Question Everything: Japman Bajaj on Faith, Self-Discovery, and Service

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Healing Our Politics podcast,
the show that shows you how toheal our politics by starting
with the human in the mirror. Myname is Skippy, Mezzereau,
coach, former elected official,and lifetime public servant. It
is my job to sit down with thebest thought leaders, coaches,
therapists, authors, scientists,and more, and to take the best

(00:24):
of what they have learned andtranslate specifically for the
public service experience.Warning, this is a postpartisan
space. No policy, party, orpartisanship here because
well-being belongs to all of us.
This show is about resourcingyou and trusting you to make up
your own damn mind about what todo with it and what's best for

(00:47):
your community. So as always,with love, here we go. Welcome
all to the Healing Our Politicspodcast, the show that shows
you, the heart centered leader,how to heal our politics by
starting with the human in themirror. In today's episode, I

(01:08):
sit down with public servant,Jatman Bajaj. Jatman is a multi
hyphenate leader.
He is literally the center ofthe Venn diagram between
technology, policy, culture, andentrepreneurship. A VP at
Valmetric, he is reinventinghiring in public service to
prioritize the human being.Jackman is a published author,

(01:31):
an accredited global shaper, apublic speaker, and serves on
more boards than one can count,including the elected leaders
collective. In this episode, wedig into growing up with a
father in a national position ofpublic service, the Sikh
religion, if you are familiar ornot, and how he was personally

(01:53):
and communally impactedfollowing nine eleven, how faith
and spirituality can influenceservice and improve well-being,
his journey from the belief thatpolicy was in the way to the
way, how to balance the left andright brain functions for
success, his meditationpractice, and how you can use

(02:15):
journaling to process trauma,loss, daily challenges, and so
much more. I hope you enjoy thisinspiring, diverse, and wide
ranging conversation with myfriend, Jackman Bajaj.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
We're here.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We're here. We're here. Welcome to a brother, a
board member, a friend, a fellowsummit, chapman, Bajaj. Welcome
to Healing Our Politics, theshow that shows you, the heart
centered leader, how to heal ourpolitics by starting with the
human in the mirror.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
I love that. Thanks for having me, Skippy. It's a
it's a joy, man. I've seen youstart this. I've seen you grow
it.
I've seen you bring it to whereit's at, and I'm excited to see
you take it to where it's gonnago. So it's a joy to be a part
of the team. Thanks, bro.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Just to draw a little bit of connection, I just wanna
disclose that I have somefrostbite on my left foot at
this moment because I was veryrecently in your country, which
is very far north and very cold.So I got a little bit of Canada
with me.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
Attaboy. So everybody should have a little bit of
Canada with them. That's good.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
The warmest temperature for the week was
negative 17, and most of theweek was negative 35 and under.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
I'm guessing you were in Banff or somewhere around

Speaker 1 (03:36):
there? Somewhere around there.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, excellent. Well done. Yeah. You came at the best
possible time.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
That is what I learned. So for people listening
who are not familiar withChapman, he has a diverse
background. And as I see it, andhe may agree or disagree, we'll
find out, really is theconnective tissue in the Venn
diagram between technology,entrepreneurship, policy,

(04:03):
culture, and service, which Ithink is a really beautiful and
interesting place to be. He is alifelong learner and polymath,
and he exemplifies in his workand my interactions with him a
balance of left and right brain,sort of humans and system
focused, that I don't come byoften and I really, really

(04:25):
admire and look up to. And justas a short partial list, when I
say like polymath, multihyphenate, these are just a
couple of the things thatJetman's been into over the
last, let's call it decade and abit.
He was the manager at the OttawaInnovation Community Challenge.

(04:46):
He was an ambassador forleveraging global media and
creating strategies for socialchange for leaders. He's a co
founder of Gen Y Ottawa, amanaging director of the social
group digital agency, which wasan award winning agency, a
curator at the global shaperscommunity. He was an adviser at

(05:06):
Calgary Arts Development, was onthe board of the TransCanada
Trail project. You you get theidea.
Director of relations at Telcos,one of the largest conglomerates
and communication companies inCanada, co lead on, We View DEI
podcast and media. It goes onand on. I literally have another

(05:27):
10 or so bullets, and this isjust a piece of the pie. So
looking at this kaleidoscope ofthings, what are you on this
earth to do?

Speaker 2 (05:39):
If you ask me that question on different times of
my journey, it's differentanswers. But I think
fundamentally, I better knowmyself. I don't have control
over too many other things. IfI'm gonna accomplish any one
thing, it's gonna be theaccomplishment of of actually
figuring out what this wholething is. Who am I?
What am I? So I think, you know,the bullet points, they're

(06:00):
they're nice to hear. And thenon the flip side, it's, like,
bouncing around constantly.Right? And I think that's just
the way I'm wired.
And I've learned from me that Ilearn more about myself through
experience. And so constantlydoing a number of different
things of service to myself,most of the time, if not all the
time, they are anchored onthings that are good for many,
many people. But at the core,it's I'm doing them for myself

(06:21):
to better learn about myself, tobetter understand myself. And if
there's any one thing that I washere to do, you know, if I were
to be imagining what my deathbedlooks like and I'm lying there
and sort of saying, yeah, thatwas a life well lived, I think a
life well lived fundamentallystarts with saying I really
understood myself. I have a deepself realization experience that

(06:43):
whatever number of years I endup getting on earth, you know,
that that gave me that selfrealization experience.
And part and parcel with thatis, at least for me, that
journey has been the more Ilearn about myself, the more I
end up learning about others,which is why most of the
initiatives that I try to attachmyself to and where I get a lot
of fulfillment from areinitiatives and experiences that

(07:05):
involve trying to make otherpeople's lives at least somewhat
better in some capacity, someway.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
It's interesting. I wonder So I have a similar CV in
its length and perceptiblerandomness. To me, it's never
been random. For me, when I lookat it, I see the connective

(07:30):
tissue and I generallyunderstand what the various
options of next actions might bethat would relate to a larger
goal. And for me, that's alwaysbeen public service.
I see myself as a public servantfirst. So when you look at my
resume, you might say, Runs avacation rental company. That's

(07:52):
weird. That's over there. Or didconsulting for a ski club.
That's weird. Right? Like, youcould say, how do these things
fit in? But for me, I was at theski club because it was part of
the community that I love and aminvested in, and was a way for
me to give back to not one ortwo, but three generations of

(08:14):
people here and stay connectedthrough an activity. I have a
vacation rental company becausethat was and continues to be my
greatest public service subsidy.
It's the thing that pays therent that allows me to be here
and do those. So I get to seethat connective tissue, but to a
random passerby picking up theCV, they might not see that. And

(08:36):
so I wonder, do you have anorientation to public service in
that way? Or what might be athrough line in your CV that
would be clear to you, but notclear to others? And it may just
be learning about yourself.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah. So I'll pick up on a couple of things. Like I
try to be careful about,especially increasingly as I get
older, making sure you're livingyour life for yourself. Right?
Make sure you're not livingother people's lives.
So know what? There's a part ofme that says, look, if other
people can't see the line ofconsistency through the things
that you do, I don't know howmuch swearing is allowed on this

(09:13):
podcast, but fuck it. Like, it'snot for them. It's it's not
their story. It's not theirstory if they can perceive how
these things are connected.
It's not really it's reallynobody's problem. So the other
thing is though that when youlook back on things, the story
often tells itself. Right? Like,the story makes so much more
sense in reverse than it doesgoing forward. You take pretty
much any major national orinternational event or crises,

(09:36):
and you look at it and you go,that's not really random.
You can sort of look back andsay, oh, that's how we got here.
You can do the same withpeople's individual careers and
their career paths and theirleadership journeys and things
like that. The question then isalso, you know, the question is
like, okay, well, how do youchoose the next thing to do? And
I'm deviating from your questiona bit, but it really has to be

(09:57):
the call from within, right?Like it has to be a call from
within that compels you andsays, yeah, this is in line with
the things that you're supposedto be using your energy for.
That only comes, that call willonly come to you if you're
actually listening to yourself.And so when you talk about the
thread, yes, there's a piecehere where in my early twenties,
used to say yes to everything.In fact, that's still the advice
I give a lot of younger folk.You know what? When you're in

(10:19):
your early, especially earlytwenties, say yes to everything.
Get your feet wet in a lot ofdifferent directions so that you
know what resonates with youfrom a skills perspective, from
a career perspective, from asoul perspective. Get your hands
and feet and your mind wet in alot of different ways. Mhmm. And
then when you hit your thirties,you start finding yourself in a
position where you get to say noto things because the

(10:40):
opportunities come to youbecause you've spread yourself
out. You've spread your wings.
You've shown the world whatyou're capable of in a lot of
different directions. You caneither keep saying yes to things
or you can start saying, youknow what, I've got, you know,
I've got the four things I wannareally focus on or two things I
wanna focus on and that's whereI'm gonna go. So then back to
your question, know, the threadI think is like, it really just
ends up being self discovery. Itreally ends up being a

(11:02):
combination of self discovery, ahealthy dose of opportunism, and
service. Mean, I know that theexperiences that have fueled my
own self realization journey themost have been service oriented.
I mean, you can pick apart anyof any of the bullet points, the
ones you chose in particular, Ican pull back and sort of go,

(11:23):
yep, that's why I did that. Andbecause I thought I could bring
value to conversations thatwould impact many And again, for
me, what I've learned is I haveto be careful about that.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I love that because when I look at you, I do see a
servant or someone who'soriented to service. I also know
that you would and do describeyourself with many other titles,
entrepreneur, technologist,etcetera. I see that thread, but
it's cool for me to know thatyou see that too, because I can
also be guilty, like everyone,of looking for what is normal to

(11:57):
me or what I orient towards. Andwhat I'm super excited about
over the course of thisconversation is to unpack that
journey of self discovery,because, as it is frequently
said, the unexamined life is alife not well lived. And in

(12:18):
particular for public servantswho are under stress and
overwhelm and public criticism,it can be the norm or the
default to put that in a cabinetand say that's for later.
I don't have time for that. Butin my experience, it is

(12:38):
precisely because of the focuson self development and self
knowledge that leaders are ableto far more effectively serve.
And so I think it's gonna bereally fun to kind of dive into
that journey with you and justlearn where you've been and
people can, you know, takewhat's interesting to them or

(13:01):
not. You know?

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Twenty twenty three was a year where I evaluated
whether or not I should and, youknow, when you use the word
public servant, I think we couldtalk about the bureaucratic
public servant, but there's theelected official, the one who's
constantly in the spotlight, theone who's constantly being sort
of bombarded with media this andand photo op that and opening
events and all those types ofthings, the the really public

(13:26):
the very public leaders in thepolitical system. 2023, I took
as an opportunity to ask myselfwhether or not that was a life I
wanted to pursue, a life ofelected politics. Gratefully I
have dozens of people who haveserved and who are, have been
very close to those who haveserved and whether they were

(13:47):
spouses or they worked asstaffers, whatever. You know,
the ones ultimately that I thinkthat we end up admiring the
most, I'll say I end up admiringthe most are the ones who
equally knew when to call itquits as it was to get in there.
Because again, to your point,there is a sense of self
awareness of like, what am Ihere for?
What are my values andstrengths? I think when you

(14:09):
don't know those things, end up,whether by design or by accident
you end up becoming one of thoseelected officials that seemingly
just can't give up their chairbecause it's all they've ever
known and they can't imaginewhat they would do outside of
politics and then you know youstart thinking about the power
and the money and the sort oftoxicity that comes with some
folks who are literally justdoing the job because they

(14:30):
couldn't possibly fathomthemselves doing anything else.
You get a lot of toxicity whenyou don't. This is true for
every discipline and every typeof person. You don't know
yourself, you're settingyourself up for quite a bit of
failure.
Yeah. Unfortunately, think a lotof people haven't taken the time
to listen to what I like to callyour little voice. Your little

(14:51):
voice actually saying?

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Let's go back in the timeline. And, you know, you
even talked about, you know,envisioning your last day on
this planet, but let's go backto before there were stories
written, before you had theinclination or were being

(15:13):
trained to live someone else'sstory or someone else's life.
And take us back to kind of dayone for you. Like where do you
come from? Where did you growup?
What was your family experiencelike?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah. So my folks moved to Canada in 1968, well
before I was born. So if thiswas present day, my dad would
current would have been born inwhat currently is known as
Pakistan, but was pre partitionday, so it was all India at the
time. Mhmm. So ironically, if apartition had never happened, I

(15:52):
wonder if we would have evermoved to Canada, but that's
neither here nor there.
Came to Canada in '68. My momcame from Singapore. She was
born in India, but her familymoved to Singapore when she was
pretty young.

Speaker 1 (16:03):
So in modern day Pakistan, previous India, but
this was before the borderswitched, before the war and
conflict, what what inspired himto leave?

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Oh, he was he was one year old. It was partition that
inspired. So when the colonizersleft the imaginary line that got
drawn between Pakistan andIndia, he was 18 kilometers on,
quote, unquote, the wrong side,and they had to walk. So it was
him, his older sister who wastwo years older than him at the
time, so a one year old and athree year old and their
parents. Although he, you know,honestly, he admits that he

(16:37):
doesn't actually rememberanything from it.
He has a lot of stories fromSure. You know, the eleven days
or nine days it took them toactually cross because there
were soldiers everywhere. Therewas military everywhere. You
were, you know, they were hidingin ditches for hours at a time
just to make sure they didn'tget shot at.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Anyone who's listening who doesn't know the
history, this is like one of thegreatest and fastest mutual mass
migrations in human historywhere individuals of and correct
me if I'm wrong, but, primarilyMuslim descent who were on the
India side had to flee toPakistan, And those of, I guess,

(17:12):
primarily Hindu descent orBuddhist descent, and there's
Tibetan Buddhism up in like thatarea as well, fled south to
India, and the violence wassevere. And it continues to be
one of the most militarizedplaces in the world.

Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yes. And in Punjab, in particular, it would have
been Sikhs, which is who I am. Icome from a Sikh family. Before
the colonizers came, here's ahistory lesson for everybody.
Prior to the colonization by theBritish, there were simply just
a series of emperors who ruledover the area, most of them
coming from the subcontinent,and the most recent empire was

(17:49):
the Sikh Empire.
Fantastic stories from the Sikhempire in terms of, like, the
freedom of religion, actually,Judaism's presence in the Indian
Subcontinent only happenedbecause the Sikh empire actually
allowed it in, first of all, andthen secondly, created, safe
spaces and communities forJudaism to be practiced safely

(18:12):
in pockets all around India, andJudaism is still there to this
side. I was gonna wait a

Speaker 1 (18:16):
little bit later to get into this, but let's let's
do it because I'm I'm superinterested in this. I learned a
very small amount, a greatnumber of years ago when I was
in this region about the Sikhreligion, which I knew pretty
much nothing about. My memory isvery hazy. This was like 2013, I
think. I was on a trip inprimarily Northern India, but

(18:39):
sort of all around the borderregions.
So can you outline a little bitof the Sikh traditions and
belief structures? It doesn'thave to be super long, but just
to familiarize people who arelike, I don't even know what
that word means.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Sure. Okay. So we'll start literal. The literal
translation of the word sick islearner. And you can extend that
to seeker.
You can extend that to explorer.You can extend that to so but
the idea is somebody who is,constantly on a learning
journey. So that's sort of theliteral the literal translation,

(19:15):
philosophy wise. There's so manythings I could share. I'll share
one or two.
The entire book of scriptures,which we actually sort of revere
as our prophet to this day, ifyou will. Prophet's the wrong
word, but it's an English wordthat we'll use. That scripture
is fourteen thirty pages longbut the first word is the number

(19:37):
one and the number one signifiesa you know oftentimes people
will say that Sikh so in englishwords we'll say Sikhism the word
is Sikhi, Sikhi is a way oflife, Sikhism is a western word,
but Sikhi is a way of life. Thefirst word of the scripture, the
number one, generally impliesthis idea of oneness of all

(20:00):
living beings, of all creation.So generally people will say,
oh, Sikhi is a monotheisticreligion.
They believe in one God. That'snot untrue. The problem with the
statement is that it's amonotheistic religion, except
that you are a you are aproportion of that one god, and
the mountains are a proportionof that one god, and the trees

(20:22):
are a proportion of that onegod. And so that monotheism is a
little bit blended into apantheism, in that god is of
everything and in everything andalso between everything. And so
there's nothing less divineabout you than there is some
magical man in the sky figurewho may or may not exist.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So this development of self was really gifted to
you?

