David MylesNot too dissimilar from many Caribbean families in major English cities such as Birmingham, Manchester and London during the 1960s and 1970s; Pastor, Eddie Hypolite was raised in a household with zealous traditional Christian Caribbean values.
Although Eddie was born and raised in the vicinity of Fulham/West Kensington, a school expulsion in year 9 (8th grade in the U.S.) at his comprehensive school in Holland Park meant that a young Eddie would finish his formal education at Ardale Community Home School in Essex. Approximately 40 miles drive from his inner-city dwellings in West London, Eddie describes his teenage years as nothing short of ‘’very turbulent’’.
Turbulence prevailed into Eddie’s early twenties and in his reflection, the pastor affirms that ‘’If you don’t settle the kind of person you want to be in your teens, your twenties will be that person with a vengeance’’. His agitation with life began to erode when Eddie enrolled at college during his mid-twenties and met girlfriend, Yvonne. Shortly afterward, the pair got married and their matrimony remains intact after more than three decades.
By now, no stranger to different environments, Eddie pursued a degree at Northern Caribbean University in Jamaica where he vocationally trained at the Seminary as a minister. On his return to England, Eddie worked as a minster for 16 years, before uprooting to Australia in 2013 to serve as the first black pastor at Avondale University in its 140yr history. Still speaking with an instantly recognisable English accent Eddie says: ‘’for the past 6 years I have been running my own consultancy’’.
Eddie’s company Empowering Your Resilience has its foundation in How to be a player, a workshop he created in 1999. ‘’It was originally just me trying to find answers to why I did half of the things I did when I was a teenager’’ says the Pastor. ‘’How to be a player is a way of helping people to deconstruct the way they view and interact with the world around them and inside of themselves. And it just says look we are going to deconstruct the world around you. If at the end you still think it’s all good then keep things as they are, but if you realise that you’ve got to find a better way to be in the world, then let’s do the work to change things. That is what How to be a player was and is’’ he adds.
Eddie’s book Living From Here which is a collection of different stories, experiences and cultural observations speaks on some of these factors. Describing the work as a ‘’book about resilience’’ the author uses the term ‘’relational philosophy’’ to articulate his work. The book grapples with Eddie’s early childhood and young adult experiences, and interactions and provides a platform for his observations to be explored while also enabling the reader to reflect on Eddie’s journey while self-reflecting on their personal journey.
Eddie is also the author of 4 Questions which was written in 2021 when Australia and much of the world were beginning to relax covid restrictions. The free short E-book and the audiobook addresses four life questions we find ourselves confronting on a regular basis, Who am I? – Identity, How am I?- Wellbeing, How do I?- self & people leadership and Why and Where do I? – Legacy/Future.
‘’It’s kind of geared towards people who are stuck, and I enable them to unstick themselves’’.
Amalgamating Eddie’s lessons and wisdom gained from his childhood and young adult tribulations, his agency Empowering Your Resilience Ltd helps young leaders and leaders of any age group ‘’to figure out the way in which they can build resilient companies, and resilient cultures. What is it that adds to resilient cultures? Helping them to think why it is that they are losing resilience and losing energy. I help them to discover ways in which they can renew their resilience and then build as they move forward’’ says Eddie.
Empowering Your Resilience serves to crystallize Eddie’s expertise in areas such as race, leadership and education consultancy with young people. The organisation does not cater to a specific professional person and aims to tailor needs according to individual or organisational requirements from the corporate world to a young teenager who may lack discipline and self-regulation. Compendiously, Eddie remarks ‘’It’s kind of geared towards people who are stuck, and I enable them to unstick themselves’’.
Eddie’s principle-led approach is guided by navigating our understanding of what we are experiencing and feeling. ‘’People can think about what it is. Apply the principle to where they are and then they figure out the practice’’ says the former youth worker. ‘’Most of the answers people already have. I just bring the answers out of them’’ he admits.
Organisations and individuals who are interested in working with Eddie Hypolite can contact him directly via email: eddie@eyrltd.com and by visiting the website: Empowering Your Resilience
