Latest / The 403 Podcast / Do the Right Thing, Not the Correct Thing | Christina Owczarek

Transcript

Do the Right Thing, Not the Correct Thing | Christina Owczarek · The 403 Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have somebody that I could look up to that looked and sounded like me, and I decided to challenge that and make sure that the next generation came through that they did have somebody.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Get into rooms where you don't think that you belong.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I think that that's that's the biggest one.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: Shove your weight in there, hold the door open, and sit at the table.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm Curissa Savage, a Calgary realtor passionate about sharing the stories of people who are building Calgary and our surrounding areas.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: From entrepreneurs and business owners to the city shapers changing our community for the better.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: If you're buying, selling, investing, or just want to talk about Calgary, I'd love to hear from you.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: All my contact information is in the show notes.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Talk soon.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to the 403 podcast, where we get to know the people, the business, and the story shaping our community.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: Today's guest is someone who's built a business around something a lot of us enjoy: beer.
0:59
SPEAKER_01: But what I found really interesting about her story is that beer is almost just the beginning.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: Christina of Turk is the founder of Exhale Broco, a company she founded in 2020 that's challenging what the craft beer industry looks like.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: Who gets to participate and what business can accomplish when they put people first?
1:18
SPEAKER_01: She's an entrepreneur, a rule breaker, and someone who clearly isn't afraid to challenge the status quo.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: Christina, welcome to the 403 podcast.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on, Carissa.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: It's great to be reunited after Out Meeting in 2020.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: It's so cool to make that connection and then fast forward six years later and be able to meet you at this chapter of life.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: I've been following your story since the origin, and it's cool to see you now in this chapter and see how much you've grown as a business owner.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to dive into it and let all of our followers know your story.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: I've also watched your journey as well into real estate and thriving over there, clearly in that industry.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that there's definitely been mutual appreciation and fangirling.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: I love this podcast.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: It started because I was taking somebody to see a house and they said, who owns that coffee shop over there?
2:13
SPEAKER_01: And I knew because obviously being in the coffee industry, I knew the owner was able to say, This community's great because this person owns this coffee shop.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Let me make an introduction.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And that's how I realized that we don't actually know the stories of what's happening with entrepreneurs in our city.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted a platform to broadcast that.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's actually start at the beginning.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: So you're originally from Australia.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: You're now living in Calgary and you've built a beer company.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: How on earth did we get here?
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh dear.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: So we'll do the slightly abbreviated version.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I buried one of my dearest friends after nursing him through the last stages of his cancer when I was 23, 24.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: And it was a small business owner at that point in time as well, and also a university student.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: I was a Pilates instructor and personal trainer and rented a small room out of a wellness clinic and taught at different gyms and also had a contract business running group fitness programming.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: I kind of threw my hands up in the air and was like, screw it, I'm out of here.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm out of, I'm out of Melbourne.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: My my friend's last words to me was go and spread your magic and your glitter all over this world.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I did.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I packed up, I gave my belongings away and my cat to my parents, and I packed what I had in a ski bag and a backpack, and uh I had a lot of expensive shoes and beautiful dresses and perfumes and antique furniture and and whatever else anyway.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, I'm done.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: And I went up to the ski hills in um Victoria on the northwest, on the northern border of Victoria, and took my chances at uh getting a job in the ski industry.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: They hired me on we can teach you how to ski and you can teach us how to teach.
