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I envision a thriving future of time freedom and material abundance where people lead balanced lifestyles, live in harmony with nature, get educated to develop their passions and support each other in a global community of creators
My Story
1. Video Marketing For Big Tech
After a degree in ancient history, politics and entrepreneurship at UBC and then UVic, I started my career in digital marketing in 2008 as mobile was emerging and developed my expertise in search engine optimization, video marketing, online advertising, sales funnels and email marketing.
Early in my career, I led the digital strategy for Canada’s largest technology TV show Get Connected where I managed a team that did social video marketing and advertising on YouTube for big tech companies like Dell, ASUS, Toshiba, HP, Staples, and TELUS.
2. Startup Chile Incubator
In 2012, I applied and got accepted into the Startup Chile incubator where I had the opportunity to build an online education startup that helped self-directed learners stay accountable at the Movistar Innova collaborative space with entrepreneurs from 35 countries for 6 months.
I had no idea what I was doing back then but I quickly realized I didn’t enjoy offices, government bureaucracy, managing teams, and sacrificing my lifestyle and sanity for the Silicon Valley dreams of tech bros.
I later built DIY Genius into an experiential learning company that has launched 25 of my own online courses and group coaching programs that have helped 1,000s of creative people find their purpose, develop their ability to focus deeply and follow the path of continual self-education.
3. Launch Of The Fitplan App
In 2017, I was approached by Calgary entrepreneur Cam Speck to lead the marketing launch of the app Fitplan where I worked with fitness influencers to tell their story and promote their programs in the app.
I worked with Instagram influencers and brand storytelling geniuses like Michelle Lewin, Jeff Seid, Sergi Constance and Jenn Selter on the launch and initial scaling of the app before returning to doing my own thing.
The launch of Fitplan was a huge success with over 10,000 paying users in the first 3 months and the app has gone on to have millions of downloads and hundreds of thousands of paying users on iPhone and Android. Fitplan was acquired by FitLab on January 13, 2022.
4. First International Retreat In Thailand
After the launch of Fitplan, I quickly became disenchanted with the superficiality of the fitness industry and the Instagram influencer industry. I also didn’t enjoy going to an office every day during Vancouver’s gloomy winters, even if it was on a fun startup team surrounded by great people.
I moved back to one of my favourite places in the world called Koh Phangan, Thailand and after a meditation retreat with local forest monks I had the insight to start running mindful hiking and nature meditation retreats on the islands in the nearby Ang Thong Marine Park Archipelago that originally inspired Alex Garland’s book The Beach (the movie was filmed at Maya Bay in Koh Phi Phi).
This ignited my love for group flow through retreats and immersive nature experiences that I have continued hosting each season ever since. Leading these retreats and advertising all over the world online also connected me to a global community of nomadic investors, spiritual teachers and social entrepreneurs that opened my mind to a different way of business and living life.
5. Social Creators Workshops & Retreats
I taught my first travelling workshops to businesses during Startup Chile when I travelled the long, skinny landmass of Chile teaching tourism business owners about local SEO and how rank organically for travel searches on Google and scale up direct bookings with performance-based Google Ads.
That opened my eyes to the need to educate health, education and tourism entrepreneurs about how to invest their time wisely on building predictable growth with measurable sales funnels and performance-based ads that can scale the value of their time.
Eventually, these workshops kind of evolved into Social Creators retreats where I’ve taught through experiential learning workshops, mindful hiking adventures and collaboration with local creators making social impact. I hosted many of these events at Selina coliving spaces until the pandemic put a stop to this for a few years.
6. Mindful Hiking In Banff National Park
Nature has always been refuge and the place I go to recharge my inner spirit. Ever since I was a young kid, I’ve wandered for days into the forests, camped and just meditated in nature, listened to the birds and hit the reset button on my stresses.
After the social distancing and sedentary cultural initation of the pandemic, I recognized the need for ecotherapy as a way for people rewild their health, education and community outdoors. It is sad for me to see so many kids today growing up on screens lonely, sick and unmotivated to play outside.
I moved to Banff after the pandemic and immersed myself in the world of ecotourism in Canada’s most visited national park area. I ran mindful hiking adventure in the backcountry while continuing to manage most of my online program remotely. However, I quickly realized running a logistically complicated wasn’t for me.
7. Biohacking, Entrepreneurship and Flow
Over the years DIY Genius has evolved through many launches of courses and group programs but the big success has always been the relationships I’ve built with tech wearable startups and digital education brands who are changing the world.
I’ve launched many affiliate programs for startups and become a top affiliate for a wide range of innovative biohacking products from companies like Mindvalley, Soma Breath, Muse Headband, Pulsetto, Brain.fm and Heartmath.
I also build long-term affiliate relationships with disruptive education platforms like Skool, Kajabi, Thinkific, Coursera, edX and CreativeLive. I believe in the democratization of education, creative portfolios over abstract credentialism, and I am amazed by how AI empowers autodidacts and self-education in ways I never imagined when I started DIY Genius in 2011.
8. Wild Trekking Pilgrimages
During a 3-day fast on a retreat in the sacred valley of Tepoztlán, Mexico I had this vision about starting a platform for nature retreats and I registered the domain on my iPhone while lying in bed at night.
However, I quickly realized that selling retreats doesn’t scale and I found it much easier working with ecolodges and tour operators who could do the same tours regularly throughout the year. This evolved into Sacred Treks, a cultural ecotourism company that works with local tour operators, eco-oriented hotels and indigenous communities to promote unique ecotourism experiences in Latin America.
Ecotourism is exploding in Brazil, the Amazon and the Andes mountain chain because these are the most biodiverse places on Earth and the rare places left where indigenous culture maintain their ancient traditions and spiritual animism, despite an everlasting 500 year war against their people and traditions.
9. Social Entrepreneurship Accelerators
Over 15 years of building online businesses, helping startup scale up with ads and building relationships with innovators around the world has culminated in today’s startup incubator accelerators.
We seek out founders with some of the world’s most innovative and crazy ideas in health, education and tourism. We connect founders who can demonstrate traction with experiential learning, peer accountability, community support and seed capital to scale up their solutions for solving important problems in the world.
I leveraged my travels, international connections and spent 100s of hours reaching out to hundreds of changemakers who have inspired me with their work to build a network of social impact investors, who are deeply worried about the future of their children and willing to put their capital where it can make the most difference.
10. Utopia or Oblivion?
In the profound words of one of my personal heros Buckminster Fuller, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
We are emerging into a strange and dangerous time with the rapid rise of AI and humanoid robots. I believe people can put their heads in the sand and retreat to the mountains as the Matrix colonizes the world or they can stand up, learn the tools and use their creativity to transform the system.
We can now create open source models of knowledge and expertise that move us toward outcomes that empower people, protect life and make life much better for future generations. I don’t know how this story ends but I have witnessed the incredible ways that the artificial intelligence revolution can empower socially-conscious entrepreneurs and that makes me optimistic for the future.