At 40, I had everything I was told would make me happy. Companies. Money. Status. And a quiet emptiness I couldn’t explain.
I knew something needed to change. I just didn’t know what — or how.
That’s when I found the world of personal development. Over the last 12 years, I’ve invested in dozens of programs, retreats and immersive events. Some were interesting. A few rearranged my life.
These are the six that had the greatest impact. Not because they gave me more information, but because each one showed me something about myself I couldn’t see on my own.
1. Landmark — the crack in the armour
Landmark was a gift. For my 40th birthday, one of my closest friends handed me a seat in a three-and-a-half-day program and told me I needed it.
She was right. She could see what I couldn’t. I had blind spots everywhere. I was repeating the same patterns and behaviours without any awareness of them, because I was operating from ego and insecurity — and I’d been doing it for so long it just felt like who I was.
The false self
Landmark helped me see how I’d built a false identity.
Somewhere early on, I decided I wasn’t good enough. Not accepted enough. So I compensated. I leaned hard on my strengths — my drive, my charm, my ability to make things happen — and used them to win people over. It worked. It built companies. It earned respect.
But it was armour, not identity. And when you live inside armour for decades, you forget there’s a person underneath it.
The power of the room
One of the most powerful parts of the experience was being in a room with 160 other people.
I listened to strangers stand up and share what they were discovering — their fears, their stories, the patterns running their lives. Again and again, I heard myself in them.
That’s something you can’t get from a book. Often it’s in hearing someone else’s truth that we finally recognise our own.
Why it works
Landmark has been around for more than 30 years, and its approach is ontological. That means it isn’t about tools, exercises or hacks. It’s about being — how you see yourself and the world.
Most of us look at life through a lens shaped by our past. Every disappointment, every rejection, every story we told ourselves to survive. That lens decides what we believe is possible before we’ve even tried.
Landmark shatters that lens. You start to see where you’re limiting yourself, and how your past is quietly holding you back from your future. And once you see it, you get to choose something different — free and clear of the old stories.
What I learned: You can’t change a pattern you can’t see. Awareness isn’t the whole transformation, but nothing moves without it.
Who it’s for: Anyone who feels like they keep ending up in the same place and doesn’t know why. For an investment of about $750, it’s one of the most accessible transformational experiences I know.
Learn more: Landmark Worldwide
2. The Hoffman Process — coming home to my parents
At 49, I gave myself a birthday present: the Hoffman Process.
By then I’d done years of deep work. But I could still feel a disconnect between me and my parents. Something unresolved with my mom. Something unresolved with my dad.
I knew it was costing me. It was shaping my self-worth and showing up in my relationships. And I was done carrying it. I wanted to truly understand my parents, forgive them, and love them fully.
The work starts before you arrive
Weeks before the program, you complete a thorough intake. The questions are profound. They make you look at your childhood, your parents and yourself with a kind of honesty most of us avoid.
By the time I arrived, the process had already started working on me.
A week unplugged
The Hoffman Process is a week-long immersive retreat, held in Caroline, Alberta, in California and in Connecticut — each set in beautiful, quiet nature.
You hand over your phone when you arrive. No email. No news. No business. Just you and the work.
For someone who’d spent his whole life switched on, that alone was confronting. And it was exactly what I needed. When the noise goes quiet, you can finally hear what’s been underneath it.
Negative Love Syndrome
At the core of the process is a concept called Negative Love Syndrome.
As children, we want our parents’ love so badly that we take on their patterns — the good and the painful. Sometimes we copy them. Sometimes we spend our lives rebelling against them. Either way, they’re running us.
The process helped me see which patterns I had adopted from my parents and which ones I had rejected. Both were borrowed. Neither was truly me.
Seeing my parents as people
The biggest shift was in how I saw my mom and dad.
I started to understand them on a much deeper level. What they gave me, and what they couldn’t — because no one had given it to them. The resentment softened into understanding. The understanding opened into forgiveness. And forgiveness made room for real gratitude and appreciation.
That shift forever changed my relationship with both of them.
The process also creates space to heal painful experiences with other family members and friends. When you clear the root, the branches start to heal too.
What I learned: The relationship you have with your parents lives inside every relationship you have. Heal the root, and everything that grows from it changes.