4:00
SPEAKER_00: I've been in the ski industry ever since, and that was 2009, and so it was after the ski industry that brought me over here originally.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: So, what drew you to the craft beer industry then?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: So, in between that, so when I was traveling up through Alaska um 2010, 2011, I can't remember now, it's a while ago, I met who we will affectionately call the American, and I almost married the American, but I learned how to brew when I was living in Santa Rosa.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: I come from a science background, so I have a dual sports science and education degree.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: I have a little bit of affinity for physics and biology, and so I kind of looked at what they were doing with all grain brewing and I put my head on the side and I'm like, I've got a science degree, I can do this better, and so I did.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I also have a sensory background.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: I grew up traveling around in the back of my parents' old Mazda 626, 1976 uh Mazda 626 full speed, going from winery to winery, and I got to experience and enjoy my palate from a very early age.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a quite a European kind of household where I had a little glass of wine at the table as a kid with everybody else.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I actually come from a wine background, and so I can combined my joy of Epicurean and sensory exploration with my science knowledge through beer, and I always had a fascination with the wine industry, but it was too poor to become a vinter, so I guess I became a brewer instead.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: We're glad you did.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Um but you actually did spend a couple of years working in the industry before Exhale, right?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So um my first job was um actually at Village uh on their packaging line, and uh that's where I met uh my dear mentor and friend Jim Button, who I miss dearly.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: I have these last words that he um gifted to me, tattooed around my wrist.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And then through that I met uh Kirk, who was one of the founders of Zero Issue.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: I was known at the time for sales and marketing through Zero Issue.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: People didn't know that I actually knew how to brew uh and that I had a sensory background.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's where I kind of became known as as you know, just craft beer extina, and then went on to a couple of other places.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, lost my job in 2020 when I was a sales and marketing manager for craft for Alberta.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I was kind of I faced a lot of my demons in that time.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I was broken up with via text message.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, I sat with a lot of trauma.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was living in my immigration basement suite as a new Canadian, no family here, and my cat, and I pulled everything off my shelves and I opened every file on my computer, and I was like, what's next?
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Because if I don't find what's next, I might not have tomorrow.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And when I was living in Santa Rosa with my ex, we were gonna all the grandchildren of my ex's family, they were gifted a property.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: They came from bridge redneck dairy farmers, and uh so the kids were all gifted these properties that used to be dairy farms, and so we were kind of looking at what would what that would uh look like if I stayed there.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And I actually got into University of Davis for their Masters of Brewing course, never actually ended up going because I broke up with my ex.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I kind of opened that file and I was like, we were going to open up a brewery on this old dairy farm and uh have a BB.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, well, maybe this is what I do now.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And now that I'd had working experience for five-ish years, six years or something in the industry, I kind of took my experiences as a queer woman, as an immigrant, and with I'm gonna swear here, a lot of fucking to the patriarchy.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Love it.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: And capitalism, and was like, let's show that we can do something better and we can create, you know, we talk about inclusivity and diversity, but that's got to come from policy and systemic change and systems change.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: We can't just put fluff and bubbles in and show, look, we hire women, look, we hire queer people, look, we hire trans people.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Cool, but are we changing policies to actually make it truly inclusive?
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Are we changing our banking systems and the way in which we get funding?
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Are we actually having the hard conversations that make people feel uncomfortable in rooms of privilege?
8:10
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I wanted to do.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh just so happens I make award-winning craft beer and now award-winning craft soda, and I do that well, and um, it comes with uh the side of a chip on your chip on my shoulder.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we'll definitely dive into that a little bit later because it's really cool where you've developed beer with a purpose.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: So was there a defining moment when you realized you didn't just want to work in the industry anymore, you wanted to change it?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: Was that your defining moment?
8:36
SPEAKER_01: Or would you say there was a day you woke up and you were like, oh my gosh, I have to do this, compel or high water?