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah. It was I was I was cursed with it. The other
key thing I might share inskipping hundreds of years of
spiritual learnings is, thenotion of, saint soldier in
Punjabi. This is the santsipahi. And so the idea is that
Sikhs pursue a lifestyle of bothsaintliness and and soldierness

(21:09):
and there is a priority, it'sthe saint soldier, it's not the
soldier saint, it is the saintsoldier, the saint has to be
first and foremost.
The soldier must always beready. There's a real effort and
focus on discovering your innerwarrior. That could be the
warrior of the pen. That couldbe the warrior of the sword.
Could be the warrior ofwhatever.
But the ability to stand up foryourself and and equally as

(21:30):
importantly for those who areunderprivileged,
underrepresented, who areabused, assaulted, oppressed,
whatever that word is. So So sothat's the other key tenet I
think that I would share withthe audience here is is those
are the two the key ones, right?The oneness, the idea that we
are all one and not the same,which then really actually,
fundamentally and obviouslytranslates into this idea of
saintliness and soldierness,saint soldier, again, the

(21:54):
soldier being there toultimately protect not just
oneself, but all those who mightbe oppressed.

Speaker 1 (21:59):
And if my memory serves, there are a few core
practices Well, not practices,but behaviors and or like,
physical things that a sequeldo. So for example, what is the
name for what you wear in yourhead?

Speaker 2 (22:13):
The English word that is acceptable is turban. Okay. I
use the the Punjabi word isdastar, and we can dive into a
little bit of philosophy of it.It's a crown. It's it's meant to
be seen as a crown.
To put this in context, onlyemperors and their closest
entourage were allowed to wearturbans. And when the Sikh faith

(22:33):
was established, our spiritualleaders, our gurus basically
said, that's a little bit ofhorseshit. Like, why are you so
special? We're all gonna wearturbans. So we all wear turbans.
Now there's a lot ofpracticalities. There's a bit of
a social justice piece there.Alright? There's a sort of, you
know, screw you. We're gonna doit.
Nothing special about you.That's not special about this
homeless person. We're all gonnawear we're all gonna wear

(22:55):
turbans. The other thing is thatpart of the part of the equation
here is, we don't cut our hair.Many Sikhs do cut their hair.
It doesn't make them bad Sikhs.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Sure. There's a gradation of following like
every religion.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Correct. And so when when you keep your hair, you
have to be mindful of context.You know? You go back into those
days of the fourteens andfifteens and sixteen hundreds.
We're talking about, you know,India.
There's dust. There's dirt,there's whatever. You're often
working in the farms. If you'rekeeping long hair, you probably
need a system to keep ithygienic, to keep it in control,

(23:27):
to keep it orderly. And so now aturban makes a lot of practical
sense.
And then the long and short hairhas been studied by Buddhists,
it's been studied by Hindus,it's certainly been studied by
Sikhs. The idea that it can be agift from God, it can have
significant benefits to your ownspiritual mindset, some of those
studies on MRIs of people whokeep long unshorn hair when they

(23:49):
meditate versus those who don'tlike it's really fun to you can
sort of see some of the signscatching up to some of the
ancient wisdom so we keep herlong hair, keep it uncut, we
keep it covered, we keep itcovered practical, but b,
because also it's a bit of ascrew you, I'm here. And it's
interesting because as we talkabout politics, policy, and
those types of things, when youlook as different as I do and as

(24:10):
many people do in their own way,your life becomes political
whether you want it to or not.That was a lesson I don't think
I really learned until the lastfive or seven years, which is I
always considered myselfpolitically apathetic that I
didn't really particularly care.Ironically, that was just how I
saw it.
The fact of the matter was thatby virtue of just being the way
I am was a political statementin and of itself.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Well, I mean, I remember very sadly, after nine
eleven when violence againstMuslims upticked, there was a
particular likelihood of beingrandomly murdered if you were
sick, because there was amisassociation of an obviously

(24:54):
visible person with a turban on.And so people would walk into a
job site and just shoot someoneand not recognize that they
were, A, not Muslim, but thatthis religion, this tradition in
many ways, and correct me if I'mwrong, but there are a number of
tenants or elements in it thatkinda, like you said, that

(25:15):
warrior, that fuck you, thatwere really stood up in the face
of, you know, maybe some of thethings that were less lauded
about Islam or some of the otherreligions in the region at the
time.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
There's so much about that time frame that is, like,
so interesting from a from aSikh and a Muslim experience. So
first off, let's just say norandom innocent stranger should
have been murdered in thestreets. Muslim, Sikh, Hindu,
Christian, whatever. And one ofthe things I'm very proud about
my fellow Sikhs who have spokenout about this, it's just like

(25:45):
the question should not be, oh,we got it wrong. We thought we
were hurting a Muslim.
The question should be, why areyou trying to hurt anybody to
begin with? What what is yourwhat is your what here? I will
say that what's what was reallyinteresting about that time is,
you know, naturally, you lookedon TV and you saw the pictures
of the Osama bin Laden's and sowhatever. And when you looked at
the pictures of the 19terrorists who actually

(26:08):
committed the atrocity, none ofthem were turban wearers.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
Mhmm.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
And this the stats the statistics for hate crimes
against Sikhs for I wanna say itwas up to six years following
02/2011, was higher than anyother group, any other group,
whether it was Muslims Yeah.Jews, Hindus, Christians, Those

(26:32):
hate crimes committed againstSikhs were statistically and
absolutely, not just like on aproportionate, there were more
hate crimes.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
That had literally nothing to do with what the
people were angry about.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Correct. Which is wild. It's, you know, it's part
and parcel. It becomes part ofwhen you start folding in
identities. I'm like, okay.
Well, hold on. There's a onenesspiece. There's a saint soldier
piece. There's all sorts ofstuff that I could go on a
diatribe about about who Sikhsare. And you fold it into, like,
there's all this external, like,this is how the world is
perceiving.
And it's not even the world.This is how some a couple of nut

(27:06):
jobs are perceiving us and howdo we navigate that with a
country or countries, let's callit Canada and The US and The UK
and some of these other placeswhere we've established
ourselves quite nicely, youknow, you start asking yourself,
like, how are the ways in whichwe can keep ourselves safe?
Because we already left onepartition ridden state with, you

(27:26):
know, the political unrest thathappens in India. We've already
come from there to come to thisplace to live freely, safely,
build ourselves, and build ourcommunities and our families. To
every end, I think most minoritycommunities, many minority
communities, especially thosefrom the Indus Subcontinent have
done very well, which is they'vestarted establishing
institutions in North America.
And, again, linking this back towhat you're talking about and

(27:48):
what the importance of of thework that you're doing is that
you need that soulfulness whenyou're building communities up
because most communities thatare contemplating how they
further advance their agenda ina in a in a nation state like
The US or Canada, they're comingfrom trauma. Yeah. Which is the
story for a lot people fuckingall across the board. Like, a

(28:10):
lot of people bring their traumato their politics. They bring
their trauma to their Andwhether that's, you know, Skippy
Mesero, city councilor, formercity councilor in Aspen, or, you
know, minister of x y zed whohappens to be a Muslim woman or
whatever, like, we're allbringing our traumas.
And so when those traumas arebeing sort of set out, lived out

(28:31):
and created in real time, if youdon't have that strong rooted
sense of like listening to yourown self again, it just comes
back to this idea of like, haveto really know who you are. You
have to really have a good senseof like, what do you stand for?
What are your values andprinciples? Because otherwise,
you get into the you go down thepath of toxicity so fast, so so

(28:51):
fast. And I think I you know,nine eleven coming out of nine
eleven, the Sikh community, Iwould say, has done an
enormously positive, like, in agreat job.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
You were also a freshman in high school then?

Speaker 2 (29:01):
I was a sophomore.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Like very impressionable time and moment.
I have a question. It's not anon sequitur, but it's a little
off base. Are sick communitiesthat have immigrated to Western
countries, Canada, America, arethey disproportionately
successful?

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Great question. So like every community, there is a
continuum. Sure. The newer I'mgonna call it so I'll say in the
Canadian context, we have a lotof recent immigrants to Canada,
and I'm guessing it's true inThe US too. And they they
largely take the form ofinternational students, and
they're struggling.
Right? There's a very real andand look. I mean, the Canadian

(29:39):
political dialogue on this topicis nuanced. To use a diplomatic
word, it's nuanced. Canada'smade some choices to, like,
absolutely, you know,exponentially increase the
number of immigrants we've beentaking in largely from Punjab.
Like, there's a lot of Punjabiimmigrants who look like me who

(30:03):
have come to this country in thelast three months.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
The first person that I met was from, like, Srinagar
area just outside. So, yeah, andwe had a great conversation.
He's like, You're on amotorcycle trip in my hometown?
I guess I was. I just have to

Speaker 2 (30:18):
say this because this is

Speaker 1 (30:19):
the craziest story. So this man had no intention to
immigrate to Canada, was livinghis life in a suburb just
outside of Srinagar, basically,in Kashmir, and meets a Canadian
woman randomly at a popsiclestand where he's just hanging
out. He's a teacher. He's likethere with all of his kids. He

(30:40):
meets her.
They strike up a conversation.They decide they're going to get
together. He doesn't tell herthat he lives in a town that's a
little bit far away. He doesn'thave a car. It's going to be
hard to get there.
But he like makes a solideffort. And I think he said over
the four weeks he was there,they had like six in person
meetings. I don't know what youcall them, dates or whatever.

(31:01):
And then they talk on the phoneevery day for like six years,
but never see each other. And heproposes on the phone, moves to
Canada, and they've got fivekids.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Come on. Isn't that a beautiful story? Isn't that
amazing? That's off the charts.Cool.
That is a great story. I lovethat. I mean, you know, there's
and this is the thing is like,to your question, you know,
that's a success story. I don'tknow how well he does
financially, but that's successright there. A lot of people in
the Sikh community broadlysuccessful using financial

(31:32):
metrics.
Like, yes, there's a lot ofentrepreneurialism. There's lot
of, like, you know what, getshit done attitudes. And when
you've seen events likepartition

Speaker 1 (31:39):
The reason I'm asking is like, I I come from a Jewish
tradition and I have reallyfought that in many ways in in
myself and in my upbringing. AndI wanna talk about how your
faith tradition has influencedyour upbringing and comes into
high school, and we'll we'll getthere. I've really struggled
with it, but I read a book agood number of years ago. I
think it was called The TripleThreat, and it looked at

(32:02):
disproportionately successfulcommunities. So Jewish Americans
were one of them, IranianAmericans were one of them, you
know, there's Cuban Americans inFlorida, a number of them.
And there were kind of threeoverlapping characteristics that
defined all of them. And theywere one, a intense focus on

(32:24):
education. Two, a belief, astrong held and historical
belief in your specialness,which I mean, I heard the first
in your CV and in yourexperience. I heard the second
in we wear a turban because fuckyou, we all get to wear a
turban. And then the third isthe fear ongoing fear of
persecution.
And it's like this collage ofboth feeling self important, for

(32:48):
lack of a better term, doing thework of educating, but also
having something to fear as amotivator. And I believe I
remember that one of the thingsthat a sick will carry is a
knife of some kind, and thatstrikes to the warrior. It just
struck me of like, is this isthis fitting that mold? Do we
have an experience to share ortalk about?

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Absolutely, it does. And look, that's where I sort of
was going. When you come fromwhen you come from the trauma,
right, when you come frompartition, you come from the
economic the political unrest,and that's putting it mildly in
1984 where effectively it was agenocide of sex. Like, you know,
pretty much every institution inthe world that documents the
definition of genocide agreesthis was genocide. India is the

(33:29):
one of the only places thatdoesn't agree largely because it
was committed

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Can't imagine why.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
I know. So when you've been through that, you
can imagine that the I'm notgoing back there fear or the
like, it's both a chip on yourshoulder as well as, like, I've
seen way worse this, like, this,like, inflation ain't gonna hurt
me. Look at what I came from.Like, there's a certain there is
a certain spirit. And when youwere we're listing out the

(33:54):
communities, you know, I got togo to Israel and Palestine in
2023, and I saw so manyparallels in both communities
with the Sikh community.
And I just it just, it really a,it warmed me because it was
like, yeah, we really are justthe same. And that, you know,
that is a highly,oversimplification of,
obviously, what's, like,happening in The Middle East

(34:16):
right now, and it's too badbecause we're so much more alike
than we are

Speaker 1 (34:20):
this Yeah. And we're seeing a like response as well.
I mean, most US Jews do not wearphysical indicators anymore, but
many do. When they do, theybecome targets. And as if all
Jews, regardless of their degreeof piety, on every continent

(34:41):
share culpability with thedecision of a particular leader
in a particular country in avery particular set of events is
like insane.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Yeah. Look, it's complicated, right? You're
touching on that piece. One ofthe things that really struck me
as a shared reality betweenJudaism and Sikhi, there is
really a continuum. Right?
Like, there is the secular Jewor the atheist Jew.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
I think it's over a third of self identified Jews in
The US are atheists. It's like,makes sense of that. And it
makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
It totally and now that I've been there and
experienced it, it makes totalsense to me too. And I realized,
holy smokes. Like, we're kind ofnot entirely different that way.
I mean, when you peel back thisidea of God is like, again, man
in the sky living in the clouds,looking down upon us and judging
us. Right?
Like, when you look at that,it's like, that's a really
linear sort of like, know how tobe an atheist in that context.

