What does it take to be a good father? What will my kids remember when I am long gone?

We’re about to celebrate my daughter’s eleventh birthday and my sixty-first birthday. I can honestly say that these past four years of my life have been the richest I have ever known.

It’s early morning in my coaching studio. My daughter is in our bed with my wife. My in-laws are downstairs in her room. My son is sleeping in his room. I’m reflecting on the joy I have in sharing all I have learned, all I have created, and really coming to an understanding of why I spend time with mentors and coaches, to help me become an infinite, peaceful version of myself. One that, even when the surface waters of annoyance, anger, and frustration hit, can access the common peace within. That common peace allows for joy in the smallest of moments.

Don’t get me wrong. My home is not always the land of milk and honey. My son is 13 and loves to tease his sister. His love taps often land harder than he means them to. My daughter is sly, and she can cause a reaction with a Cheshire Cat grin. There are multiple “he said, she said, Daddy!!” incidents a day.

When my kids are bickering. When things seem tumultuous. I can tap into the lightness of life.

Taking my daughter to her dance class. Asking her questions and listening to her. Picking her up seven hours later. Listening to the joy of the friends she is making, the moves she is learning, the realization that she’s not a little girl anymore. But we laugh and we joke.

Walking with my son to the basketball courts. Him dribbling as we walk and talk. Me asking him how he feels about going to high school. Telling him I can’t wait for his basketball qualifications, to see him get into Cobra Black, to watch his practices and his games, to go for lunch.

These moments are easily missed if I’m not careful.

In my recent coaching conversations, a theme has come up over and over: the lightness of being within relationship with our spouses, our families, our world. How easy it is to become heavy in the day-to-day minutiae, in the day-to-day distraction of life.

The lateness of my life I’m speaking to is this: giving space to my wife and kids in a way that’s not possible unless I process my own emotions first. My feelings about what’s going on in my business, the world, my propensity to find things not being right. I face those on my own, so I have the space to be with them.

I remember my life even a decade ago. I was being coached on how to be patient with my young, rambunctious son, and facing my fears, worries, and stress of how I was going to support my family with my new coaching business.

In a few minutes my wife will be waking up. I heard her alarm. I’ll have my latte ready and she’ll have her americano. We’ll sit and talk, before the day begins.

This is the journey I am on. This is the work I was meant to do in this world.

Out of nowhere, she said, “I think you’re just not that into me.”

I smiled and kind of giggled. I asked her what this was all about.

We just finished having breakfast. Our morning cafe au lait, brewed on the stovetop, Moka, tamago gohan — raw egg on rice with soy sauce. It was our morning routine. She was working at a five star hotel. She got home late every night. I was doing freelance consulting, so I came home late as well. I'd meet her at the station and we would walk home together, often stopping at an izakaya for a beer and some good Japanese bites. We would wash up, go to sleep around 1:00AM, and wake up at 10:00AM. This was our Shinagawa Seaside life. After breakfast we usually were laughing, getting ready to go to the gym.

Today was different. Not tense, or tepid, I think my slight laughter and giggle tempered the situation, and I was genuinely curious as to what was going on. I thought things were going great.

She looked at me rather seriously and said that she had been reading this book called He’s Just Not That Into You. I rolled my eyes in my head and wondered what kind of a book this was. I let her continue. She told me that lately, it seemed we were heading in two different directions. I nervously held my breath, as I was really enjoying our life together in Tokyo. I loved my freedom. I loved that we both had work that was meaningful and fun. I loved that we got to spend one full day a week together. I was stunned that there was something within her that had her desiring more, and she’d been laying subtle hints and some not so subtle hints of her need to know where this was all going.

In my mind, we were already there. This was everything I could have wanted after years of stress and unhappiness, chained to a desk, a flight of stairs, and a shop floor where millions of decisions were raging in my head. I finally had the space and canvas of Tokyo to fully express myself. I had time to sit in cafes and read books by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Eckhart Tolle, and Wayne Dyer, and I had time to really think about and meditate on what I really wanted to do for this world, who I wanted to be in this world.

For some reason, even back then, in my very unenlightened self, I kept my mouth quiet, and I listened to what she had to say. And when she pressed for an answer, I looked at her and smiled and said, I don’t know. We left it at that. I went to the gym. Pressed the weights hard. Ran the indoor track. Enjoyed the hot tub, the sento, the cold plunge. And when I got back home, we had lunch.

One lesson I learned in my starter marriage was that holding on to grievances and upset was not going to help me — or us. Arguing in the moment was not going to help me. Ignoring what she was trying to say was also not going to help me. I told her I would think about it. I told her I would try to understand. And in that instant, it seemed enough.

Over the weeks and months, not much more was said about me not being that into her. I'm not sure what happened on her side. I know I became more attentive on my side. We continued our Tokyo life. And although it was lovely and fun, it was really a fantasy, a beautiful one at that. I began to imagine what a life with my queen would be like — one where we built it and started a family.

It was fun while it lasted. My musing and enjoyment came to an abrupt end when my visa was not renewed, and I had to uproot my Tokyo dream life in less than seventy days. Looking back, I realized I liked the thought of it more than actually committing to it. That was the moment that the realness of the statement you’re just not that into me became real.

It was during those seventy days that my wife came to me with what was really on her heart and mind. She told me she really wanted a family, and since I was leaving, this was the moment to be honest with myself about whether I really wanted kids.

Oddly I didn’t feel any pressure. I didn’t feel any sense of urgency. It was more a sense of knowing. I went home to Vancouver and spent three months alone, reflecting and meditating on where I was in my life. One path was staying the same course, floating in a life that was wonderful. The other was choosing to fully embody the expression of who I am. And choosing that meant reinventing my life, my business, and really choosing what mattered to me.

I asked her to marry me on the shores of Poipu Beach on Kauai.

Fast forward to now. We just celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. We had a week of long days and nights alone together while our kids were staying at their grandparents’ house.

We had dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. We biked in the Vancouver sunshine. We had sushi. It felt so much like our days in a 21 square metre studio apartment in Tokyo years ago.