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I think when we look at I'm also neurodivergent and highly neurodivergent.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: I think when we look at those of us who live in systems that don't accommodate for us, or we are constantly told we're wrong, we're bad, we're annoying, we're poking the bear, we don't belong as women.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: And I've had that unfortunately, you know, women don't belong in the brewery, or you'll never be on the board of a certain association because you don't own a brewing company.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: This has been the most expensive practical joke in my life.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: And literally, that was said that I wasn't going to be on a certain association board because I didn't own a brewery, and it was all men at the time, and all men that had come out of six-figure paying jobs.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: I think it's not one incident, it is complex PTSD that I think, you know, I've been asked what radicalized you.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, it's not just one thing, it's actually a series of things that have happened and that I've seen and experienced throughout my life.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: But the other thing is I also understand that just because it doesn't affect me doesn't mean that I shouldn't care about it.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Like we need to if if we're going to advocate for women's rights, we need to advocate for trans rights and we need to advocate for immigrant rights, and we need to advocate for um disability rights because we're all in a system that doesn't uh, you know, open up the opportunities for these people.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: And when we currently see our government right now rolling back DEI, which actually is based on merit-based hiring, to make sure that the best candidate does get the job and not the whitest or the malest or the most able, then you know this is this is even more important.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, absolutely.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: And you've got the experience and you see what needs to change.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: But I also have the privilege.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: And I want to really acknowledge that I'm an English-speaking white woman who was highly educated, traveled around the world.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: I come from an equity-deserving background.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't necessarily I don't come from money.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: The only reason I got to travel is because I worked in an industry that allowed me the capacity to travel and I had to travel for it.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I wouldn't have worked in the ski industry.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: I would never have learned how to ski if I didn't work in the industry.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: I have a privilege and I'm I'm able-bodied and I'm fit and I'm healthy.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And so I have a privilege that I want to be able to use.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: And because when people look at me, they think, you know, that I don't come from an equity-deserving population, but I do come from an equity and queer, I'm a woman.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't have family here that can go guarantor on anything.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I came here with$300 and a backpack in 2009.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what really built this from nothing.
11:18
SPEAKER_00: I lost my job due to COVID.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I've never owned a home, I've never had a six-figure paying job.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And when I've walked into breweries, I'm not the one that they look at and say, Yeah, we're gonna give you a job.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: So you've had to overcome adversity.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: You've had those hiccups in the journey, and you naturally chose in 2020 to go after this opportunity.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, because apparently starting a business wasn't challenging enough already.
11:42
SPEAKER_01: Decided, I'm gonna do it during COVID.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Just lost your job, things are tough.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Take me back to the beginning.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: What did those first six months of building Excel look like?
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, terrifying.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: Uh terrifying, honestly terrifying.
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I should say we released a beer with Erie Riot, who's been my ride or die from day one, who does all of our visual design work.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: And we released a beer called Impeachable and made fun of a certain second-term US president.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: We didn't even mention uh this person's name on the can, but we definitely made a parody of it.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And we released in a time of social divide, but we also made it very clear of where we stand and who we stand with, and that we stand for equality and we stand for justice, and we stand for social sciences and we stand for like you know what I mean?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: We we made it very, very clear and uh we were told not to do it.
12:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh I had a few people say what you're doing is absolute suicide of putting everything that I had,$14,000 that I had into this.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: Uh and if it didn't go right, I was um and just kind of said, screw it.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Like it was it was terrifying, but also like something that like if we didn't do it, we'd always be wondering, well, what if?
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And just didn't listen to the people who were asking us to stay in line.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and it must have been a little liberating to be like, you know what?
13:14
SPEAKER_01: If I'm gonna do this and it's gonna be successful, I'm gonna do it my way.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: And people are, if they're not talking, you're not doing something right, right?
13:22
SPEAKER_01: So were you just sitting at your kitchen table and you're like, you know what, I'm going to make this beer that's a little controversial, but it has purpose, it has a meaning, it has a story, and it gives me a platform to talk about social issues and change.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: Or did it just come naturally?
13:43
SPEAKER_00: As someone who is already HD, I I don't like hierarchy.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: Like people, I I understand hierarchies, I don't like them.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't play into hierarchies.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think for me, uh, with you know, pattern recognition, uh, I have a certain talent and knack for layered conceptualized thinking.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: I also love a good joke.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Like I love a good poke at the bear.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And I have Australian dry sense of humor.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: It just it felt natural.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: It felt like the natural thing to do.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: And ever since then, you know, all of our releases from what's inside the can and the ingredients that we use and the partnerships that we work with in our community, they all and the names and the illustrations, it all ties together.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: They're all nothing is a dart thrown at a wall.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Everything is super and highly internal.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: We're also a company made up primarily of um a majority of neurodivergent folks as well.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: So everything gets a little bit nerdy and over the top, and also with a bit of like we're doing it.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: So that commitment there.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: So with your connections in the beer industry, were you able to go brew at another, or did you have to put all the capital into your own brewery machinery?