(35:37):
And there's a lot of that sortof Western influence, I'll call
it Western influence in inTzakki over the last hundred and
twenty some years. But, like,some of the root definitions of
what is divinity when you starttalking about, like, look, this
woman sitting next to me is partof the divine, and I you and I
are part of the divine,etcetera, etcetera. It's like,
well, how do I not believe inthat? And so but this idea that
you might not believe in man inthe sky god, right, and

(35:59):
classifying that as atheism, butalso still being sick is like a
very real thing.
Like, that makes total sense. Sonow after and then it was
actually the trip to Israel thathelped me understand that, like,
actually being secular andbelonging to a faith group are
not different things.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
My partner, my girlfriend, Jamie, comes from
Oklahoma, Christian, you know,it's typical US as you're gonna
get. Somehow she's decided shewants to start reading Kabbalah,
which is like Jewish mysticism,which, you know, half the Jews
that I know would roll theireyes at. But what I remember is
after her first day of reading,she came to me with like eyes

(36:34):
wide being like, we're all God.Yeah. And it's like, it's right
there.
And I find that to be beautiful.And I'll out myself. I identify
as Jewish for sure. I went to abilingual day school for nine
years, where half my day was inHebrew. But I I mean, I I never

(36:55):
say never, but I I'd be verysurprised to find I ever become
a deist like that.
But the tradition, like yousaid, with the chip, after
everything that we've beenthrough, I couldn't disidentify
or abandon that community. Andas much as that community has
given me, has passed along a lotof those traumas and neuroses

(37:18):
and anxieties and those things,it has also given me the
absolute gifts of education andmindset and perspective that
have allowed me to transmutethose negatives into positives
in the self development journey.There's a word I came across
when doing some research here.I'm gonna mispronounce it, I'm

(37:41):
sure, but is it langar? Is thathow you say it?

Speaker 2 (37:43):
Langer, yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah. And I wondered about, like, so for me, I think
the equivalent in Judaism istikkun olam. I'm not sure if you
would see those as pairs, buttikkun olam basically means to
repair the world. And so it isthe belief and practice of
giving back universally andleaving the world better than
you found it. One of my favoritequotes, which I'm gonna butcher

(38:05):
is, This is not myresponsibility to finish the
job, but neither can I desistfrom doing my part?
Yeah, that's a long bridge tie,but I'm really curious, like,
how does this faith traditionshow up on day one? How does it
influence, you know, Little JapMan? And yeah, start to walk us

(38:27):
through.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Yeah. So in every way, right? There are a few
different words that strike meas resembling so langar just for
the listeners the institution oflangar it's effectively the free
kitchen so if you attend if youif you visit whether it's a sick
or a non sick whoever you areyou show up to a gurdwara, a
sick place of worship, you get ameal and you sit on the floor
and everybody sits on the floor.I don't care if you're a

(38:48):
millionaire or the poorest dudeon block, you're sitting on the
floor together side by side,you're eating together, you're
eating the same food, right?You're not, you know, you're all
participating.
Again, sort of this idea ofequality, equity, we're all the
same. Doesn't really matter whatyour wealth or success in the
social context is. In the eyesof the Lord, you're, you know,
in the eyes of the divine,you're the same. Right? In in
the eyes of humanity, you're allthe same.

(39:09):
So that's the langar piece. Thenotion of seva. Seva is like
service. Seva is looselytranslated to service, but it
really is a concept of, like, aselflessness, a selfless service
to benefit, kinda like thecampfire rule that you sort of
said. Look.
Leave something better than itwas when you found it. Again,
interlinking with the saintsoldier piece from before, like,

(39:30):
to offer your service to thosewho actually really need it and
to find ways to uplift whoeveryou possibly can through the act
of seva. So how how did itinfluence, like, little Jutman?
So I grew up in a spiritualcommunity within the Sikh faith,
and I feel very lucky because ina lot of ways, I was I was
taught sort of these sort ofmore mystical interpretations of

(39:52):
Sikhi from a young age. And likein every community, not every
community is like that.
So there's a lot of doctrinebased communities, you know, do
the thing or else or do thething because, you know, God
will be mad if you don't. Right?So I luckily, I didn't grow up
with any of those sort of likeguilt based relationships to
spirituality, to religion, tofaith, to divine divinity, which

(40:16):
I think has also been why I'vebeen able to foster, I think, a
loving relationship with it asI've gotten older because it's
not like the ideas of atheism.You know, I sometimes jokingly
say I'm the most atheistreligious guy you'll ever meet
because there's a lot of aspectsof institutionalized religion
that I'm just sort of notconvinced on. And I think part
of the way that that can bothlive, that can all live together

(40:36):
is because I was brought up in away to to view faith from a more
mystical perspective by default.
And so it was a part of myupbringing every day. We would
sit together. We would talkabout ideas, spiritual ideas as
kids and, like, with my twoolder sisters and my parents.
And I learned scripture from ayoung age and and, singing
Kirtan. Kirtan is like, thesinging of hymns in a religious

(40:58):
context.
These are effectively spiritualsongs from our scriptures, but I
like to think about them as loveletters. They're effectively
love letters between a soul andthe pure the pureness of, like,
pure soul. Right? Like, thethere's love letters between a
person navigating their way backto their soul. And so each you
know, I grew up singing bad.

(41:20):
I still sing to this day. I playinstruments that that are
typically used in a religioussetting. I also now play them
outside of religious settings.Honestly, there's not there's
very little in terms of parts ofmy life that are not directly
and almost absolutely influencedby my faith.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
When you say that you rejected some of the more
doctrinal things, what would bean example of that?

Speaker 2 (41:45):
Really, it comes down to so much around institutions,
attempts to assert control.Again, we're talking about
politics. Mhmm. We're talkingabout, the same things that we
would identify in politicalsystems in our general broader
demographics. We're talkingabout institutions that are
meant to be faith basedinstitutions, but for some

(42:06):
reason, you know, policing howyou live aspects of your life
where there's really no room forthem to have that voice.
Right? Using, call it, thechurch to then also exert
control and power over people'slives outside of the church, so

Speaker 1 (42:21):
to speak.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
The same is true, I think, most institutionalized
religions struggle with thissort of relationship.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Yeah. So your rebellion is not against
necessarily the practices orbeliefs that are in the
doctrine, it is against the waythat they are leveraged within
the human condition.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
My take on doctrine is, again, because I was
fortunate enough to grow up in anon guilt based relationship
with God. I just I don't fathoma divine entity should there be
external divine entity. I justdon't fathom one that's sort of
like, if you don't do that, I'llbe upset with you. It's like, it

(42:59):
doesn't make sense to me. Itdoesn't, it doesn't line, like
that doesn't line up for me.
So somebody who wears an evenlarger turban or wears, you
know, whatever is like extremelydoctrine oriented is also
beautiful. It's so beautiful,especially if it particularly if
it's coming from a place oflove. Like if it's inspired, if

(43:19):
it's an inspired act, I'm allfor it. I don't care.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Is that a thing? The size of the turban correlates to
the degree of the piety?

Speaker 2 (43:26):
No. It's not. I'm using it as sort of a an easy
physical distinction for ourconversation. Thank you for
asking that. It's a goodclarifier.
It's not. It's just to say that,like, you know, the doctrine
piece of it, I struggle with itwhen it's fear based, when it's
guilt based. And I feel likeoftentimes institutions are
those who push that, that youhave to do this because or else,

(43:48):
or if not then. Whereas whenit's something that's self
inspired or inspired from yourcommunity or it's like it's a
it's a again, love based, notdissimilar to the work that
you're trying to do. Right?
We're trying to inspire thislike love, right? If it's love
based, I don't care how you doit. It's really not for me to
care about anyways. It's not myplace to pass that judgment in a

(44:10):
faithful But for me, theinstitutionalization of things
when I talk about sort of mycritique of it, it's like, why
do you care how I spend mymoney? Why do you care how I,
you know, do any sort of numberof things in my personal life
that actually are outside ofyour scope of control?
And so that's where I sort ofknock on institutionalized

(44:32):
faith. The sort of those theinstitutions and the the the
people who run thoseinstitutions who once they
occupy power sometimes extendthat power beyond what they
should do. And again, this is,like, entirely parallel to
American politics, Canadianpolitics.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
Just human systems.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Human systems.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
%. How do mom and dad, in addition to the faith
tradition, imprint on you? Youtalked about breaking out of
living other people's stories.And so I'm wondering what
stories, good or bad, helpful orharmful, did you learn from mom
and dad early on?

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, I always say I feel like I hit the parent
jackpot. Like, I have the bestparents, and they're with
they're not without fault, butthey're amazing. They're they're
honest. They're kind. They'rewell intentioned.
They've got amazing hearts, andthey make mistakes like we all
do and so what are the thingsthat I've learned from them in a

(45:32):
positive sense? My mom is theclosest thing I've met to
somebody who understandsuniversal love, like who just
knows to start from a place oflove at all times and sometimes
that's like the most magicalthing and other times it's like,
mom, are you kidding? And for mypops, he was a lifelong public
servant and his work hasfrankly, it's built very

(45:52):
important parts of this country.In Canada he ended up becoming a
pretty senior public servantbureaucrat and his work has
really molded a lot of whatCanada is becoming and so the
example of sort of you can dobig things, right, sort of lives
in my house in that regard.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
What are some of the projects that he worked on?

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Canada's relationship with its indigenous people has
is is a is a fractured one. Yes.A lot of systemic
discrimination, racism. There'sa really great quote by a
senator, Canada's firstindigenous senator, and the
senate in Canada is verydifferent from the senate in The
US, but nonetheless, thissenator, Marie Sinclair, made

(46:34):
the comment, you know, systemicracism is what happens when you
remove all the racists from asystem. And in in effect, my
dad's sort of life's work hadbeen trying to unpack some of
the things that the constitutionhad baked in that were actually
systemically discriminatorytowards indigenous communities.
And one of the key things aroundthat is fiscal policy and how

(46:59):
northern communities andindigenous communities could
self govern in the context of acountry. And so he dealt with a
lot of land claims. He dealtwith a lot of the fiscal policy
and how money can and shouldflow with good governance to
minimize corruption to ensurethat people were winning across
the board from across, you know,dot so in in other words, not

(47:22):
just, like, elected bandofficials or or whatever, like,
just making sure that that therewas fiscal transparent fiscal
and economic pathways forindigenous communities to
thrive. We had a bigannouncement this week, work
that my dad started but retiredand didn't finish but he started
this work where, we have threeterritories in Canada, one of

(47:42):
them is called Nunavut andNunavut, is largely home to
Inuit people and this week we'reofficially they signed an
agreement that again my dadstarted to give them some self
determination over their ownbudgets because, up until now
they were effectively treated aswards of the state, if you will,
as a territory. And so theyactually didn't have full

(48:04):
control over their own budgetaryprocess.
It had to sort of go throughit's it's far more nuanced than
that, but at its at its highlevel, it's this idea of self
determination that now theterritory of Nunavut largely,
Inuit population can nowactually make decisions for and
by themselves, of themselvesthat can help propel them into,

(48:24):
you know, their own

Speaker 1 (48:26):
destiny. I don't wanna get into the policy, but
just because I can't help mycuriosity, is it not the case
that, well, I guess, do theother two territories have
different, until recently haddifferent budgetary ability?

Speaker 2 (48:41):
No. So my dad's work was across all the North, so all
three territories now have thatstatus. My dad was there to see
and finish and witness andcomplete the first two
territories. He was only thereto start and sort of push the
ball forward on the third onebefore he retired, and so he
just wasn't there to see it toits completion. But all
territories as by virtue ofbeing territories, so in Canada
As opposed to provinces.

(49:02):
Correct. So provinces areconstitutionally protected, and
they are their own entities. Andin fact, confederation very to
some degree like The UnitedStates. It's an agreement that
all provinces will participatein this confederation.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Alberta and British Columbia have control over their
own budgets in the same way thatAlabama and Illinois did, but
the territories did not in thesame way that and this is not
what what's going on, but if ifGuam, for instance, was budgeted
by The US.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah. Exactly. Without getting into the details
of the nuances of the policy,there are certain things that
are federally, mandated. Thereare things that are then
provincially mandated. Educationand health care, right?
Are they're delivered at theprovincial level. Health care is
funded at the national level,etcetera, etcetera. Like, so
it's it's yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
So how old are you when you first really become
aware of what your dad is doing?Do you remember?

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Oh, like shamefully late, shamefully old when I come
to think about it. Like, when Ijoined the board of the
TransCanada Trail, I think wasone of the first times where I
was like, holy shit. I get tonation build this country. This
is what my dad's been doing forfifty forty years.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Right? Like,

Speaker 2 (50:10):
it's and it's such a small microcosm, the work that I
was able to do on the trailcompared to what he's done for
the country. So

Speaker 1 (50:15):
you knew his title, but you didn't really understand
the gravity of what he wasdoing.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
And the gravity might not have happened till 2023.
Like, got to go to Yukon andwitness what was happening in in
many communities in the Yukon,and they were talking about this
agreement, the federal transferagreement, which was a huge part
of what my dad worked on and howit was revolutionizing the way
that they were able to makedecisions as a First Nations

(50:40):
community and then as a as aterritory. And because I'd never
been up north and I certainlyhadn't talked to many people up
north, I wasn't aware of like,again, to your word, the gravity
of the work that had been doneuntil last year. You know, I
knew that he had won the, youknow, he won the highest award
possible in the public servicein Canada for the work that he

(51:02):
did. I saw it as an award.

Speaker 1 (51:03):
So when you were younger, was your life affected
by his role in any way? Or ifsomeone had asked you in, you
know, fourth grade, what's daddo? You're like, I work for the
government.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
He works for the government. Well, you know, my
dad, very humble, right? Likeextraordinarily humble. Like,
there's a few differentoccasions where he has had
colleagues who've wanted tonominate him for what we call
the order of Canada as thehighest civilian honor for his
work that he's on the North. He,like, objectively refuses to be
nominated.
He just is not interested inthat type of limelight or that
type of recognition. It's justnot how he's wired. So there's a

(51:36):
high sense of humility. This caneither be a good thing or a bad
thing. Back to your question,you know, what are the goods and
the bads that, you know,humility is a beautiful thing.
Excessive humility sometimes Ithink maybe in the world we live
in today can be harmful in someways, but he he's very humble
about it. So, yeah, my dadworked for the government.
That's what I used to say. Andand frankly, you know, like,

(51:56):
seeing the gravity of what hewas able to work on and and how
it's contributed to this amazingcountry is is I think I'm still
unpacking.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
So you're you're kind of imbued with this sense of
love and openness andexploration. You are soaking in
service even if you're notreally, you know, fully grasping
or contextualizing what itmeans. How does this present in
you as like middle school, highschool, college version of you?

(52:25):
Like how would you describeyourself?

Speaker 2 (52:27):
So I was like, I was heavily bullied as a kid. I
actually, until high school, Ican tell you I had one friend
every year, and it was notoften. It was the same friend.
So at the schoolyard, like, atthe playground at school at
recess and all that, prettylonely kid. And it bred a lot
of, I was a chicken shit.

(52:48):
Like, I was a chicken kid.Right? Like, I was, like, I
didn't have a lot of courage. Ididn't have a lot of, like,
feistiness in me. I wasconstantly doing the fight that
a lot of kids fight.
Right? Just trying to fit in. Ioften just got bullied because
bullied because of the way Ilooked. I was the one brown kid,
certainly the one turban kid inyou know, on the playground, and
that was always an easy targethaving my my my, like, my turban

(53:09):
as a kid, my little turban,like, ripped off by other, you
know, kids and things like that.So I I I was not the most
popular kid in going into fromelementary school into middle.
But when I got to high school,things started changing and I
started seeing more people thatlooked like me and I started
thinking like, do you peoplecome from? Like, where were you
all?

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Is that because it was a feeder high school and
there was, like, other districtscoming in?

