Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 126. Why your "random" life choices are secretly connected — Tasneem Damji

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126. Why your "random" life choices are secretly connected — Tasneem Damji · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:05
  This is all figured out. I'm Andrea Barr.
• 0:07
  I'm a career coach for parents, a mom of two, and I absolutely
• 0:11
  believe that you can continue to grow personally and
• 0:13
  professionally while protecting family time.
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  We're about to figure out this work, life and parenting stuff
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  out together. Tasnim Damji, welcome to the all
• 0:33
  figured out podcasts. Thank.
• 0:35
  You nice. To be here coming, I'm so happy
• 0:38
  to see you, to be here with you in person to tell your
• 0:42
  incredible story through becoming a mother, having a
• 0:47
  career, pivoting in that career. And what a bonus we get to talk
• 0:52
  about what it's like to send children off to university and
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  what we might be able to do to prepare for that.
• 1:00
  Now, I don't even really want to think about it, but like, we're
• 1:03
  going to go there. This feels important.
• 1:06
  You're going to you're going to prepare us.
• 1:08
  So we'll, we'll fine and you're going to tell us that it's
• 1:10
  really far away, right. For those of us who have like
• 1:12
  the toddlers. It is and there's enjoy this
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  stage. Is what I would say.
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  Oh, Jesus. We'll get into.
• 1:23
  OK, before we go back in history, I actually want to ask
• 1:25
  you, how do you introduce yourself these days?
• 1:29
  Like in terms of what I do. Yeah, yeah.
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  Or as a human actually too. Yeah, I mean, I, if I could
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  maybe say like the different hats that I wear, you know, and,
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  and probably, um, definitely the most important is a mother, you
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  know, um, and I have like I'm at two different stages in
• 1:52
  motherhood. I have a nine year, well, she's
• 1:54
  almost 9 next week and a girl and a 17 year old boy who's in
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  grade 12. And so they're very different
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  ages and different parenting and different needs, you know, and
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  I'm a different parent to both of them in terms of my work.
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  What I would say is, um, what I'm doing right now, which is
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  helping high school students and their families kind of set
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  themselves up for the future in a way that really aligns with
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  their interests. Like really thinking about who
• 2:31
  they are, what they're interested in, what they want to
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  do in this world. We do that in high school and I
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  work with them, but the work is really much more than that.
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  It's to set themselves up for later on when they're going for
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  job interviews and negotiating raises and things like that.
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  Um, but I would also say that the work I do really fulfills
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  kind of a bigger purpose that I have, which is I've spent, and
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  we'll probably talk about this many years living abroad and in
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  countries where quality education is not available.
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  And this is in fact how I started my work.
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  And I want to support young people from the, that part of
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  the world to access quality education.
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  And so the work I do right now with high school students here
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  in North America really feeds into that.
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  I also do some consulting with students from various countries,
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  in various countries, helping them kind of figure out their
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  next steps, you know? And so if I could introduce
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  myself in my work, it's helping students figure out their next
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  steps that align with their interests.
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  That's such beautiful work and it's so you're such an
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  incredible communicator. I'm so excited to have you on
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  because you really are a beautiful storyteller and
• 4:00
  excellent communicator. And I am so excited to really
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  unpack the through lines of your own story as almost a
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  testimonial in a case study for anybody listening who is like, I
• 4:15
  don't know what the hell I want to be when I grow up and I'm,
• 4:18
  you know, 354555 years old. And you know, how is what I'm
• 4:23
  doing now in this government job pushing papers?
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  How is this even related to what I'm doing?
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  Or I, you know, I love to travel, but how is that even
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  related to what I want to do maybe later on.
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  And I think your story, there's so many layers to it that really
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  do ladder back up to follow your interests and gold will happen.
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  Like there's so many moments of your story that I know having
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  known you personally for maybe a year now or so.
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  We're in a master business mastermind together and it is so
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  cool to then see that you're now working with the next generation
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  who are about to embark on their own endeavours and that they're
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  like, they're high performers. They're like, I have to have
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  this all figured out. The people listening are high
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  performers. They think that they should have
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  everything figured out. And what I'm so excited to
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  explore today is that notion that life just happens in kind
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  of mysterious ways sometimes, and then you can always find the
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  through line. Well, I'm so excited about
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  having the conversation because I, I haven't really reflected on
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  all those things, you know, and I just recently, just, um, wrote
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  a post. I am turning 51 in a couple of
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  weeks. Yeah.
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  Yeah, so I wrote a post. On 28.
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  OHP thank you. Well, was 28, right?
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  But I wrote a post kind of reflecting on 50 years, and what
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  I realized is that I now know myself much better.
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  You know, when I think about that, like that took me 50
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  years, There's still much more for me to learn about myself.
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  So it's an ongoing thing. It's so cool.
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  Take us back to what you would say was the first, you know,
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  pivotal moment in your story. Was it when you moved abroad and
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  really explore the world in a different way?
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  Yeah, You know, I actually started off with going to
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  university in a program that, you know, was not the program
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  for me. Nobody, it was science actually.
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  I was a A straight A student in high school or really good
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  student in high school. So it was just assumed that I
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  would become a doctor and go into sciences and go to
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  university. And, um, you know, at that time,
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  that was in the early 90s at that time, nobody really asked
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  you what are you interested in? So I thought, OK, that's what I
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  need to do. And to be honest, I went from a
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  straight A student and I failed a course, I think in Physiology,
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  like a required course, not like at ABCD, but like I failed that
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  course and I had to retake it. But the interesting thing is I
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  didn't think I could change. I didn't think I could change my
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  course at that time. I didn't think I could.
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  I didn't even think I could go to someone to talk about this.
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  So I stuck with it for four years.
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  And when I think about it now, the two courses, the only two
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  courses I enjoyed in all those four years were psychology and
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  anthropology, which now make a lot of sense.
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  And so when I finished university, I was like, OK, I'm
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  now becoming a doctor and I need to figure this out myself.
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  So I actually went to some panel discussion and there was someone
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  talking about she went to volunteer abroad after
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  university, I think. And I thought, Oh my God, that
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  is really cool. I'm going to do this.
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  How exotic. I know, like, how neat.
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  I had no idea where I'd go, what I'd do.
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  And we didn't really have the Internet at that time.
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  We had, like, this one computer lab at the university.
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  And some, like, e-mail listeners.
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  And I wrote to them. And one lady in Pakistan said,
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  we'd love to have you come volunteer.
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  So I was like, oh, OK. And I was doing a bachelors of
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  science and psychology. And so she said, yeah, we'd love
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  to have you here. So I go to Pakistan, to Karachi,
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  a place I had never been to before.
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  And, um, I get there. You know, I guess I must have
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  been about 21 or something like that, just, you know, seven
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  years ago, right? And, and I went there and, you
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  know, completely new culture, new language, everything, right?
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  And I ended up volunteering with her and realized that what they
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  understood as someone with a bachelors in psychology was very
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  different than what it was. They thought I was a
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  psychologist. And so they wanted me to do
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  these psychological assessments on children.
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  And I was like, no, I cannot do that, right?
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  Like ethically? I ain't trained for this.
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  Exactly. And but at the same time, I was
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  like, but I can't go home. I just told everybody, I'm going
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  for a year, right? I hear.
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  Yeah. And I'm like, I can't come home,
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  like, after a couple months, right?
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  Or a month or so. So there was this other lady in
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  that same organization who I guess felt really bad.
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  And she was like, why don't you help me out, You know?
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  And she was like organizing some conference.
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  And I literally worked on Excel spreadsheets for a little bit
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  and then, um, I was living in a dormitory there and I didn't
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  realize that my stay there was only for three months.
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  So now I had nothing to really do voluntarily.
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  I, you know, for volunteer work, I had no place to stay.
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  And I'm like, Oh my God, I can't go home now.
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  So I ended up meeting a family near, near where I was staying.
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  And they said, why don't you come live with us?
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  And they're like, OK, we went to the same prayer house.
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  So that's How I Met them. And they were from Tajikistan
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  and I lived with them. And one day they had a friend
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  come over for dinner. And I told her my story.
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  And she said something like that happened to her.
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  She was about 10 years older than me, and she wanted to help
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  me out. And she said, you know, I'm
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  about to start this school health education program.
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  Why don't you come to my office tomorrow and let's talk.
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  And I did. And Long story short, I ended up
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  volunteering with her and then working with her for about
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  almost about a year. And I loved it.
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  We were in public schools, private schools, slum area
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  schools, community based schools with Afghan refugees.
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  And I loved working with her. And that's where I realized, OK,
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  this is an interesting field to get into.
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  And so that's public health. So I came back home to Vancouver
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  and I decided to apply to Graduate School in public health
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  and specifically in refugee health so that I could work
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  abroad as well. And so that was kind of like my
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  gap year, I guess, you know, at a time when I didn't know what a
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  gap year was. And didn't, you know, I went for
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  one reason, it turned into something else.