15:02
SPEAKER_01: What did that look like?
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so we still currently contract brew and so we basically hire space and some assisted labor for our brews for both our soda and our craft beer.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: So we actually brew right now, we brew at a prairie dog uh where I also used to work in the brewery.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'm very blessed and grateful because they allow me to treat their spaces as mine as well, and and they trust me in there, and um, it's wonderful.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, their team are we we get along famously and fabulously, which is amazing.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing with Fallen Timber.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: We brew our soda out at Fallen Timber, and they've been extremely generous and kind with their space, and Elliot's over there is an absolute amazing human and values aligned.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: And uh, so yeah, so we're super grateful for those spaces and hopefully though, working on trying to get our own space.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, and you know what, this is really good for a young entrepreneur out there listening that relying and leveraging on your connections when you're starting a business and you don't need heaps loads of capital to get started with your vision.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously it'd be nice to have a huge check.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: But that brings me to you received a$9,000 micro loan through Momentum, right?
16:18
SPEAKER_01: And then one of the beers you launched went to generate over$165,000.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're a little bit more than$165,000 now.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: So, and we've also been able to put back um what 3% of that back into local sports, grassroots sports, to open up access and opportunity, specifically with with diversity in sports.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, so that was that was a loan that was granted after I did the designer and business program with Momentum, who are an incredible organization.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: I will be a lifetime ambassador.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: We're now a donor.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: I keep trying to apply for jobs with them.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: It's my fifth time around.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Every time they're like, Christina, we're gonna make a job for you.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: PGN coach, like they're just such an incredible organization.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they've not just loaned me money and given me access to free uh education and a community, they've given me friendships and I go to circle on a Tuesday morning with their indigenous leader um for spiritual grounding.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: It's just such a compassionate, kind, funny, embracing space and just a space that sees everybody for their potential.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's an amazing organization.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna cry again.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: No, this is a platform to cry.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: No, and that's incredible.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: And how do you take that amount of money, so$9,000, and go, man, I'm gonna grow this to an exceptional amount.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, how did you not just waste that?
17:51
SPEAKER_01: How did you budget?
17:52
SPEAKER_01: What was your thought process?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: Um So I the reason I got the microloan is I don't have access to traditional financing.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: And when you don't have what I like to call fuck around and find out money, which is where I see people who don't have the qualifications that I have, don't have the experience, knowledge, and industry, education that I have.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was the first woman, uh be a professional woman to teach in the old college brewing course.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And I put all these things in front of people and I helped build other people's brands and brewing companies.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: But then I go into banks with this, and because I don't own a home, because I don't come from a six-figure paying job, because I don't have the men backing me, I'm a woman.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: It's known that we get asked harder questions, we're judged more, we're told that our business models don't work.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us lean into more social venture and charitable structural and organizational process policy and standards are because we understand the harm of patriarchal capitalism, because we've been in the churn of that harm.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And so we go into institutions with all of that, and we don't get that money.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: And then you see people who don't have that, and you're like, but I literally like I'm the person they will hire to build that business for them, you know.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And for me, it was yes, a sense of desperation, but also a sense of absolute gratitude that somebody has believed in me and given me a chance.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in a lot, you know.