Speaker 2 (53:30):
That's right. Exactly. So just a lot of
different schools came intothat. That elementary schools
came into that high school, andthere were so many more Punjabi
kids, not necessarily many wholooked like me, but there were
just more brown kids. And, wefound each other.
We sort of like, you know, itwas a safety in numbers piece. I
think many of us had come fromschools where we were the one of
five kids or one of 10 kids, butall of sudden there was a

(53:50):
hundred of us in one place. Andit's like, woah, this is kind of
interesting. And that startedsome of the more, institutional
pursuits. Like, I I wanted to beon students council.
I was

Speaker 1 (54:02):
grade nine rep. Right? My first year in

Speaker 2 (54:04):
high school, I found I've just found confidence
because I had friends, you know,it was I don't know if there's
any single single answer to thatquestion, but, like, for the
first time outside of myspiritual community, I found
community in a way that, like,felt really positive.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Do you remember what you, like, quote unquote, ran on
or what some of youraccomplishments were on that
group?

Speaker 2 (54:25):
I don't even recall, man. I, grade nine. Okay. I
don't even remember. I don'tremember.
I'd be lying if I remembered.You know, I ended up running the
multicultural club after that Iran for a student council
president my my junior yeardidn't win but that's okay,
ended up finishing out I think Iwas grade 12 rep as well So how

(54:48):
did how did all this sort ofshow up to your question? Like
how did this all show up? Like,you know, not perfectly. I mean,
as a kid who is constantlywithout friends at school, there
was a lot of loneliness andthere was a lot of like yeah.
There's a lot of tears. Right?There's a lot of like just
sadness that I couldn't be apart of friend groups and I

(55:09):
think one of the reallyinteresting things was I
remember asking my mom, I neverasked her can I cut my hair for
example, like that question forwhatever reason, never crossed
my mind? It would have been theeasy out, right? But for
whatever reason, the question Ijust kept on asking is like, why
can't they just like me for whoI am type of thing.
And I think, you know, that isprobably a big part of why I've

(55:34):
become who I am or why I try tobe who I'm trying to be which is
like seeing people for who theyare and like letting you know
accepting people for who theyare, how they are, how they feel
like they need to be like I justwanted to be accepted that way.
You know? What kind of a shitass human being would I be if I
didn't then accept other peoplefor just trying to, you know, be
themselves?

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Did you get to share with mom and dad? Like, did you
talk to them about your sadnessand isolation?

Speaker 2 (55:59):
I did. I had they were very good, I don't think
they understood the gravity ofit. So in, 2019 2018, '20 '19, I
got to participate in a book. SoI got to author this book called
diversity matters. I wrote achapter, and it was it it was it
was the first time that I hadactually put everything down in
one sort of piece of text.

(56:20):
And so my mom and my mom and dadremembered, like, little pieces
of it, but seeing it all sort ofwritten down in a book chapter
because part of it was part ofthe part of the task was tell
your story about DE and I, like,the diversity, equity,
inclusion. And my story has toinclude all of those years as a
kid where I was a diverse kidand had very little equity or

(56:45):
inclusion. And so when I whenthe book was published and I
gave my parents their copies,there was a lot of tears. I
don't think it was they did notrealize

Speaker 1 (56:56):
What year was that? It was like '19 or something
like that?

Speaker 2 (56:58):
2019 was when the book was published.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
It's interesting because in some ways, ships
passing in the night, right?Like the parents were there,
they saw it, but it was like,Oh, student, kid. And you're
like, Oh, government worker. Andthen, you know, more or less in
the same era within four years,you guys both kind of wake up to
the wholeness of the story.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
Yeah, it's cool. I mean, you know, they knew
aspects because oftentimesthey'd be the ones who'd have to
go into the principal's officeand, like, talk about stuff, but
they certainly didn't know itall. And then to your point, you
know, I lived in so I lived athome until I was 25, 20 six and
then I left, I went to Alberta,stayed there for seven years and

(57:39):
I came back to Ontario toToronto where I am now in 2019,
right around the time the bookgot published actually. And the
last four years of livingthrough the pandemic with my
folks has brought us a lotcloser for sure. Yeah.
But yeah, there's like a lot oflearning about like actually,
yeah, who are we as like, whoare we as humans? Like, we don't
often know our parents,especially in immigrant

(58:02):
communities. I say. We don'toften really know our parents as
people. We just sort of knowthem as parents and, you know,
their roof, their rules and likethose types of relationships.
But like to actually know whothey are as humans is like still
a

Speaker 1 (58:15):
So you shift from this place of, you know, really
being picked on and isolated.And then when given the
opportunity, you shift into allthese different positions of
leadership.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
So this is where I'd say part of it was not very
authentic. Right? Part of it wasI saw all these people, these
hundred people, for example,these non brown kids in my high
school. And I was like, cool.Like, there's more like me.
You know, maybe if I was maybeif I had titles that made me
That's exactly what

Speaker 1 (58:42):
I was thinking.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
Like, oh, now I'm more popular. Now I can have
more like, so the theinfluencers were not internally
mode. Like, again, this goesback to what we talked about at
the offset outset. Right? It'slike the influencers for why I
became the grade nine rep andthings like that.
Like, I think the reason I can'tremember anything about what I
ran on is because it wasprobably all hocus pocus. It was
probably all externallymotivated bullshit. It was the

(59:06):
desire to want more friends andfeel like what like,

Speaker 1 (59:09):
feel what that feels. Yeah. This title will create a
dynamic in which people willhave to like me or want to talk
to me. I'll have something tooffer. Will Yeah.
And I love that you can own thatbecause we all have intrinsic
and extrinsic motivations, andwe benefit from owning and

(59:32):
recognizing our shadow side aswell as our light side. That's

Speaker 2 (59:37):
part of

Speaker 1 (59:37):
the leadership journey. You know, there's ego
in it for everyone.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
And that's a loaded word too, but props when you can
realize that your shadow side isequally as valuable as your
sunny side, your light side.Right. Like, your shadow side
is, like, deeply valuable. Imean, most of us, all of us have
deep rooted insecurities. Likelike, I you know, it is what it
is.
And you can either confront themor accept them or have a loving

(01:00:01):
relationship with them, or youcan pretend that they don't
exist and sort of become a bitof an animal and a monster and
all the other things that younever have to show your
insecurities. But like we're,you know, the deepest
connection. And I think part ofthe reason why you and I got
along within thirty four secondsof talking to each other is our
willingness to our willingnessto just sort of see ourselves
and see each other as as youknow, know, fallible human

(01:00:25):
beings who are just trying theirbest to be meaningful
contributors to those we loveand beyond. And, you know, even
on the ego side, right? It'slike I'll share another quick
sort of faith based anecdote,which is ego is not in and of
itself a bad thing, right?
Like there's sort of the war onego, which I think like there's
a good intention behind like thewar on ego, but like some level

(01:00:47):
of self esteem, self worth, selfdetermination, right, is, like,
very it's super important on aleadership journey. Like, you
need that. And, I'm reminded ofa story. So it was wartime. So
you had the Sikh soldiers andyou had the Mughal arm, the
Mughal emperors.
And so we'll use the wordMuslims, but I'm not sure I'm
comfortable just calling themMuslims. We'll call them a And

(01:01:11):
so largely speaking, if you wereliving under, as as a resident
during Mughal rule, if you chosenot to convert, you had to pay a
higher tax or you were killed oryour kids were taken from like,
there was all sorts of tyranny,associated with those rules.
Anyway, so we're you know, thefight's on, and and one of the
soldiers on the Sikh side wasseen to be offering, like, water

(01:01:37):
and bandages to wounded soldierson both sides, not just the Sikh
side, but also on the Mughalemperor side, the Mughal army
side. And so some of the Sikhsoldiers got really annoyed and
really upset with this, and theywent back to our tenth guru at
the time and said, hey. Your guyone of our guys, he's a traitor.
He's he's helping dress thewounds and take care of the

(01:01:58):
wounded soldiers on the otherside. And so he calls him in,
the guru calls him in and says,what are you doing? And he goes,
what do you mean? What's wrong?He goes, I've heard you've been,
you know, dressing the woundsand feeding, water to the
wounded soldiers on the otherside.
Are you a traitor? What's thestory? And he goes, I didn't
even see it that way. Every facewho every face I looked into,

(01:02:18):
all I saw was the eyes of you,like your eyes. All I saw was
the face of my beloved.
I was just serving my beloved atevery point. And so it's a
beautiful story about howservice is like, you know, he
doesn't know any limits and noboundaries and yada yada yada.
That's a great part of thestory. The other part of the
story is that if he was givingwater to everybody, but his
water jug was empty, he would bea sociopath. Imagine you're on

(01:02:40):
your last breaths and somebodysays, oh, I'm here to give you
water.
Let me fill your glass. The thejug is empty and he goes, here
here you go. Here's like, that'ssociopathic behavior. And so you
have to you have to have yourjug full. Mhmm.
There's a certain amount of selfselfishness and ego that you
actually need to feed in orderto be a servant. Mhmm. Because
if you are empty, you're notvery good to anybody. So even on

(01:03:01):
the ego side, everything has tobe a healthy relationship.
What's your healthy relationshipwith your ego?
Enough to fill yourself up, notso much so that you're a piece
of shit. Like, there is ahealthy balance.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Another way to think about this is when I had my
first experience of sort ofunification, where I noetically
felt that I was you, you wereme, we are the plants, we are
God. I mean, whatever yourlanguage is. Yep. The question

(01:03:33):
that emerged from that state forme was, well, what is then the
point of separation? Ifeverything is one, what is the
point of separation?
And that's the function. Right?You don't have to have a
religious belief. You don't haveto have a spiritual belief. You
don't have to have any belief init all to know that we are all
the same stuff, that the photonscoming from the sun eight light

(01:03:55):
minutes away enter my retina andaffect my brain, that when I go
for a run and get on a subwaytrain, cause I was gonna miss
it.
And I sit down, the person nextto me picks up the heat without
touching me, that we are allexchanging the fundamental
particles of the universe allthe time. And so we are all

(01:04:16):
truly the same thing. And inorder to do those things, in
order to have the eye to see, tohave the legs to run or the butt
to sit on the train, there mustbe separation between my
physical self and your physicalself, or the world outside. And
so that's like the framing forme is the ego is the necessary

(01:04:38):
separation that is required tokeep us safe, moving and active
in the world. But the deepertruth is the unification in all
of it.
And so being aware of thereality that you have both, but
choosing which gets to drive thecar.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Again, drawing it back to modern day politics in
the broader sense. Right? It'slike, what are most of our
campaigners doing 99 times outof a hundred? They're focusing
on the differences. They'refocusing on the division, the
divisiveness.
Right? They're they're callingout the why you are unsafe at
the, you know, at the benefit ofsome other. Mhmm. It's there
isn't inclusive communal looklanguage. It's it's very, you

(01:05:21):
know, individualized.
You are at risk unless you votefor me Mhmm. Types of language.
And we know this frompsychological science that
negative news triggers yeah.It's super effective. What are
you gonna remember when you goto the polls?
What kind of character are yougonna vote for when you've got
all those news imprints and nowthe social media impressions and
all those types of things?Right? Like, we are incentivized

(01:05:44):
to forget our communalness.Yeah. And that sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
It's effective, but it's not always true. It's not
never true.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Oh, it's almost never true.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
It's not it's not never true. And it's important
to not overstate it, right,because then that provides
credence to the argument, butit's almost never true, in the
same way that random acts ofviolence against people that
look like other people veryrarely hit the intended target.
So I want to dig into yourresponse to persecution as a
kid. So yes, there's the egoside that decides to run that

(01:06:15):
says, I'm going to be important,I'm going to be special, fair,
it's there. But there's also thepart of you that seemingly
doesn't respond in the way thatit could have, which is now that
I'm here, I'm going to use thisposition to subjugate or oppress
or harm you, to pull yourproverbial turban off your head,

(01:06:37):
other person.
Yeah. That's not what I see youdo. I see you do something
different. And I'm very curiousif you have a sense of why in
that moment you didn't take thatpath.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
It's just not the value system. Like, look, I'm
far from perfect. Like, it's notdon't wanna pretend like I just
this noble thing that makes nomistakes. I'm sure I'm sure I
have definitely used variouspositions to somehow benefit,
like, myself. But the idea ofactively hurting somebody else
because I now have the positionof, you know, pseudo power,

(01:07:13):
like, doesn't I don't know.
Just never part of the psyche.From a family lens or a faith
based lens, the idea of, like,this notion of, like,
restorative justice. I'm not I'mnot gonna pretend I knew what
that was when I was 14 yearsold. But to have a label like
that now and sort of look backon it, it's like, you know,
there's no benefit to I don'tsee the benefit on striking on

(01:07:39):
somebody else just because younow have the role and you were
subject. Like, this is theproblem I sort of think about
when we talk about boomers.
It's like, well, no, you haveyou have to do it this way
because that's how we did it.It's like, don't know if that
makes any sense. Like, it'd bekind of hypocritical for me to
apply that to my leadershiproles and my leadership
positions when I don't evensubscribe to that myself. I

(01:08:00):
don't know. I don't have ananswer for you.
I don't I don't have asatisfying answer as to why I
didn't it's not who I am, Iguess, or it's just not how I
was raised or it's just not, youknow, what influenced or
inspired me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
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(01:10:28):
and starting today. That'swww.electedleaderscollective.com
and starting today. So let'spick up the timeline.
So you you've taken on some ofthese leadership roles. You
mentioned maybe some athleticsas well. Like, keep walking us
through.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
Yeah. Played some sports since in both elementary
and high school. Played soccerand basketball. Probably had a
career. I had I had anopportunity in soccer, but I
hate running.
Sort of important for soccer.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Yeah. Well, was Not so important.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Slightly less important, but, you know,
fitness is always important. ButI, anyways, I remember, after a
game, a high school game, welost two to one, but I I could
make the case it should havebeen 11 to one. And, I had a
really good game on the opposingteam. One of the players is like
uncles or whatever had come upto me and was like, listen, if
you can just work on yourfitness, like, you have a path.
Like, there's a path here foryou.

(01:11:21):
Later that year, I broke myfoot. The following year, I I
hyperextended my elbow and wasup for twelve weeks. And, like,
I lost two years of trainingbasically in the height of
puberty when all of my peerswere just, like Yeah. Going up.
And so, anyways, by the time itwas done, I, I was a a step
behind the other soccer players.
So I played some sports, wentinto university, and just prior

(01:11:41):
to my first week of university,ended up in this, like, really
brutal car accident with one ofmy best friends. And, luckily,
we're both walking away from it,and it could have been a lot
worse than it was. It could haveprobably been a lot worse than
it was, but that really set off,like, sort of a whole mental
health piece where for about ayear and a bit, I really pulled

(01:12:02):
back from the student politicsand the student engagement and
the leadership and all that typeof thing. It was a sort of
healing and restoring, for acouple of years.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Physically? Like, you just didn't have the energy or
ability or

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
It was yeah. I fell asleep at the wheel of a high
speed in a high speed collision.There's a lot of, like,
worthlessness feelings that camewith that. Right? Like, how
could I possibly like, what kindof idiot am I?
Like, those types of, like, youknow, those types of, real
thoughts that sat with me for awhile, especially, you know,
this friend of mine, she remainsone of my best friends to this

(01:12:39):
day, and she's like I rememberfrom the corner of my eye, her
body just, like, flinging. Shehad fallen asleep, as well. It
was it was just a weekend, soshe was asleep in the passenger
seat. And, you know, I rememberflinging my head up just before
the point of contact, and out ofthe corner of my eye, we make
contact. Out of the corner of myeye, I see her body just, like,

(01:13:01):
fling into the airbag and then,like, little memories and things
that are imprinted forever.
And it's like, wow. That's oneof my best bestest friends.
Like, how could I do that toher? How could I do this at all?
How could I put my parentsthrough the stress of their kid
going through an accident likethat?
Yada yada. All those, like, howcould you?

