Meet Paul Lubicz of Based in Santa Monica

Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Lubicz.

Hi Paul, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?

I started out as a manufacturing chemist in Perth, Western Australia. Then I spent a decade in London, UK, transforming bodies — actors, musicians, Academy Award winners, the people whose careers depend on their physical state. What I learned there is that nobody’s body is the actual problem. The body is just where the problem finally shows up.

So I went back to school — for the third time — to study leadership psychology and emotional intelligence at Cornell. And I built something else: The Wellbeing Manager. One point of contact for a person’s physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. That work took me from tour buses to boardrooms.

Now I work with founders, CEOs, investors and elite performers making decisions with real consequences. My role is simple. Help you think more clearly, show you the patterns you can’t yet see, and align your decisions with who you’re becoming.

Most high performers don’t need more information. They need less noise. Nearly three decades in, that’s the only thing I do.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I left Australia in 1999 on a working holiday to the UK and never really stopped travelling. Australia to England, England to America — two immigrations, two marketplaces, two rebuilds of everything from scratch. Community, friends, a business, a life. That takes a particular kind of self-belief, and it costs you something too. My family is still in Australia. That distance has been the hardest part of all of it.

There have been ups and downs and long stretches of uncertainty. But what I keep coming back to is how many people have extended goodwill along the way — how often I’ve been helped by people who had no reason to help me. When things are difficult it’s hard to notice how fortunate you are. It’s usually only afterwards that you see it.

So I’ve learned to look into the unknown and read it as possibility rather than threat. That’s not naive optimism. It’s a decision I make, and I’ve made it enough times now to trust it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I help leaders think clearly. That’s the whole job.

I work one-on-one with founders, CEOs, investors and elite performers — people making decisions with real consequences, usually under pressure, usually with more information than they know what to do with. My work is to help them cut through it: see the patterns they can’t yet see, and align their decisions with who they’re actually becoming rather than who they used to be. That runs through private advisory, corporate consulting, keynotes, and immersive retreats on a 40-acre off-grid property near Joshua Tree.

What sets me apart is the route I took to get here. I came in through the body. Twenty-five years ago I was a manufacturing chemist, then a trainer in London working with actors, musicians and Academy Award winners — people whose careers depend on their physical state. Working that closely with someone’s body, you find out very quickly that the body isn’t the problem. It’s just where the problem finally shows up. That’s when I went back to school to study leadership psychology and emotional intelligence at Cornell, and built the practice around what I’d actually been doing all along.

I’ve spent nearly three decades in rooms where clarity, trust and discretion matter. Most of the work is invisible by design.

What I’m most proud of is longevity — that people come back, and that they send the people closest to them. In this work that’s the only real credential.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Presence. The ability to be genuinely with someone without an agenda for them.

Most people in high-stakes roles are surrounded by advisors who want something — a decision, a mandate, a contract renewal. They can feel it, even when it’s subtle, and it changes what they’re willing to say out loud. My value is that I don’t need anything from the outcome. That’s what makes the room safe enough for the real thing to surface.

Underneath that is a kind of stubbornness about telling the truth. I’ve never been useful to anyone by agreeing with them. If someone is avoiding a decision, or building a story to justify one they’ve already made, my job is to name it — carefully, but plainly. People don’t come to me to feel better. They come to see clearly. Those aren’t always the same thing, and the willingness to sit with that difference is probably the single characteristic that’s carried the work.

Pricing:

• Single remote session $600
• 12 week Mentorship Program $6k
• 3 DY Retreats bespoke, referral only. Pricing on enquiry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.returntotruenature.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thewellbeingmanager?utm_source=qr
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-lubicz-68907732?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios

Image Credits
Russell Smith
https://www.instagram.com/official_russell.smith?igsi=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==