Etienne Gilbert: The Transformation From Mountain Man to Beach-Based Life Coach

As part of the first big wave of Quebec-born shredders to make the pilgrimage out west - the self-proclaimmed "418 crew" - Etienne Gilbert quickly carved out space on the Canadian and international scene as a snowboarder of many talents. Especially adept at snowmobiling, big-mountain riding and hitting both natural and man-made features in the infamous Whistler Backcountry, Gilbert was able to sustain himself on purely snowboarding for the better part of a decade before finally "retiring" two years ago and moving on to other pursuits. 

Personally, as a photographer who got to work with Etienne in his last few years shredding, I was always extremely impressed with his work ethic and dedication to "the shot" - to the point where I was constantly unsure if the dude even liked me.. he was always that serious! But sure enough, at the end of the workday when we'd be sitting around the trucks looking at the day's shots, a smile would inevitably cross his face and once again I would realize that it was his pure dedication to his chosen craft that motivates him to take things so seriously.

Accordingly, in his post-shred life he has taken that same dedication and focus and applied it to his life, career choices and relationships. Etienne is clearly a man who has a firm grip on what it takes to succeed in life - not only monetarily, but also as a complete person. From spirituality to business sense, he knows it takes more than just cruising through life if you truly want to do something great with your life, and is willing to put the time in to make that happen.

A lesson we can no doubt all benefit from hearing, no matter how many times.

Catching up with Etienne to find out more about his new life's venture - Life Coaching - I was more than a little surprised to get back way more info than I had expected in response to my questions, and my immediate thought was that I would trim it waaaaay down. But after reading what he had to say I realized it was all not only "good stuff" but also extremely important lessons that we can all benefit from hearing. 

Enjoy.

33MAG: What have you been up to the last few years? Seems like there have been a lot of changes in your life lately!
 
Etienne: Mate! Where to start...  It's been a crazy ride! Let me do my best to put things in perspective for you without going overboard...
  
Well first off, I now live in Sydney, Australia and my wife (Suzy) and we are expecting our first baby this month. We feel so blessed and it's impossible to express everything we’ve been feeling over the last 8 months... Especially with everything that's been happening in our lives over the last 5 years or so.
 
Career wise since I’ve been here (almost 3 years now), I’ve been doing a few different things. I have been teaching Sport Coaching at the International College of Sport and Fitness in Sydney, working as a youth worker and doing some high end residential painting. A few months ago I was also offered a job as a snowboard rep for Rush Distribution, representing Yes, Now, Ifound and a few more brands but I had to turn it down as it was requiring me to move to Melbourne…
 
But what is really going on career wise is the development of my Sport Performance & Life Coaching practice. It’s a work in progress and I’m currently finishing my Diploma from The Life Coaching College in Australia. The program is great and has been really helpful putting it all together. It’s a fairly new project even though it’s actually been in the works as far as I can remember… I’ll get to that later…
 
The beginning of the new season in my life started in December 2007, the year after my closing part in “People”.  At the time I was on the top of my game until the day I injured my back for the first time. From there it was all downhill for me. Well, as far as snowboarding goes it was... But that's also when I met my Suzy… and I believe that things between us could have very well not worked out if I would have been healthy and travelling all the time with snowboarding...
 
For many reasons I don't want to elaborate on right now, my back did not heal properly and could not perform to my abilities. Two years later the GFC hit and that’s when main sponsor, who was providing me with boards, bindings, boots and clothing, dropped me with no warning.
 
And then my back got worst. I ended up on the floor for 4 months with severe back pain. So all of the sudden, there I was with no health, no sponsors and no real plan B...  I got better slowly but it became clear to me that I needed a break from snowboarding, physically and mentally...

 
That's when Suzy and I, started discussing moving to her home country Australia. She grew up by the beaches and since living by the beaches was a dream of mine and since I was seriously considering proposing to her, it felt natural to make the change. I also felt like I needed to put myself in a situation where I could start fresh... Looking back I can say there was a mix of frustration, wanting to escape and also excitement about a new adventure.
 