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Yeah. And the story about yourself is all kinds of
things.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
So unpacking that took a couple of years to see,
right, and is indicative of alot of the insecurities in my
life. Right? It's like, am Igood enough? Am I valuable? Am I
you know, what am I worth?
Right? And and so that, forbetter or for worse, really
shone a light on those questionsbecause it physically hurts
somebody I love. Again, wouldsay for better or for worse.

(01:13:45):
There's a really great side tothat question of like, you know,
am I being am I am I am Ivaluable? What is my worth?
Which is good for self sort ofreinforcement. But the flip side
of that is like, what can I bedoing better? What can I how can
I improve? So I feel like in alot of ways, journey for, like,
continuous self improvementstarted because of that
accident.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
Yeah. And it's, generally, we find that the
bigger the challenge, thegreater the spotlight on the
opportunity for the work. And itcan be hard for people to hear
that horrific events canactually be used for good, but
it's true. It's a % true. Sowhat did that process look like

(01:14:26):
for you?
Like, how did you work throughthat over any number of years?

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
So most of my best friends are from the spiritual
community, including this girl Ijust talked about. So I didn't
have, you know, when I left highschool, one of the reasons I
chose the university I went to,I went to so I I was born and
raised in Ottawa. Ottawa has twogood universities, the
University of Ottawa andCarleton University. And many of

(01:14:52):
my friends were going to theUniversity of Ottawa, and I had
for some set of reasons, I sortof decided I actually needed to
bridge off from that friendgroup and like so I actively
chose the university partiallybecause I was like I don't think
I will I don't think I canbecome my best self if I stay
attached to this friend groupbut I was like now I was
entering a whole new place withnone of my friends from school

(01:15:15):
So the whole journey of startingand making new friends and
there's actually an old buddy ofmine from university who I owe,
so much to because I used towalk into my calculus class. I
used to have my headphones on.
I'd just be listening to mymusic and didn't engage with
anybody for the first couple ofweeks of my first year following
the accident. First year uni.And, probably in month two, this

(01:15:39):
guy was sitting in front of meat calculus, and he turned
around. He just, like, knockedhis hand on my table. Like, he,
like, slapped the table in frontof me because, like, I I had my
headphones in, so I was, like,not paying attention to
anything.
He just, like, slapped the tablein front of me. And I was like
and I was like, sorry. Like,have headphones. I'm sorry. I
was trying to I was trying to,like, you know, ignore him.

(01:16:00):
And he goes, take yourheadphones off, basically. I was
like, fuck. Okay. Fine. So Itake my headphones off.
He goes, yo. What's your name?Anyways, he became, like, one of
my best friends throughuniversity.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Why were your headphones on all the time?
Like, what was the story in yourhead? Why were you trying to
actively stay disengaged?

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
I was just in a low place. I just didn't wanna
engage with people. I didn't seethe point. I don't know if this
is the story I was tellingmyself back then, but certainly
I can see that story being true,which is like, I don't want to
get too close to anybody. Whatif I hurt them?
Like, I hurt. Right. Like thatwhole thing. Right? So, yeah,
it's there's a lot of unpackingin that phase.
Like, there's a lot of, like,like, really shitty insecurities

(01:16:37):
and irrational questions thatcame out. But again, like, it
helped me confront irrationalquestions. It helped me, like,
tell better stories to myselfbecause in those days that there
were some pretty bad stories Iwas telling myself. And so this
guy pounds his hand and, likepounds his hand on my desk and,
and forces me to basically behis friend. Turns out he lives

(01:16:57):
three streets away from me.
And so then we started commutingback and forth to school
together, and all of a sudden,was like, oh, shit. Like, this
and he was like a very outgoing,introduced me to a whole bunch
of, like, different things andpeople. And I sort of slowly
started getting, like, myselfback.

Speaker 1 (01:17:12):
Yeah. And sometimes you don't have to open every
door. Sometimes the universeknocks. And I could imagine that
at the time, should adispassionate observer fly down
and see, you know, you young inyour college career having
chosen to I mean, this would betheir judgment, not necessarily
the truth, but like abandon yourfriend group, go over here,

(01:17:33):
disengage socially, you know, beisolated. There's a tendency to
pathologize that, to say thatthis is depression, or this is
wrong, this person needs help.
It's like, actually wereresponding to what is, and that
isolation provided you the spaceto do some really deep internal

(01:17:56):
questioning and processing thatnow I'm guessing was really
necessary so that when youemerged out into the world, you
actually emerged from thatmetaphorical chrysalis in a much
better place, more able toconnect and serve. Is that true?

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
I think that's pretty bang on. Again, especially in
hindsight, like, I'm not toosure if that's what I

Speaker 1 (01:18:17):
was

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
thinking during the But in hindsight, bang on. Like,
what can I learn from thissituation? How could I become a
better person? Like, at onepoint in my mid to late
twenties, I went through apretty devastating heartbreak.
And and I remember just askingmyself, like, how is this?
Like, how could this and I I hitthis point of, like, nothing is
sacred. So when I make that jokeof I'm the most atheist
religious guy, you know, one ofthe things I was unpacking was

(01:18:39):
my relationship with my faith.Nothing is so sacred that it
can't be questioned, which isactually part of the baseline
story of a Sikh. The idea ofconstantly being a seeker and
explorer is actually exploringpreconceived notions of what we
think truth is and askingquestions. So, yeah, question
everything and and and findanswers.
And if you don't have theanswers yet, the answers will
come. But nonetheless, goingback to this dialogue, one of

(01:19:01):
the other things I like to sortof think about myself is, like,
my only principle is that I haveno principles. Meaning, when I
was finishing high school andthis is actually really
important to the story I think,one of my friends, a good close
friend of mine, she died in acar accident a year before my
car accident actually and shewas from Vancouver, Surrey and

(01:19:21):
she was on her way to Calgarywith a group of young sick
people who were going to beparticipating in a volunteer
capacity for a really importantreligious event. Long story
short took a wrong turn wentdown the wrong highway they were
racing to come back Andovernight, middle of the night,
the the van flips over, threepeople die. She's one of them.
17 was one of my close friends.And that's, like, the first time

(01:19:43):
I experienced, like, reallymajor loss of a loved one. I was
17 in grade 12. And that alsohelped me become a bit more of a
clues. Right?
Because it's like, wow. Thelike, whole fragility of life
thing. Like, she's 17. If shecan go yesterday, I could go
tomorrow. Right?
So probably one of the firstpoints where, like, we're so
full of ourselves on our, like,on our perceived immortality and

(01:20:04):
our perceived invincibility.This shit is so fragile. Like,
this shit is so fragile. I thinkthat's probably the first data
point where I was like, that wasa big part. And so then I had my
accident a year later.
Anyways, I bring this becauseone of the key I remember I was
driving with my eldest sisterone day shortly after my friend
had died. So between the twoaccidents, I forget what she
asked me, but I remember sharingwith her, like, one of the key

(01:20:26):
things that I really took awayfrom as a learning lesson from
that whole experience was theidea that everybody has
something to offer. Like, thereis nobody at all, nobody I can't
learn something from. Yeah.Like, there's nobody who doesn't
have something, whether that's abillionaire running a
conglomerate or a homeless guy,like, picking up bottles.

(01:20:47):
There was, like, there'severybody has something to teach
me. And if I'm willing, I canlearn from all of them. And so
when you when you talk about,like, the going through the
struggles and, like, the the theway that the story can be told
that, like, yeah, hard thingscan teach you things. Like,
there is a and and acceptingwhat is, I think, is how you

(01:21:07):
said it. There's a there's aterm in Sikhi called hookam.
Hookam is effectively thepresent reality. So it's just it
just is what it is. Like,there's a certain level of,
like, this is where it is, sooperate from this place. Don't
operate from fanciful andwishful thinking. Don't operate
from a fictional place.
The reality is what it is. Andyou may define that reality

(01:21:30):
slightly different from the wayI define that reality, but
that's okay. We're two differentpeople. Our realities are
probably different. Our ideas oftruth are probably different.
It's fine. But when you startliving in a dream world, your
level of satisfaction,contentment, happiness, whatever
word you wanna use with theworld around you and how you're
operating within that world willdwindle and, you know, you'll
just constantly be angry withthe way things are when because

(01:21:53):
you're operating from a dreamland. So if you can escape the
dream land and just say, look,this is what it is and call
things sort of as they are andoperate from that place, then
you can really push through. AndI think this is when we talk
about these communities,identify, they be, Jewish
Americans, Iranian Americans,certainly I can speak for the

(01:22:13):
Sikh community in this regard.Like, there's a certain element
of just saying, you know what?
Fuck it. This is where we're at.That's right. We are here. So if
we're gonna do things, we haveto operate from reality and
accepting that reality is vital.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
We say all the time in our coaching work, every time
you fight reality, you lose. A%. Right? And it's a radical
question, but it's like nomatter what it is, whether it is
a policy not going your way,whether it's frustration over
your workload at home, whetherit's, you know, the experience

(01:22:47):
of being triggered by someoneelse's actions, whether it's
cancer, The question is like, ifthis was divinely orchestrated
for me, if this was trulyworking for me, what is this
moment here to teach me?

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
100%.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
And it's a hard question for a lot of people to
ask, but it is the most freeingquestion because even when you
are in the pit of despair, evenwhen you haven't taken off your
headphones, metaphorical orotherwise for two years, that's
the question that is ultimatelygonna get them off and have you
step into the world more whole.Yeah. I'm curious just, when

(01:23:28):
you're in these periods ofprocessing, whether it's after
your friend dies or after yourcar accident, I'm sure there are
a number of other periods likethis in your life, What are you
doing? Like, what's the actualpractice look like?

Speaker 2 (01:23:40):
It's probably not the same each time. So let's think.
I mean, there's a big focus onmeditation and and the sick
path. For whatever again, like,don't I can't I don't know what
the why or the answer. I thinkit becomes I think it comes from
whether it's parents orcommunity or whatever but I
guess I've always felt verycomfortable resorting back to
guidance from faith as astarting point for how to

(01:24:02):
navigate the hard things inlife.
So the process never looked thesame, right? Like you start from
that meditative place and I'vealluded to this idea of your
little voice, right?

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
You try to like, what's the little voice saying
like truly, right? Like there'slike the narrative that you have
in your mind, but even if youquiet that down, there's still a
little voice. Right? Like,what's that little voice? What's
that little voice looking for?
What's that little voice saying?

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
What does

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
that mean

Speaker 1 (01:24:26):
to you? Is that, like, what people would describe
as intuition, or how do youthink about the little voice?

Speaker 2 (01:24:31):
Yeah. Call it intuition or, like, without
sounding too cheesy or new agey, it's like, it is your soul's
voice. Like, it's like, there'syour mind's narrative, which I
think is still very conscious,and then there's a subconscious
subconscious voice that, youknow, when we say things like,
you know, deep inside you as acoach, I'm sure you appreciate

(01:24:53):
this more than most, which is,you know, deep inside you all
the answers are there. Yes.Like, it's not like the coaches
have answers to questions,coaches generally speaking are
asking questions to help youfind your answers because they,
right?
And so it's sort of a selfguided self led process, right?
Through meditation to help findthose answers for yourself. And
so sometimes that subconsciouswants you to do X, Y, or Z, and

(01:25:15):
it starts there. Thenafterwards, it materializes in
different ways. But one of thethings that has always been
really true for me is coming tothat place of meditation,
sitting with my instruments,singing and playing instruments,
playing music, as far as being atool to sort of help tap into
the process.
Physically, depending on, like,you know, after my car accident,

(01:25:38):
I wasn't physically allowed todo much at all for fear of
injuries and stability. But likeafter a heartbreak, was, I was
in the gym every day, you know,like different different things
call for different, you know,different responses. So again,
probably an unsatisfying answer,but it started with it always
started sort of with like, okay,what does the little voice
really need right now? Varioustimes I've chosen to have a

(01:26:00):
therapist, various times I'vechosen to really deepen my my
relationship with sort of likedoctrinal faith, if you will,
because that felt like the thingI needed to do to restore some
balance or different times itwas, yeah, I hit the gym really
hard or like, but I think that'svery human for me anyways, like
we're dynamic. Right?
One of the things that I wastaught early on is every human

(01:26:20):
being is a dynamic being. Right?Like, just because you do one
thing one way doesn't mean youhave to do the other thing the
exact same way. And this is bothscary and daunting as much as it
is amazing and fantastical,which is that, like, it's not
the same recipe every time.Probably doesn't need to be.
I'm gonna be a different personat the end of this podcast than

(01:26:42):
I was when I started. And so theway I react to things around me
could look different.

Speaker 1 (01:26:48):
So just to put a little bit of a finer point on
it for someone listening at homewho's having their headphone
moment, knowing that it's alwaysa learning and the approach will
change over time. But if youwere to isolate the two or three
practices, just the bulletpoints, like meditation is a
bullet point, that have beenmost personally beneficial to

(01:27:12):
you over the course of your lifeand pulling you through
challenging moments? What do youthink they'd be?

Speaker 2 (01:27:16):
Strand yourself with inspired people, not just
inspiring, but inspired people.You know, have a community, seek
out a community of inspiredpeople. They should be self I
think you want to seek outpeople who are inspired
themselves because they willlive in a way that you can
emulate at least to start,right? And sort of discover how
can I self inspire so that whenI am in these places, can also

(01:27:38):
pull myself out? So it becomessort of subsistence farming, if
you will, like it like the veryat the very worst of times when
I feel like I have nothing else,at least I have myself.
Like, how can I learn to findthat sort of baseline
inspiration just from myself? Ithink journaling is super
powerful. I don't do enough ofit. It's my hypocritical

(01:27:59):
statement of the podcast. Idon't do enough journaling at
all.
But I think journaling helps youdefine or, identify the
questions you need answers to.Mhmm. And sometimes they can
actually be a pathway to theanswers, but I think the
questions are almost always moreimportant anyways. Like, the
more questions you have, themore you're exploring. Answers
are great, but the questions arereally important.

(01:28:20):
And I think journaling helps youunder uncover, like, what are
actually the core questions thatI'm actually thinking about?
When I've got my headphones on,going through a tough time, what
are the what are the realquestions that are are
important? You hear this all thetime. This is the trope. Right?
Is, you know, you have to askbetter questions to get better
answers. But there's a truth tothat. Like, you really wanna
find, you really wanna find goodquestions and integral

(01:28:43):
questions. There's a wholemovement out there called
integral thinking. Mhmm.
It's sort of fringe. Right? It'ssort of like law of attraction y
type of idea. What I really tookaway from it is this idea. Like,
I I do have some reasonableamount of belief that once your
thoughts are really good, right,you're you can then inspire
better actions and actionsbecome habits and habits become
right character and all thatwhole loop.