Not much has changed between us, the most significant difference is the richness of our life. We don’t have coffee brewed on a Moka with tamago gohan. We sit in the early mornings with a latte in my hand and an americano in hers. Now we talk about what her future as a woman looks like. What her hopes and dreams are as our kids are growing up and needing her less as they become more independent. Our son’s heading into high school, our daughter into grade six. We imagine what it is that she wants to do in her world. What lights her up. What our life together will be like in a decade, and how much fun we are going to have getting there.

Oh, and before I come out as looking flawless, living a storybook marriage, during our anniversary week together, my wife and I had an argument and I could not even recall what the argument was about. I don’t even know if it was an argument, but it was definitely a disagreement. In my starter marriage a disagreement led to an argument that led to weeks of not speaking. Instead of an ideal marriage, I am in a relationship where everything is on the table. We have disagreements and we have lots of time to work them out. I don’t want a picture-perfect life, or a Hallmark Romance marriage. I want what I want.

I told myself long ago that if I would remarry one day, I would have to fall in love with my wife over and over again. Fortunately my wife makes that easy to do.

My wife and kids are coming back from Japan in two days. They have spent a month there. I have spent 8 days in quiet contemplation of what it means to be a husband who loves his wife and lays his life down for them. Who loves his kids and gives all he has for them.

It almost didn’t happen. If you ask Kanako, she would say there was a 98% chance it wouldn’t happen.

The moments after that call on January 3rd hit me like a brick. A vacuum swallowed up my heart like a black hole swallows up worlds. Just like that, the woman I loved was gone, and I created that. I immediately closed my blinds and sat huddled in my apartment. I turned off my phone, I breathed into my heart and I grieved.

These were the beginnings of the darkest journey I had ever taken. They were the commencement of me finally coming to grips with the way I had turned out in life. Successful by chance, living but dead.

I remember it took me about a month to call Dr. Bea. When I did, we spent hours processing the grief that squeezed me tight like a giant boa constrictor. It was deep, gentle work. I used all my spare time reading, meditating, and contemplating why things turned out the way they did. Around that time Eckhart Tolle had just written a book called A New Earth and was doing a ten-week webcast course with Oprah Winfrey. I would never have considered joining something like this six months earlier — or if my ex-wife had not given me a copy of that book. I had no idea what Eckhart was talking about. Listening to him speak gave me a sense of peace.

I would see when Kanako was on MSN Messenger. I never tried to reach out to her. There was nothing to say.

During these months I worked in my company. I spent weekends by myself. I became the man who I am now in those six months. Determined to be the man who lived life fully, not the man who floated life by.

My work with Bea helped me through this time of renewal and growth. I remember asking her if there was a way I could win Kanako back. She was finishing her course and would be starting full-time work soon, and I wanted to see her before she did. Bea asked, “Why don’t you write her an invitation?”

So I did. It took two months to get to her. This is a novel in and of itself. If you would like to hear this part, reach out and I will share it with you. All I know is that those two months shifted something inside of me. I sent the invitation and gift without expectation.

Then I got this.

Ciao gaby

I finaly got your gift!!!
Thank you so much and you know my taste!! these clothes are so cool:) i loved it!
your invitaion made me laugh, did you make it all of them?? i didnt know you can make like this.

I know it is perfect time to go to Vancouver, but i should start a work.
because i need to live by myself asap and have to make money ne.
i am still thinking about it, though...
I know we should see and talk at some point...

I am so tired, so i go to bed now.
2 more days till quit my work:)

Have a wonderful day!

Within a month she was back with me in Vancouver. I marvelled at how I had changed. I was amazed at the woman she had become. We laughed, reminisced, and spoke with an honesty we had not yet shared up until that moment. She was clear. She came with a message.

If I wanted to be with her, I had to move to Japan.

Within a moment I said yes. Within a day I began making it happen. I enrolled in a TESOL course at UBC. I hired someone to replace me in the day-to-day operations at Mahler Industries. Within six weeks I had moved to Tokyo to be with my queen.

Those two years together gave me my life back. What seemed so much like the Japanese romantic comedies I love became the foundation for the life I live now. Instead of working for a school, I freelanced as an English coordinator. I made cool things happen with cool people. I used English as a context to find out what they really wanted in their lives. I had clients at NHK Tokyo who wanted to change the nature of the entertainment industry in Japan, the VP of Banana Republic who wanted sizing for the Japanese market — not western hand-me-downs — and lawyers and doctors who had little time for themselves, let alone for making their dreams come true. We did that though.

My business model of today came from those two years rebuilding my dream in Tokyo.

This all leads me to the now.

When those two years in Tokyo were over, Kanako told me a truth.

“I am almost 28 and I want kids. You say you want kids but I’m not sure that you do. Please take time to choose kids because you want them. Don’t choose kids so I will stay with you. I love you, and I love me more. I want to be with you, but only if you want the future I want with you.”

I left Tokyo soon after that. I took the summer to decide. I went to Chiang Mai to meditate and to Bali to surf. I didn’t spend time agonizing over the decision and I didn’t waste time trying to think my way to an answer. If I stayed single I would have a comfortable life and probably would not have to work hard ever again. If I started a family I would have to reinvent myself and start over at 45. That reality does not make for an answer from the heart.

By the time I returned from Bali, my heart knew the answer. It harkened back to Kona, Hawaii, when the voice that came from my throat said “I want kids with you and I want a daughter to be called Kona.”

And just like that, I knew.

I invited Kanako to Hawaii. I bought a one-carat diamond ring at Tiffany Honolulu and asked her to marry me at sunset at Poipu Beach — the now home of my Flow Sessions.

She said yes.

For four hours.

The months that followed don’t serve this story. They were filled with highs and lows and daring action. What does serve is that my decision to have children had me become the man and mentor I am today. It is the lifeblood of why I hired Steve Hardison and worked with Steve Chandler before that.

I promised my wife a life that was incredible. One that was 180 degrees opposite of normal.

During that year I gave my life over to something greater than me. Some might call it God. Some may call it the universe.

The moment I did, my life became a positive adventure.

All the years I didn’t want kids gave me the working material to become the man that lives the life he chooses and creates.

In two days my Kanako, Koan, and Kona return. I love them with all my might and I lay my life down for them. I love spending time with them. I love listening to them and playing with them. I love this more than anything in the world. I love my wife and we still laugh and hug and joke and enjoy each other like we did on the day we met.