I proposed to Suzy during our road trip around Quebec prior to flying to Oz and then off we went…We basically hit the ground running on arrival. We moved in with Suzy's parents for a year, we went back to school, got jobs, saved money, bought a unit near the beach and started planning the wedding. In the process Suzy got some of her own health issues and some family members got some of their own health issues.
 
The wedding day came and it was an incredible moment. Having friends and family witnessing our ceremony was unbelievable. I never thought I would get married to be honest… I mean, I actually never thought much about the whole wedding institution but it was important for Suzy and in the end we really made it our own... On the day I totally crumbled with emotions I had never felt before... It was more than I could have ever imagined… magical, powerful, loving, inspiring and so on... 
  
Suzy and I both thought the wedding would to be the end of a crazy 3 year and the beginning of a more relaxed stage of our lives… Well as always, life, quite often, got other plans for you… Right after our wedding on March 29, 2012 is when my back started acting up again. So bad that 7 months later I was getting back surgery. The whole back healing thing is a whole other story of its own but basically it’s been 9 months now since the surgery. I've been well since and I’m still getting stronger. I had to once again make some lifestyle changes… Some people think life circumstances makes you who you are... For me, my life circumstances have always revealed to me who I really am and who I really aspired to be...I can look back and say I made the most of it and that it allowed me to refocus on what’s important to me…  

 
 What was it like leaving Whistler and the shred lifestyle after so many years?
 
I was not easy, you know? Especially the first year. Watching all the Facebook photos and clips of friends just destroying the pow... It’s very different now. The lifestyle, the career, our circle of friends, our ages, our goals, our focus, our priorities… I’ll admit that I got lost chasing my tail around and was focusing on the wrong things… and surprise, surprise, I paid the price…. Now I can say I’m finally enjoying the process, our new environment and the new opportunities. I think for most of us it’s about having a direction, getting excited about the process, the progress and being grateful for what you’ve had in the past, what you have now and for what is coming… And that’s basically the mindset I had with my snowboarding career… Now I’m just applying the same mind set, with a few upgrades…

Was it as big an adjustment as you thought it would be? What was the biggest surprise?
 
I don't really know what my expectations were to be honest but I knew it was going to be big. During the year leading up to the move, I kept having these recurring dreams about these crazy tsunami waves coming over me while I was on the beach or under me as I was sitting in the surf with a broken board... It's like my unconscious mind knew what was coming... although in my dreams I never felt afraid or in danger. I just felt like I was out of my comfort zone… And that pretty much how it was… Really challenging at all levels for me as much as for my wife. Looking back I'm proud of how we dealt with everything... Having said that, we could have also kept our cool a little better on many occasions...
 
Life never gives up on you and will keep coming back to help you remember who you are and who you aspire to be - as long as you are willing to play your part. Through all this up and down crazy life I've had, deep inside I've known all along what really fired me up. Somehow everything is finally coming together. And this is what my Sport & Life Coaching practice is turning out to be for me. It's my calling, it's my service to the world, it's the best I can give of myself, it's my purpose, it's my way! Just like snowboarding was in my younger days… It’s unusual and most people probably don’t think much of it. But I know what it has done for me and I know what it can do for those who are ready to take themselves to the next level.

 
How did you get into Life Coaching? Where did that idea come from?

I don't know, like I said, it's just been there all along. I've always felt, as far as I can remember, that there was more to life then what we see, touch, hear, smell and taste. Through all my years involved in competitive team sports prior to snowboarding, I came to realise that most of my coaches were missing out on the opportunity to coach us on the most important part of sport performance; our mindset and performing out of our minds... So I went out on my own, started shredding and started reading a lot of books on personal development, spirituality, human behaviour, leadership skills, people skills, sport psychology, financial education, physics and religion. It really made a difference in my life and in my snowboarding career. It just feels right for me to share, to be a massager, a teacher, a mentor, a speaker and a coach. For example, through all my years of coaching at Camp of Champion, it was always about much more than just teaching snowboard skills and having fun. I always aspired to inspire the kids to not only believe in themselves but also believe in life itself... Through my latest studies I have discovered NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and actually became a NLP and Matrix Therapy practitioner. NLP brought a new dimension and perspective to my learnings and how I can put it all into a service and product.
 