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  Didn't really think about how, you know, like, how is this
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  going to lead to this, to this? And it just did.
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  And so that's kind of my early story.
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  That and that is such unbelievable.
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  What is it that they say in like foreshadowing this thinking in
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  movies or books? Yeah, that actually I, I don't
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  think I'd ever heard that full story from you and the
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  foreshadowing to what you're doing now where when we're in
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  our mastermind, you're like, oh, I'm heading to this private
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  school or I'm heading to work with this Afghan refugees, these
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  women who were going to post secondary education.
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  The fact that you're back in schools, the fact that you're
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  back working with this population, that is unbelievable
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  that from 21 to 51. I did not think of it that way
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  because so much and we'll probably talk has happened since
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  that time. Yes, you would think is
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  unrelated. Yes, has no connection with each
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  other, but it's actually a full circle moment.
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  It is, yeah. Test me.
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  Might have. I feel that.
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  I have to ask you how for the listener who's like, I'm so
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  stuck in my head about my decisions, especially his
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  mothers, especially his parents who are listening, where it
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  feels like everything is really high stakes.
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  But in that moment, I know you were 21, footloose and fancy
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  free, but what advice would you give someone right now who's
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  listening, who's like, I feel so stuck.
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  And I feel like I want to say go on this retreat or I feel like I
• 13:36
  want to go do my yoga teacher training, but it really doesn't
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  make sense. What do you tell that person who
• 13:41
  really wants to listen to their intuition, but it doesn't
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  actually logically make sense? Yeah.
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  I mean, I would, um, I would say honestly, go for it.
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  I really would. And can I tell one example,
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  please kind of share why I would say that because it didn't, it
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  started when I was like 21, right?
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  But it has continued in my life where I've said yes to things or
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  I've done things and you're really getting me to think about
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  it because I have kind of forgotten about all these
• 14:13
  things, right? But like I've done things where
• 14:18
  sometime in my gut I felt like it was the right thing to do and
• 14:21
  so many people told me it was the wrong thing to do.
• 14:25
  I said yes to things that I had no idea how to do it and had no
• 14:31
  idea should I, But I just said yes.
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  So I'll give 2 examples if that would help please.
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  So so one of them is So I lived in Tajikistan for after Graduate
• 14:47
  School. And where is Tajikistan?
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  For those, Asia, thank you. Very remote.
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  It's very small, like country on the map.
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  But just to give some context, it borders China and Afghanistan
• 14:59
  and it's part of the former Soviet Union.
• 15:03
  So one of those stands, all right.
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  And I ended up marrying someone from there.
• 15:08
  And so when our son was 2 1/2 years old and we were living in
• 15:13
  Vancouver, we decided we were going to move there for many
• 15:17
  reasons. And much of it was for me
• 15:20
  actually, because I was really missing living abroad.
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  And so many people gave advice. People love advice.
• 15:31
  They love to tell you what they think, right, Whether you ask
• 15:34
  them or not. And most of it was, um, why
• 15:39
  would you go there? Don't go there.
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  Like, you know that kind of thing.
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  And you know, one of my colleagues at the time, she was
• 15:50
  much older than me. She actually told me one day.
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  She said when she was younger, her and her husband, uh, he sold
• 15:56
  his medical practice and they moved to La Sutu with two young.
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  Kids. No way.
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  And in the 70s, and they had the same thing.
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  So many of her friends were like, don't do it.
• 16:08
  That's why would you sell your private medical practice, right?
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  They lived there for like 10 years.
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  And she said it was the best thing they ever did.
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  And she said to me when she came back, some of those friends said
• 16:24
  to her, you know, the reason we said this was because we were
• 16:28
  jealous. We wanted to do something like
• 16:30
  this and we wish we had. So that really stuck to me.
• 16:37
  I knew for what the reasons why I wanted to go.
• 16:41
  And one of the reasons people would say to me is like, what
• 16:44
  kind of education would your son get, you know, not knowing the
• 16:49
  country or anything. But I said she now going to
• 16:53
  different countries, living in in a different place is an
• 16:57
  education in itself. I mean, he was, by the time he
• 17:00
  left, he was three years old. Like what?
• 17:03
  Like? You know hard hitting education.
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  Where they wanting exactly exactly.
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  And so, you know, the things that, and so my idea of
• 17:14
  education was different, the experiences that he would get.
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  And but I still did it. And we lived there for five
• 17:22
  years from when he was 3 till 8:00 and then moved back.
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  And now he's almost 18. And I, when I look at him, I
• 17:32
  know he was shaped by this experience in a very, very
• 17:37
  positive way that will last him a lifetime.
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  So that was, you know, me. That's my advice about if you
• 17:45
  feel it in your gut, just do it. Don't care about what other
• 17:50
  people are going to say, right? While I was there, and this is
• 17:54
  more of a career story, while I was there, I, I was working
• 17:59
  somewhere and it didn't work out.
• 18:01
  I, the, the environment was very toxic.
• 18:05
  My manager was a micromanager. It was a very stressful work
• 18:10
  environment that I thought I was the only one experiencing it
• 18:14
  until I found out that, you know, everybody else was, but
• 18:18
  nobody was talking about it, right?
• 18:20
  Anyways, I left that job but I needed to find something else
• 18:24
  because I was living in a foreign country.
• 18:26
  I needed a visa to stay there and in order to have that visa I
• 18:30
  needed to work, right? So this is an interesting story.
• 18:35
  There was always something when I lived abroad that I said I
• 18:39
  would never do like a job wise, but it was something that so
• 18:44
  many people asked me. Can you guess?
• 18:47
  Teaching English. Teaching English?
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  Hey, yeah. What was what was your
• 18:52
  hesitancy? Um, you know, English for me is
• 18:55
  my first language, so they want to learn grammar and I am not.
• 18:59
  Like I don't know the words for. Grammar no.
• 19:01
  And I don't know if I'm putting the comma in the right place.
• 19:05
  I don't know all that stuff. If you want to know about past
• 19:08
  participle and like, you know, present to like present tense, I
• 19:12
  can do, but I'm like, no, I'm not teaching English, right?
• 19:16
  But one day now I needed a job and I also needed some income,
• 19:22
  right? So there was this job advertised
• 19:25
  as an English teacher to the staff of an organization.
• 19:30
  Now this organization was an organization that I was
• 19:33
  interested in kind of getting my foot in the door because what I
• 19:38
  had read about them was that they supported a young people.
• 19:44
  They gave scholarships for them to study abroad in universities.
• 19:48
  And I thought, oh, this is kind of neat and it would be really
• 19:52
  neat be part of this organization.
• 19:54
  So anyways, I had two groups of students.
• 19:56
  I had one group of staff that were kind of like intermediate
• 20:00
  English. So it was really fun.
• 20:01
  You know, we'd watch Ted talks, we'd talk about them, and we had
• 20:05
  some really good conversations. I also had another group where
• 20:09
  it was the driver of the organization who had.
• 20:14
  My Russian was better than his English and.
• 20:16
  Driving a vehicle. Yeah, yeah, driver like he would
• 20:19
  pick up, you know, and drop staff home and and what not and
• 20:24
  he needed English to pick up foreign like consultants from
• 20:28
  the airport, drop them to the hotel, tell them that, you know,
• 20:33
  I will pick you up at 9:00 in the morning or you know, how was
• 20:37
  your flight, you know, like that kind of English, right.
• 20:41
  And I, I did that right. And so one day, after like a
• 20:46
  couple of months of teaching, the director of the organization
• 20:49
  calls me in and she says, you know, I've heard a lot of great
• 20:52
  things about your class. And I was like, yeah, probably
• 20:55
  not that class, but maybe the other one.
• 20:57
  And she goes, you know, my office is nearby and I hear what
• 21:01
  you guys are talking about. And, and she says we have an
• 21:05
  opportunity, it's a consulting opportunity to develop and
• 21:11
  facilitate a like a 3 1/2 day workshop for women's rights
• 21:17
  advocates from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
• 21:23
  I didn't even know they did this kind of work.
• 21:25
  Like I just thought they did the scholarships, you know, and
• 21:28
  that's what I was interested in. And she said, you know, we do
• 21:32
  need to advertise this, right? But I thought I'd also give you
• 21:36
  the opportunity to see if you'd like to write a proposal of what
• 21:41
  you would do in this workshop, right?
• 21:43
  And then we can go from there and see.
• 21:46
  And I said yes. This episode is sponsored by
• 21:50
  Tasneem Damji, my guest today. And if you have been listening,
• 21:54
  which I know you have been, she's a college and career
• 21:58
  clarity coach who does things quite differently.