It was this one choice — to have kids because I wanted to — that created my now life.

I love my life. I love my business. I love mentoring people to finally have the courage to take the decisions they have been playing with, toying with for years, and to help them go for it.

I never wanted kids.

Until I did.

And I am glad I waited for the time when it was right.

This series is dedicated to my mentor Dr. Bea MacKay. Without her I would not have my now life. She was my first mentor and the person who gave me the courage to dream from a healed heart.

I remember it like yesterday. I finally had my dream home. After eight months of couch hopping, my wife at the time and I moved into our architectural masterpiece. Something had happened in those eight months for me. We decided to move into our parents’ homes until our new home was ready. At the time we thought it was for practical reasons — her parents’ home was close to her work and my parents’ home was near my business. Perhaps it was foreshadowing a future apart.

It was a gloomy December when we moved in. Instead of joy, I felt dread. The aliveness of the eight months prior brought the realization that this new home was more of a dungeon. I found out I enjoyed our time apart. We saw each other on weekends and it felt like it did when we were dating. Moving into our new home brought back old tensions and grievances. We didn’t fight, but we mostly kept to ourselves, which was easy to do because we had three floors to lead separate lives in. I was living in the ruins of my Paris life, as a ghost of my former self. Within six months, I moved out.

Around that time I met my first mentor, Dr. Bea MacKay. She is a Gestalt therapist my starter wife found to help us with our marriage. She didn’t like her. I did. I asked her what was wrong with her? She said “she is not on my side enough. I thought she was being fair and open. I continued seeing Bea weekly. I finally had someone I could open up to. Years of pent-up hurt, shame, and regret finally had a space to be expressed. Slowly, methodically, we processed emotions that had been kept under lock and key. I slowly became alive again.

It took time to regain the joy of my Paris life. I worked with Bea for stretches of a couple of months at a time, and then lived into my newfound hope for six to eight months, before diving deeper with Bea. I did as one does — dipping a toe at a time into a glacial lake.

I look back at those years between lives and see how they give me the insight, wisdom, and compassion I bring to my work as a mentor. They were not lost years or in-between years. They were tender years of heartbreak. And yet I could not hold back the power of desire for a new life.

It was during this time I decided to take the time to get to know myself. I sat with my coffee alone in the mornings and breathed into life. I met people, I read books that opened my heart and mind. I continued to work with Bea. More importantly I began to dream again. Oh, and I dated. A lot.

And then I met her.

I remember seeing her walk up to us on the day we met. She had a graceful air about her I had never seen before. She was beautiful.

I had never met someone as elegant and lovely as my Kanako. She had a subtle confidence that made her more desirable than any woman I had ever known. She had a wicked sense of humour and she was self-assured. We spent 18 months together. They were the most alive I had felt since I lived in Paris.

And then.

She moved back to Japan.

We met in Kona, Hawaii about three months after she moved back home to embark on her dream of becoming an aromatherapy massage therapist. It was a week of bliss. I remember standing by the ocean when she asked me if I wanted kids.

Immediately God took control of my vocal chords and I said “yes, I do. I want a girl and I want to call her Kona.”

We parted and that was that. She became busier and busier with work and school, and her calls became less frequent.

I panicked. I made a last-minute decision to meet her for four days over Christmas into New Year’s to shore up our relationship.

It was exciting and heartbreaking. I sensed she wanted more, and I had nothing more to give. I came back home defeated.

Then the phone call. January 3rd. I could not handle the uncertainty. I said I think we should break up.

She said “I think so too, and this is it.”

I remember hanging up the phone, gutted.

It was about to commence a six-month journey into darkness I had never known.

Ever.

Where We Left Off Grey years, a motel, a paper route, a faith that frightened me, and a sunset in Paris that changed everything. Here’s what came next.

Something cracked me open in those fourteen days in Paris.

We didn’t have much money and budgeted something like 30 French francs per day. Our newfound friend Eric worked for an agency within Gare du Nord. They found backpackers’ hotels and hostels at bargain prices. The only catch was each stay was limited to three nights. This meant we kept coming back to spend time with Eric, which was always fun. There was something about his easygoing French way that was both inviting and exciting. We walked everywhere, exploring everything.

On our travels, we met a very cute girl from Canada and told her how much we loved Paris. Her response lit a fire inside me. “If you like Paris for a week,” she said, “live here for a year.” It was as though she had put a key inside my locked-up heart and it clicked open. I now had a purpose to my life and began feeling hopeful again for the first time in a long time. I would live in Paris for a year.

I returned home, finished my degree with honours, and spent two years saving every dollar I could. There was a difference within me those two years. I was alive. The thing that held that aliveness was knowing I would go back, this time I would live there.

And I did. I lived in Paris for two years. I studied art history at the Sorbonne. I painted in an atelier. I travelled to Italy on cheap flights and lived La Dolce Vita with my friend Stefano in his wonderful town of Fermo. I fell in love with a delightful Spanish girl. It was my summer of love. For the first time in my life I was fully myself.

Then the phone calls started coming.

My parents somehow got hold of my thesis, hidden away in my desk at Mahler Industries — the one I left behind after I vowed to never return. They were about to buy a CNC machine from Japan. My mom called me daily. They wanted me to come back to the business to implement my thesis. After about thirty calls I relented. I said I would come back for six months.

Six months became sixteen years.

I don’t know why I did what I did, or why I chose the path I chose. Looking back, I see how I unconsciously created my future. Paris felt like a fantasy. At home I was bound by a sense of duty and obligation I had invented. I denied my own desires for individuality, creativity, and passion in exchange for the safety of having it all. I found myself an apartment in downtown Vancouver, bought a sports car with the good money I was earning, and started dating the woman who would become my first wife. Outwardly, I looked successful. On the inside I was withering away.

It took about a year for me to fall back into the doldrums of life in Vancouver.

Unable to fully connect with my wife, my parents, my staff, I created a lonely life for myself. I took on responsibility in my company that was not fully mine to bear. Over the years I am sure I became unbearable to my first wife. Somehow she put up with me, and so did the world. The sadness found me again. This time it was unforgiving. No one forced me into this dead zone. I brought it upon myself. There was no way I would ever want to force my sadness, and now my numbness on a child, let alone children. When I wasn’t at work I was thinking about work.