What skills do you have that you feel makes you qualified to coach others in life?
 
Ha-ha! I love how you have framed that question because this is probably what most people think when they first hear about Life Coaching. What I have learned from my studies in the field is that real coaching is about empowering others and helping them uncover the answers that lies inside themselves that they might not have yet noticed.
 
There is a big difference between coaching and mentoring... Here are a few bullet point to point that out.
 
Coaching is:

• A method of assisted self-exploration that helps to determine an individual’s current situation, their intentions and aspirations and the mean they have to meet these objectives.
• A means of facilitating personal development through exploration and challenging current beliefs, practices and situation in an individual’s life.
• An exploration of the map individuals create for their lives. It examines the meanings given to various events in their lives, as well as how this affects life quality.
• Coaching is about facilitating the client’s self-exploration rather than giving advice or telling people what to do.

 
Mentoring:

• Mentoring is a developmental partnership through which one person shares knowledge, skills, information and perspective that has been learned through the years in a specific field to foster the personal and professional growth of someone else.
• The power of mentoring is that it creates a one-of-a-kind opportunity for collaboration, goal achievement and problem-solving.

 

Having said that there is many ways in which I’m currently helping the athletes I’m working with, getting from A to B. You see, I’m the “how” and “why” guy… more then the “what” guy. One of my favorite process is to clear the bullshit holding them back using the Matrix Therapies. Bullshit like "I'm not good enough!” That's a hard trick!", "I can never perform to my best during the big events!", “life is a struggle”, “Money is the root of all evil”, "I'm good but I'm not the greatest". All these are all bullshit beliefs that holds us back.
 
Or it can be frustration, anger, fear... all emotions that can turn into limiting states.
It’s about clearing the bullshit and replace it with more resourceful states and beliefs that empower us and gives us new options and choices that we might not have realised we had from the beginning.
 
I believe we are unique, magical, creative creature and lately I have come to realise that it's about more than just believing, it's about knowing. Knowing that the power of the whole freaking universe is inside us... actually it's not inside us... we are it!!! The same stuff and the same intelligence that runs the whole universe is also running through our own body and soul... It’s like some people think god is out there looking down…  My take on it is that it’s inside us, in every cell of our bodies! We are all gods! I’m not kidding! We have the power to create! Every single one of us! The trick is to get out of our own way while taking focus actions.
 
And that what I like to help people do… This might be a bit out there for some people but I don’t care! I’m not here to please everybody, I’m here to work with like-minded people…
 

Do you think your shred life provided you with many skills that you now use as a Life Coach?
 
For sure it did. It gave me experiences, perspective, it gave me daily feedbacks around what worked and what did not for me. I also know that if I would have had a Sport and Life Performance coach, I would have achieve the same in a more efficient way and it would have given me the opportunity to push my own boundaries even further... as much on my board then in any other area of my life... When we align our energies, our actions, our beliefs systems, our thoughts, our values, our language, environment and our priorities there is no limits, only the one we give ourselves. That's when magic happens!  
 
So for those interested, visit my web site. www.authentiklifecoaching.com. It’s pretty basics at the moment but you can get in touch with me that way.
 
Looking back on a long and stories career as one of Canada's top professional snowboarders, what would you say you are most proud of? What do you feel you accomplished?
 
I’m proud that I was able to get out of my own way, live and create my snowboard dream! You know I grew up believing I was just an average athlete and that talent was 90% of the equation… How helpful do you think that was for me?… Not at all! Now I know performance is 90% mental and that the only average people out there are the people that believe they are. I’m very proud that I was part of the development of an amazing culture. Proud that I have inspired some to do the same, no matter the field they are in. I’m proud that I have walked my talk...most of the time… Proud of all the friends I have made.