(01:29:05):
But thoughts have to be goodthoughts, right? Like they have
to be like not half assedthoughts. Like you can't just be
like, oh, I want a mansion, youknow. If the law of attraction
thing is real at all, that ain'tit. Right?
Like, it's the idea that, like,if you ask the right questions
and you actually meditate onthose questions, you will find
your pathway out of the of theheadphone state. But the first
thing is you actually have towant to get out of the

(01:29:27):
headphones state. Sure. In mycase, I did but here's the
thing. Right?
And even that is like this iswhere sometimes it is the
universe that really just has tointervene. Like, my buddy who
slaps his hand on the table infront of me forces me to take my
headphones. That's the onlyreason the headphones came off.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
But that's part of why you're finding inspired
people as well. Right? It's likeyou are orchestrating an
environment in which someonedirectly or indirectly is more
likely to slap your headphonesoff.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
%. Absolutely true. Yeah. So, like, I think there's
a trifecta there that's reallyhelpful. Find community of
inspired people.
Journal to keep track of yourown thinking and how your
thinking might be changing overtime. Meditate. Sit. Whether
that meditation is through yogaand breathing, Whether it's
through mantra and chanting,Whether it's through just like
stillness of thoughts andmeasuring your thoughts, fine.

(01:30:13):
Whether it's trying to think ofnothing and do this sort of the
Buddhist approach ofnothingness, fine.
Who cares? Like, just find thething that resonates with you.
Sometimes one thing willresonate with you on a Monday
that's different than a Thursdayis keep a pulse on yourself and
do the things that help andsupport you.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
So recognizing and honoring that everyone's
different and that there's adifferent tool for everyone, but
to get specific on what worksfor you so that if people wanted
to try it, they could. What isyour meditation practice look
like?

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
It's actually just that dynamic. One of the reasons
slipped out those four differentapproaches is because some days
I feel like what's hitting isthe chanting and other days that
are hitting is just likemonitoring my thoughts. So I
it's pretty fluid when it comesto sitting down on the cushion.
Right? You know, I've got alittle defined meditation area
in my condo, and it's, I thinkthat's sort of nice and

(01:31:05):
important.
It's like to sort of set a spacethat has an intention, even if
it's just a corner of anotherwise open room, which is
what mine is. It's a littlecorner next to the window so I
can look outside and havenatural light.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
It's a dedicated space, or does it ever flex to
something else?

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
No. It's a dedicated space. So, like, for example, I
made a a meditation cushion formyself, and it's a really,
really comfortable littlepillow. Sometimes the pillow
leaves the meditation nook andbecomes my couch pillow. Mhmm.
But it is still my meditationpillow, so it goes back to the
meditation nook. And so, thenook is the nook, and I put a

(01:31:39):
couple of pieces of art that Ifeel like are supportive of that
little area. It's a really funkylooking area in my otherwise my
living room, because my TV isalso there and my couch is also
there, but, like, the nook isthe nook. It's like this little
corner. It's not it's not at allsubdivided.
Like, there's no wall thatseparates it from any other part
of the space. It's just that isthe corner. So that's also the
corner where my harmonium, myinstrument is, which is what I

(01:32:01):
use to help me sing. In terms ofthe tactical, like, how am I
meditating on any given day? Itreally is sort of like, what is
it what what do I feel like Ineed most in that moment?
Is it a chant? Then I'll chant.If it's just a quiet, repetition
of a mantra, that's fine too. Ifit's, so I really there is no
there is no five word answer toyour question. It really depends

(01:32:23):
on the day.

Speaker 1 (01:32:24):
If you wanted to share with the audience one of
those, just maybe becausethey're not gonna hear it from
someone else or maybe becauseit's just, you know, special to
you or was there one that youwould choose to share in
specific?

Speaker 2 (01:32:38):
I mean, look, I grew up in a Sikh community. The word
that we repeat when we meditateor, you know, contemplate is
chant. It's Vaheguru. That's theword. That's sort of what we
sort of assign as sort of thename of God.
So you're reciting the name ofGod. So that's always been
particularly special andimportant in my meditation.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
And you sit on a cushion. Is there a particular
duration, eyes closed or open,body position? What does that
look like?

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
Mostly eyes closed, usually cross legged, but not by
any rules. Sometimes I'mstretched out. Sometimes I'm
lying down. But most of thetime, it's sort of eyes closed,
cross legged, sometimes with,like, a musical accompaniment,
sometimes without it. I mightplay, like, a a track, like, a
meditation track in thebackground that sort of has,

(01:33:27):
like, a neutral tone, like thosebinaural beats types of things.
Right? If you see them

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
Not Or just like some roses or M and M.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Yeah. Correct. Yeah. And then either I'll chant out
loud if I want to or it'll be,I'll be quiet. That's usually
that's like the starting point.
I'll try every day to start withthat. And if it's just not
hitting, then I'll move downchain to other tactics or
techniques.

Speaker 1 (01:33:50):
Would you be willing to, like, give us, like, a five
second of what that chantingsounds like so we get, like, the
cadence and that?

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
Yeah. Sure. So with eyes closed, it'd be. I mean,
the tunes don't matter. Mhmm.
But whatever sort of resonatesin a pitch or whatever, you

(01:34:18):
know, there's physiologicalthing. Right? Sometimes you sing
a little lower, you feel itvibrate in your body a bit more.
You sing a little higher. Youelevate maybe you elevate your
conscience or your your mood orwhatever it is.
Point being is find somethingthat works for you, sit there
and chant repeatedly. And again,sometimes that doesn't do it.
Right? Sometimes for me, itdoesn't quite hit. And then I

(01:34:39):
just move down the chain and tryto focus on your breath, focus
on your thoughts, focus on this,focus on whatever, Just find
something and make that yourmeditation journey for the day.
But I I always start with thechanting. That's sort of always
step one.

Speaker 1 (01:34:53):
And then the practice is just even as you're chanting,
the mind will wander and you usethat to anchor and come back to
the chanting.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
I think that's the other thing about meditation
that sometimes gets lost is themind wandering is kind of the
thing.

Speaker 1 (01:35:06):
That's the wind sprint of the practice.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
Yeah. Like, that's exactly it. It's like, you know,
I think there's some methods outthere that sort of say, oh, your
mind shouldn't wonder. I thinkthe point is that your mind is
going to.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
Yeah. That's the practice is bringing the mind
back because when you're in theworld and you get distracted or
reactive or angry, it's not toameliorate anger from your
emotional repertoire. It's torecognize when that's driving
your behavior and be able tobring it back to a center.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
And also that when people go into meditation spaces
and they take their journal andthey they share their thoughts
or they write if they write downtheir thoughts, like, there's
also moments that come from thewandering thoughts during
meditation. So the wanderingthoughts could actually be the
thing you're looking for. Notjust as a thing that you have to
control and bring back tocenter, but actually the

(01:35:58):
wandering thoughts in a contextthat is sort of like trying to,
waken up your subconscious.Right? Like or tap into that.
Like, the wandering thoughtsmight actually be the gift.

Speaker 1 (01:36:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
You don't have you don't have to create an enemy
out of your wandering thoughtsis the point. Right? Like Right.
Wandering thoughts mightactually be the gift.

Speaker 1 (01:36:14):
I I mean, literally this morning when I was
meditating, I had a wanderingthought came in, which had to do
with, you know, my team in thispodcast production. But I have
to do the mental gymnastics oflike, oh, I noticed that. That's
interesting. Bring it back. Thenthe wandering thought comes in
of like, oh, shit, what if Idon't remember?
Then I'm not going to do thething I need to do. And then I

(01:36:35):
have to remind myself, Oh, butthat's what this practice is
about. It's about letting go andtrusting. Okay, I've seen it, I
observe it, and now I'm back to,for me, I count to use like a
zen, whatever. It's the same asthe mantra, right?
Sort of the same function. Atthe end, I remembered it, and
then in my journal, I circle itand I go back to it later, but
sometimes I don't, and that'sthe practice, you know?

Speaker 2 (01:36:57):
Yeah, it is. It is. That's the point. That is the
point. And that's because it'salso, like, so emblematic of
life.
Right? Like, you will stumble orwhat might look like a stumble
even to yourself, let alone toother people, actually isn't a
stumble. It's actually like theit goes back to everything that
you said earlier around havemoments of adversity and
perceived, you know, depressionor perceived weakness or

(01:37:18):
whatever, actually can becatalysts for something greater.
They're just microcosms of sortof how you work and walk

Speaker 1 (01:37:24):
through The journaling, finding good
questions, and maybe this is theintegral thinking piece, maybe
it's something different. But Imay have a challenge and say,
oh, I've heard about thisjournaling thing, and I need to
ask better questions. What's agood question? So how do you how
do you navigate that page?

Speaker 2 (01:37:42):
Stream of consciousness, honestly, and,
like, this is one of thosethings where, especially if
you're somebody who looks in themirror and you say things like,
I'm data driven. This shouldresonate, which is you actually
just have to start. Like, youactually have to create the
habit and let the dataaccumulate the streams of
consciousness day after day. Andeven if it's just for, like, a
minute or two. Again, I'm I'mhypocritically speaking about

(01:38:04):
this because I don't do thiswell.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
Sure. There's two types of people. There's,
hypocrites and liars.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
In this case, hypocrite hat is on for sure.
Like, when when I have beendoing it well, even if it's just
for a couple of minutes a day,you write down some whether it's
gratitude thoughts or whatever,or it is the stream of
consciousness of just where yourmind is going on something
you've been thinking about allday. And then you allow five and
ten and fifteen days worth tosort of build up and you look
back on it and you start seeingcertain patterns and they start

(01:38:34):
bringing out like those patternsare ultimately like sort of
compasses to the questions thatmaybe are on your mind that you
didn't know were on your mindbecause you didn't think about
them in that way.

Speaker 1 (01:38:46):
What does that review process look like for you? So do
do you literally go back andreview? Is it is that just also
sort of, when I feel like it oris there a particular pattern or
commitment of that review? Like,how does that how does that
happen?

Speaker 2 (01:39:00):
Yeah. When I'm doing it well, it can be as frequently
as a week, but otherwise, likeeven every every month. Right?
Like just if you're if you'vegot the habit down, how fast you
review becomes less of aconcern. Mhmm.
Because you know that you'redisciplined at generating the
data. So

Speaker 1 (01:39:17):
So like once a day or Right.

Speaker 2 (01:39:19):
Generally, once a day. Sure. But reviewing like
once a month, once a week,whatever feels whenever you want
to. I mean, some of the some ofthe leaders I've worked for
would insist on weekly, likethey would like write every
night before bed. Sometimes itwas to do list for the next day.
Sometimes it was a contemplationor a unique thought or whatever.

(01:39:42):
It's just it doesn't again Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:43):
Put something on the paper.

Speaker 2 (01:39:44):
Put something on paper. Like just put something
on paper and then look back andsort of you can then ask
yourself, like, I wonder why Iprioritize these things or,
like, I wonder, you know, Iwonder how this thought that I
had on Monday actually showed upon Thursday without me even
knowing, without withoutconsciously knowing.

Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
You pick a particular time of day to capture?

Speaker 2 (01:40:06):
When I'm doing it well, it's before bed.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
Before bed.

Speaker 2 (01:40:09):
These days, I'm not doing it well, so it doesn't
happen almost ever. But I'llwrite before bed. There was a
period of time actually right atthe beginning of the pandemic
where I was actually really goodat waking up at like 04:30 in
the morning, five o'clock,starting off with some like
workouts and Wim Hof breathingand cold showers and all that
and then settling intomeditation and a journal. Really

(01:40:32):
beautiful way to start the firsttwo hours of the day, but just
for me wasn't sustainable andnot the world's best morning.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
The cold showers are tough. I did half of one this
morning and it's Congrats.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
Yeah. No. I love me a good cold plunge. I hate cold
showers. But cold plunges I'mhere for, but yeah, no, it was
really good.
Would journal first thing in themorning, but I think more
sustainably for me it's rightbefore bed.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Yeah. So this is like maybe a good segue to something
that I've noticed in your workand maybe you wouldn't even
notice it this way, but then Italked about this in the intro,
you to me exemplify a prettyrare presentation of left and
right brain balance. The way Isee that is when I piece apart

(01:41:16):
some of your accomplishments andawards, I tend to see a lot of
the sort of method ofimplementation as being very
evidence based, systemicallyrooted, logical, but the aim or

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
the

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
intent of that process is very frequently a
very human, heart centered,socially oriented endeavor. And
I wonder if you agree with thatcharacterization as a starting
point, and then could talk alittle bit about that

(01:41:56):
orientation and being able toaccess both sides of that
equation.

Speaker 2 (01:41:59):
You know, it's so beautifully put. I don't think
I've ever thought about it ortalked about it that way. So I
appreciate you verbalizing itthat way because I'm gonna need
to update my bio now. It'sinteresting, like, okay, what's
the big problem I'm working onright now? I'm totally policy
absolutely, like, policy driven.
When I think about policy, thinkabout big problems. So, like,
one of the big policy problemsin Canada right now is around

(01:42:22):
workforce. And now I'm sharing alittle bit about what I'm
working on and how this isshowing up. And it's interesting
because as you were saying it,was thinking, you know, gosh,
there's so many people who areunderemployed or there's so many
people who, you know, we talkedabout indigenous people earlier,
they're systemicallyunderemployed for a variety of
reasons. There's newcomers andimmigrants who are if not

(01:42:44):
underemployed, they're certainlyunderpaid or underutilized for
what their skills andcompetencies are.
You know, they there are doctorsin Iran or engineers in in in
India, but they come to Canadaand for some reason we can't
make them doctors or engineersbecause whatever. I can give you
all the stats. Right? I can dothe I'll do the research. I have
the research on how ineffectiveor inefficient or or what the

(01:43:06):
spells for Canada's economy in aGDP perspective and all the data
evidence piece.
And you're right. The thing Ireally care about is how come a
person can't just actuallyfreely become the best version
of themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:43:19):
How can we match a person's experience to their
potential?

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
Yeah. Because if they do that, they're gonna earn
more. They're gonna pay moretaxes. My roads are gonna be
better.

Speaker 1 (01:43:29):
They're gonna be happier and less upset with you
in traffic.

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
They're gonna they're gonna be happier. Our collective
happiness will co op like this.You know? So, yeah, there's a
real blend of left and rightbrainedness there that I don't
think I've actually necessarilycalled out. Like, I really do
care about humans, especially,like, when I can hear hear and
see and feel the individual'sstories.
I also like operating at thesystem. So that's an example I

(01:43:55):
guess you know it's I saw itactually now that we're talking
about it like even on TransCanada Trail days like when I
was on the board I was on theboard when the pandemic hit and
Canada's Pandemic lockdowns werepretty substantial significant.
Like you couldn't go to gyms,you couldn't go to a lot of
places, to congregate at all,shopping malls, grocery stores,
whatever it was, right? Like alot of places where people might

(01:44:16):
go just to have social contactwere off limits, not the trail
though, the trail was outdoors.And we saw what the trail did
for mental health, we saw whatit did for education, we saw
what it did to bring communitiesthat otherwise might not connect
with each other together andthere's science and data and all
the reasons why nature is greatBut the powerful piece for me

(01:44:38):
was actually seeing it happen inaction, the human side of that.
So, I really appreciate the wayyou characterize it. I've never
put those two things together inthat way. I've often just said
I'm policy driven because policyaffects everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:44:51):
What's interesting, you also said, and I heard this
in, I think it was an interviewthat you did, but you, you know,
you kind of took this journeyover the course of your life
from policy being in the way topolicy being the way. And I
thought that was reallyinteresting.