I was obsessed with work, on-time delivery, 100% quality, and looking good. By this I mean I fixated on results. I prided myself on getting things done: on time as promised, with zero defects, and took pride in our family name. I was on a collision course to an early permanent retirement — by this of course I mean death.

Fortunately my first wife and I made one powerful decision together early on. We both chose to not have kids. It was something we both knew. Perhaps it was that we knew we didn’t want kids with each other? This decision saved a mountain of hurt for us — and the kids we ended up not having.

I spent day after day existing.

We saved our money and put a down payment on our dream home, a three-level waterfront townhome in downtown Vancouver.

This was the beginning of the end.

Epilogue:

In Part Three of this story, I will share what finally shifted within me and changed my heart from sadness into being fully alive. Eventually I did choose to marry again and chose to create a family with my wife. My purpose in this trilogy is to illustrate how deeply sadness and hurt influenced my life, and how small choices broke me out of the chains of feeling broken.

Editor’s note: A quick hello from me, Karen Pery, Gary’s long term collaborator and friend. I have a unique vantage point of being in Gary’s life since he was a (second time) newlywed and young (at heart) father and knowing him as he is now.

We recently returned to a place we’d visited back in 2012. It was natural for us to compare who we were then to who we are now.

Gary has spoken about now being at the second summit of his life. Reflecting back, he acknowledged the fear that ran him in that era. What I see is a person who looked fear straight on and committed to facing it, decision by decision, even when those decisions gave him lessons and not blessings. He reminds me of the Japanese proverb, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”

We likened our personal, professional, emotional and spiritual growth to having a consistent gym routine. You don’t get stronger without doing the reps. There are no shortcuts. I’ve watched Gary transform without taking a single shortcut - in fact, he tends to go about doing things in the most rigorous ways.

There are no easy choices, but there are choices that align with the essence of your being that make the work worth it. I love that the next part of this story gives you the glimpse into the man Gary became that turned a life with Kanako, Koan and Kona into a dream that came true.

My last Substack post detailed a harsh 2 point loss for my son’s team last month. My son played that exact same team again this past weekend. They won by 29 points. My son shut down the 6’1” boy this time, scored on fast breaks off turnovers and rebounds, and hit a few three pointers. They lost one hard fought game and didn’t win the championship, but they had the best points differential of all the teams in the tournament.

I spent three full days with my son at his last four games of the season. Some of the best days of my life.

It was a weekend that 13 year old me could never imagine happening.

I never wanted to have kids.

Until I did.

The easy days of my childhood had dissolved into long swaths of grey sadness by the time I was 13. I think things started to turn for me the moment we packed all of our personal belongings into a van and travelled across Canada because the political climate in Quebec became untenable. There were six of us: my mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, my brother and I. We rushed that trip into 10 days that were nothing but a blur. My grandfather insisted on it. He was nervous and demanding like that. I hated every moment of that road trip. I was still grieving saying goodbye to all my friends in grade 8, knowing I would probably never see them again, all while cramped in a tight space with people I really did not want to be with.

At the end of that trip we had no home to come home to, my dad had no job to go to, and we ended holed up in a run down motel about 75 minutes outside of Vancouver. I had gone from carefree days in downtown Montreal to the grim township of Haney. I remember playing outdoor hockey on skates in the winter and skateboarding like it was endless summer in California as soon as the snow melted. Somehow life at that broken down motel led to boring days of doing nothing that grey summer. The first day of school didn’t offer much hope either. It rained like a typhoon and it seemed as if it didn’t stop until spring of the next year. No wonder they called it Rainy Haney.

My parents had become born again Christians a few years earlier. I guess I did too, but I didn’t give it another thought until we arrived in BC. As soon as we arrived we tried out a new church every Sunday. One Sunday it was a Pentecostal church where people danced and shouted in tongues. We left that one abruptly and never set foot there again. Another Sunday we went to an Anglican church, and then a huge Baptist one, before we ended up at an offshoot of that big one. The people at this church were nice enough but they were clear with me that unless I committed my life fully to Jesus, I was in for a dark eternity.

Once I understood the depth of the commitment I would need to keep out of hell, I decided to really try at being a Christian. Unfortunately for me, my understanding was influenced by the rigid doctrine, and quickly I began to see how lacking I was as a young man. I almost immediately began to have thoughts that were not edifying, and had me constantly fear I was going to hell.

I had always made friends easily in school. Grade nine was different. I missed my friends from Montreal deeply and did not want to get hurt again. It didn’t help that I had gone from grade six to a new junior high school, and switched schools again for grade eight. By the time I entered Maple Ridge Secondary School for grade nine, I just didn’t want to bother to get to know anybody. By default I hung out with kids from my church and was almost immediately ostracized. The other kids weren’t mean, but they just assumed I was a bible thumper. I had no reprieve at school, none at church and none at home. After a few months of that I began to swear and go back to how I used to be when we lived in Montreal. It was my only form of rebellion. People let me in, and yet I still kept things at a very surface level.

Grade nine to grade twelve were some of the saddest times of my life. I just felt like giving up. I worked four days a week, saved money for university, went through the motions, pretended to be happy and put on the mask of nice. I was nice at church. I was nice to my friends. I was nice to girls. I was nice to my parents.

I remember we didn’t have much money at all. In grade 10 my dad had to take a paper route delivering the Vancouver Province newspaper to 350 homes in his car to keep food on the table. I was the de facto delivery boy that put papers into mail slots. I remember the shame I felt when we arrived at a house at 3:30am and my classmate Bobby Shafer answered the door. It was his paper route we were taking over. He said something like “Lucky for you that your dad is helping you with this beast of a paper route! I wish my dad would have helped me.” I could not tell him we were so poor it was my dad’s paper route. We did that up until I graduated high school.

By the time grade 12 was ending, my dad and I decided to start a business together. I needed a job to pay for my upcoming years at university and my family were building a new home at the time. Somehow they had scraped enough money for a down payment by my dad renting machine time at a machine shop and making knick knacks out of brass which he sold out of a briefcase. Although we didn’t have money we were always industrious. We worked 14 hour days that summer. I was glad to leave behind the paper route, but working a lathe and milling machine in the heat of summer, 6 days a week, left little time for enjoyment. I remember working behind those machines gave me a lot of time to think. I didn’t think many good thoughts, most induced despair.

