About
I could write you a list of my accomplishments, strengths, and accolades, but instead I want to tell you a few stories.
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given [to] you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
Rainer Maria Rilke
Prologue: A little bit about me
Despite having the expertise, I avoided building this website for years. My main resistance was fear – I was afraid that if I truly revealed who I am and what I feel called to do with my life, people would judge me or worse, they would be confused.
For over a decade, I’ve run a web development business, I’ve led educational programs for thousands of people on topics like preventing burnout and creating new habits, I’ve coached leaders going through major work and life transitions, and closest to my heart, I’ve been passionate about exploring spirituality and the mysteries of life. For a long time, these parts felt too disparate and some too vulnerable to wrap into a coherent narrative that could describe who I am or what I do.
I’m proud to say, I no longer feel this way. I am still all these things – a coach, trainer, adjunct professor, business owner, men’s work leader, breathwork facilitator, and lifelong seeker.
The difference is I see the diversity of my work/life experience as my secret sauce and ultimately, it’s all in service of a simple intention – I help people more fully embrace and express who they really are.
My intention for my website is to share more of my wholeness and humanness so that I can inspire and resonate with people like you who want to be and express more of who you really are in your work and everyday life.
You can get to know my work through my offerings – coaching, training and courses, but if you want to get to know my heart and soul, I’d like to share a few more stories.
Part I - Heartbreak and Grace
When I was 19 years old, I felt on top of the world – I was attending the top business school in Canada, I was voted class rep for student council, and I was the only second-year from my school to land a final round interview for a summer internship with Proctor and Gamble (P&G).
Days before the interview, my girlfriend dumped me and I was heartbroken. Then, I completely bombed the interview and got rejected from the job.
At the time, it seemed like terrible timing and the worst luck imaginable. However, that summer, I landed a job with Apple, started a web design business, and met the most influential mentor of my life – none of this would have happened if I got that summer internship. This is an example of the mystery of life.
This kind of pattern has continued to emerge in different periods of my life during burnout, career setbacks, health issues, heartbreak and bereavement. It’s these moments when life throws you a curveball and you wonder, “WTF did I do to deserve this?”
However, as life unfolds following these events, if we’re willing to look and act with intention, the dots mysteriously connect, and we can see a more beautiful path that has emerged. It’s a pattern I’ve seen in my life and others, and part of my gift is to help people connect the dots through these periods of challenge and uncertainty.
What I have now learned is that any time ‘tragedy’ strikes – we lose a job, we get injured, a major client fires us, a relationship ends, or we fail at an important goal – a window of opportunity emerges.
Typically we’re quick to close it down as we get caught in a negativity spiral, busywork distraction, or numbing behaviours.
However, if we’re able to stay open to possibility and curiously work our way through these challenging periods, it can be transmuted into a golden opportunity for personal growth, deep meaning, and positive impact. It often acts as a bridge to what’s next in our work and lives.
Part II - Burnout to Breakthrough
After I finished university, I started a new web design business with two of the smartest friends I knew. At first, I was filled with energy and enthusiasm, and I worked hard to bring in clients and do good work.
However, after a year or so, I started to lose steam for this business. Part of it was that the work itself didn’t excite me but really how I worked was draining me – I often worked alone at home, I gave up a lot of my hobbies and activities to prioritize work, I was avoidant and didn’t know how to address conflicts with my co-founders, and I didn’t have a clear vision of where my life was heading.
If you had asked me honestly, I wanted out, but I didn’t see any path except to continue moving forward. This persisted for another year until I completely burned out.
I wasn’t just physically tired, I was emotionally, mentally, and spiritually depleted. I went to see a doctor, and he said I have depression, anxiety and ADHD. I was shocked, ‘how did I let it get this bad?’ I was offered medication to treat these ‘conditions’, and then I had a realization – something fundamental is missing, and I don’t want to take medication to tolerate an intolerable situation.
Instead, I chose to work on developing new habits – I changed my diet, I started new exercise routines, I dove into meditation, and I explored more sustainable ways of working.