Who it’s for: Anyone carrying resentment, distance or unfinished business with their family — and anyone who notices their parents’ behaviour showing up in them. The investment is about $6,000, which includes the full week, accommodation and meals.
Learn more: The Hoffman Institute
3. Breathwork — the medicine I carry everywhere
My first breathwork session was in New Zealand in 2019, with my dear friend Sandro Mota.
I went in curious. I came out changed.
It was a deep journey inward — and it was almost psychedelic. I was blown away that I could reach a state like that with nothing but my own breath. No substances. No equipment. Just breath, intention and surrender.
Becoming my own healer
From that very first session, one question stayed with me: if I can go this deep on my own, what else am I capable of healing?
Breathwork uses conscious connected breathing — continuous breath with no pause between the inhale and the exhale. Paired with a clear intention and a willingness to surrender, it takes you beneath the thinking mind.
That’s where the real material lives. Old experiences. Limiting beliefs. Childhood memories stored in the body. Breathwork gives them a way to surface, be felt and finally be released.
The body keeps what the mind tries to forget. Breath is how you let it go.
From student to facilitator
I was so moved by what breathwork gave me that I trained and certified as a facilitator with Elemental Rhythm.
Today I lead breathwork at my retreats and wellness events. Watching people meet parts of themselves they’ve avoided for years — and leave lighter — is one of the most meaningful parts of my work.
A daily practice
Breathwork isn’t something I save for retreats. I practise it every day.
Sometimes it’s a quick five to ten minutes in the morning to ground myself before the day begins. Other times it’s a longer guided session when I want to go deep.
In my opinion, breathwork is our own personal plant medicine. It’s free, it’s always with you, and you can access it anytime, anywhere.
What I learned: You can’t think your way out of what you’ve stored in your body. Sometimes the fastest way through is to stop thinking and breathe.
Who it’s for: Anyone who understands their patterns intellectually but still feels stuck in them — and anyone who wants a powerful practice they can do on their own.
Try it yourself: Here’s a breathwork journey I led at my retreat in Tulum. Find a quiet space, lie down, and give yourself to it. Watch my Tulum breathwork session
4. Plant medicine — seeing my past with new eyes
Plant medicine has been one of the most powerful parts of my journey.
It took me past the conscious mind — past the stories, the defences, the constant analysing — and let me peel back layers I couldn’t reach any other way. In ceremony, I’ve connected with the spirit of these plants and with something far bigger than myself, for guidance, for healing and for remembrance of who I really am.
The medicines I've worked with
I’ve sat in ceremony with psilocybin, Bufo, Kambo and Ayahuasca. Each one has been profound, and each one has healed something different.
Psilocybin is my favourite. It’s deeply informative, it tends to be light-hearted, and it’s very manageable. It often feels like a wise, gentle teacher showing me what I need to see.
Ayahuasca and Bufo are a different level of intensity. They don’t negotiate. They take you exactly where you need to go, whether you feel ready or not.
Living in Costa Rica, I’ve had the opportunity to sit in ceremony many times. There’s an abundance of experienced facilitators there, and that access has allowed me to go deeper over the years.
Four nights at Rythmia
My most recent experience was a week-long retreat at Rythmia in Costa Rica, where I drank Ayahuasca four nights in a row.
Those nights brought some of the deepest realisations of my life — around self-worth and self-love. Layers of not-good-enough I thought I had already healed came up to be seen. And underneath them was something I’d been searching for my whole life: the knowing that I am already enough.
Respect and reverence
These sacred plants truly are medicine. They are not recreational, and they are not shortcuts. They deserve respect and reverence.
If you feel called to this work, take it seriously. Work only with experienced, reputable facilitators. Be honest about your health and any medications you take. Know the laws where you are. And treat integration — what you do with the insights after ceremony — as seriously as the ceremony itself.
What I learned: Healing isn’t about rewriting your story. It’s about seeing it clearly enough that it stops writing you.
Watch my Rythmia experience: Ayahuasca in Costa Rica: My Rythmia Retreat Experience
Learn more about Rythmia: Rythmia Life Advancement Center
5. Tantra — learning to let people in
Tantra is one of the most misunderstood practices out there. Most people only know it in a sexual context.