For some reason I chose a Christian university for my academic career. It was closer to home and much smaller than UBC and SFU. The only downside was that it was very expensive. I stayed on campus that year. I was excited to experience campus life and be with real Christians. Unfortunately my naiveté and desire met the harsh reality of the real world. I felt the sting of hypocrisy and bullying in my dorm. I could not believe that I was actually desiring my old high school days. I remember really wanting to fit in once and for all. I remember not being good enough for the super Christians, and too goody-goody for the rebels.

My brother and I planned a trip to the UK the summer between my first and second years of university. I hated the Christian university so much that I decided to transfer to Simon Fraser University and switch my major to business. This meant that I didn’t have to save up as much money for the year because I was going to take a reduced course load and SFU cost about half of Trinity Western. This meant that I could afford go to Europe for six weeks. I was 18 and my brother was 16.

We landed in England on a rainy June late afternoon. We found a hostel in Golders Green. We hated it. We decided to trade in our Brit Rail pass for a Eurail pass, and were on the Hovercraft to France the next day.

I remember hitting Gare du Nord later that day, and meeting one of my best friends Eric Josselin. Eric worked at an agency that found hostels for backpackers. He immediately found us the best hotel for the least amount of Francs. He was the first nice person we met on that trip.

We dropped our backpacks at the room, and I remember taking the metro and seeing the Eiffel Tower at sunset.

This was the first glimmer of joy I had experienced in almost five years.

No wonder I didn’t want kids.

Until I did.

to be continued

It is not what happens that creates the mood of your day. It is what you think with and do with what happens that creates the flavour of your day.

Are you living life or thinking about how you feel about it?

Last weekend my son had a Championship tournament. It was the big one. Up to that point they had been undefeated. They dominated game one and game two. Everyone expected them to cruise to victory in game three. Somehow the opposing team in game three came in scrappy and hungry. By half time the score was 6-4 for the opposing team. This is not a basketball score. It is more of a hockey score. Both teams were strong on defence. By the fourth quarter my son’s team was ahead by ten. Things were looking up. Last minute of play they were up by four. The clock read 52 seconds. The ref stops the play and puts the clock back to one minute. Within 40 seconds the opposing team hits a three pointer. Time out. We have the ball, we are going in. Mid-court pass by one of our team — interception and another three pointer by the opponents at the last seconds of play. My son’s team loses a hard fought game 51-49. Heartbreak.

The boys were in shock. The opposing team jubilant.

After the congratulatory handshake and debrief with his coach, I walked slowly with my son through the halls of Saint Michael’s University School. Just the two of us. We came upon something we had missed earlier. This is the school where MVP Steve Nash went to high school. We looked at all of the NBA jerseys he had signed and the old photos of him as a student. I asked Koan, “how many heartbreaking losses do you think Steve Nash had on that exact court?” Koan replied, “probably lots.” We smiled and walked to the car.

I asked him what stung the most. He thought about it for a moment. He said, “I was playing against a boy who was almost 6 foot and I am barely hitting 5’8”. I played my heart out. I was calm, and he fouled out during the fourth quarter. I was finally free of him. I should have used that freedom more powerfully. We might have won.”

I didn’t say much to him the rest of the walk or on the way to the ferry. Koan was pretty quiet on that ride. I could see he was sitting with what he said. Once we were on the ferry his mood changed. He was hungry. (always a good sign) He met a lot of his teammates at the cafeteria and they were immediately cheery, laughing, and having fun. Somehow the opposing team were at tables right next to them. I could see them conversing and fist pumping.

I am amazed at how my son is learning how to process difficult emotions and situations. How he finds a way to work with his situations instead of being held captive by them.

Are you living life or thinking about how you feel about it?

What if you are not as broken as you think you are?

Read that again.

If you’re as broken as you think you are, you need to be fixed.

You are a problem to be solved.

If you’re broken, you’re living from an outdated version of yourself. I’m not saying you don’t have to deal with and process trauma. That’s a given. We’re human. I’m saying once it’s done, it’s gone. If it gets pressed on again, rinse and repeat. Processing emotions beats ruminating about them every time.

I spent my late twenties and thirties immersed in sadness. Rumination was my pastime. It was the heartache of a life. I figured out in my forties that it was a joke and I didn’t need it anymore. I began learning about my emotions instead of managing them. I felt them instead of psychoanalyzing them. This gave me the strength and courage to disassemble the life I had just allowed to happen and created my life from there. Forty to sixty — the proof is in the pudding.

I used to think that mastery meant knowing. I read all the book…

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When it gets as awful as it can get, we can then create with all the power we have.

I remember the most uncomfortable coaching session I have ever experienced as if it happened yesterday. Up until that point I thought I had overcome the prickly parts of myself and my past. Life gave me a rude awakening. It was not one of my finest moments. It was 2020 - right before Covid hit the world hard.

It had been a hellish morning. Both Air Canada and WestJet had changed several of my upcoming flights to Phoenix. I had to reschedule many of those flights for my sessions with Steve. Despite the frustration, I was proud of how calmly I handled the situation while speaking with representatives from both airlines. I remember wrapping up the last of the details as Steve was walking into the coaching shed.

Steve commenced our time together by letting me know that he had to reschedule a few of our sessions in the coming months. The exact sessions I had been working on for the past three plus hours. My countenance must have fallen, and Steve knew something was up. In fact, he immediately got in contact with Gary in 1997. The Gary that became upset every time there were production snags and quality problems at Mahler Industries!

Shit, I thought I had ditched that dick years ago!

I was fuming.

“This isn’t right,” I thought. Why is he wasting my time with scheduling bullshit during “MY” coaching session, where we should be working on my life, not moving around dates in our calendar? I was so angry that after spending hours making my new flight schedule work around our sessions, Steve was pulling the rug out from my feet. I felt like I had just eaten a ghost pepper.

All of this happened in a flash. I fell silent and morbid. Steve just let me stew.

We sat in quiet for 20 minutes. Steve smiling with eyes shining. Me furious. After what seems an eternity he smiled and said something like, “WOW, you’ve been having a hell of a time over there.”