19:18
SPEAKER_00: I have these conversations, I've had it with BDC, I've had it with ATB, I've had it with CIBC, I've had them with all institutions of default rates for those of us who are equity deserving and underserviced are literally less than those who do have who have traditional capital and access.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: Because once we get into the system, our default rate is less because we're like, well, I'm not gonna screw this up.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: But we're not creating the conditions to give that access.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: So momentum gave me the conditions to give me that access.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And it was, I think it was 2.25 or 2.45% on top of prime, which is accessible for somebody, which is repayable, especially when we look at women in business.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Our business doesn't grow, it literally grows 10 times slower because we don't have access to the capital and/or we don't have the doors opened up for us in the same way.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's just not women.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm a white woman, and I was also a woman already in the industry with a little black book and you know, some some heft behind my name.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, and it's still taken me this long because we have to work extra jobs to pay our bills and live on low income and all the extra added psychological and emotional stress and physical stress that that puts on top as well.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: So that$9,000 that I was I was granted was an absolute gift that I was never going to waste.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't have the room to mess it up.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: So I had to be hyper-calculated and you know, burnout was inevitable, you know, and that's what happened at the end of 2022 for me.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think you shine a light on a really important issue there.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: But even just opening doors and having a lot of no's, right?
20:57
SPEAKER_01: And going, oh my gosh, this has to work out.
20:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm all in.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: We could probably talk all day about women in business and capital and how we have to work harder.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: But I do want to ask you, at what point in this journey of six years, at what point did you go, holy shit, this might actually work out?
21:15
SPEAKER_01: This year.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: This year.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I love that.
21:18
SPEAKER_01: I love the truth behind that.
21:20
SPEAKER_01: Quick break.
21:21
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you about something I built.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: If you're an entrepreneur, a realtor, or anyone who gets paid in commissions, you know the roller coaster.
21:29
SPEAKER_01: One month you're crushing it, the next nothing's coming in.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And bills don't care.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: For years I couldn't answer a pretty simple question.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: If no money came in for 90 days, would I be okay?
21:41
SPEAKER_01: So I built the tool I needed.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: It's called the Agent Forecast.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a cash flow planner for people with commission income.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: You put in your deals, your expenses, and your cash on hand, and it shows you your cash flow 12 months out.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: It tells you your survival number, which is what you actually need to earn this year, and my favorite part the cash flow.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: And I afford it tab lets you test a big purchase before you swipe the card.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: It's built for realtors, but anyone with unpredictable income can use it.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Grab it through the link in the show notes, make the most of the highs, plan for the lows.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, back to the show.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: This year we have two amazing humans on our board.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And one of them, Lynn Tajna, I'm gonna shout out a huge, massive thanks to her, and the other one is Pete Meadows.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: They became community loan agreement holders with Xhale because I once again I didn't have the access.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And they truly just believed in what it is that we are doing and saw the work that I was doing and had been following me and my journey for years.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And this year, I actually I've been going through post-separation abuse, unfortunately.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: So that's been something that has been really hard to deal with.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: But through that, I've persisted and we've made some leaps and bounds in our company structure.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh this is how we got the the another quarter of a million dollar of from Lynn and being like, hey, you know what?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna put this elsewhere, but we we need to do this thing.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: We need to do this thing, and uh, I've just watched you work your absolute butt off for the last six years and uh we're on a precipice here.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And we need this, we need this more than ever.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And Xhale is not a money-making factory, you know.
23:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna tell people with investment, I want to give your money back within the next five to ten years.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Um if if you know we go on a loan agreement and if it's an investment, hopefully over the next 10 years we can make a bit of profit um and we can give that back into to the community, which is us, and not necessarily back into institutions.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And we're creating fair and equitable workplaces for people who don't get fair and equitable workplaces, and we open up, you know, opportunity of ownership in you know to employees.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things, you know.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: I I was exited from a company who said they couldn't afford to pay me, and I said pay me in sweat equity.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And I had 16 men that said no.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: And I went, okay, well, you know, what I learned from this is I want people in my organization that give a shit and that care and that have the access to something greater than just themselves.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: And it shouldn't just be the vote, just shouldn't be with the people who hold the money.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: And I see this in our own provincial armcraft brewing association is the vote and the access into the awards and and the the accolades is for those who pay into a special club.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And I don't pay into the special club because as a contract brewer, I don't get a voting membership, even though the MBAA, Swab Masters Brewers Association of Americas, has done developed research and data analysis that contract brewers primarily are made up of underrepresented and equity-deserving individuals.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: So they change their bylaws and structures to include uh contract brewers in voting membership.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things for me is, you know, once again, when we come back to diversity and inclusion, are we just like spraying the words around or are we changing policy?