• 22:01
  We have all been there. If you are thinking back on when
• 22:05
  you were a young person breaking into the big world, you might
• 22:08
  have been panicked about what's next or the pressure to pick the
• 22:11
  perfect major or perfect next step.
• 22:14
  And I can only imagine what it's going to be like when my 2
• 22:17
  little ones are at that stage. And Tasnim helps young people
• 22:22
  and their families just totally her unique superpower move from
• 22:27
  that place of feeling super overwhelmed to finding actual
• 22:30
  clarity in what they want to do next.
• 22:32
  Her work is about building lifelong self trust.
• 22:35
  And like the muscle that it is, she really helps students
• 22:38
  connect the dots between who they are and where they're
• 22:41
  going. And you've heard that in this
• 22:42
  episode thus far. You will continue to hear that
• 22:44
  in her story. She really takes an interest
• 22:47
  based approach to her work and helping students find what that
• 22:50
  best next step is. You don't need to map out your
• 22:53
  whole life, but what we're learning in this episode is that
• 22:55
  what is that best next step for this young person and as a mom
• 23:00
  herself has named also works with the the family, so she's
• 23:03
  not just talking to the youth and that's it.
• 23:05
  It's really a holistic, beautiful process.
• 23:08
  So if you or a loved one is entering this phase of life and
• 23:11
  you want your young person in your life to move into their
• 23:14
  future with confidence, you absolutely need to check her
• 23:17
  out. Go to the show notes to get the
• 23:19
  link directly to her website so you can reach out.
• 23:21
  It's Tasneem damn GTA SNEMD AM J i.com to learn more about her
• 23:28
  coaching and offerings. Did I know how to do this?
• 23:32
  Had I ever done just before, um, you know, the reason she asked
• 23:37
  me was because I was living in Tajikistan and I'd lived there
• 23:39
  even before that. And she thought, OK, you would
• 23:43
  have some context, right? Better than someone coming from
• 23:47
  like North America straight, let's say, right?
• 23:50
  And I said, yes. And this is for all the mothers
• 23:54
  out there. We can do things if we put our
• 23:58
  mind to it. So I remember my son was in
• 24:00
  kindergarten at the time, and I would wake up in the morning
• 24:04
  before he would wake up and I'd start working on it.
• 24:07
  I had like 2 days to do this, a proposal, right?
• 24:10
  And I'd wake up in the morning, I'd start working on it, wake
• 24:14
  him up, get him ready for school, walk him to school.
• 24:17
  And then I'd come home and I'd work on it.
• 24:20
  And then I'd pick him up, do all the things I needed to do in the
• 24:23
  evening, put him to bed, work on it.
• 24:26
  And I did that for a couple of days straight and I got it.
• 24:32
  And this workshop ended up being in Istanbul, which was really
• 24:37
  cool. Cool travel for work, yeah.
• 24:39
  And if anyone asks me what was the most, um, the best career
• 24:49
  like experience I've had, that's the one.
• 24:52
  I loved it. I learned so much.
• 24:55
  I loved it. They asked me to do it the
• 24:57
  following year and that was something I had never done
• 25:02
  before, but I said yes. What in your gut made you say
• 25:06
  yes? That's a really good question
• 25:10
  because this was in like 2012. It's it's, it's a while ago and
• 25:16
  I think, well, you know, I think 1 of it was, you know, she must
• 25:22
  have seen something in me to ask me to do this, right?
• 25:27
  So she wouldn't just ask everyone.
• 25:30
  You know, I wasn't the only like non tragic person working there.
• 25:36
  So she must have seen something in me, you know, she had that
• 25:40
  belief in me. For me, I knew I wanted more.
• 25:45
  I knew I was just going to teach English, right?
• 25:48
  Like I knew I needed to do more with my life or more with my
• 25:53
  career, right? And yeah, but I didn't know
• 25:59
  anything else. I didn't know what it was going
• 26:01
  to lead to. I didn't know if it was going to
• 26:03
  lead to anything. I didn't know anything like
• 26:06
  that. Um, so just having that, you
• 26:10
  know, I mean, we've skipped a lot, but like, I guess there's
• 26:12
  been many times in my life where I've really, I've gotten out of
• 26:17
  my comfort zone and I've just done it not knowing where it was
• 26:21
  going to lead to. And so I just got used to it and
• 26:26
  I can still do those things now. There's a surrendering to life
• 26:31
  and I don't know what you believe or what your belief
• 26:34
  system is, but there's this. I'd really believe in whatever
• 26:38
  culture you're raised in, whatever religion, whatever you
• 26:41
  believe, you know, agnostic, whatever there is this like I
• 26:45
  think the word surrendering is translated in some way to we
• 26:49
  don't know what's happening in three, one second from now.
• 26:53
  We don't know what the outcome, what the ripple effect will be.
• 26:57
  Is the ripple effect like possibly or quite potentially
• 27:00
  quite negative. OK, we got, you know, if this
• 27:03
  was like a really, you're going into a war-torn whatever to
• 27:06
  deliver this. Yeah.
• 27:08
  OK, I would think about it. That's a big thing.
• 27:11
  But you're like, OK, I can put 1 foot in front of the other and I
• 27:14
  can surrender to like what? What might, what might be.
• 27:18
  Maybe I'll enjoy it, maybe I won't.
• 27:20
  And the worst she could have said after looking at my
• 27:22
  proposal was no. Have you seen that whether it's
• 27:26
  on Instagram or LinkedIn or in books and whatever, but there's
• 27:29
  that, you know, proverb or whatever this is about like
• 27:34
  people being like, come on, come on God, come on universal, like
• 27:37
  deliver me that sign. And you're getting these little
• 27:41
  moments that don't feel that big.
• 27:43
  We're looking for these like big Thunder strikes or these big
• 27:47
  like someone taking a platter and being like here test name
• 27:50
  here is the opportunity to change your life on it like in a
• 27:54
  really obvious way. Yeah.
• 27:55
  And I think we there's something so beautiful and profound about
• 27:58
  what you've just said around the sometimes it's like a, hey, do
• 28:01
  you want to throw your hat in the ring for this thing?
• 28:03
  And you are now, 20 years later, telling the story, but being one
• 28:08
  of the most profound yeah, career experiences of your life.
• 28:11
  Yeah, like how cool is that? It really is, because I've done
• 28:15
  many things in between. But I recently went out for
• 28:19
  brunch with someone who asked me that question.
• 28:21
  Out of all the things you've done, what's the one that really
• 28:24
  stands out? And it's exactly that.
• 28:27
  And I think it is that for all the reasons we've talked about.
• 28:30
  Right? And you know, I'm so glad I did
• 28:36
  that. It really shaped me into some
• 28:40
  other things I did with my career.
• 28:42
  It shaped me into someone who is not scared to try something new.
• 28:47
  Yes. Yeah, and that you could figure
• 28:49
  thing. It was probably a piece like a
• 28:51
  feather in your cap to remind you.
• 28:54
  You already knew this as a mother because mothers know
• 28:56
  this. But you probably already knew I
• 28:57
  can do hard things, but I can do things that I don't even really
• 29:01
  know. You knew it was figure out able.
• 29:04
  Marie Forleo talks about like everything is figure out table.
• 29:07
  And I love that. Yeah, like you knew it just
• 29:09
  figure out able it wasn't that they were asking you to do
• 29:11
  surgery. Yeah, and like, you know, maybe
• 29:14
  not the. Back yeah, I I can't practice
• 29:16
  for that. I'm curious to see what was the
• 29:20
  decision to move back to Canada because I think that's also
• 29:24
  really resonant with a lot of those who are listening when
• 29:26
  they're faced with that, with these different pivot points and
• 29:29
  these opportunities. How did you make that decision
• 29:32
  to move back here? You know, it it, there was a
• 29:37
  clear reason actually, I became pregnant with my second child
• 29:42
  and unfortunately the health care system there is not very
• 29:47
  good. And I, you know, I was what they
• 29:52
  call a geriatric pregnancy. I was.
• 29:55
  For you to rebrand. I know exactly I'm mature
• 29:59
  pregnancy, right? I was 41.
• 30:01
  A wise pregnancy. Yes, a wise pregnancy.
• 30:04
  I was 41, OK, right. And I didn't know what this
• 30:09
  pregnancy was going to be like cause I was 33 when I had my
• 30:13
  son. And I just thought, you know
• 30:16
  what, I'm very lucky to be from a country, Canada, that has a
• 30:21
  good healthcare system and also over there, um, like my Russian
• 30:27
  was good, but I'm not sure how my Russian would like pan out in
• 30:31
  labour, right So all. The curse words you've ever
• 30:36
  learned or just thrown out? I don't.
• 30:38
  Know how that would work. Yeah.
• 30:39
  So that was a really easy decision.
• 30:43
  So that's why we decided to move back.