I was. And I needed more time to just sit there. Fuming. We sat in quiet for some more. Suddenly I came back to my senses. I felt awful, ashamed, and bashful. Steve came to me and hugged me. All my hurt came out. All my insecurity around anger flowed like a river of tears.

I was ready to get to work.

Steve was upbeat and optimistic. “Gary, I am so thrilled we got to share this experience together! I got to see how you create your life when you are squeezed. I got to witness your ideas move you out of connection with yourself. It was truly inspiring. We have lots of wonderful stuff to create with!”

Somehow I could really feel the truth in his words.

I realized that I didn’t need everything in my life or my attitude to be perfect to make an instant shift. I was able to create a new way of being in an instant.

I was creating the distinction that “it ain’t nothing until I call it.”

The moment I label something, my energy aligns with that declaration. Nothing can bother me unless I decide it does. The moment we label something, we change how we experience, create, and live it. During the first hour of this session, I felt the impact of my own declaration. It was exhausting, uncomfortable, and diminishing.

Imagine a baseball game. The umpire decides whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. Imagine if you get to create the parameters of any event you experience in your life.

I chose to change the parameters of what disturbs me.

Life decided to put my learning to the test.

My wife and I were slated to get on our flight the day after my session with Steve. We found ourselves running late for the airport. I sat with my annoyance. I breathed into it. I began to play with everything Steve had taught me.

The highway to the airport was clogged with traffic. I kept my cool by not calling it an issue. The Uber driver and I joked about the situation. He found a way off the highway and got us to the airport.

When we arrived at the Air Canada kiosk, check-in was closed. I had two beautiful bottles of red wine that had to be checked. I asked the attendant if she liked excellent wine. She said she did. I gave her the two bottles. She guided us through security. Somehow we were upgraded to business class.

As we laughed at our adventure, my wife said she was impressed with how I treated her and the situation. I said I was too.

I get to choose everything I call in my life.

I AM FREE.

Then covid hit…

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Last week I revisited session two with Steve. This week I am fast forwarding to the completion of my time with him.

I worked with The Ultimate Coach for a decade. My journey commenced with a “BE with session” on October 15th, 2015. I didn’t know it at the time, but I hired Steve so I could live life fully in the fullness of whatever life brought me. Little did I know that the end result of our work would be me finding a way to inhabit my life in an unconditional, powerful way. I don’t have a perfect life. I am not perfection. I am not happy all of the time and I am human. I love that about me. I love that about you.

I remember sitting on Steve’s swing chair under his deck 498 days ago. I had just completed my final session with him, and we were reminiscing about our journey together. Perhaps the greatest impact my work with Steve has been that I can resist the temptation to fix myself, soothe myself and meditate myself into happiness.

“No matter what happens inside of me or outside of me, I remain unmoved and worry free. Nothing moves or shakes me: Even when I am shaken and stirred, I always know what to say and what not to say. I always know what to do and how to do it. I AM filled with joy, and I delight in ALL of life. I am playful and patient with all of life: It ain’t nothing until I call it.”

Sometimes life becomes hard in ways we can’t fathom. One of the things I am clear about in my work is that life isn’t always going to be the way we like, and sometimes we will entertain feelings we are not comfortable with. Everything falls apart at once. The ground seems to give way, and your once solid feet seem to be washed away. The calmness and positivity we create evaporates with a whisper.

In the current moment, my heart is at peace. It is calm on a level I have not known, even during my decade with Steve. Our work involved examining and deeply feeling into every judgment I had ever made about myself. The six months we spent creating my document were some of the most intense of my life. I remember going through all the negative thoughts I had about myself and gradually forgiving myself for being so hard on myself.

“I forgive myself for judging myself as unworthy, unlovable, and untrustworthy” turned into I AM Goodness. I AM free from fault or blame: guilt or shame. I am impeccable in all I do and who I am being. I am expansion. I am open-hearted communion and communication.”

These words don’t save me from heartbreak. They don’t protect me from loss or disappointment or when my mind races with scenarios that shoot nervous chemicals through my body. Life breaks me open and I accept what life gives me. I don’t resist life anymore. Unless I do. (and I suffer when I do) I don’t meditate my suffering away or try to fix it.

I live it. All of it. The full catastrophe of life.

My decade with Steve didn’t give me a way out. It gave me a way in.

There is no silver bullet. Live into all of life. It doesn’t last long. before you know it you will be a faint memory.

Next week I will share how I got here. It was not one of my finest moments.

Prologue: I recently had a request to share the post from my first session with Steve. You can find it here. It deals with the foundation of creating myself anew, free from my old wounds, judgments, and data that had been running every decision in my life.

This week I wanted to revisit the deep journey I took on June 19, 2018, into the depths of the lies I had been subjecting myself to. This isn’t self-help. It’s definitely not spiritual bypass. This was a journey into the memory bank of my life. It was a walk with my mentor into the cavernous echo chamber of self-doubt, dislike, and even self-hatred that consumed me, even though I could not register it. It was some of the most taxing work I have ever done. So much so, I went back to my home at the Andaz and swiftly fell asleep. For 12 hours.

Notes from my two-hour session with Steve June 19th, 2018

The three weeks between sessions one and two were some of the most intense weeks of my life. I dug deep into my work. I set aside hours upon hours each day to re-live my most horrid experiences and feel the sensations of each of them fully. To bathe in them. I did not do anything to soothe myself, such as meditation or reading. I was with everything as it appeared.

The hallmark of this session was release and relief from sitting for three weeks within ALL of the Judgments I had been heaping upon myself all of my life. Session two offered me reprieve from the depths of discomfort of being with all of my non-powerful listenings daily for hours at a time. The act of actually re-living hard, difficult situations that spanned my lifetime was energy-draining and emotionally taxing. The act of seeing my self-judgments was fatiguing.

I came to Session 2 exhausted and hopeful.

This session allowed me to actually come from a place of compassion and self-forgiveness for all the time I had felt horrible about myself for allowing these things to happen to me. For feeling less than. For feeling rejected. For feeling wrong.

The act of being—being with every non-powerful listening that has ever entered my awareness and has been held on to, but that has not been fully acknowledged or processed, Allowed for a space for these traumas to be aired, looked at, and fully experienced.

