Lionel Cuveiller and his ViEsion for a better world.
Q: Tell us about yourself.
Lionel Cuveiller, Mentale Hygiene & Motivation Coach
A: My name is Lionel, I was born in Marseille and I am 36 years old. My life and especially my early life gave me the instruments and the inspiration to craft my path. I’ve learned the hard way how to face adversities and how to give myself a direction.
As a child, when I was about 13, I started getting fat and even obese, which was awful because all the other children were bullying me. It was a really bad and stressful period. Every time that I had to leave the house and go to school I was always anticipating the worst. And my parents could not support me through this; they could not imagine what I was living while they were working full time.
This situation lasted until I was about 17 years old. And my obesity and the bullying related to it were not my only trap. For example, I was not allowed to travel as my classmates did: when the school organized a trip, my grandmother would not let me go. Therefore, I only traveled a few times and only with my parents in France around 2/3 hours by car maximum. My vision of the world was really small! The rest of my time was spent doing homework and some sport, which was the only thing that helped me maintain some kind of balance. I could not change my external environment, but I could still do something about being obese, so I suddenly decided that at least that aspect of me was going to change.
After 7 years of hard work and alone training, my body looked like what I wanted it to be. I had successfully transformed myself, fought against myself, and unlocked all the cages that my parents had put around me, either out of fear or for wanting to protect me. Doing sport was my therapy and I am allowed to say that without sport I probably wouldn’t be writing today. At that point in time, I was studying accounting and how to manage a firm, which occupied me for 7 months. After that, I kept on studying firm management in different programs, at the University of Economics and finally, I also attended the Business School in Marseille. It was an international environment and it allowed me to spend a season in Liverpool and to obtain a double diploma in Finance & Banking.
My interest in finance and banking ended right after. I went to London and Malta where I worked as a salesman in the Luxury Industry, only to continue my studies in media entertainment and technology. I worked for national and international big events; mainly sports, corporates, and music. To be honest, as a teenager, I dreamed of working in the music industry except that when my parents asked me: “What would you like to do ?” and I answered: “Oh, I will work in the Music Industry!” their reaction was: “Great, and how about your real job?”. My parents did not equate Music to a real job, but after I became friends with a DJ, I created a new firm in visual entertainment a few years later. It finally allowed me to work and to be paid with and through my passion.
My way of thinking totally changed when I was 28: my mom got sick and received her diagnosis (ALS, ed.), and this created the real division between my before and my after.
Q: What is your vision for a more sustainable world?
A: We have to learn about the richness of old people, the value of their experience. My dream revolves around taking care of and learning about the elders. I want to re-boost the importance of transmission from the older generation. Reintegrate taking care of our elders as a generational duty and as part of the circle of life. Moreover, I think that this concept can be applied to the way we relate to nature: I want to learn about nature and acquire the necessary consciousness to preserve it as it’s needed. For example, I used to compare people to a tree: you have to connect with your roots, or without them, you will be lost. This can be applied to business, friendships, family and so many more areas of our lives.
“Deepen your roots to better grow” that is my motto. Society is teaching us to do the opposite and I wish to change that.
Q: What was your first step towards building a better world?
A: It happened when I was 28 and learned about my mom’s disease (ALS). In the beginning, she didn’t know what she had, she only showed a few superficial symptoms and could not move her hands. But this changed drastically after receiving her diagnosis. In fact, as soon as doctors told her about the nature of her symptoms, her condition got worse extremely fast. Before the diagnosis almost nothing had changed and then six months later, she ended up in a wheelchair. It was awful for me to see her this way, especially as I was left taking care of her.
I fell into a deep depression that lasted for one year, and to come out of that I booked a one-way ticket to Asia. I wanted to find the answer to the questions: “What is real life? Do I have to take control or accept it as it is? Why am I on this planet?” My journey brought me to an Island called Kho Lipe in Thailand where I found real loneliness for the first time. And I took that time to reflect on my time on Earth. How could I start working for the planet and the people around me? I really focused on meditating deeply for as long as I needed it, and in my silence, I started receiving guidance from within. I had found my inner voice. And eventually, I decided to follow it, to bring it into reality and to share my vision.
Thanks to my music contacts I managed to create an event to raise awareness about my mom’s disease. I went back to France, Paris, and got in touch with an association specialized in ALS and told them about the event. I did face some resistance, but in the end, I also managed to create the event.
Q: What challenges did you face?
A: The most difficult step for me was to accept my mom’s situation. It took me more than a year to get back in action.
After that, the association I was collaborating with told me that they would not give me any money. And for that reason, I created my own association that would become a vector for my strong beliefs. Other associations were focused on research, while I wanted to promote connection with spirit and with dreams to heal disabled people. The initial message was “Music as medicine”, which later on was translated into “Technology of well-being”.