• 30:46
  But again, not knowing, now that I think about it, like not
• 30:50
  knowing where that would lead. And so I moved back.
• 30:54
  My son was 8 years old. So we moved back at a time like
• 30:57
  right before school started because I wanted him to go to
• 31:00
  school. Uh, he was in grade 3 now,
• 31:02
  right? But my husband had a good job at
• 31:04
  that time. So he stayed there for a bit
• 31:08
  until, I mean, he came back when my, our daughter was six weeks
• 31:12
  old. He came here and because he had
• 31:15
  a job and he had a contract, right?
• 31:18
  And, but that was the impetus for coming back.
• 31:23
  It was actually very, you know, it was specifically I wanted to
• 31:28
  get good health care and it worked out really well because I
• 31:32
  ended up like many women of Asian percent and that age
• 31:38
  having, um, uh, uh, what is that called?
• 31:42
  The diabetes that you get in pregnancy, rational gestational
• 31:46
  diabetes. And um, you know, I remember
• 31:50
  finding out about it on Halloween, but I remember like
• 31:56
  right away they sent me to a class at the hospital with all
• 32:01
  these other women who had gestational diabetes.
• 32:03
  We learned about nutrition. We had, you know, everyone was
• 32:08
  given a glucose monitor. We had a monthly meetings with
• 32:13
  a, a nurse. And we, you know, and I think
• 32:17
  about all the women in Tajikistan who probably also had
• 32:20
  gestational diabetes, but they were never diagnosed, right.
• 32:25
  And luckily mine wasn't so severe, I could manage it with a
• 32:30
  diet and exercise. But not everyone can, right?
• 32:35
  And so that was the reason why we moved back, definitely hard
• 32:42
  to move back because I really did enjoy the work I did living
• 32:48
  abroad, the kind of impact I felt I could make.
• 32:52
  And so, um, you know, I've done many things since moving back,
• 32:57
  but I feel like over the last year and a bit, I've been able
• 33:01
  to support young women from what we would call the global South.
• 33:08
  So countries, you know, that are deemed developing countries or
• 33:13
  experienced war or very remote countries, um, I've been able to
• 33:17
  coach them. And so that makes me feel
• 33:21
  connected, living in Canada, but still connected to that part of
• 33:25
  the world. And how beautiful that you've
• 33:27
  had that experience there. You're not just a quote, UN
• 33:30
  quote Westerner who's going over who's like this, acting like a
• 33:34
  prophet and being like, I know everything here.
• 33:36
  You're like, I've lived, I've lived there.
• 33:38
  My husband is from Tajikistan and and I've experienced it.
• 33:42
  There's just a greater empathy that I think you can have
• 33:44
  empathy living abroad, never having lived somewhere else.
• 33:47
  But there is a different level of context that you have.
• 33:51
  Again, like I just cannot believe how many full circle
• 33:54
  moments there are. And I wish we could tell every
• 33:57
  minute of your story. It's so beautiful.
• 33:59
  But we only have an hour and you get into public health here in
• 34:04
  Canada and you have a good career.
• 34:07
  Hmm. Tell us about raising two kids
• 34:11
  who are, you know, for the further apart in age.
• 34:15
  You have a good career, things are going well.
• 34:18
  And what was the moment where you're like, OK, something's
• 34:22
  gotta change? Oh, there were so many.
• 34:25
  And I will tell you, I did not work in public health.
• 34:28
  I did a degree in public. School.
• 34:30
  I'm sorry. Yeah, no, no, But you wouldn't
• 34:32
  have known that. There's just too much in this
• 34:34
  story. But I I did do a degree in
• 34:37
  public health, OK. That is the degree that got me
• 34:40
  an internship in Tajikistan when I first went and I worked in
• 34:46
  public health for six months. And then my boss was like, oh,
• 34:51
  do you want to try this? And I was like, OK.
• 34:54
  And my life has just been that kind of story where an
• 34:59
  opportunity came and I said yes, even though I had no idea what
• 35:04
  that was going to lead to. So in my life, I've worked in
• 35:07
  public health for six months, OK, But when I moved back to
• 35:13
  Canada, so I wasn't looking for work right away.
• 35:17
  I was pregnant. Who was going to, who was gonna
• 35:20
  hire her? And I wasn't looking for work at
• 35:22
  that time. My son was 8.
• 35:24
  He was just, you know, um, starting school in a very new
• 35:28
  system, right? And I wanted to make sure
• 35:31
  obviously that he was OK. But now I have this, this little
• 35:34
  1. And so it was hard because you
• 35:36
  know, for, you know, I, it had been a while since I hadn't
• 35:41
  slept at night, right? It had been a while since I was
• 35:44
  doing the diapers and the feeding and all those things,
• 35:48
  right? So, um, it, and I was, now, she
• 35:52
  was born actually 9 days before I turned 42.
• 35:55
  So I was, you know, you get a bit tired her, right?
• 35:59
  Um, but when she was about a year and a bit, she went to
• 36:05
  daycare and that's when I started working.
• 36:07
  But I worked in the nonprofit sector here.
• 36:10
  I worked, I facilitated workshops.
• 36:14
  So that example of that workshop, I did help me actually
• 36:19
  now, you know, when I think about it, help me get this role.
• 36:23
  Um, and then, um, I actually again, you know, I was really
• 36:31
  comfortable in this job. Comfortable meaning not, you
• 36:37
  know, I like, I was just happy I had a job.
• 36:41
  I was, I liked the work I was doing, but comfortable now in a
• 36:45
  different sense because as a mother, I had to look at
• 36:48
  different things. I needed a job where I could
• 36:52
  drop the kids off to school. One was in elementary school, 1
• 36:56
  was in daycare. I could get to work and then I'd
• 36:59
  have enough time to pick them up.
• 37:01
  Like for me, that was my life at that time.
• 37:05
  Like so many of your listeners, and I will say now, that is not
• 37:10
  a forever life. You know, you think it is, but
• 37:14
  it is not like now my life is very different because my kids
• 37:17
  are older and I can be more flexible, right?
• 37:21
  But at that time, that is what I needed.
• 37:24
  I needed a job where they, you know, they, my employers
• 37:29
  understood that I had a kit, had kids.
• 37:31
  So if one of them was sick, I could take, you know, time off.
• 37:35
  Those are things that are really, really important.
• 37:39
  And so I was really comfortable in this job because I could do
• 37:43
  all those things. It was a mad rush, as all
• 37:46
  parents know, like, you know, every second accounts for the
• 37:51
  day to go well, you know, you've got to wake up at a certain time
• 37:55
  before everyone does. You've got to do the lunches and
• 37:59
  make sure all of that. You've got to wake them up in
• 38:02
  time so that they get ready in time so that, you know, you can
• 38:08
  also anticipate there's going to be moments where, you know, the
• 38:11
  little one wants to put her shoes on by herself and it takes
• 38:15
  so long, right? And you want her to have that
• 38:19
  experience, but you also need to get out of that experience on
• 38:22
  the. Weekend.
• 38:23
  Let's experience Sunday. Exactly.
• 38:26
  What tie shoes all the time, you know.
• 38:29
  I love that, but you know that is the reality, right?
• 38:33
  Because I so I did. I remember asking the the place
• 38:37
  where I was working. I was like, I noticed that if I
• 38:41
  left work in the afternoon, even 10 minutes before I was supposed
• 38:46
  to, I would be traffic and I'd be able to get to daycare 1st
• 38:52
  and school and whatnot. And so I asked could I take a
• 38:56
  shorter lunch break and leave 10 minutes earlier?
• 39:00
  So they let me do that, right? I also couldn't pick up my son
• 39:06
  from school because they ended 245.
• 39:09
  Who can do that when you're working right?
• 39:12
  Actual middle of the work day. Yeah, I'm like how you know, and
• 39:15
  I don't have both my parents have passed.
• 39:18
  And so they don't have grandparents here to, to do that
• 39:21
  where a lot of kids do, right. So but moms figure it out.
• 39:26
  And I found I had a friend who's two sons went to the same school
• 39:32
  as my son. They lived close by.
• 39:35
  They just walked home. And so she would just pick him
• 39:39
  up and bring him home. And then I would pick up my
• 39:42
  daughter from daycare and then pick him up from my friend's
• 39:45
  place. So, you know, you figure all
• 39:47
  those things out, but in the, um, around six months into this
• 39:54
  job and I'm, you know, really comfortable, everything's
• 39:57
  working out and it's a good job too.
• 39:59
  I really like it. I get a call to apply for
• 40:03
  another job and I was like, Oh God, I don't know if I can, you
• 40:08
  know, we were just about to buy our first place.
• 40:11
  And so, you know, you don't want to change jobs in that time.
• 40:14
  And then a lender say, no, I don't know how stable this new
• 40:19
  job is going to be, right. And I because they invited me.