Speaker 2 (01:45:07):
Yeah. It's true. I used to when I first started out
on my entrepreneurial journey, Italked about policymakers being
in the way of innovation justabjectly because there's this
idea that policymakers move tooslowly or they don't know how to
respond to innovation, all that,which might be true. Mhmm. But
at the end of the day, the thepolicymaker's job is not to be

(01:45:27):
an innovator.
It's to establish the rightconditions for in the right
environment for innovation. AndI think that's just something
that age and and a little bit ofwisdom has taught me, which is
that policy can absolutely bethe way for people to think
about things in different ways.Right? Like, where it can go
sideways and is when policyestablishes artificial

(01:45:48):
constraints that are constraintsfor constraint sake. But when
you create regulation and policyand compliance requirements,
Naturally, most of the time, thebusiness sector pushes back on
those because it just makes it alittle bit harder to do
business.
But a lot of entrepreneurialpeople or innovators will look
at those new constraints andsay, What's the next thing that

(01:46:10):
we can figure out with this newset of constraints? Like, it's
almost like a game. And so notthat I'm an advocate for bad
policy, but policy and policymaking and policy changing are
all avenues for new innovation.Mhmm. You can spend your time
and energy being angry at policyor you can spend your time and
energy sort of looking at andsaying, okay.

(01:46:32):
Well, what is this new set ofwhat is this new game? The
pieces on the board havechanged. So now what's my like,
what are the moves? And I thinkthat's what where my
relationship with policy hasgone because generally speaking
in our countries generallycertainly not to certainly not
absolutely but generally thepolicies are in place to attempt
to protect people, to protectconsumer interests. They don't

(01:46:55):
always hit the mark.
They're not always great. Theydon't always land that way. But
when you start from a place thatyou actually don't have to be
angry at every new policy orregulation or compliance, you
can actually be active. You canyou can behave a lot more
innovatively. Yes.
So that's helped for me.

Speaker 1 (01:47:09):
Yeah. Did you find that through experience of of
working with policymakers or howdid you make that transition?

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
So after I sold my first company, I ended up at,
TELUS, which is atelecommunications firm, about
$16,000,000,000 a year inrevenue and I was their director
of government relations forWestern Canada.

Speaker 1 (01:47:26):
It's a big job.

Speaker 2 (01:47:27):
It's a big job, especially because actually I
was never political as we talkeda little bit earlier. I as I
always sort of saw myself asapathetic. And here was this
massive firm saying, cool, youshould like definitely be our
government relations person.And, that was probably the first
time, a, I don't know why I saidyes to the job and b, like,

(01:47:49):
don't know why they gave it tome. I don't know why I said yes.
But looking back, it makes totalsense going back to it. Right?
Posterity makes that story maketotal sense because when I got
into that role, it wasabsolutely an idea. Okay. How
can you leverage a massiveinstitution for influence to get
the, outcomes that we as aprivate sector organization need
in order to maximize theprofitability and our market
share, yada yada yada.

(01:48:10):
On the flip side, my primarystakeholder, even more so than
my own CEO, was governments ofdifferent provinces and trying
to figure out what is ultimatelywhat are your goals? Like, what
are what are the policyobjectives that you have on your
whiteboards collectively andindividually that we as a
massive owner of, know,connectivity infrastructure and

(01:48:31):
investor that we can actuallyhelp you achieve? And when you
start looking at what are someof the policy objectives of
these organizations, it's like,are great objectives. Like, we
should have more kids who areescaping foster care. There
should be a pathway for them tohave mobile connectivity because
as soon as they hit 18, they'resuddenly without any resources,
like we should at least providethem an access point, you know,

(01:48:52):
so it's like we can do that.
We can do that as a major telco.We can figure out a pathway that
both is profitable for us,subsidized for the 18 year old
kid and a generally speakingpositive policy outcome. Like we
can do these things and when youstart looking at policy from a
point of like we're trying toachieve this thing for this
purpose, can you help? As aprivate sector actor, then

(01:49:15):
policy environments ultimatelyend up setting not just the
rules of the game, but theyactually shine a light on the
opportunities for you tocontribute to a national
dialogue, which is where I keepon or or a provincial dialogue,
which for me comes back tonation building is really, the
core for what I wanna do.

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
So I'm wondering if you encountered in that role
distrust from governmentofficials or staffers when you
were bringing that forward. Andthat's coming from a place of,
you know, when I was last inelected office, our number one
goal was around housing. Andthere were a number of private

(01:49:51):
sector developers who genuinely,you know, lived and cared for
the community that wanted to seehousing delivered and who had
businesses that were verysuccessful delivering housing
much faster and more efficientlythan government was who would
come and say, hey, we'd love towork with you on this. And it
was perfectly in line with ourgoals and something that at
least I viewed as a greatbenefit and opportunity. Great.

(01:50:13):
Why don't we outsource thethings that we know we're not
good at and make sure that theoutcomes are still driving
towards the impact that we seek?But that was not universally the
case. There was a lot of historythat I may disagree with, but
understand, and there was a lotof distrust, and there was a lot
of, well, those are just greedyprivate sector people. We can't

(01:50:36):
trust them. Shut them out.
Let's keep the control. Well,the price of the control is you
don't actually get the thingthat the citizens need, and it's
actually very harmful. Did youcome across similar
perspectives, and how did youwork, like you said, accepting
reality, how

Speaker 2 (01:50:53):
did you work with that? The old adage, right?
Trust is difficult to create andvery easy to break. And trust is
also, I think, a byproduct ofyour track record of integrity.
So, you know, in my case, Iworked for an organization that
was also year after year afteryear was one of the most
philanthropic organizations inthe country.

(01:51:14):
Massive community investmentcommunity investment teams in
pretty much every market over20,000 people that we operated
in. Like, there was there was aconstant, constant dialogue of
how do we show up in thesecommunities? How do we show up
in a way that TELUS should as atelco that makes sense, right,
and also espouses the valuesthat we think of and care about,

(01:51:36):
which I would I say TELUS did anamazing job at. So to your
question around trust, like, Iinherited a trusting sort of,
position because it's been onDarren's the CEO of TELUS to
this day and Darren has alwaysbeen very clear that if we're
not engaged in the communitiesin which we are offering our

(01:51:57):
services then we're bad actors.And I say we, I'm not there
anymore but you know we're badactors if we're not actually
engaged and proving that we'reengaged and telling the stories
of how engaged, doing themarketing of all that and be
able to tell the stories becausethen when I go into the
government office I can say yeahwe a) employ this many people
and we pay this much in tax andyada yada But also, by the way,

(01:52:18):
you're you're a representativeof, you know, Nanten, Alberta,
small town Nanten where, youknow, Talos invested this much
in fiber optic that resulted inthis many new businesses
starting that also ended up inthis festival we had sponsored
for 50,000, whatever.
Right? Like, we we showed up.And so the trust there was
probably easier than, say, a oiland gas extraction company in

(01:52:42):
British Columbia where thepolitical climate is different
and, you know, energy extractionand and and fossil fuel
extraction is just likegenerally looked down upon in
British Columbia versus sayAlberta. Society like at a at a
aggregate level if you were topull the numbers. I used to sort
of half jokingly say it wasreally easy for me to go to
sleep every because the problemsthat we were talking to the

(01:53:03):
provinces about were how do weget more connectivity in the
hands of people so they can bebetter educated or they can have
better career outcomes or joboutcomes and it just it was the
trust piece that wasn'tinherently a challenge.
On the flip side, because I I doa little bit of work around
housing now as well, and, it'slike the developers who actually

(01:53:26):
fulfill their commitments ofsay, producing a park or a
public park or, you know, greenspace that benefited people or
whatever. Like, the things itcomes down to, like, are you
doing what you say you'll do ordo you always come in with a
fancy dress and beautifuljewelry and just, like, tell me
a good story. Right? Like if youall you do if all you're good

(01:53:47):
for is telling me a good story,then I'm gonna trust you less
and less. And like the I thinkthe Edelman trust barometer from
last year really speaks to this,which is government is not a
trusted entity anymore.
The institutional biginternational institutions are
not trusted entities anymorebecause there's just a lot of
lip service and there's not alot of people who don't feel in
their experience that they'reseeing the lip service actually

(01:54:08):
come to light. And soironically, for the first time,
I think, since Edelman startedthe trust barometer, private
business was trusted segment ofcivil society above and beyond
your own governments and our ourinternational institutions. And
that's it's that in itself is, areally interesting development
that people trust business todayarguably more than they trust

(01:54:31):
their own elected officials whothey actually get to choose if
you go and vote. Right? But,like, you don't even trust those
people as much as you trust thethe the the the grocery chain
that might be, you know,overcharging you for salon day.
It's a really interesting shiftin trust.

Speaker 1 (01:54:47):
I wonder if recognizing this is just
hypothesis, it's hypothetical,but you talked about considering
and deciding against for nowrunning for office. If you had
run, you would have faced thereality of entering a position
that by default is distrusted,even though it wasn't of your

(01:55:11):
own making. And I'm wondering ifyou gave thought to how you
would have addressed thechallenge of rebuilding trust in
that position if you had gonein.

Speaker 2 (01:55:21):
So when I was seriously contemplating how I
would do this, if I would dothis, and also what level, would
I do municipal as you did orwould I do it at the state level
as technically you also did orwould I do it at the federal
level and so in each case youhave to start with the fact that
you represent a constituency. Soin Canada we're first past the
post, we're parliamentary, weare elected based on our

(01:55:45):
geographical writings, our firstand foremost priority as elected
officials is to those people. Soyou have to build the trust of
those communities. So even forme, when I was contemplating
whether or not I would go intothe world of electoral politics,
it was a ten year decision.Meaning, if I decided in 2023
that the answer was yes, itdoesn't mean that I was gonna
run-in 2024 or 2025.

(01:56:07):
It was okay. For the next tenyears, I'm going to do the
things that would make me anauthentic genuine contributor to
the political dialogue because Iwill go live in the community
that I want to represent. I'llgo make the you know the
relationships authenticrelationships and allies with
those community organizationsand those people and build the
trust there and become a voiceand become a representative

(01:56:27):
voice outside of political hallsthat would have been the path
and I think that's how the trusthas to go then you win the seat,
you're right, you win the trustof the party, you win the trust
of your peers both on your partyand other parties and then you
just you know the bigger theportfolio the bigger the task of
trust building. It's work likeat the end of the day trust

(01:56:49):
building is not fucking words,It's work. You gotta actually do
the work, and you're gonna makemistakes.
And the mistakes some peopleperceive as a reason why you're
no longer trustworthy becauseyou made a mistake. And that's,
I think, part of the wholepoison and toxicity of politics
right now, which is human beingsmaking mistakes become political
points. Right? And so this is anonpartisan issue. I you see it

(01:57:12):
federally.
You see it provincially. You seeit when it's a liberal leader,
an NDP leader, a conservativeleader. The opposition is always
making and I've been listeningto Mehdi Hassan's How to Win a
Argument. Mehdi Hassan is theguy from MSNBC, and he talks
about the ad hominem argument insort of a tell of the world we
live in at the politicaldialogue level, which is these

(01:57:32):
are still people. Like, there'sstill people who are trying to
come up with ideas for better,you know, for a better Canada or
a better US or a better Nevadaor whatever, and they will make
mistakes.
You know, I feel like there isthis notion of the good old days
where perhaps once upon a timein the good old days, we debated
ideas and we didn't, you know,talk about people. But I think
there's always been this casewhere if your opposition,
regardless of what your partnerwhat regardless of your partisan

(01:57:54):
stripe. If you are opposition,part of your job is to destroy
the credibility of those whohold the power. And in Mehdi
Hassan's book, he talks abouthow, like, yeah, arguably, from
a moral or whatever you wannacall moral, like, maybe we
should be against the ad hominemargument that by virtue of
Skippy making a mistake with aninitiative that he and, you
know, he really led in in in onAspen Council, therefore,

(01:58:17):
because the mistake was made,that means Skippy is a bad
governor. It's like, that's notactually necessarily true, but
the argument resonates.
If you play the ad hominem well,you reduce the trust that people
have in your opponent becauseall you're doing is constantly
kicking at their credibilityinstead of their results,
instead of their actual actions,instead of their strategies. And

(01:58:41):
so you're not debating ideas,you're debating people, which
we've always all been taught askids and, like, growing up is,
like, that's not how you do it.Like, you people can have
questionable backgrounds, butgreat ideas. Let's talk about
ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:58:53):
When you talk about the balance of ego versus
whatever, essence orunification, this is I think
where it really comes back intoplay is that attempt to destroy
your opposition is an ego movebecause it helps you in the
short term, but it itcatastrophically damages the

(01:59:14):
system in the long term andultimately harms everybody of
every party.

Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
And then everybody who wants to participate in the
system is then subject to saidsystem, which is

Speaker 1 (01:59:24):
Which means they don't

Speaker 2 (01:59:25):
under it. Yeah. And then and then, yeah, and then
you have that problem where,like, they say that, you know,
the good people never join. Andthen it almost self selects what
kind of people are willing toeven put their foot in that sort
of shit show to begin with. Andthen there's that whole negative
diatribe of, oh, well, if you'rein politics, it's because you're
in it for all the wrong reasons.
Well, that's not true either.

Speaker 1 (01:59:44):
That's not true either.

Speaker 2 (01:59:45):
But there is this big behemoth of a system that, like,
one of the reasons I took lastyear to question whether or not
the electoral path was one wasmy path was I was getting tired
of being angry about the waythings were going. And I
thought, okay. Well, if I'mangry, my options are just to
stop being angry or do somethingabout it. Mhmm. Like, staying

(02:00:07):
here in a mode of angry doesn'tit just doesn't serve me.
That's for sure. It certainlydoesn't serve my loved ones. It
probably doesn't serve my work.So I need to do something about
it. Stop being angry, which is,you know, its own detach ment
process of, like, actually be,you know, outcome independent
to, like, which party is gonnado what?

(02:00:28):
I'm only gonna be alive foranother seventy years. How bad
could it possibly get? You know,whatever whatever. Or, you know,
shut up and get in. Mhmm.
And be angry if it's angry thatyou need to be, but more
importantly, be active. Mhmm.Like, actually play a role in in
being part of the change. But Ithink part of the reason why I
ended up saying no, at least nowis not the time, comes to this

(02:00:52):
point that, like, the vitriol,the ad hominem of it all, I know
I make mistakes. I know I'vemade lots of mistakes.
There is no reason for anybodyin my family to be subject to
the mistakes that I make. But ina political cycle, it's no holds
barred these days. It feels asthough if you can attack the
credibility of a person at theirmost personal level, then you're

(02:01:15):
gonna, you know, you're gonnascore the points.

Speaker 1 (02:01:17):
How central is that consideration to your ultimate
decision not to do it at thistime?

Speaker 2 (02:01:22):
Probably a top three reason. Yeah. I don't think it's
the top reason. Like, as a kidwho was bullied, you know, I'm
not I'm not a stranger to peoplesaying shitty things about me.
It is what it is.
Like, that that part's okay. Thepart of it that's problematic
is, like, you know if I'm out inpublic and I'm with a family
member or my partner or whateverthe random aggressive hollering

(02:01:44):
or yelling at a public event oryou know by some random person
who's just angry, subjugatingloved ones to that feels like a
choice I don't wanna make. Sothat's sort of a top three.