What I discovered was that I could create new habits through my own efforts. This inspired me to co-create the The Habit Course. Fast forward to today, I have led dozens of Habit Courses with thousands of students from around the world as young as sixteen and as old as eighty five with incredible testimonials of the impact of this work.
This experience was another example of a total personal and professional breakdown that got transformed into an opportunity of personal growth and purpose.
However, this time I felt like I had more agency – I wasn’t just going to be a victim to my circumstances and wish for the best. It was an experience of what Parker Palmer describes as realizing ‘the life I’m living is not the same as the life that wants to live in me’ and then taking deliberate action towards a new direction that was calling me from within.
Even though the path now seems obvious in hindsight, I could not see it at the time, and frankly, it would not have helped me to be given ‘the answers’ about the ‘right path’ to take.
In the spirit of Rilke, I had to truly ‘live the questions’ and let the mystery of my life unfold while still being an active participant. I have one more story to share.
Part III - Mystery Unfolding
In the spring of 2022, I decided to take my first ‘mini-sabbatical’ by going to the Bahamas for three months with my partner. We had an incredible first month of adventure and fun exploring the ocean, but then I got a phone call from back home – one of my best friends was killed in a freak car accident.
I was devastated, and thought ‘how could this happen again?’ My mentor and my childhood best friend had already passed in the previous six years, and now it was happening again – the shock, confusion, disbelief, anger, and sadness.
I flew home two days later, and dived into a role I did not realize my whole life was preparing me for – nurturing individual and collective grief. This period was both the most challenging of my life and by far the most meaningful.
I felt a sense of purpose I had never felt before. I connected with myself, my community and spirit at a level I did not know was possible. I could feel the presence of my friends and family who had passed everywhere. I knew exactly how to be, what to do and what to say – I was in total flow or wu wei.
It made me later come to the realization that I’m meant to be a death walker (definition: the sacred role of accompanying the dying). Now that might sound like an odd archetype for a coach and trainer, but actually it’s part of my secret sauce.
I don’t (yet) work with those confronting literal death, but I do work with people facing ‘death and rebirth’ cycles throughout their lives – shedding layers of themselves that are inauthentic and supporting them in the exploration of the unknown and uncharted waters of their human potential so that something more whole and beautiful can emerge.
This is the reality of change and transformation at every level – individually, relationally, in teams, within communities, and across global systems.
When we sense change is upon us, something first needs to die and be released before the ground can be prepared for something new to emerge. We often want to skip the death and letting go part and end up piling on more of that which doesn’t serve us.
Death and endings seem scary and something we should avoid at all costs, but it’s a necessary part of living life to the fullest. It’s like the winter season. It can be surprisingly nurturing, like sitting by the fire on a cold evening, and it is a prerequisite for sustainable growth, beauty and wholeness.
It also does not mean total loss. From my experience, even when death happens literally or metaphorically, the essence of what was remains with us forever, it just changes form. What emerges from embracing natural death and rebirth cycles is clarity and freedom – to see what really matters and who we really are so that we can be it.
If you sense change is knocking at your door, I understand the fear and uncertainty you’re feeling. I love working with people like yourself who are ready to move forward into the unknown. It doesn’t take monumental courage like you see depicted in the movies – just a willing curiosity to start to explore questions like “How might I” and “What could I?”
This work is my calling, and I’m honoured to be able to share it with you. Thank you for reading my stories, and I look forward to getting to know yours.
Acknowledgements
I want to express gratitude for the people in my life who inspire and enable me to do my work, including my partner, family, friends, colleagues, clients, students, mentors, ancestors, and those who I have yet to meet, including you.
I want to express gratitude to the Squamish, Tsleil-waututh and Musqueam First Nations for being stewards of the lands that I get to live on. I’m also grateful for the people who are trying to reconcile the wrongs of the past while trying to make Canada and the world a better place for everyone to enjoy and thrive.
Ready to dive in?
Let’s start with a conversation.