• 40:24
  For an interview, like who does that right?
• 40:27
  Like you. I mean, that's, that's only
• 40:30
  happened to me once, right? And I'm like, OK, let me build
• 40:34
  some relationship. Maybe one day this will be a
• 40:37
  good thing. Long story short, I got the job
• 40:40
  and I took it again. Not knowing was it the right
• 40:45
  thing to do? Not knowing where will this lead
• 40:49
  in a completely different field that I really didn't have a lot
• 40:53
  of experience for. It was women's employment, and
• 40:58
  it was to manage an employment program for immigrant women.
• 41:02
  And I asked them why they asked me to, you know, apply for this
• 41:05
  job because I didn't have a lot of the the, I didn't check a lot
• 41:10
  of the boxes. And they said to me, you have
• 41:14
  lived and interacted with people from different cultural
• 41:18
  backgrounds. So now all of the stuff that I
• 41:23
  did that I didn't know where it was leading to.
• 41:27
  I didn't know why I was doing these things.
• 41:29
  I had people questioning me, why do you keep going to all these
• 41:33
  places? When are you gonna settle down?
• 41:37
  That now became my superpower. It wasn't the items on the
• 41:43
  resume. I filed this, I created these
• 41:46
  reports, I did this presentation.
• 41:48
  It was the location of each of those jobs that you've held in
• 41:52
  different countries, different contexts, working with different
• 41:56
  people that got you the. Job, yeah.
• 41:59
  Isn't that unbelievable? And not in a way that's like,
• 42:02
  oh, I can't believe that. It just makes sense.
• 42:04
  And they, they're so many studies, really, really cool
• 42:07
  studies out there about like who gets the job versus who does
• 42:11
  well in the job. And kudos to that recruiter,
• 42:13
  that hiring manager, for recognizing what she knew made a
• 42:18
  successful candidate in that role.
• 42:19
  And it was cultural context. Yeah.
• 42:22
  Which you had. Everything else you can teach.
• 42:24
  That's what exactly she said. She said everything else we can
• 42:27
  teach and you can learn, but this is not something you know,
• 42:31
  that we can teach and you and but it took.
• 42:35
  I mean, I now, I can't remember how old I was in that, but that
• 42:38
  was like, you know, maybe 4344 where someone told me what she
• 42:48
  thought was amazing about me, you know, what my superpower
• 42:53
  was. And now I see it, you know, but
• 42:56
  it took me a while. She had to name it.
• 42:59
  And now I see it in all the work that I do that this is what
• 43:05
  makes it. This is what makes me unique and
• 43:08
  what I get to offer. But it came out of all that
• 43:13
  uncertainty and not knowing and things working out, things not
• 43:17
  working out. You know, I've talked about all
• 43:19
  the things that worked out, but there were more things that did
• 43:23
  not work out. Because Oh my gosh, that
• 43:28
  ridiculous, like sports quote, but like, you know, you miss
• 43:31
  100% of the shots you don't take.
• 43:33
  Yeah. And how did you not, you know,
• 43:36
  been in situations where things might not work out?
• 43:39
  You don't get the street, you know, you don't get the light on
• 43:41
  the crosswalk or this or that. Like we never know.
• 43:44
  We never know what blessing that was and what blessing it was
• 43:49
  that the things that did workout, did workout.
• 43:52
  I feel like I'm getting very spiritual and philosophical in
• 43:54
  this conversation, but there's. Just there's.
• 43:56
  More going there. I just see this as like coming
• 43:59
  and bringing it back to what you're doing now because I would
• 44:02
  be remiss if I didn't ask you about how do we support our
• 44:06
  young people in experiencing and feeling confident in making
• 44:10
  decisions in their life that are smart, like, you know, head
• 44:15
  smart, but also heart smart. Yeah.
• 44:18
  Because that's what I can see that you had this innate
• 44:23
  confidence. I'm sure it had to do with your
• 44:24
  upbringing, had to do with living in different places,
• 44:27
  coming from a multicultural background, yourself living in
• 44:30
  Canada, like so much there. But you, you really walked that
• 44:35
  walk. And now what I can see and
• 44:37
  knowing you and the work that you do in this world is your
• 44:39
  meeting a student who is 17 years old, who's terrified
• 44:43
  perhaps, or just confused parents who are equally if not
• 44:47
  more terrified and confused by what the future holds.
• 44:49
  And the weight of the world, I imagine feels so big for these
• 44:55
  students and one wrong move and they feel like everything's out
• 45:01
  the window. If they don't take that science
• 45:03
  course in grade 9:00 to be able to take grade 10/11/12 know how
• 45:07
  it works anymore, then they could never be a doctor if they
• 45:11
  don't pick that course in high like that.
• 45:14
  Actually, when when I phrase it like that, it feels dramatic.
• 45:17
  But actually that felt like how it was, which was extremely
• 45:22
  academic school. And it was these were big
• 45:24
  conversations. However, I didn't have a test
• 45:27
  name sitting there with me. First of all, being like, it's
• 45:30
  OK, you're allowed to make the wrong move.
• 45:34
  It's not a wrong move. Yeah, it's information.
• 45:37
  Oh, my gosh. I could go on about this
• 45:38
  forever. So tell me.
• 45:39
  Let's talk about what you do. Yeah.
• 45:42
  First of all, and then I'm going to pepper you with questions
• 45:44
  about like as someone with, you know, young kids, like what can
• 45:48
  we be fostering in them to be making these really smart
• 45:51
  decisions with our head and our heart.
• 45:53
  So what do you do? I know we said it at the
• 45:56
  beginning, but like you sit and you work with students and their
• 45:59
  parents to be like this is the path you should take.
• 46:04
  No, I would never actually tell them what path to take.
• 46:08
  But what I think, you know, I'll first give an analogy as to kind
• 46:11
  of, um, to kind of kind of change the mindset, you know, of
• 46:17
  needing to do things a certain way to make it to this place.
• 46:21
  Exhausting it is, and you will never know those things.
• 46:24
  Right, as we have seen in your entire story today.
• 46:28
  Yeah. And I would say, let's say you
• 46:31
  want to go from this studio to Richmond where I live.
• 46:35
  There are hundreds of ways to get there, right?
• 46:39
  Some are quicker, right? Some are more scenic, right?
• 46:45
  Some are, you know, will take you on different tours or
• 46:49
  whatnot, but there are hundreds of ways.
• 46:50
  And the same thing is when people are planning, let's say
• 46:55
  young people are planning their their futures.
• 46:58
  OK. So the first thing I do with
• 47:00
  them though, is I really get them in understanding that we're
• 47:04
  not planning your future because you can't, you really can't.
• 47:09
  Like if my storage tells you anything, I went from a Bachelor
• 47:14
  of Science to public health to, you know, doing workshops and
• 47:22
  women's employment and other things like I could not.
• 47:26
  And doing the work I do now, I could not have planned that.
• 47:29
  So what is? There was no plan.
• 47:30
  Yeah, you're right. Now and it's too much pressure
• 47:33
  like to do that. So what I, I get them to think
• 47:36
  about is we are planning your next steps, right?
• 47:41
  We're planning your next steps, but with intention.
• 47:44
  And how do we do that? We look to see we, you know, we
• 47:49
  quiet the noise that's out there because there is a lot of noise.
• 47:52
  You know, there are, you know, all this information coming to
• 47:58
  them that is really overwhelming.
• 48:02
  And So what I focus on is first, let's identify some of your
• 48:06
  interests, right? And we do an assessment and it
• 48:10
  looks at interest and we worked, we look at that and then we look
• 48:14
  at, OK, how can you pursue these interests, right?
• 48:17
  In different ways? And so it actually really starts
• 48:20
  before they're thinking about university, before they're
• 48:24
  applying to university. It's like starting earlier, I
• 48:27
  would say in like grade 9, not thinking about university, but
• 48:30
  thinking about what are your interests and how can you pursue
• 48:34
  them. So for example, I'll give my
• 48:36
  sons example, he he has been playing soccer since he was
• 48:42
  about 8 1/2, right? And now he's 17 and this year,
• 48:48
  this grade 12 year, he's been doing a lot of different things
• 48:53
  related to soccer. So like when we talk about
• 48:57
  outside of academics, right? So he's been playing soccer,
• 49:01
  playing on his club and playing on his school team.
• 49:04
  He's been captain of his club team.
• 49:07
  So there's this leadership experience that he is learning
• 49:13
  and developing, right? And that is really important.
• 49:17
  Um, he also, um, so he, he also coaches.
• 49:22
  So he, he's a goalkeeper. So he first started coaching
• 49:26
  goalies not too much younger than him.
• 49:29
  And then he was asked to coach little kids, like 3 to 5 year
• 49:35
  olds. I've seen him coach them and
• 49:37
  it's not soccer, right? They're playing.