Speaker 1 (02:01:59):
And that is something that I think is truly new. When
your dad was in his position,nobody did that at your dinner
table. And although politics,you know, we can have rose
colored glasses and think, oh,it was great back then. It
wasn't. The eighteen hundredswere, you know, in this country,
we had a civil war.
I mean, it was it was reallynasty, but nobody knew what

(02:02:19):
those bureaucrats looked like.There was no Internet. No one
knew who they were looking forat dinner. So unless you were in
your very immediate circle,that's what didn't happen. The
version of your dad now probablydoes have to deal with that even
though they're not the person onthe camera.

Speaker 2 (02:02:34):
Yeah. You're absolutely right. I mean, I and
and for the ones who are on thecamera, like, last week, I went
to an event here in town withthe minister of housing, and it
was a great event. He wasactually pretty candid about the
things that his government hasdone wrong, which is fantastic
because you like to hear it andI came down and was about to go
go jump in my Uber and there wasa group of 15 protesters from

(02:02:54):
sort of a grassrootsorganization or whatever who
were against all the Covidmandates and things like that
and they had their megaphonesand they had their signs and
it's like, are you using yourvaluable time in your day to do
this? I mean, is such animportant part of democracy.
So I'm not knocking the notionof protest, but it's like, yeah,
like this guy's not talkingabout anything that has to do

(02:03:15):
with why you're here.

Speaker 1 (02:03:16):
And you're inadvertently creating a
situation where he's more likelyto be closed off, dishonest, not
own the negatives, which isactually the connective tissue
that you're talking about thatmade you feel like, oh, I I can
trust and listen to this person.

Speaker 2 (02:03:30):
Yeah. Yeah. I remember I was, I had the
opportunity to a few years agowhen I still lived in Alberta, I
had the opportunity to meet, afuture leader of one of the
parties up here. And I'd askedhim just a really simple
question when he was doing hisleadership nomination work
across the country. My questionto him is, can you tell you tell
me one good thing that theincumbent government has done?

(02:03:52):
Yes. You would end up serving ashis opposition, but can you tell
me one good thing that he'sdone? It just has to be one. And
he goes, no, I can't think ofany one thing. I'm like, you
can't think of a single goodthing.
Like, you're entering this wholething from the position that
every breath that that persontakes is like Yeah. Long for the

(02:04:16):
country. How are we supposed tobuild

Speaker 1 (02:04:18):
way through.

Speaker 2 (02:04:19):
My empathy for policymakers really grew during
the pandemic because, like, lotsof mistakes were made. So many
mistakes were made whether itwas around the messaging around
vaccines or the way we thoughtthat this was going to be a two
week experience or whatever itis like so much was handled
poorly and also we were allcollectively learning so much so
quickly about this stupid littlething right like and history

(02:04:42):
will decide what was right andwhat was wrong. But in the
moments, like, you know, and youwould know this better than most
people having served in office,but you can't change the rules
every week or ten days or everytwo weeks when you learn
something new about a mutationor whatever. You can't just keep
on changing the rules. If youthink you're if you think what
happened eroded trust, could youimagine how little trust there

(02:05:04):
would be if policies werechanging every two weeks based
on new information about like, Ihad a lot of I gained a lot of
empathy for policymakers duringthe pandemic because it's like,
how are you supposed to directan entire nation or an entire
state when things are changingso quickly, you need to maintain
some sense of stability, youneed to maintain some sense of

(02:05:25):
trust and consistency, and yetthe thing that you're trying to
do that around has no stabilityor consistency.
That thing is changing all thetime.

Speaker 1 (02:05:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:05:34):
And as a policymaker, you're fucked because you're
always gonna be wrong. And it'swild because in those yeah. In
those contexts, you're justnever gonna be right. It was so
easy when I was a youngerentrepreneur to shit on it and
just be like, oh, they're justin the way. Mhmm.
And I think COVID and that wholejourney at the end of the day,

(02:05:56):
when you're in charge ofdirecting an entire nation on
how to behave in order to keepsome sort of social cohesion and
social balance, it's fuckinghard work.

Speaker 1 (02:06:03):
At the very beginning, you talked about how
your own internal journey andexploration has informed your
outward work and service. AndI'm wondering, what are the
things like what's the one ortwo things that you've learned
and come to accept aboutyourself that have provided the

(02:06:24):
greatest expansion and empathyor understanding in the way that
you're describing it now?Internal lessons that have given
you the most expansion ofempathy or understanding
externally.

Speaker 2 (02:06:34):
If I can make mistakes, anybody can make
mistakes. Right? Like, thereneeds to be grace for the things
that people have done. And, youknow, part of part of an
extension of that is that youactually you are not necessarily
your past actions. You mighthave been a shitty partner to
somebody once and you mighthave, you know, cheated a

(02:06:56):
business partner once And ifyou've done the work to change
and not be that person anymore,then you're not that person
anymore.
And, like, to be able to seethat people are who they are
today and not necessarily justthe sum of all the things
they've done, it's just hard. Atthe individual level, it's
easier. And I get how it's hardwhen you're trying to elect
somebody who has a history of,you know, potentially being a

(02:07:16):
piece of shit. But at theindividual level, in terms of
finding empathy for individuals,it's like, try to operate from a
place where people are trying,when people are trying to be
better versions of themselvesall the time. I like to think
that.
And so that that starting pointhelps uncover whether or not
somebody actually is or isn'tbecause if you start there, it's
like the innocence will provethem guilty, but, like, if you

(02:07:38):
prove yourself guilty, fine.Like, it is what it is. It's
actually how I used to navigatea lot of really sticky
situations with, especially insmall town Canada and
particularly small town Albertawhere they've never seen any of
this before and,

Speaker 1 (02:07:51):
Points to

Speaker 2 (02:07:54):
Oh that's right points to face. And one of the
things that I I loved about thatexperience was people were very
quick to let you know if theydidn't like you, but you could
start from a place where youassumed that they wanted to
learn. And so you could get intothe dialogue. And if it turned
out that they were just, like,hateful people, you just walked

(02:08:17):
away. Right?
You just moved on. I mean,there's a way to start from a
place where it's like, you knowwhat? This can be a really great
interaction. And when you startfor me, when I've started from
that place by sort of assumingthat people are just trying
their best, right, they're notwho they're they're they're not
anything other than the personthey are in this moment, that I

(02:08:38):
found very helpful and it tookme a long time to learn that but
I found that to be reallyhelpful and I'm still I'm still
not great at it but I'm it'sit's been super helpful in the
last few years. I think relatedto that as a second thing is and
like we've we all have trauma weall have trauma like people are
the way they are because of whatthey've experienced how they've

(02:09:01):
been nurtured what they've beenexposed to whether it's called
social conditioning or lifeevent.
We're we're just we're such acollection of the different
types of grief and trauma thatwe've been through. And for me,
right, looking myself in themirror, it's like to not have
empathy for people out of thegate would be a pretty shitty

(02:09:23):
way for me to live. I'm notsaying other people need to live
that way, but for me, it's likeI think as I've been through
more life events that have,like, really changed who I am as
a person. To not have empathyfor life events that might
change other people's realities,like, seems like a shitty place
to start from, but that's justfor me. So I think that's just

(02:09:46):
helped us knowing that, like, Ican go through these immense
amounts of pain or if I can gothrough these immense amounts of
hurt or these immense amounts ofinsecurity or immense amounts of
whatever, other people areprobably going through the same
shit.
Yeah. I wish there is a way toI'm sure there is a way. I mean,
I haven't figured it out, but Iwish there was a way to
systemize that, again, knowingwhat we know about psychological

(02:10:09):
science maybe wouldn't work, butwhen we, you know, when we talk
about positive politics and talkabout like unfortunately, don't
I don't know if there's a statabout this. I'd be very curious
to see how many people have wontheir elections by exclusively
platforming on positivepolitics. I don't know that it's
possible in this day and age.
Like, the cat's out of the bag,it feels like, on on that. But I

(02:10:32):
wish there was a way to sort ofbring that, like, language of
empathy in the campaign cycle.

Speaker 1 (02:10:39):
There's a, there's a business for everything there's
a market for. And unfortunately,sometimes we have to hit the
floor before we bounce back up.And I think in many ways, these
epochs of positive or negativeorientation are cyclical. And if
we're not on the floor, we gottabe close.

Speaker 2 (02:10:58):
Mhmm. I like to think so. You know, going back to
this, like, the good old daysweren't necessarily the good old
days, colon civil war orwhatnot. And there's a part of
me that asks, like, has it infact always just been like this?
It's just now we have so manymore mediums and outlets and
vehicles to see it.
Yes. I sometimes think about howlife was so much simpler when

(02:11:18):
Canada only had three mediaoutlets because we all had to
consume the same three opinions,and so we could have we all have
to form our opinions off of thesame three sources

Speaker 1 (02:11:26):
of truth.

Speaker 2 (02:11:27):
And now anybody can be a media platform, which is
amazing on one hand and, like,potentially part of the problem
on the other hand. Yeah. Youknow, this is probably a
conversation for a differentday, but it even makes me wonder
what is this notion of truth andlike, no. We need the truth.
Like, to what degree is thatactually part and parcel of the

(02:11:48):
problem?
Mhmm. Because of our, you know,insatiable appetite to know the
truth about all these thingsthat we actually don't have a
lot of control over, how much ofthat has contributed to how
angry we all are at a societallevel because we don't have
those same three sources oftruth anymore, seven sources.
Like, we have a million and ahalf sources of truth truth,

(02:12:09):
whether it's, you know, up here,we got Ravel and the Thai, the
Thai, they're both left wingoutlets, and then you got, like,
Rebel on the right, and thenyou've got your mainstream as
you will, if you wanna call themcentrist just down the middle.
And when you've got all thoseoptions, like, not many of us

(02:12:29):
are trying to read all thepublications to sort of make our
own opinions or real most of usdon't have the time.

Speaker 1 (02:12:34):
I'm reminded that the last time we had such a major
upheaval in the dissemination ofinformation and the resulting
question of what is true in theWestern world, at least, was,
you know, Gutenberg and theinvention of the printing press,
which was immediately followedby the Crusades and centuries of
war, which were really foughtover well, which which book is

(02:12:57):
true. And I think we're not in adissimilar and more more
fractured moment now. I'm alsoreminded that that period of war
led to the longest sustainedpeace, the greatest quality of
life behind the veil ofignorance for any human that's
ever walked the earth. Andhopefully, our period of

(02:13:18):
struggle will through our ownefforts, our own integrity, like
you said, our own service leadto a better future for the
generations that come next andfor the rest of this life that
we get to live. You know?

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
I have that hope. Right? Like, I mean, through all
of this tension and through allof this, it's like there are
different ways to lead. Thereare different ways to pick up
service. And those differentways can actually end up being
great influencers to the peoplewho hold the electoral seats.
And that's, I think, where Iended up landing for myself as a
person, which is I would ratherinfluence electoral politics

(02:13:51):
outside of the system itself.Yeah. Continuing to do the
things that I do perhaps with abit more system or strategic
thinking to be able to sort ofhold the position. You know,
it's this idea that you caninfluence politics from outside
the political system andarguably in a more valuable way
even than you could inside ofit.

Speaker 1 (02:14:09):
Yeah. I mean, it's gonna take all of the above from
all the different people servingin the best way for them. And
hopefully, those things aremutually reinforcing. I have a
question that I like to askeveryone at the end of these.
Our audience are not passiveobservers.
They're not people on thesidelines. These are the
proverbial humans in the arena.And as you've said, the arena

(02:14:31):
has a lot of booby traps and alot of threats and challenges
these days. And so if you wereto call on your own lived
experience and isolate just onething that you would want to
leave them with, whether it's apractice, a thought, a mantra,
an experience, anything at all,that would best resource them to

(02:14:53):
be a vector for the healing ofour politics by starting with
themselves? What you think thatthing would be?

Speaker 2 (02:15:00):
That key phrase is there. Right? Start with
yourself. Keep yourself healthy.Keep yourself strong mentally,
emotionally, spiritually,physically.
Find each other. You're notalone. Right? There's so many
people out there like you whoare doing incredible amazing
things and are seeking to uplifteach other and the systems and
the communities in which theyoperate fundamentally start at

(02:15:23):
home and make sure that the workyou're doing is authentically
true to you Because the thesystems need you, the
communities need you, and thestronger you are, the stronger
those communities will be.

Speaker 1 (02:15:35):
Yeah. Start at home. I love that. It is all
connected. Chapman, thank you somuch.
Chapman, before we leave,anywhere that you would want our
audience to get pointed to,whether that online account, a
place to reach you, anything atall?

Speaker 2 (02:15:50):
Yeah, sure. Listen, I just deactivated my Instagram,
so you can't find it. But youcan certainly look me up on
LinkedIn. Love to connect there.You know, the other thing is if
you're interested in the work ofmore equitable workforce
development, skills development,workforce participation, if
you're, you know, doing work inthat domain, I'd love to hear
from you because I'm alwaysinterested to meet other

(02:16:12):
innovators who are trying tomake for a more just and
equitable workforce and and amore resilient one because we're
pretty up the creek without apaddle if we don't figure out
that problem.
So if you're working on findingways for more people to
participate in the workforce, Iwould love to hear from you.

Speaker 1 (02:16:26):
Beautiful. Well, brother, have a beautiful day.
Thank you so much for spendingtime with us here on Healing Our
Politics. It has been really apleasure.

Speaker 2 (02:16:35):
Likewise, Skippy. Likewise. Thanks so much. Thank

Speaker 1 (02:16:39):
you so much for joining us today. If you want to
put what you've heard here todayinto practice, sign up for our
newsletter, The Leader'sHandbook, where each month
you'll receive just one emailwith a curated selection of the
most useful tools and practicesdiscussed on this podcast today
and over the course of the lastmonth, delivered in simple how

(02:17:01):
to worksheets, videos, and audioguides so you and your teams can
try and test these out in yourown life and see what best
serves you. And lastly, if youwanna be a vector for healing
our politics, if you wanna doyour part, take out your phone
right now and share this podcastwith five colleagues you care
about. Send a simple text, dropa line, and leave the ball in

(02:17:25):
their court. Because the truthis the more those around you do
their work, the better it willshow up in your life, in your
community, and in your world.
Have a beautiful day. TheHealing Our Politics podcast is

(02:17:47):
brought to you by the ElectedLeaders Collective, the first
leading and most highlyrecognized name in mental
health, well-being, andperformance coaching for elected
leaders and public servantsdesigned specifically for you.
Now don't be fooled by the name.The Elected Leaders Collective
is not just for elected leaders.It is for all public servants,

(02:18:12):
staffers, government, nonprofit,whole organizations, this is for
you.
If you are filled with passionfor improving your community and
world, but are tired as I am ofthe anger, stress, and vitriol,
if you find yourself bangingyour head against that same
wall, struggling with theincoming criticism and threats,

(02:18:35):
arguing with colleagues who aresupposed to be on your team and
questioning if it's even worthit anymore, then the Elected
Leaders Collective programmingis specifically for you. With
the Elected Leaders Collective,you will learn to become a
hashtag political healer,building the authentic
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(02:18:57):
through the anger and pressurewhile cultivating the open
empathetic mind to meet otherswith the curiosity, compassion,
and kindness necessary torespond to threats, improve
challenging relationships,deescalate conflict, and bring
people in your communitytogether to solve real problems
and get shit done. You'll reducestress, anxiety, and overwhelm

(02:19:21):
and become a more effectiveleader while having time for
your family, yourself, yourhealth, and your wealth,
sleeping well at night, andshowing others they can too. Now
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(02:19:43):
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