That led me to the creation of a specific kind of Virtual Reality meant to help my mom and other disabled people to travel. I exposed her to that, and not only her motor response improved immediately, she also showed life signals that she had not shown in any other context. There was no real cure for ALS at the time, but after VR exposure and the psycho-emotional response it activated, she was able to breathe without a machine and even to go outside. Doctors would say it was impossible, even while seeing her improving in front of their eyes. In fact, after that first exposure, she kept on using VR and managed to produce some sounds and to show muscle stimulation that would normally be absent.
This has opened me to a new vision of humanity. I could clearly see the importance of taking the time to check in with oneself and try to answer the question: “What is your mission on Earth?”. I know now that we are all here to fulfill a responsibility as part of the global process, not just selfish goals. I had developed a new way to use ambition for the collective.
Q: How did you overcome your biggest challenge(s)?
A: Small anecdote: When I was in my mom’s belly I was one of 5 embryos, but in the end, I was the only one who made it. So, if I must explain my taste for fighting, I usually go back to that.
Apart from that, my first conscious challenge was definitely my obesity and the time it took to make a firm choice about it and then change. Everything to me is a matter of choice, like joy for example. You always have the option to either accept your situation or complain. We are all able to choose what we want to think and do. And every time I thought that my journey was over, I would always take at least one day off to find my center again and cleanse my brain.
To overcome challenges, you have to stay focused on your mission and at the same time, you must know how to control your emotional behavior. In both areas, You HAVE TO stay focused. And not only that, as handling the present moment is not always enough to create our future; you need dreams to push yourself ahead. This can mean creating goals, like life goals, or yearly goals, or monthly goals, or even daily goals. I compare my brain and my body to a car that has to be revised every once in a while. The first step to fix any type of imbalance is to accept that things are not working as planned. Then, I usually focus on what I am able to do from that moment on. Finally, I put my thoughts into action. But first, no action is always required to understand if your ideas can work or not.
Meditation is a big part of my daily routine. Practicing gratitude by saying “thank you” every day and asking for the best after doing my bed is a daily routine as well. It all participates in the maintenance of one’s system while navigating all life’s challenges and possibilities. And I try to be as rigorous as possible because if you want to find excuses you will find them, so discipline is sometimes more important than motivation. Connecting with nature can really enhance this process and when my mind is clouded it helps me find all that I need inside of myself.
Q: What is your biggest achievement so far?
Source: “Secret d’ancien” (“Secret of the Elder”, ed.)
A: Two things. On a personal level, I was able to show my way of thinking when I created this big event to bring awareness about ASL. And also what I achieved with my mom.
Later on, during the lockdown, I was able to slow down my life and I used this time to reflect upon what I would like my legacy to be: I want to immortalize and transfer the knowledge of every human. I decided to start with a documentary to achieve this: “Secret d’ancien” (“Secret of the Elder”, ed.). Thanks to this choice, last year I became a photo reporter, a drone pilot, and a film director and started to live my new life and my new passion every day!
Q: What keeps you moving forward?
A: In one word: LOVE. Loving life, loving people, embracing the unknown, and trusting in the process.
In 2019 a friend of mine committed suicide, and it was the last wake-up call for me. It led me to conclude that in our life we can choose to get up in the morning proud about everything is done and ready to focus on different new targets. For me, it was about deciding what I wanted to have in my brain, and the documentary idea came from that thought process.
A first trial was made in Haute-Savoie, and thanks to that experience I realized that I needed a team to really become the vector of my vision. I needed to expand in order to achieve. And then the plan is to continue in New Guinea. Due to restrictions and closed borders, I have changed the location of the upcoming one.
Since then, I decided to move to Polynesia. That happened as soon as I understood that France wasn’t good for my creative process. Now my project will start really soon.
Q: What are the biggest lessons you have learnt?
A: The main stuff that I learned in life is simply that you do not really have the choice. Life has a plan for you, you can just adapt yourself, ask yourself great questions, and put your thoughts in action. Life will test you, but you can learn how to play with it.
Stop over-thinking life, feel it!
Q: What’s next?
A: Focusing on the creation of my worldwide documentary to immortalize all kinds of different knowledge from Polynesia, New Zealand, Japan, and much more. It’s a life project where I try to collect as much wisdom as I can about self-healing, conscious eating, living with nature, and so on. Moreover, I’m also working on an App to help people and families gather knowledge and create a “Family treasure”. It will allow its users to create small videos where every family member can express their learnings and advice, in order to leave it behind for further generations. It will have the same name as my documentary, “Secret d’Ancien” (Secret of the Elder”, ed.). Hopefully, this will make it easier to learn about one’s elders, origins, and roots.
Don’t just aspire to make a living. Aspire to make a difference! Keep in mind that it’s all a matter of ViEbration!
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