25:10
SPEAKER_00: Are we changing the structures?
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Are we creating better, you know, new structures and different organizations where we're actually opening up that actual diversity and equity because our policies require us to?
25:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: Or is it a check mark?
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's so funny because in in my corporate job, I was the perfect candidate for the job.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: When I left, somebody was like, Well, the only reason why you got hired was because you're a diversity inclusion hire.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: I remember the end.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm sorry.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: I worked my butt off just because I am a queer white woman, you know, and I ticked two out of the three boxes for diversity and inclusion, doesn't mean I earned that job because of being a minority and in a couple categories, right?
25:57
SPEAKER_01: How do you keep going?
25:58
SPEAKER_01: You have a lot of hurdles, there's a lot of closed doors, there's a lot like the mountains are steeper to climb for you in this industry.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: Not only are you trying to get beer brand off the ground, hitting your stride and thriving, but you're also having to overcome being a contract brewer, fighting for memberships.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: How do you keep going?
26:19
SPEAKER_01: What is your drive?
26:21
SPEAKER_00: I want to leave this corner of the earth a little bit better for the next generation to come after me.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: That's what keeps me going.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't have a strong why, you know, I do some contract advisory work and helping people find their why.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And I think that people start up, they're like, oh, I'm going to start a business.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why do you want to start a business?
26:36
SPEAKER_00: I want to make really cool beer.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, guess what?
26:38
SPEAKER_00: That that reason is going is is is yay deep.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And it won't put your feet on the ground when times get tough and you're you're down$70,000 and you've got pneumonia and you're going through post-separation abuse and you've got, you know, like don't know how you're going to pay your rent the next month.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Like making cool beer is not going to be the reason that gets you out of bed or gets you to lean over and pick up your laptop in your lowest of lows and get those emails done.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: So it's that really strong why.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: I have a strong sense of my generational duty, especially now in my mid-40s, and uh hence why I have my jacket around my shoulders.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I know if I'm hot or cold, and next minute.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: 200 milligrams of progesterone at night are really helping, but sometimes I'm like really confused about my body temperature right now.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: Um the jacket comes off, we know why.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: It's when I start fanning the t-shirt that we've got a problem.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's just a really great sense, you know, big sense of my generational duty.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, I grew up with the mother who challenged the uh corporate ladder as the only female department head in a national uh mutual providence firm in Australia.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: Um and that was in the 80s, and she had a child, and so she faced a lot of bullshit.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Once again, I see you know, my my experiences have radicalized me, and I'm okay to say that.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I think it's such shitty energy when we're like, well, I had it hard, so they should have it hard.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the shittiest energy that you can walk around with this life in.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: And I want to make sure that I'm busting the glass ceilings and holding the door open for the next generation to come after me, and and that's that's that's what I want to do.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: That's inspiring.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're in hundreds of retail locations.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: What does it take to convince people to take a chance on your brand?
28:29
SPEAKER_01: Do you go in with your story first?
28:32
SPEAKER_01: And do you find that that differentiates you?