During Session 2, Steve offered me this:

“Being forgiven for any and all judgment I have heaped upon me offers me healing. Judgment is heavy, like a debt. Forgiveness pays that debt.”

These words have reverberated in my heart ever since. They offered me balm, succour, and peace, and I finally found restfulness for my weary heart. I brought my current loving self to all of the old wounds, hurts, and traumas in my lifetime, and I allowed them to bleed. I allowed them to bleed out of me. It is like the old life force was allowed to leave me.

Session two was the time for me to form the genesis of my document. We went through every non-powerful listening I had jotted down and had re-lived over the space of three + weeks, and we began the work, me forgiving myself for judging myself as. What we did within the space of this session was to look at each and every one of my judgments that came from non-powerful listening and to allow Source to give me a new possibility!

For context, here are some of the less powerful listenings we looked at:

I never really get what I want because I can’t do it. I am not worthy.

I am sad and depressed so much of the time.

I am stressed out, lethargic, and lacking in energy.

I am rejected, and I am not worth caring about.

I am small.

I am fragile.

I am weak.

During the session, we allowed for the peace of forgiveness of judging myself regarding these non-powerful listenings to be released. By the grace of something greater than me, some wisdom from the ages entered the room and created a space of stillness, which allowed for a new realization for me to BE | come alive in.

Here are some examples:

I forgive myself for judging myself for believing that I can’t do it. ” For the truth is, I am connected to all power.

I forgive myself for judging myself as being depressed a lot of the time. The truth is, I am joyful and hopeful.

I forgive myself for judging myself as being stressed, lethargic, and lazy. The truth is energetic and worry-free.

I forgive myself for judging myself as being rejected, especially and really only by myself. The truth is, I AM FREE.
This session allowed for

S P A C E to B E and

C R E A T E all of my life anew

I found a new directive in that session. It goes something like this.

Where I am coming from is everything. Where I am going is the booby prize.

My document is not some magic formula or prayer. It is not an affirmation or some wishful thinking. I don’t hold it with any particular affection. I don’t place any great importance on it for me. Yet it is sacred. It is not some words on paper or some incantation to God. It is an experienced act of being grace to my one and only mortal soul.

When I speak my document, I open up to a part of me that has a pure connection with the all-powerful. I don’t believe or repeat the lies I used to believe to be true. My speaking creates my world.

Who am I now?

I AM infinite stillness born of ease and flow. I am pure connection to the All Powerful; together we create what we want, and I always get what I desire. I am generous and warmhearted. I AM forgiveness and understanding. Especially for myself. I AM selfless and power-filled in ALL I do—I AM That I AM unleashed.

Goodness:

I AM free from fault or blame, guilt, or shame. I am impeccable in all I do and who I am being. I am expansion. I am openhearted in communion and communication.

Freedom:

I AM Free! I am free to BE love and loving no matter what. I AM free to be GARY energy and essence that sees the unseeable, shares the unknowable, and is able to BE with things that seem impossible to BE with. I take empowered action, and I am fearless, bold, and courageous. No matter what happens inside of me or outside of me, I remain unmoved and worry-free. Nothing moves or shakes me: Even when I am shaken and stirred, I always know what to say and what not to say. I always know what to do and how to do it. I AM filled with joy, and I delight in ALL of life. I am playful and patient with all of life: It ain’t nothing until I call it.

Energetic and Dynamic:

I am laser-like in my focus. I am sharp-minded. I am peaceful yet impactful as the velvet bullet. I am a Grand Master of BEING with the peace of mind and freedom of heart to cut through all lies of lack and limitation, suffering and separation. I gladly embrace all of life, and I choose creation from surrender, acceptance, & allowance to ALL things.

I am a magnet.

I am DAZZLING, SMOOTH, and CHARMING. I am immense and irresistible, and I live a life of integrity; I am forever at play, and I live in the mystery. I create from the unknown.

I love Kinchan, Koan, and Kona with all my might. I lay my life down for them. And when I forget this, I come back to loving Kinchan, Koan, and Kona with all my might. I lay my life down for them. I AM the best man, husband, father, and mentor for the world. I am eternal. I am forever back home, and my mere presence helps everyone I meet to come back home to themselves as if for the very first time. I am madly and deeply devoted to you and in love with you.

Over the course of the next 10 months we began creating miracles with my new document. Steve was my guide and the divine created possibility within me that resulted in powerful action by me.

As I reflect back on that fateful year, I made it my life’s work to enliven each session in my day to day existence. Nothing was untouched by my work with Steve. I brought the work into my day to day existence. I lived and breathed my work with Steve.

I still do.

I was recently in Phoenix for in-person quarterly Flow Sessions. While I was there, I went for a walk with my former coach and lifelong mentor, Steve Hardison.

When I committed to working with The Ultimate Coach, I expected the engagement to be life changing and it was, but not in the ways I anticipated or hoped to experience. Reflecting on our work, I notice that the greatest impact wasn’t the deep, meaningful sessions we had nor the things we created.

What makes my time with Steve life altering are the in-between-moments we shared. The movies we saw after my session before I returned to my enclave at the Andaz in Scottsdale. The times in his Porsche, talking story. Spending a couple of hours by his gravesite and his tombstone. Seeing the Rolling Stones together.

It was during these moments in his presence, I learned so much just by being together with Steve. I witnessed how he was with people he met, and how he loved them and played with them. I was amazed by how he invited them into h…

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As I reflect on my notes from 2020, I am amazed at how poignant these sessions were for my life. There was a copious amount of uncertainty in the world at that time, and it was bumping right up against my need for certainty.

From my notes:

“Who I am and the language I use to create the life I desire will direct every movement and action I take. If I indulge in yesterday’s thoughts, grievances, and habits, I will create from the past. If I choose to create from a new way of seeing, being, and speaking my desire into the world, I will live in a created future as opposed to a default future.

I would never avoid the work I know is in front of me. I want to disappear into my world with the singular intention of experiencing the wholeness of my lived life.

The new decade starts here now—exactly as I am, who I am, and where I am at. There is no point in wishing I was somehow different than I am.

Comparison is a life sentence of sadness.

Regret is a form of drowning.

