My dream from a young age was to be a lawyer. It was a dream that I thought would bring me great pride and happiness, having grown up with a very successful dad as a role model (who was an insurance broker), it was also a dream I knew would bring great pride and happiness to my parents. From a young age I worked very hard to reach my dreams: to graduate from Cambridge University in Law, and then become a litigator in one of the world’s top law firms.
I set my mind to this and it became my reality—I graduated from Cambridge University, Christ’s College with an MA in Law and secured a job at my dream law firm in London.
As my career progressed, I began to realise the reality was not inline with my dream. I was constantly stressed and working very long hours, week days and weekends included. I normalised the stress and pressure as everywhere I looked it was the norm. At the time, my body felt like it didn’t mind too much, I was in my twenties—I took health and wellness for granted and did not appreciate the serious health damages this lifestyle was causing.
The fact that health was not to be taken for granted soon became a reality; working in a chronically stressed state accumulates both mentally and physically, and when my dad had a heart attack and a sudden stroke, the shock of reality hit me hard. My dad was my inspiration for hard work and the reason I pursued my career. My dad’s heart attack and stroke was mostly caused by his high-stress lifestyle, like me, he too was working long hard hours. The shock of reality smashed the delusional tint on my mirror, and this is when I first realised my health was deteriorating and felt completely burnt out. The realisation didn’t just stop there; I saw my colleagues’ health deteriorating. Everyone was running on stress and the meaning of health and wellness seemed a foreign concept.
Acknowledging that my dream of being a lawyer was not fulfilling me as much as I thought was a painful realisation. I was forced to ask WHY I wanted to be a lawyer. I realised I wanted to help others, be someone’s counsel, guide and help them find solutions. Although I am so grateful for all the skills I learned as a lawyer and the beautiful intellectual rigor, being a corporate lawyer involved more paperwork than human heart connection.
I stepped away from my legal career to explore how I could still help people but with human connection and soul alignment at the core. I was trading financial stability and career security for uncertainty—I packed my bags and left my life behind in London and embarked on a world tour to the best wellness centers and most authentic locations—I was off to India, Nepal, Arizona, Greece, Indonesia, Ibiza—I sought out the best teacher I could who taught me yoga, meditation, breathwork and tantra, becoming a teacher myself in all of them.
I had a new set of skills that brought me great inner peace, but it also equipped me to bring the power of health and wellness optimization to others. The incredible journey culminated with a trip to Bali where I was going to teach yoga as well as learn a new yoga qualification for 3 weeks, but within the first week I arrived the Covid-19 lockdown had hit, the yoga retreat was cancelled and I was stuck on a small island off of Bali. The tiny island of Nusa Lembongan became my home for the next five months—and it became a primal paradise.
I deeply immersed myself amongst the locals and their way of life. I cooked with them, I fished with them, I ate and prayed with them. This primal experience showed me the power of a primal diet—how it connects to the root of who we are, who we evolved to become, and I knew I needed to bring the power of a primal diet to my future clients. I gained my PHCI qualification while living on this little (in size) but so big (in learning) primal paradise island.
With my yoga, meditation, and coaching qualifications under my belt, I felt fully equipped to launch my unique, flexible online holistic health service combining the age-old tools learned from the cultures and countries which contributed to my own healing with the modern education and cutting edge technologies PHCI taught me.
With the lockdowns in full enforcement, I needed to pivot, I needed to adapt and rethink how I could connect to people while stuck on the island, and how I could future-proof my business in a time of social distancing. Originally my plans for gaining clients was through teaching at yoga and health retreats, but with Covid-19 this became very difficult to consistently achieve, as so many retreats were either being cancelled or postponed. My strategy needed to go digital and so I created a social media strategy around Instagram content creation and building a presence on digital platforms, including a unique blend of ancestral health and biohacking as part of my coaching programme to serve corporate executives clients.
My main focus for clients is executives. My passion lies in optimising the health of high-performing executives as I can truly relate to their pain points and offer tools and techniques to help overcome their struggles by sharing the knowledge I now have which I wished I knew back then when I was working those long hours. As my confidence as a coach grew, my client list grew too along with my blooming social media presence.
In my past I had been deeply moved and motivated by speeches I had seen in person or listened to online. As a former lawyer, public speaking has always been something I love doing and a common theme I saw in the people who inspired me and in those I sought to emulate. I was thrilled to work in Italy as part of the Experts Team with LiveBeyond, to speak and present on Primal Nutrition and the health benefits of Primal Health and the Primal Blueprint. As a firm believer of the importance of eating Nose to Tail, I also wanted to passionately speak on the power of organ meats for optimal human health and performance, and how organ meats connect us to our ancestral past. I was overjoyed that the Biohackers’ Summit in Finland invited me as a speaker this year.
I was also thrilled to get published in UK national newspapers and magazines like the Daily Mail and Top Sante, to contribute as a writer to the Biohackers’ Update magazine, and to be invited by some of my fitness and biohackers role models, such as Jay Campbell, to speak on his podcast.
My experience today has shown me there isn’t just one road to success, there are many, and the digital world makes discovering and traversing those roads much more accessible than they have ever been. The world needs health coaches more than ever, and I am so grateful that the Primal Health Coach Institute’s certification enables me to touch so many lives in a positive manner on a daily basis.
— Charlene Bourliout
Primal Health Coach Institute Directory listing
charlenegisele.com
Instagram: @charlenegisele
