From a French Village to Bali:
One Decision That Changed Everything

A man who started with $100 and no experience — and spent 35 years proving that freedom is not a dream. It is a decision.

By Eric Depp

Read time: 6 min

Category: My Story

The Village That Almost Kept Me

I was born in August 1965 in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges — a small mountain village of 30,000 people in eastern France that most of the world has never heard of. And where most people who grew up there never left.

My father held three jobs simultaneously for over twenty years. He rose at 4am every morning to deliver newspapers — building his route from 100 to over 800 clients — then headed to his day job as an accounting assistant, then returned at 8pm to deliver leaflets until midnight. My mother worked alongside him every step of the way.

They never complained. They never stopped. They simply worked — and in doing so, they planted something inside me that would take decades to fully understand.

“I learned early what it felt like to be underestimated. I also learned that the only dignified answer was to keep moving forward.”

At fourteen I was distributing newspapers myself at 5:30am before school. By nineteen, a three-month internship in New York City had cracked something wide open in me. I saw a world with no ceiling. Ambition had no postal code. I returned home changed — and I never really looked back.

The Small Ad That Rewrote My Life

After studying international commerce in Strasbourg, living in London on a friend’s floor selling menswear to survive, completing military service, and earning a marketing diploma in San Francisco — I found myself stopping in a new city looking for summer work.

That is when I saw it. A small classified advertisement speaking about entrepreneurship and travel. I attended the presentation. It was Herbalife.

I had no money and no experience. I registered for $100 — not because I was certain, but because I was open. And in that small act of openness, my entire life changed direction.

$100Where it began

6Days to first sale

13+Countries lived in

35+Years of freedom

142People at 3 Diamond worldwide

Everyone Laughed. The Results Did Not.

When Herbalife launched in France in October 1990, I was in that room. And I made a decision almost everyone around me thought was reckless. Friends questioned me. Relatives were sceptical. Some laughed outright.

The message was always the same: you have a degree, four languages, international experience — why throw it all away on a supplements company?

The doubt was there. I won’t pretend it wasn’t. But underneath it was something stronger — a vision I couldn’t explain to anyone, and a burning need to prove it to myself.

The products had already worked on my mother, my father, and a close friend. Real results on people I loved. So I shared what I had witnessed — with honesty, energy, and genuine care.

In my first six days, sixteen people bought the products. I earned $420. Nine months later, still part-time, I was earning $2,000 a month — enough to pay my own second year of university without asking my parents for a single franc.

“On the 1st of August 1991, I went full time. No boss. Freedom. Travel. Those were my three reasons. Money was the tool — never the master.”

The Walls I Hit. And Hit Again. And Kept Going.

What followed was not a smooth journey. I built in France, flew to Los Angeles to meet the founder of Herbalife, and returned with a vision burning inside me. Then my ego got ahead of my skills and the business collapsed. So I started again.

I moved to Milan, Italy — barely speaking the language — in the middle of winter. I made cold calls from a public telephone booth on the street, my breath visible in the freezing air. At night I returned to the cheapest hotel I could afford.

Within eight months I had built the sixth-largest organisation in all of Italy. Monthly team turnover reached $180,000. I was 27 years old.

Then the press turned on Herbalife overnight. My team went from energised to frightened. I was fighting on two fronts — Italy and France — simultaneously, alone, in the dark.

But the story of our founder facing the same attacks in the USA and surviving became my anchor. If I built it once, I can build it again.

And so the journey continued. Brazil. Venezuela. Thailand — distributing flyers under the scorching sun despite being a Millionaire Team member. Indonesia in September 1998 with soldiers still in the streets after the political crisis. India in 1999 — where I sat alone after three days and asked honestly: go home, or stay?

I stayed for eighteen months. Today, India is my largest market in the world.

The Summit — and the Woman on the Dream Board

The years of work across a dozen countries had quietly built a global organisation. In 2004 it earned me one of the highest ranks in Herbalife history: President’s Team — achieved by fewer than 0.01% of all distributors globally.

I moved to Singapore, then Malaysia — investing deeply in personal development alongside the business. Five seminars with T. Harv Eker. Tony Robbins. At least one book per month on leadership, mindset, and human potential. I treated my mind the same way I treated the business: constantly feeding it.

“In September 2009, at a dinner in Kuala Lumpur, I met the woman I had already written about on my dream board two years before we were introduced.”

I did not know who she was when we first spoke. I knew only who she was inside. That she was one of Malaysia’s most recognised singers — Noorulhuda Wahab — with over 500,000 followers, I discovered later. We married in Kuala Lumpur in 2012. In 2013, our son Zachary was born. Raphael arrived in 2015. In 2019, our daughter Isabella completed the family — exactly as I had envisioned since 2007.

During Covid, when much of the world went into fear, our business accelerated. Those years carried us to what fewer than 142 people in the entire world have achieved: 3 Diamond President’s Team, in a company doing nearly $8 billion in annual sales.

Bali — The Vision That Became Reality

In September 2021, my family and I moved to Bali. I had written this on my dream board in 2005 — sixteen years before it happened.

My days now begin with meditation and quiet gratitude. Then the gym — because at almost 61, the body is something I treat with the same seriousness I give to business. Breakfast on the patio. Reading. Taking the children to school. Bringing them home. Being present. Truly present.

Sunset can happen on a Tuesday. A beach afternoon on a Wednesday. There is no concept of “waiting for the weekend” when the week belongs entirely to you.

“This is not surviving. This is living. And it is available to far more people than those who are currently living it.”

Why I Came Back — After Seven Years of Retirement

People ask me with genuine curiosity: Eric, you are retired in Bali. Your income is stable. Your children are happy. Why start again?

The honest answer is this: I feel responsible.

The global wellness industry is approaching $7 trillion. People everywhere are exhausted, disconnected from their health, and searching for energy, purpose, and a way out of financial pressure. And I know something — after 35 years — that most people are still searching for. I am not willing to keep it to myself.

There is also one more level above where I stand: Chairman’s Club — 5 Diamond. Fewer than 79 people in the entire world have reached it. Why not give it five more years? And the most powerful reason of all: what I build now belongs to my family. To Zachary, Raphael, and Isabella. One decision. Generational security.

“If a young man from a village of 30,000 people in France could build a global life of freedom, wellness, travel, and purpose starting with $100 and no experience — what is possible for you?”

This Is Only the Beginning of the Story.

Read the full unfiltered story — every chapter, every setback, every breakthrough — including what happened in every country, how it all connects, and what it means for you.→ Read My Full Story Here

Or take the first step toward your own story:
now.askericdepp.com/wellness-booming-now

Questions? WhatsApp Eric directly: +60173380208 · yestowellnessasia@gmail.com