Better Than Sporting a Moustache
Written by: Melanie Groves; Metamorphosis Healing
Movember: the month to honour men in support of male cancers and, as I recently found out, support in male mental health and suicide awareness. I can’t grow a moustache, so instead, I will honour Movember in this week’s discussion by doing something a little bit differently and presenting to you a great male figure by way of interview.
Before we dive into the who and the questions, I feel you may need a bit of extra context on my choice. As I’ve talked about often, I found my passion and my calling in energy healing in the midst of a crisis in my family life. My son was only 4 years old at the time he started exhibiting his rare seizure disorder. As parents, we struggled to find answers and help when the medical system deemed him a difficult case with “nothing left to try”. Since then, I have been striving to help other families by sharing openly what we’ve learned about alternative holistic supports, about CBD oil and about getting supports at school. I am super passionate about kids’ wellbeing which is why I am involved with the Children’s Wellness Conference of Canada and more recently, became co-founder of Circle the Child. Circle the Child is an online community where practitioners, therapists, educators, coaches and parents alike come together to talk about solutions for tackling wellness issues facing kids. And in comes where I found my feature interview.
Eric Bastien is a father, husband, and a passionate voice in the Circle the Child community. He is also a Transformational Life Coach at his company called Be Your Best Self Coaching. So now that I have your attention, on to the highlights of the interview.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about what you do?
A: Here’s my 8-second elevator speech: My name is Eric and I am a Transformational Life Coach. I help people go from a good life to a great life in 12 weeks. [blogger’s note: Ok you have my attention now]
I approach it from a spiritual angle. I help people create visions for themselves, I help them to find their purpose. Then I help them focus on the vision, the dream that they want and help them materialize it. It’s about manifesting, and more important than that, it is who you become in the process. It’s about using our mental and creative faculties, envisioning what you want and bringing it into existence. Napoleon Hill’s quote sums it up perfectly “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
Q: When did you know that life coaching was your calling? What inspired you to make the change from corporate to entrepreneur?
A: There was a defining moment in my life that motivated me to become a coach. But first a little backstory. My parents divorced when I was 2. I moved from Québec to Toronto with my mom at the age of 4. My mom gave me everything she could. Her dream for me was to finish school, get a degree, a good job, and start a family. Her dream came true. I completed a BA in Geography at Western. Being bilingual, I found jobs in finance, insurance, call centres, and worked for our Federal government. I worked for the CRA as a tax auditor. About 6 years ago, I found myself in a boardroom by myself surrounded by 15-20 boxes of papers and receipts from the company I was auditing. I looked around and thought “How did I end up in this job?” This was my defining moment.
I am an extrovert. I love people, and yet I ended up doing this super introverted job. At the time there were a lot of cuts, the work environment felt like it was all about getting employees to do more for less, with micromanagement as the dominant leadership style. It left me feeling disempowered, unmotivated and dissatisfied. I asked myself “Is this what I am meant to be doing?”
That’s when I started asking bigger questions to the universe. I started to have a relationship with my higher power. I got thirsty for knowledge.
I saw the movie The Secret, where I was first introduced to the Law of Attraction. I started reading personal development books. Some of my favourites include:
- Think and Grow Rich – Napoleon Hill
- The Science of Getting Rich – Wallace D Wattles (it’s about abundance in all kinds of ways. We are co-creators in this universe and have the capacity to create what we want)
- You2 – Price Pritchett
- The Power of Decision – Raymond Charles Barker
Through my reading, I discovered the Universal Laws and a career called Life coaching. I researched different mentors and programs and found the Life Mastery Institute. Mary Morrissey is the founder and she has been studying this area for 45 years. She is my Mentor. I quit my job. I didn’t have any money so I used the money from my future pension and went to LA and became certified as a Life Mastery Consultant.
Q: What advice would you give someone who is looking to start a “helping career”?
A: To learn to accept and be okay with failure. It is a part of being an entrepreneur: you need to fail to have success.
Focus is another area to consider. At first, right after my certification, I was excited and passionate and I wanted to help everybody. I very quickly realized that wasn’t practical and had to narrow my focus and become clear on who my client target group was.
For anyone who wants to make the transition from a soul-sucking to a soul-giving career, it is really important to stay in gratitude for everything that you are experiencing. Honour and respect that. Don’t jump ship right away. Take time to reflect and understand yourself to find your passion and vision.
I am doing this work because I found my passion, or rather my passion pulled me in. I am meant to do this work.
It’s exciting to witness the transformation that occurs in people when they decide their passion. Many people are caught in the rat race, they are stuck. If you can create the life of your dreams in your mind, you can achieve it. You have the power, you simply have to believe and incorporate the Universal Laws into your life.
And there you have it, folks. My first interview under wraps. I will say I enjoyed our conversation and was energized after it. Eric truly loves what he does and his passion shows.
Don’t just take it from me. Learn more about Eric on how you can Be Your Best Self (see what I did there), from his website and follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. If you are close to Milton, Ontario you can also check him out live this coming January at the Milton Chamber of Commerce event being held on January 15th where he will be leading a Vision workshop as part of the Milton Young Professionals Learning Series.
