year of my birth, I arrive at 33. In numerology, 33 is a master number of love, responsibility, service and passing on understanding.

That number touches me because helping runs like a thread through my life. At first, I helped customers with technology, coffee and entrepreneurship. Later, people came to me with other questions. They asked for a numerological analysis of their character, their current situation or tensions with other people.

Some returned year after year. Not because I could predict their lives for them. But because the combination of calculation, intuition and attentive listening helped them recognise patterns. The 33 also shows me a limit.

Someone who feels called to help others may forget themselves. They may take on responsibilities that are not entirely theirs. They may keep giving until their own strength is nearly exhausted.

A Mirror, Not a Cage

I have had to learn that lesson more than once as well. When I combine only my birth day and birth month, 11 appears. In the method I used, I called this my soul number: the number of intuition, sensitivity, inspiration and the search for what lies behind visible reality. It does not surprise me that 11 appears in my calculation.

As a child, I knew the experiences in which I thought I left my body. Later came the experience between life and death and many moments when my intuition asked me to look more attentively. I do not use the number 11 as proof that my interpretation is the only right one. It does show how strongly the question of the invisible has always been present in me.

The 11 also has its tension. Sensitivity can bring insight, but also unease. Intuition can give direction, but must not replace sober judgement. That is why I have always tried to remain open without giving up my freedom of thought.

When the letters of my full name are converted into numbers according to the numerological system I used, the sum is 54, which reduces to 9. The number 9 is associated with humanity, compassion, wisdom through experience, completion and the desire to pass something on. Here too, I recognise why material success never had the final word for me. People remained more important than the product.

Attention to Connections

The encounter mattered more than the contract. And as I grew older, the question of what I could leave to my children, grandchildren and the generations after me became stronger. This book is one answer. For me, one of the most remarkable correspondences lies in 1981.

That was the year I turned 33 and went through a severe crisis at the same time. In that very year of the master number 33, I was forced to let go of a great deal, take responsibility and start again from almost nothing. Shortly afterwards, I had the experience between life and death described earlier in this part. I am not claiming that the number caused those events.

But neither can I deny how deeply the correspondence affects me. The calculation and the course of my life seem to meet there as in a mirror. The number 99 has a special meaning for me: three times 33. I recognise in it a symbolic completion of a story in which building, falling, helping, searching and starting again recur.

The number does not make my story more truthful; the experiences must do that. It is a personal way of looking at the connections in my life. When people asked me for an analysis, I always began with the calculation. But the real meaning only emerged in conversation.

The figures opened a door. Behind that door stood a person with their own history, sorrow, hope and free will. Numerology helped me give words to talents and contradictions that people often already felt deep within themselves. I used it to explore together why two strong characters kept clashing at the same point.

IF — What if…?
Which coincidence stayed with you because it touched something within you?