There is a critical aspect of success which is coming into its own and Sean Bacon is building a career out of advancing it.
To understand the value of this particular aspect, evidence is easy to come by. Just look at the Vancouver Canucks teams of 2010 to 2012: loaded with talent, questioned for their mental and physical toughness, or lack of it.
Bacon, born in Castlegar in 1970, has been recruited by the Trail Smoke Eaters to supply and instill a level of mental toughness to the BC Hockey League junior A squad. In his own life the retired military man has demonstrated the sort of qualities he promises he can help others attain. Along with the Smokies a number of soccer and rugby outfits, male and female, have sought Bacon’s services. He has a deal coming up with a client in Virginia.
Bacon lives in Penticton now but maintains close ties with his home town; his mother and grandmother still live here.
He started off an August 29 phone chat with a bit of personal history for the Castlegar News.
“I grew up in the community, went to the local air cadet squadron, went to Stanley Humphries High School. I joined the military in 1991,” he related.
“I did a 12-year career in the military police and the Airborne.
“I then spent a year in law enforcement before retiring.”
Bacon went back to school and became a massage therapist before deciding his region of the province (Okanagan) was highly over served in that area.
He came upon the idea for the path he’s on now thanks to a suggestion from home.
“It was my wife’s idea,” he recalled, “because I’d already been working with several teams, teaching leadership, team development and conflict resolution.”
With a background in practices including specialties such as interrogation psychology, Bacon has skills to share.
At the core of his message is truth that personal limits are movable. They are quite often well beyond what an athlete, or anyone for that matter, believes they are.
“If you look at it, because I was also a physical trainer in the military,” explained Bacon, “these athletes have the best coaches, trainers and therapists. They even have sports psychologists but they really have no one to teach them that grit, to stay in the game and fight it out and go past their point of limitation.”
He referred once again to the military.
“We did missions that most people would say are impossible, and we accomplished them.”
Looking ahead, Sean Bacon has the outlook that things will progress; his growing list of sports-related clients reinforces that belief. But there is even more potential in the field he’s chosen, because sports, after all, are just microcosms of society. Mental toughness, adaptability; and the extension of personal limits are desirable traits for anyone, in every walk of life. Included among Sean Bacon’s personal goals, therefore, is crossing boundaries, helping all kinds of people get better equipped to realize their potential.