Connect2Progress
Understanding People. Improving Workplaces. Changing Perspectives.
Connect2Progress is not anti-alcohol or anti-drugs. We are fiercely pro-health, pro-safety, and pro-sustainability on the work floor of the music industry and other high-pressure environments.
Michèle Kelder
Catch it early, and you get a shot at preventing the crisis before it hits.
Modern high-pressure environments, corporate or entertainment, push professionals to their physical and psychological limits. We break the silence, the stigma, and the taboo around addiction, burnout, and mental health. But more than that, we also break the silence around the unhealthy patterns and chronic stress that contribute to it in the first place.
Catch it early, and you get a shot at preventing the crisis before it hits, before absenteeism drags on, before good people quit or get pushed out.
Connect2Progress bridges high performance and sustainable well-being for any professional workforce.
We don't believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. Every person, organisation and situation is different. Connect2Progress doesn't tell people what to do. We believe that better questions, new perspectives and honest conversations help people find the answers that fit their own lives, organisations and communities.
One coherent practice, several ways in.
Deep Dives
One-on-one sessions for people who know something is off but can't quite put their finger on it.
For Businesses (B2B)
For team managers, leadership, founders, HR managers who need help with a specific case or are looking to build their knowledge on the things Connect2Progress works with.
For Individuals (B2C)
For anyone: artists, executives, high-pressure professionals, for any person who knows something's off and can't put their finger on it. For people who don't get anywhere with a weekly 45-minute check-in and want to go deep, to stay on track or get back on it.
Events
Connect2Progress can be hired to create and run events, from panel discussions to full sober experiences, for companies, municipalities, and organisations who want to do things differently.
Community Building
Recurring gatherings for professionals in the electronic music industry who believe things can be done differently. A place to exchange ideas, challenge industry norms, explore new perspectives, build meaningful collaborations, and contribute to a healthier, more sustainable music industry. Every session is built around a different theme and continues to evolve with the community itself.
(Invite only. Industry professionals interested in joining may apply via email.)
DIY Programs
The Self-Assessment Tool
A private digital assessment mapping where your habits actually sit. From recreational to dependent. Not a diagnosis. A mirror.
Misconceptions on Addiction
A document that takes apart what most people think they know about addiction and mostly don't.
6-Week "One Month Sober" Blueprint
A self-paced reset for Stoptober, Dry January, or just because you want a little break.
3-Month "Sober Curious Deep Dive"
A structured program to actually examine, and reshape, your relationship with substances.
It started as a two-hour event in 2022. It didn't stay small.
Originally launched as: "How to have a successful career in music while surviving the nightlife"
For Love and Health of House (FLHH) is a mental health event concept built by Connect2Progress.
It's an interactive space where people in the electronic music industry stop pretending the industry norms haven't touched them. A place to learn actual coping skills, how to hold a hard conversation, how to set a boundary that sticks, to protect the mental health of creators, artists, crew, and executives alike.
FLHH works because it combines industry insight, coaches, music professionals, real physical and emotional experiences, and direct interaction with the people who actually show up to clubs, raves, and festivals.
The structure
Straight talk on addiction and recovery, burnout prevention, mental health, and what a healthy professional relationship in this industry even looks like. Voices from across the electronic music scene, plus specialized coaches: the struggles, the wins, the how and the why. A core focus: teaching management how to actually support creators, and creators how to work with management.
Sessions built specifically around what women in this industry carry: unequal pay, having to prove it twice as hard, navigating harassment and innuendo just to do the job.
Somatic and Mind-Body Workshops including Breathwork, Techno Yoga, Cacao Ceremonies, Sound Healing, and Qi Gong. Real-time proof that the body can pull itself out of stress, anxiety, or freeze mode. Not theory, felt in the room.
On-site coaching and 12-step meetings, alongside theatre and sober celebration.
This event is steady at its core yet evolves every year, finding new ways to turn mess into message, to bring vulnerability, open-mindedness, and lived experience to the front.
Always interactive. Always open to collaboration. It comes from a collective love for house. That's where the name comes from, and that's what it stays true to.
Municipal governments, the industry, and local communities trust the way Connect2Progress runs a project. Here's the receipts.
2022
Pilot event: How to have a successful career in music while surviving the nightlife.
2023–Present
Three consecutive years and counting in ADE's official Friends and Partners program with For Love and Health of House.
2024–2026
Government grant awarded: public funding to design and run two community health events in Amsterdam's Diamantbuurt. Commissioned directly by the Municipality of Amsterdam to run the official kick-off for these regional public budget initiatives.
2026
Invited onto the founding board of the official Buurtplatform Diamantbuurt.
Work in progress
The For Love and Health of House Foundation, currently in development.
Michèle Kelder
Turning pain into empathy for others.
Connect2Progress and FLHH were founded by Michèle Kelder in 2022.
Michèle is an Addiction Counselor who's been part of the electronic music scene since the late 1980s. Early house parties, the RoXY, underground warehouse raves: her heart was hooked on house music from the get-go. Years spent living the culture from the inside, eventually working as an event photographer at everything from small underground parties to large-scale festivals. A career her own addiction drowned before it truly had the chance to take off.
In recovery since July 2018. A few weeks into rehab, she knew she wanted to give other people what she was getting: freedom from the constant need to escape her own life. She saw the opportunity to turn her pain into empathy for others.
Three years into her sobriety, she completed a full HBO-accredited training as an addiction specialist and counselor. Two weeks after graduating, she was working within a specialized care team at AMSTA, supporting people coming in through the justice system with addiction issues, and advising the multidisciplinary team on complex cases.
At the same time, a spark turned into a flame: to recover out loud, inside the music industry. That's what launched Connect2Progress and its first pilot event. It grew into a full annual program, multiple panels and workshops. Eventually, she left AMSTA to focus fully on building Connect2Progress.
People have been coming to Michèle for the hard conversations her whole life, long before it was a job. Connect2Progress is that instinct turned into a profession, helping organisations, workforces, and creative people make change that actually sticks.
Again and again, people find themselves telling Michèle things they never expected to say out loud. Not because she has all the answers, but because they feel seen without being judged. And that's where change begins.
She doesn't believe in telling people how they should live or work. She believes lasting change starts when people are able to see their situation differently and make their own decisions from there.
This is where her personal and professional path has landed: turning her pain into empathy for others, ensuring that high-achieving professionals can survive and thrive without losing themselves.
Let's have the conversation that needs to happen.
Whether you are an industry professional seeking a safe space, an organisation looking to collaborate, or interested in a Deep Dive or an event partnership.
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New events, services and genuinely useful updates. Only when there's something worth sending.