• 49:41
  What time is it, Mr. Wolf? Always.
• 49:44
  What time is it? There, you know, I saw him do
• 49:49
  some drills where he had these cones and he's telling these
• 49:53
  little kids, OK, so you know, it's it's cold outside right
• 49:57
  now. So these are volcanoes and we're
• 49:59
  going to jump on them. But we don't want to get too hot
• 50:02
  or get burnt. And then they have to kick the
• 50:05
  ball in a little net or something.
• 50:06
  So he's learning some really important skills how and he's
• 50:11
  learned over time that you know what he said to me and because
• 50:15
  these kids don't listen. He's like taste of parenting.
• 50:19
  Yeah, I'm like, yeah. So he had to adjust.
• 50:22
  He had to learn. And then, you know, parents are
• 50:25
  watching, right? So he also has to interact with
• 50:28
  the parents. Um, and then he's gotten other
• 50:32
  experiences where he's played on like men's teams and stuff like
• 50:35
  that. So it's all related to soccer,
• 50:39
  his real interest, but looking at it from different
• 50:44
  perspectives, you know, and so really like looking at that.
• 50:49
  So, for example, I had a student that did this assessment on and
• 50:55
  it was very clear what came out of it as something that she
• 51:00
  really enjoys is being with animals, right?
• 51:03
  And she says, you know, so many people tell me to be a
• 51:06
  veterinarian, but I don't want to be a veterinarian.
• 51:09
  So we talked about and I said, well, what about like working in
• 51:12
  a pet store, right? Like this way you get experience
• 51:18
  with pets. Um, what about in your
• 51:20
  neighborhood? Are there like dogs that need to
• 51:23
  be taken for a walk or, you know, do you need to like cats
• 51:27
  sit? So she started, you know, taking
• 51:29
  care of animals in her neighborhood.
• 51:32
  And so there are different ways that you can, you know, identify
• 51:36
  this, these interests and look at ways that they can pursue
• 51:39
  them, right? And what I would say, and it's
• 51:42
  hard to do because as a mother, I also found this hard to do as
• 51:46
  a coach, it's a little bit easier for me to do because
• 51:49
  they're not my kids, right? But as a mother, it's hard.
• 51:53
  It's, you know, we sometimes push our own agenda on them.
• 52:00
  Right. Course.
• 52:01
  Yeah. How do we know we're doing our
• 52:03
  best? We're trying, right?
• 52:04
  And I'm, I'm not saying not to, like, get them involved in
• 52:09
  different things, get them involved in different things and
• 52:12
  then see what they end up taking from it.
• 52:15
  So, for example, my son, he joined like Cubs and scouts when
• 52:20
  he was younger, really enjoyed the camping part of it.
• 52:25
  He didn't care about getting the badges or anything like that.
• 52:29
  And there's something in the scouting movement that most
• 52:33
  people who do scouts and go until like the higher level do
• 52:37
  is called the Chief Scout Award. And that's like a this, you
• 52:41
  know, bigger project thing. And most of them are working
• 52:44
  towards that. And he just did not want to do
• 52:46
  it. And we talked about why he
• 52:49
  didn't want to do it. And I realized he didn't want to
• 52:51
  do it and he wanted to just keep camping.
• 52:55
  And I was like, OK. And so I had to let go of that,
• 53:00
  right. And that camping and being
• 53:04
  outside has turned into a really big interest of his that he is
• 53:10
  now looking at, um, pursuing, you know, post secondary
• 53:15
  education in geography or environmental studies, things
• 53:20
  that relate to the outdoors. And I would never have thought
• 53:24
  that it would come from camping in Scouts, right?
• 53:27
  So that's where I would start is what are they interested in and
• 53:33
  how can they pursue them? That's so neat.
• 53:36
  There's an author, fellow career coach, an inspiration to me
• 53:40
  actually in my early, early days in my early career.
• 53:43
  I think you would actually love this book.
• 53:45
  It's called Pivot. Her name is Jenny Blake, the
• 53:47
  author, and she's phenomenal. She's ex Google and she was
• 53:52
  doing, I think, career coaching within kind of like me.
• 53:54
  She was working internal, she was doing a professional
• 53:57
  development and then she's created her own method.
• 54:00
  And what she talks about is doing these micro, like what is
• 54:04
  the minimum viable product of the thing that you want to test
• 54:08
  out? And I just love that concept.
• 54:11
  It's something that I use with my own career coaching clients,
• 54:13
  which is totally like the clients that you work with, I
• 54:16
  hope will come to me one day, you know, like you're the
• 54:18
  perfect foundation for the my ideal client because go and
• 54:23
  figure out, talk about interest, talk about values and all that.
• 54:26
  So she talks about this minimum viable product and it sounds
• 54:28
  like that's what you're speaking to as well, where it's how can
• 54:31
  we Foster and nurture their interests, which any parent, of
• 54:35
  course, that's all we want to do is nurture and foster their
• 54:37
  interests and mitigate our own agendas.
• 54:40
  And I think I might have told you I worked, Um, so after my
• 54:46
  own post secondary, I went and did a business degree at Western
• 54:49
  and I really, really thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
• 54:53
  Did I tell you? This story, I don't think so.
• 54:55
  I don't know. If I've told how many times I've
• 54:56
  even told this on the podcast, I thought, you know, I think this
• 54:59
  is the career for me. It checks a lot of boxes.
• 55:02
  I really like working with people.
• 55:04
  I want to help people. I think I can.
• 55:06
  I can handle high pressure situations.
• 55:09
  Like I think I can really do this.
• 55:10
  I think I really enjoy it and it was something somebody said
• 55:15
  like, oh, you know, what's a way that you can test it out before
• 55:18
  fully committing? So I'm doing the Lsats and all
• 55:20
  that silly stuff and I had an opportunity to go volunteer
• 55:24
  abroad in South Africa. Oh, I did not know this.
• 55:28
  Oh my. Goodness.
• 55:29
  So I went to South Africa and I did.
• 55:32
  It was like a voluntourism. So you are paying to go and but
• 55:36
  it was the best investment I have ever spent in my life
• 55:39
  because what it gave me was three months in South Africa
• 55:43
  working at a law and human rights office part time and then
• 55:48
  saying yes to opportunities within this experience.
• 55:51
  That then led me to work in Pollsmoor Prison, which is the
• 55:54
  largest prison in southern Africa with a gang culture that
• 55:58
  BBC has done documentaries on. Looking back now, being a
• 56:02
  mother, I'm like, what the actual?
• 56:04
  Fuck are you doing? That's crazy.
• 56:06
  My mom was like, not happy when I'd be updating her on some of
• 56:09
  my escapades. But I was going into these
• 56:11
  prisons and I was doing these lifestyle workshops, so I was
• 56:15
  working. I had like, I had no business.
• 56:17
  You had business doing some of the stuff you've done those
• 56:20
  workshops. I had no business doing this.
• 56:22
  I was 22 years old, fresh out of university.
• 56:25
  But for some reason I was like, let's talk.
• 56:29
  I want to do a workshop with them about visualizing what's
• 56:31
  next when they get out. Wow.
• 56:33
  Because these girls that I was working with were up to 25 years
• 56:36
  old. They were awaiting trial.
• 56:38
  They were arrested for ridiculous petty crimes.
• 56:41
  They were in horrific situations.
• 56:43
  You know, some of them bad apples, perhaps most of them bad
• 56:47
  situations, and they were wearing the exact same clothes
• 56:51
  month later that they were arrested in because they were
• 56:53
  awaiting trial. Like the whole circumstances
• 56:55
  were just bonkers. And the one thing I noticed was
• 56:57
  that a lot of these women just didn't.
• 56:59
  They couldn't even see their future.
• 57:01
  And so I was like, I have no business doing this, but I don't
• 57:06
  care. Let's just have a conversation.
• 57:07
  So I'd host these conversations with them in this prison, in
• 57:11
  this woman's ward and talk about those full circle moments where
• 57:16
  I'm leaving South Africa after three months, having the most
• 57:19
  formative experience of my 22 years to that point and still
• 57:23
  one of the most formative experiences of my life.
• 57:25
  And I had gone there as a test to see if I wanted to be a
• 57:29
  lawyer. And I ended up walking away from
• 57:31
  there being like, I'm not touching law with a 10 foot
• 57:34
  pole. Yeah.
• 57:35
  Because it was the work inside the prison, not the work in the
• 57:40
  courtroom. And I have so much respect.
• 57:42
  I just realized that I didn't actually like reading, writing,
• 57:46
  creating legal briefs like the the intakes.
• 57:49
  Like I couldn't, I couldn't stomach it, the stories I was
• 57:52
  hearing with refugees in these ridiculous situations.
