I’m a former pastor who left organized religion but never really left the “helping people” part behind.
Now, as a mental health coach, I help men develop emotional intelligence so they can better understand themselves and get what they want out of life.
For just under a decade, I was a pastor.
I loved helping people.
I loved the community.
And I loved the idea of working together towards the same goals of personal development and serving the world.
I thought I’d do it for the rest of my life.
It felt right for me.
Until it didn’t.
A series of experiences from 2010-2017 drastically impacted how I saw the world and my role in it.
My education and career paths shifted as I slowly began to walk away from organized religion.
The desire to help people never left, but I knew that the church wasn’t the right medium for me anymore.
While working on an Alberta-based ag-tech startup in 2018, I discovered the world of coaching through a friend at a co-working space. When that startup started to take a turn for the worse, I started using the whiteboard a little more (my FAV tool for idea generation) and the Akkeri was born.
Fast-forward a couple of years and that idea has become an active coaching practice and podcast that is bringing practical support to men (and deep satisfaction for myself).
My Story
I was born into a religious, lower-middle-class family; the first-born son to a soon-to-be single mother.
I grew up on an island on the East Coast of Canada. I split my time between video games, sports, and bike riding (and apparently I had a blue snoopy sweater).
The majority of my Saturdays were spent with my sister at my father’s place. He taught me a lot of practical skills like fishing, skiing, and how to operate ATVs (the knitting, however, came from my grandmother).
I completed all but one year of schooling in a denominational system. So yes, that means I went to a Christian school during the week and church twice on Sundays. Kinda wild.
My church involvement led me to study theology and music, pursuing a career in pastoral ministry. (This was also the beginning of my hair loss. Coincidence? Perhaps.)
Pastoring in Alberta and Newfoundland, I mostly enjoyed my ministry experience (as well as my newfound baldness).
2012 began a long season of change for me. I left pastoral ministry, I studied new media at BCIT in Vancouver, I was cheated on and eventually divorced, and I moved around a lot (with my biggest move being South East Asia).
I returned from Vietnam in 2018 as my mother received a surprise late-stage cancer diagnosis. She was only 56 when she passed. Outside of the infidelity, losing my mother was the most painful experience of my life. My grandmother passed a few years later, followed by my father (also to cancer).
I knew my time as a pastor was done, so in 2019 I pursued a master’s degree in communication with my thesis work on the need for belonging among men (at Royal Roads University, not Xavier’s School for Gifted Children).
In 2022, I planned a temporary visit to Newfoundland and was surprised to meet the love of my life. Now, we're planning a home together and an elopement (because traditional weddings are overrated).
So What is The Akkeri?
The Akkeri is a platform for me to work with men as a coach and present my take on men and masculinities through the podcast and various media platforms.
The hope is to encourage new conversations where vulnerability is seen as strength, open-mindedness as courage, and respect as foundational.
And I know that us men are generally considered to be bad at recognizing and admitting to our need for help, so the Akkeri is my way of breaking that stereotype and offering support for change.
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