But the beauty of Tantra is intimacy. Sensuality. Learning to cultivate pleasure within yourself in everything you do — the food you eat, the music you listen to, the friendships in your life.
Tantra isn’t about sex. It’s about pleasure, joy and experiencing everything life has to offer.
The mask I wore
I can honestly say intimacy was missing from most of my relationships for most of my life.
Not because I didn’t want it. Because I didn’t know how to let people in. I was afraid to be seen. So I wore a mask — confident, capable, in control — and kept everyone at a safe distance. Close enough to like me. Never close enough to really know me.
You can’t build real intimacy from behind a mask. And you can’t take it off until you feel safe enough to.
What Tantra teaches
That’s what Tantra gave me. It teaches you how to create safety, so you can allow yourself to be seen, heard and felt.
It’s the art of connecting to your sensuality, your pleasure and your authenticity — and then learning to live from that place, instead of from behind the mask.
The more I connected to myself this way, the more I could connect with others. Intimacy starts within. You can’t offer someone a depth of connection you haven’t found in yourself.
The other side of Tantra
Yes, there’s a more sexual side to Tantra too, like Tantra temple parties. That’s a very different experience, and when it’s done well, it’s rooted in consent, respect and a deeper connection.
Tantra may not be for everybody. But its fundamental lessons — intimacy, connection, safety and boundaries — are something every one of us can benefit from.
What I learned: Intimacy isn’t something you find in another person. It’s something you learn to allow — starting with yourself.
Who it’s for: Anyone who feels numb, guarded or disconnected — in their relationships or in their own skin.
Facilitators I’ve worked with:
6. Authentic Relating — finding my voice
I grew up an avoidant communicator.
I didn’t know how to express my needs. I didn’t know how to talk about my feelings. I could run a room and close a deal, but I couldn’t tell the people closest to me what was really going on inside.
That impacted every one of my relationships. When you don’t say what’s true, people never get to meet the real you — and you never get to feel truly met.
Turning awkward into intimate
Authentic Relating Training gave me what I’d been missing: the tools, the structure and a framework for honest communication.
Conversations that would once have felt uncomfortable or awkward became empowering, intimate and mutually beneficial. I learned how to say the hard thing with care. How to ask for what I need. How to stay present when someone shares something difficult, instead of shutting down or fixing.
I completed Level 1 in Bali in 2019. More recently, I went back and completed Levels 1 and 2 in Costa Rica. Every time, it takes me deeper.
What we don't express, we carry
When we don’t express ourselves, we suppress our emotions — and the energy of those emotions stays in the body.
Anger. Guilt. Shame. Sadness. Jealousy. If it isn’t expressed, its vibrational frequency stays within us. In my opinion, that unexpressed energy is a big part of what ultimately makes us sick.
When you learn to communicate in a confident, empowered and authentic way, that energy gets to move. And when it moves, there’s room for deeper connection — which leads to more trust, more closeness and more love.
What school never taught us
If more people knew how to communicate consciously — if this was taught in schools — I truly believe we’d be living in a very different world.
Most of us were taught how to be polite, how to perform and how to avoid conflict. Very few of us were taught how to be honest with love. Authentic Relating fills that gap.
What I learned: Our words create our world. When you learn to express your truth, you stop carrying what was never meant to stay inside you.
Who it’s for: Anyone who avoids hard conversations, struggles to express what they feel, or wants deeper relationships than the ones they have.
Learn more: Authentic Relating Training International
The thread that runs through all six
Looking back, none of these experiences fixed me. I wasn’t broken.
What they did was show me who I’d been pretending to be — and give me the tools to become who I actually am. Landmark gave me awareness. Hoffman healed the root. Breathwork and plant medicine cleared what was stored in my body. Tantra taught me to let people in. Authentic Relating gave me my voice.
But here’s the truth most people miss: experiences open the door. Integration is walking through it. A breakthrough at a retreat means nothing if you go home and live the same way on Monday.
That’s the work I do now. I help high performers turn insight into a life that’s aligned on the inside and the outside — with the structure and accountability to make it last.
If you’re ready to create your next chapter, book a Clarity Call. Let’s talk about where you are, and where you’re going.
