Life is a twisted path — actually, more like a wily roller coaster or a strong-willed horse, full of piss and vinegar. It can be brutal, and it can be breathtaking, but it begs us to accept it and live it to its fullest. Isn’t it time to take control of that ride? To learn from the pain, relish the highs, and create what you truly want out of your fleeting time on this earth. Sadly, so many men/boys aren’t given the support and direction they need in choosing their ultimate path. If you’re one of those men, now’s the time to find someone to assist you in creating a life of conscious choice, so that every day you are living life by your own definition of success. Not anyone else’s. To live every moment of every day on your terms, giving your best to the life you choose, and the world you create.

To quote Teddy Roosevelt’s The Man in the Arena: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

From the very beginning of my own life, I was told what I should do and how I should do it, yet was never asked what I truly wanted to do or become, as I wandered the path to becoming a man. Privately, and perhaps instinctively, I felt a calling that popped up no matter how hard I quashed it, in pursuit of “doing the shoulds.” I wanted to help men find their calling and heal from those corrosive shoulds. I didn’t want to go into banking. Or corporate real estate. Or law. As far as I could gather, those were my options. Help men find their own true calling? No way. Therapy was still taboo and hidden in those days, and life-coaches were non-existent. Perhaps that’s why the pendulum has swung the other direction and why there are so many men who have lost their way. I’d put myself high on this list. For years I lived in this push-pull between constraints of should and attempts to do it my own way. I was doomed to failure (I just didn’t know it) because I didn’t have the foundational understanding that it was my life to live. Not anyone else’s.

So when the crushing hits came, I had zero support and moreover, zero tools to help me navigate the worst waters I could imagine: the death of a business partner on a 16 million dollar real estate deal and resulting fallout. Followed by a ten-year devastating divorce and the accompanying loss of it all— my home, my wife, and the most brutal loss of all, my three children who were fed atrocious lies about me, and chose to believe them. I look back at that decade of my life and wonder how I made it through. But I did. And I’m here to help men survive their pain and thrive again, or maybe for the first time. I’m living proof: if I can be here to tell the tale, and be wiser, and even happier, for it…then you can, too.

From these soul-wrenching experiences, I came to realize strength, love, joy, and salvation, and I worked hard to learn the lessons being offered to me, even when I didn’t really know how to ask for help. I had a choice. Fall into self-imposed ruin, or find a way to live, finally, by my own terms. I decided to consciously choose my path to satisfaction and success. As I watched all of what I’d created in my life as a husband, father, businessman, and homeowner slip through my fingers, I realized that my path could no longer be suppressed. It had to be fulfilled, allowed to flourish, and accepted as my way of showing up in the world. And the only one who could give me that permission…was me. Even when I was in a place of hiding from the world, I asked myself: what can I create for my next chapter? Because there will be a next chapter! I had studied psychology for years, but rather than sit in an office listening to people all day, so often stuck in their story and not willing to budge, opting to just bleed…I decided to go another route. I wanted a more active approach.

So I got my Gestalt Equine Certification, as well as my EAGALA certification, and hung up my shingle as a men’s coach, specializing in re-invention and how to powerfully create life’s next chapter. It radically changed my life and now I’m guiding men and boys to believe in their own path, and to create their own chosen walk through life. And in it all, I’ve come to realize that I have been assisting people my whole life: as a teenager creating a program assisting those in need in my local community, as a Big Brother while in Corporate America, and serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer, working in Zaire and the Philippines assisting communities in building water systems, schools, and clinics. It has been my calling all along.

The hardest part of my lesson was having no guide or guideposts, no mentor, no assistance in sorting things out through my divorce and all the challenges it posed. I managed, but it was heart-breaking, humiliating, very expensive, exhausting, and time-consuming. I was on the edge numerous times, with nothing but my sheer will and determination to make it through. I did it alone, but you don’t have to. 

Isn’t it time to finally find your passion and create your self-directed best life? Yes, it will be full of soul searching, wonder, realization, and even joy…but most of all, you will know yourself, and what you want, so that you can powerfully move into a deeply fulfilling future.

I get it. And I’m here to help.

HC Paschen