A few years ago, a friend of mine casually suggested I should “pop round and see his place.”

As with so many good intentions, life got in the way. Then came the lockdowns, and the world shifted dramatically before gradually settling into what we now call the “new normal.” Fortunately, the invitation was extended again — and six years after that first suggestion, I finally boarded the Eurostar to France and made my way across the border into Belgium to visit The Apple Chapel, created by my friend, colleague, and constant source of inspiration: Peter Hinssen.

In 2019, Peter bought a disused chapel in East Flanders and transformed it into a personal shrine to Apple — an astonishing, curated archive of the company’s innovation journey. Inside, everything from the earliest Macs to the latest iPhones is carefully displayed throughout the sacred space.

During the COVID lockdowns, Peter turned the chapel into something even more dynamic: a live-streaming studio and digital classroom. It became a creative hub for virtual webinars, interactive learning, and strategic thinking — all set against the backdrop of Apple’s physical legacy. Today, the Apple Chapel doubles as a venue for intimate gatherings, discreet leadership seminars, and bold conversations about the future of technology. It’s a place that bridges past and future — grounded in tactile history but built for imaginative possibility.

The chapel itself is stunning. What made the visit even more special was having Peter personally guide me through the collection. True to form, he also gifted me a copy of his latest book, The Uncertainty Principle — a thoughtful, energising playbook for navigating turbulent times.

In it, Peter speaks of “active hope”, a mindset for leaders that reframes disruption not as doom but as a prompt for reinvention. He encourages us to see the “cracks in the system” not as threats, but as windows of opportunity — openings for innovation and transformation. This is no naive optimism: the book acknowledges the dystopian forces at play. But it insists that we ride the waves of the “Never Normal” rather than drown in the undertow of despair.

If hope can be strategic, and vision grounded, The Uncertainty Principle is both. And if ever there was a space that embodies that philosophy, it’s the Apple Chapel — past and future held together in the hands of someone who’s never stopped thinking forward.

PS: A short video here about the Apple Chapel filmed in June 2025. Thanks to Peter for the tour!