Urgency is a killer of passion.

Wanting for things to "change so that I may find happiness" is a form of self-torture.

I don’t get to choose the outer or inner work. That happens by cultivating space and making a clearing within the confines of my mind. This allows for everything I would ever need to work on to arise. It speaks a truth beyond words.

The moment I label something, my behaviour is perfectly calibrated to my declaration of how something is. Thoughts generate chemistry that shoots throughout the brain. I want to be a master of choosing what thoughts I believe about myself, about my relationship, and about my world. I want to be free to be and free to act, even when I feel the binds of worry start to cover me.”

I had no idea the truth found in those words. The events of 2020, 2021, and 2022 would alter the course of my life, my business, and my relationship with myself and Steve.

Get ready for the next chapter of my “way beyond coaching experience…”

My next series of posts on Substack will be shorter, more poignant. They will be merging the present with what was learned during my sessions with Steve. I will be interspersing the SFH notes with The Genesis of Abundance Posts which are derived from my life history as well as my Because I said I would posts, which share with how I used the power of my word to create miracles in my life.

Thank you for reading my Substack and allowing my journey to help you possibly see something new for you in your life and journey.

Sending all my love to you,

Gary

I was walking home from the gym when I realized I’d gotten ahead of someone. It didn’t come to me within a conversation I was having in my own head. It came to me in the form of buzzing on my phone and a voice note. Someone I care about deeply shared how I had been coming across to them, and it was not something I wanted to hear. I was mortified, actually. I had been building something they never asked me to build. Making plans they hadn’t agreed to. Moving as if the next step was already decided. It wasn’t.

The thing about assumption is that it feels like momentum. It feels like clarity. It feels like you’re being proactive, strategic, helpful even. But underneath it, you’re deciding for someone else. And when they notice it, they have every right to stop you.

When I am not careful, I do it in my business and I do it with my wife. I am lucky that when I do, my wife lets me know what I am up to.

I am lucky that this important someone let me know as well. They didn’t do it with anger. The…

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I’m sitting in my coaching studio at 5:22 AM. Soft jazz is playing and I am reflecting.

It’s easy to stifle the movement of gut-level knowing. I call this circling. Circling around a decision that has already been made internally. Circling around a call you know you have to make. Circling around action you know needs to happen externally.

There is no amount of inner work that will help you unless you act on what you know.

I remember when I used to sit in stillness for hours looking for an answer. The longer I sat, the more answers came. Just not the right ones. How do I know that they were not the right ones? I do because I did not act upon them.

Oftentimes we look for diversion and distraction in the form of getting more information, knowledge, or fact-checking instead of allowing ourselves to know what is true.

I have a guideline I use in my creation now:

1. See what is here now. Check the body. Feel the breath. Hear what wants to emerge.

2. Use the personal and specific knowledge you already ha…

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My daughter was looking out the window as we drove to the competition. Nonchalantly, she said she was nervous.

Then the silence. Then her own resolution: “I’ll be okay. I prayed. And I practiced.”

Kanako and I smiled. She put in her AirPods.

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I love being human. I love the joy of creation and the fun of being with family and friends, connecting, laughing, eating food and chasing dreams.

I hate being human. Internal suffering, worry, hurt, anger and being misunderstood.

One of the things that I have learned during my work with my mentors and coaches is that sometimes the only way to get over something is going through it. I remember walking with my good friend Trevor Timbeck on a hike in Hawaii and we mused that sometimes the only way to a breakthrough is a breakdown. I hope we were wrong and there are ways to a breakthrough that suck less.

I don’t know if it is correct to sit through the wasteland. There may be more spiritual kind of folk who have figured that out. All I know is I did, and I do. I let my emotions become energy in motion and tell me what they want to tell me. Sometimes it takes a minute for me to hear what they have to say. Sometimes I just don’t listen. I guess it sucks to be me.

The thing I love most about co…

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Yesterday I spoke with my good friend Matt Clemmer. It was a deep, loving time of togetherness. He had reached out because he was curious about something I said in one of my previous writings. It was about a disagreement with my wife, and how it took me almost a week to digest my anger, hurt, and stunning realizations.

I call it the in-between phase.

Not the beginning. Not the breakthrough. The space after something causes a breakdown within us, that disorients us. It is the land of uncertainty before you know what comes next. It’s not a pleasant place.

I live in the world of created reality. Not perfect reality but a consciously created one. Most times I like the reality I create. Sometimes the reality I create feels a lot like the messy reality I created when I didn’t know better. It is a disheveled, hurtful wasteland rife with self-judgment and doubt. If you are like me you don’t love this place. If you are like me you want to get out of it as quickly as possible.

The in-between phase …

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My wife was tired.

Not from drama. Not because something was wrong between us. Not because our marriage was off track. Things were good. Very good, actually.

But it had been a long year for her. I could feel that something in her needed space. Room to breathe. Time to think.

A year ago, I had been drifting in parts of my own life. Over the last nine months, something in me shifted. I came back to myself in a deeper way. Clearer. More present. More certain. And from that place I knew something simple, not easy or evident if one does not take the time to notice.

I noticed.

We needed time alone together.

Not a dinner out. Not a quick break. Not some efficient reset squeezed into family life.

Real time. Just the two of us. Alone time.

I was heading to Japan in March holding Flow Sessions in Fukuoka and Osaka. Once they were done I had it in mind to meet with my family in Tokyo. On second thought I thought having a rendezvous solo with my wife there, just the two of us was a better idea.

So I told…

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In quantum mechanics, a particle does not move along a single predetermined path. Instead, it exists within a field of possibilities. Physicists describe this as a distribution of potential trajectories. The particle does not choose a “best” path. The path that becomes real depends on two things: the conditions it begins in and the forces acting upon it.

Human lives are not particles in a physics experiment, but something about that description rings familiar. I love extrapolating possibilities from ideas.This post came from early morning musings about choice and created futures.

Every life begins inside conditions. Family. Culture. Habits. Early experiences. Expectations. Successes and failures that quietly shape what a person believes is possible.

Those conditions create a kind of probability landscape. Certain futures become more likely than others.

Most people simply follow the trajectory their past has prepared for them. “That’s just the way it is” does the creating for them.

What if

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