• 57:55
  But what I could stomach was sitting there across from a
• 57:57
  human being who was in the worst freaking situation of their
• 58:01
  life, in a horrible context with horrible stories and being like,
• 58:05
  where could you go? Hmm.
• 58:08
  And that was it for me. And it was.
• 58:10
  So I'm just only share that story because I'm like, you
• 58:13
  know, how can we give our kids these tastes?
• 58:16
  Yeah, exactly. And travel of finding out what
• 58:20
  you don't want to do is more important than what you want to
• 58:26
  do because it gives you the chance to say, OK, that's not
• 58:29
  what I want to do. What do I want to do?
• 58:32
  Yes, I want to actually answer your second question because I
• 58:37
  think parents would want to know, parents of young kids
• 58:41
  would want to know this. Can we go there, please?
• 58:43
  Yeah, please. Because for me, I feel like, you
• 58:47
  know, I've, I've made the mistakes as well, but I feel
• 58:50
  like I have these. Maybe This is why I was supposed
• 58:54
  to have children with like 8 1/2 years apart, you know.
• 58:59
  So I'm going to tell a story about my my own daughter.
• 59:04
  I'm of the mindset, even as they get older, that they don't need
• 59:08
  to be in a bunch of activities, right?
• 59:12
  They, you know, kind of especially when they're younger,
• 59:17
  like get them to start being an activities that.
• 59:21
  I remember when she was going about to go to kindergarten and
• 59:24
  she had been in a family daycare, you know, since she was
• 59:27
  about a year and a half family daycare with five or six kids.
• 59:31
  And I thought, OK, well, kindergarten is going to be
• 59:33
  different. Yeah, there's going to be more
• 59:35
  kids and a new teacher. So before she goes, I want to
• 59:38
  kind of give her another experience, right?
• 59:42
  Um, let her go to like a community centre class, right?
• 59:47
  And um, I decided, you know, she was a almost, she was about 5.
• 59:53
  And I figured, oh, there's this dance class at the community
• 59:58
  centre. It was like a Disney, Disney
• 1:00:01
  dance class, right? So they would dance to like
• 1:00:03
  Disney music. She was all into like, you know,
• 1:00:06
  dressing up as Elsa and Anna and all the things, right?
• 1:00:10
  And I thought OK. I know she will like this.
• 1:00:14
  Like I'm not going to put her into, let's say soccer, you
• 1:00:17
  know, if she's never expressed any like doesn't look like she
• 1:00:21
  wants to play soccer and just put her in there because other
• 1:00:25
  kids are doing that. And but I wanted to start her
• 1:00:29
  off with something that I knew she would like.
• 1:00:31
  And so I sent her there. But what I noticed was there
• 1:00:35
  were some boys even in that class.
• 1:00:37
  You mostly it was girls, but boys who hated it, You know,
• 1:00:42
  they would be standing at the window waving, asking their moms
• 1:00:46
  to take them. And, um, what I realized at that
• 1:00:51
  moment was, you know, those weren't things that they were
• 1:00:57
  going to be interested in. Like pick something that, you
• 1:01:01
  know, your kid by that point, right?
• 1:01:04
  Pick something that they will like, I'm not saying boys can't
• 1:01:08
  like dancing, but if they don't look like they would like
• 1:01:12
  something like that, like, you know, you know, them like if, if
• 1:01:15
  they're, you know, kicking a soccer ball or whatnot, put them
• 1:01:19
  into soccer, right? So find something that you to
• 1:01:24
  start off with, like especially these little ones that, you
• 1:01:28
  know, like give them their first really good experience.
• 1:01:31
  Yeah. You know, don't put them in
• 1:01:32
  something because you want them to be in it.
• 1:01:35
  Yes, right. Put them in something that, you
• 1:01:37
  know, that they're gonna enjoy. And so I started with that and
• 1:01:42
  then, um, what I noticed she was in school and she went to after
• 1:01:47
  school care and because what working parent can pick up their
• 1:01:51
  kid again at 2:45? And I noticed she spent a lot of
• 1:01:56
  time on the playground. You know, she was always this
• 1:01:58
  very careful kid. And now she's doing flips on the
• 1:02:02
  playground, on the monkey bars and all kinds of things because
• 1:02:05
  she's spending a lot of time doing it with other kids.
• 1:02:08
  And when I saw that after about a year, I was like, do you want
• 1:02:12
  to do gymnastics? And instead of like going to a
• 1:02:16
  community centre, which I always start with because they're the
• 1:02:19
  most affordable, you know, you never know if your kids going to
• 1:02:22
  stick with it, right? You're exactly.
• 1:02:25
  And I saw this. And so that's when I sent her to
• 1:02:30
  a gymnastics, right. And more recently, she, you
• 1:02:35
  know, she's watched a lot of her brother soccer games, always
• 1:02:38
  complained about him picking up an outdoor sport.
• 1:02:41
  And why do we have to sit in the rain?
• 1:02:44
  And one day we were at a game and then she started kicking a
• 1:02:47
  ball with her dad and she said, you know what?
• 1:02:51
  I think I'd like to play soccer. And she was 8 when she said
• 1:02:54
  that. So we put her in.
• 1:02:56
  I said, like, I know how soccer works, so I'll put you into
• 1:02:59
  soccer. She loves it.
• 1:03:02
  And she not necessarily the actual sport.
• 1:03:06
  I think the other day we were talking about what she likes
• 1:03:09
  about it. And she says, you know, I've
• 1:03:12
  made some good friends. And I said, well, that's what
• 1:03:15
  being in a team sport is about, right?
• 1:03:18
  It's about community in her language right now.
• 1:03:21
  It's about making friends, right?
• 1:03:23
  And So what I have learned, because I didn't always do that
• 1:03:27
  with my son, I I put him into things that I thought he should
• 1:03:31
  do. Yes.
• 1:03:32
  And I realized that that didn't work, right?
• 1:03:36
  Some of the things I put him into he liked and some he
• 1:03:39
  didn't. But then with my daughter many
• 1:03:41
  years later, I was like, OK, I'm going to let her.
• 1:03:44
  I'm going to give her some opportunities.
• 1:03:48
  And then also like the playing on the playground out of school
• 1:03:51
  care was just fun, right? And but as a parent, I realized
• 1:03:57
  she really took to it. So I think that's what I would
• 1:04:01
  say to parents with young kids is start now by understanding
• 1:04:07
  what they're interested in. You know, put them in things
• 1:04:09
  that you think they will enjoy. Yes, Not what, you know,
• 1:04:14
  everyone says, oh, you know, you need to do swimming or you need
• 1:04:18
  to do, you know, whatever. Look at your child and really
• 1:04:23
  understand who they are because I think if you start parenting
• 1:04:28
  them that way for the rest of their lives, they will feel
• 1:04:32
  really confident in themselves. They will feel that what they
• 1:04:36
  are doing is interesting because many teenagers that I start
• 1:04:42
  working with in grade 11 and 12 are like, you know, I'm not
• 1:04:45
  really doing anything interesting.
• 1:04:48
  And they don't, you know, and and they don't see it that way,
• 1:04:52
  so. Connected to the choice or
• 1:04:55
  whatever it is they're doing. Yeah.
• 1:04:57
  There's so much pressure. What I'm kind of taking from
• 1:05:00
  that too is is the the debrief or the even even my four or five
• 1:05:04
  year old. Sometimes I ask her, you know,
• 1:05:06
  what do you like about like she's so into crafting right
• 1:05:09
  now. It's wild.
• 1:05:09
  Like what are you? What's exciting about this to
• 1:05:12
  you? And in my own, like I can speak
• 1:05:14
  at her level and I ask her that. And what I'm kind of realizing
• 1:05:16
  is she loves making little things, physically making things
• 1:05:20
  that we then send to her cousins in Ontario or sends to give to
• 1:05:24
  Gram. She loves that like thinking of
• 1:05:26
  the person making something and wanting to give it to them.
• 1:05:29
  It's not the like, it's not the act of the colouring.
• 1:05:33
  So and I, and I got this from my sister who's actually an
• 1:05:36
  experiential education. She works for a large private
• 1:05:39
  school in Ontario and she, you know, I've watched her do her
• 1:05:44
  masters of education and in especially in experiential
• 1:05:47
  learning and like learning outside the walls of the
• 1:05:49
  classroom. And what I noticed in her
• 1:05:52
  curriculum design and everything is there's, there's always the
• 1:05:55
  pre brief or whatever you call it, like the setup, and then
• 1:05:58
  there's always a debrief. And I think that's something
• 1:06:01
  really important. I'm kind of getting that from
• 1:06:02
  your story too, around the like, it's fine if they don't like
• 1:06:06
  something, but let's unpack what that is because I definitely
• 1:06:09
  speak to a lot of moms parents, you know, just on the playground
• 1:06:12
  or whatever. And they're like, Oh, my, you
• 1:06:13
  know, my son or my daughter is like, just doesn't give anything
• 1:06:16
  a shot and doesn't like it and then wants to quit.
• 1:06:19
  Do I have a quitter on my hands? And these are big fears that I
• 1:06:22
  totally get that. And how can we maybe facilitate
• 1:06:25
  conversations to be like, OK, what is it about?
• 1:06:27
  Can we can we try to peel back the onion?
• 1:06:29
  Oh, it's the teacher. OK, We can maybe fix that.
• 1:06:32
  Yeah. Is it just you don't like
• 1:06:33
  running? Fine.
• 1:06:35
  You know, like, I know all kids are supposed to like running.
• 1:06:37
  Maybe like you know. Like, yeah, really understanding
• 1:06:41
  what's going on behind that. Yeah.
• 1:06:43
  I think that you really hit the nail on the head.
• 1:06:46
  It's really because, yeah. I mean, I, I often found like,
• 1:06:50
  oh, my kid quit swimming. Is he always going to be a
• 1:06:53
  quitter? Right.
• 1:06:54
  These. Questions, natural concern.
• 1:06:56
  And it wasn't that, you know. And so, yeah, I think it's
• 1:06:59
  really us as parents being in tune with with our kids and we
• 1:07:06
  can start that really young. In fact, it's easier to do it
• 1:07:10
  when they're younger. Right, a bit more open.
• 1:07:13
  They're chatty. Little panties, Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  They don't stop talking. And it's actually a good thing,
• 1:07:17
  right? And then they stop and you have
• 1:07:19
  to, like, pull it out of them. So I think it's about if there's
• 1:07:23
  anything I can leave parents with, it is helping them develop
• 1:07:28
  into who they are. And I'll just tell one story.
• 1:07:31
  I remember my daughter, like she's totally not like me.
• 1:07:35
  Like I was never the girly girl, you know, who liked the the
• 1:07:40
  dresses and going, you know, shopping and trying on.
• 1:07:44
  I did not like those things, right?
• 1:07:46
  But she did. And I remember she'd always want
• 1:07:53
  to wear fancy dresses to daycare.
• 1:07:57
  And I was like, oh, come on. And I'd fight it, and I'd fight
• 1:08:00
  it. And then I realized later on
• 1:08:03
  that, you know what? Why am I fighting this?
• 1:08:06
  This is not a big deal, right? She grew out of it in two months
• 1:08:09
  anyways. Yeah, you know, and why am I
• 1:08:12
  fighting this? And then I didn't.
• 1:08:14
  I stopped. And what I learned, So she would
• 1:08:18
  go to daycare wearing a tiara, you know, wearing these fancy
• 1:08:24
  dresses, you know, wearing like an Elsa, you know, dress and go
• 1:08:29
  to the park with them. You know, I was so happy once we
• 1:08:32
  went to the park, she insisted on wearing that dress, the, the
• 1:08:35
  Elsa one. Um, and I got to the park and
• 1:08:39
  there was this mom with twin girls also wearing Elsa dresses.
• 1:08:43
  I felt so much better, you know, but what I learned actually from
• 1:08:50
  this when she would go to daycare was she became this like
• 1:08:56
  leader in daycare where her daycare teacher, because all the
• 1:09:00
  kids now wanted to wear tiaras like all the girls.
• 1:09:04
  And it would become like this like kind of, you know, fight.
• 1:09:08
  Oh, I want to wear the tiara. I want to wear it right.
• 1:09:10
  So then she, she instituted a, a, a crown Friday so everyone
• 1:09:17
  could wear bring a crown and wear it on Fridays.
• 1:09:20
  The girls all started wearing fancy dresses.
• 1:09:23
  So she without knowing, started this trend.
• 1:09:27
  And I've seen it in many different things she's done over
• 1:09:30
  over time. And I myself have observed what
• 1:09:37
  what who is she, Who is she becoming?
• 1:09:40
  And when she started kindergarten, her teacher on the
• 1:09:44
  first day wrote to me, she didn't know her.
• 1:09:47
  She didn't know me. And she said she is a natural
• 1:09:51
  leader. And I was like, hmm, you picked
• 1:09:55
  that up, too. So I think as parents, just
• 1:09:58
  noticing these things, you know, like noticing what, who is your
• 1:10:03
  child becoming, you know, because that's really the
• 1:10:07
  question that we should be asking, not what should they do
• 1:10:11
  for the rest of their lives. You know?
• 1:10:13
  And this is the question schools and high schools are now
• 1:10:16
  starting to ask. They're not asking what do you
• 1:10:19
  want to do when you grow up. They're asking who do you want
• 1:10:22
  to become? Test name?
• 1:10:24
  Who are you becoming? What are you still trying to
• 1:10:26
  figure out? Um, I Oh, such a good question.
• 1:10:38
  Wow. And that wasn't even planned,
• 1:10:40
  huh? None of this was planned, I
• 1:10:43
  guess, man coming. Yeah.
• 1:10:47
  You know, I I really feel I'm getting there.
• 1:10:51
  I feel like I want to be I want to leave a legacy, you know, for
• 1:10:57
  my children and for for the youth that I work with.
• 1:11:00
  Like, I want to be that person that young people feel
• 1:11:08
  comfortable coming to and being who they are, right?
• 1:11:14
  And without any judgment or, or anything like that.
• 1:11:18
  And for me to do that and I feel like my 50th year that I'm
• 1:11:25
  ending in a couple weeks has really been about that.
• 1:11:30
  It is about me becoming who I am.
• 1:11:34
  Just like unapologetically, you know, this is who I am.
• 1:11:40
  And you know, my answer might sound vague because I still
• 1:11:44
  don't know. I still have like a lot of life
• 1:11:47
  to live to also figure this out. I think I have a lot more
• 1:11:51
  experiences to come. I really do.
• 1:11:57
  You know, I do want to be able to do work where OK, this would
• 1:12:04
  be my ideal thing and I'm going to say it say.
• 1:12:07
  It and I'll figure it out exclusive.
• 1:12:09
  Yeah. So my ideal, and it goes back to
• 1:12:15
  Tajikistan actually is there is a university there called the
• 1:12:19
  University of Central Asia and I would love to work there.
• 1:12:24
  So I'm saying it and um, it's a pretty cool university.
• 1:12:28
  I do work with a lot of students there.
• 1:12:30
  I coach a lot of students there from here, you know, um, with an
• 1:12:36
  organization that I do some part time contract with and I think
• 1:12:42
  there's so much I can do there. Like I would love to teach
• 1:12:45
  there. And I'm just saying this, you
• 1:12:47
  know, my son, he's graduating in June and we are planning to go
• 1:12:52
  back to Tajikistan in September. It will be 10 years since we've
• 1:12:57
  been there and we are planning. My daughter has never been.
• 1:13:02
  So we're planning to go, uh, as a trip, but also we would go for
• 1:13:08
  like a month and my son would stay for a year to do a gap
• 1:13:11
  year. And maybe I can go visit the
• 1:13:14
  University of Central Asia and plant the seeds.
• 1:13:18
  Well, I think you've already planted them and you're planting
• 1:13:21
  them. Did you not know this was a
• 1:13:22
  magic podcast? Whatever you say happens.
• 1:13:25
  There we go. Yeah, I mean, well, then I'll
• 1:13:27
  just add one more thing because I have a lot of things on my
• 1:13:30
  list, I mean. What Car do you want?
• 1:13:32
  Yeah, exactly. But you know, I think I will say
• 1:13:38
  I have made it when I can establish a scholarship fund for
• 1:13:45
  girls in that part of the world to get the kind of coaching that
• 1:13:51
  I do to have access to this kind of, um, self development, self
• 1:13:59
  discovery. You know, that is, you know,
• 1:14:04
  that is a big aim of mine. I really would love to establish
• 1:14:08
  this scholarship fund. So there we go.
• 1:14:11
  I've put out two things out there in the universe into the
• 1:14:14
  magic magic microphone. Yeah, testing has been such a
• 1:14:18
  pleasure to hear your story. I always feel like we just
• 1:14:22
  scratched the surface. But you know what?
• 1:14:24
  I think what you shared was just so beautiful and resonant for
• 1:14:27
  this audience. You don't have to have it
• 1:14:30
  figured out at the age of 51 or at the age of five.
• 1:14:33
  Nobody has to have it figured out.
• 1:14:35
  I hope to God none of us do figure it.
• 1:14:36
  Out because I think that's. The fun.
• 1:14:38
  So thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:14:40
  Thank you for letting me go down memory lane and also think about
• 1:14:44
  my future and I'm not sure where it's going to lead, but planting
• 1:14:49
  those seeds like we just talked about.
• 1:14:52
  Thank you. Thank you.