28:34
SPEAKER_01: Um because I mean, there's different brew companies that I can think of on the top of my head that don't have an inspiring story or a mission, but do get more shelf space.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, that also comes down to economics.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: I can't offer the beer, I can't offer prices that they offer.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't have the brew systems or the structure that they offer.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: So it is a value proposition as far as not from an economics, but from an ethics and brand promise.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: And so that is very clear from with who we are.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And people buy from people.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's one of the things that we need to understand.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not doing it in a manipulative way.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: People know when they're being manipulated, by the way.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Like people know when you're not being authentic.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And as a brand, and once again, as people who are highly neurodivergent, and those of us who also have like been like, hey, I'm neurodivergent, I'm really okay with this, and I'm not gonna mask anymore.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, like our authenticity is at the very core of who we are, and we're not ashamed, we don't apologize for any of it, and we're okay to be brash and somewhat what some people call abrasive around, and people know and feel that.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: They also know that they're gonna get transparency, they're gonna get compassion from us, they're gonna get accountability from us.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Like we've screwed up and we're publicly acknowledged when we've screwed up, right?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: We don't sugarcoat shit.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think in a world of AI and in a world of fake things and people and people just trying to sell a product, when you actually present authenticity and transparency to people, those people who we are connected to, who are conscious consumers, that's that's what we lead with.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I think something that I want to really broadcast here is connection.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: You're connecting through beer, which is one of the most consumed beverage to connect with somebody over by having that story, having that, hey, you know what, you can connect to this brand because of what we stand for and enjoy this with a friend.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: I think like you have that absolutely spot-on connection first, especially as we go towards the AI route.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: I think that's gonna be more prominent in our future here at a Zach Connection piece.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: So obviously, let's talk about branding for a sec.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: It's bold, cheeky, and definitely not designed to please everyone, which is what we kind of alluded to.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Has Standing Out ever worked against you?
30:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, for sure.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: I love this chain, but they won't put our bestseller, CNX Tuesday, Aussie Kolsch, into a flyer because it's called C and X Tuesday.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: It's also a six-time award-winning beer and our bestseller, but because of the name.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: Really?
31:07
SPEAKER_00: They won't put it in a flyer.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, they carry it on their shelves.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Carry it on their shelves, but won't put it in a flyer, even though it's our bestseller and a six-time award-winning beer.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: So that is definitely works against us as well when we go into rooms and people are like, oh God, here she comes.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's gonna be the what's gonna be the issue now, right?
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Like, like we're really bold in what it is that we stand for.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: When we do that, it gives other people permission to do that as well.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm speaking from a a cis white woman's perspective.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: We've been taught to be agreeable, and we've been taught that our needs and wants should come last.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: And we've been taught to be compliant because that's how we climb the ladder, that's how we get into spaces and spots.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: My ex would always joke, but it's it's kind of true, you know.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I was the witch that lived on the on the edge of the urban center in the forest, uh, in the thresholds, you know what I mean?
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's definitely worked against because people don't want to work with me because I am disagreeable and I will challenge the status quo.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: Look, I'm diplomatic and I fair, but I'm I'm also very direct, and I'm Australian.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: Part of my culture is directness.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: And people like, oh, aren't men really rude over there?
32:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, we're just treated the same.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: It's just we're just direct with each other.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: We don't, we don't go around people's backs, we're just direct as a as a culture.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: We're just you're Canadian here.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not passive aggressive enough, apparently, because passiveness and to me, as a trauma survivor as well, that creates an unknown, which creates a trigger.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: And so I'd rather sit in the known, even if it's uncomfortable, and I'm happy to go to any place with myself in that uncomfortable unknown or in that comfortable, uncomfortable known rather than sit in an unknown space and not actually talk about the thing that needs to get talked about.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: So it definitely works against me when people don't have that capacity to sit with those conversations or sit in those truths.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: And people think that I'm being critical, but it's not.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, let's just explore something here so that we can understand each other better and we can find better solutions.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: This is about finding better solutions, but we can't find better solutions until we talk about the hard thing, the hard things first.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's going to make people uncomfortable.
33:17
SPEAKER_00: So many people operate from this shame and fear-based belief system that sitting in those conversations require far too much capacity because they haven't gone to the depths of themselves yet.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And we see this from our US president right through all government levels on all spectrums, and we see this in organizational structure as well.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And the the people that I love to hang out with specifically in the social venture space are those who have done that inner work and understand that that leadership comes from those spaces of specifically doing that inner work.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: So we're not approaching things from a fear and shame-based belief system, we're approaching things with curiosity where we can sit with capacity in hard conversations.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: But most people unfortunately just don't want to do that.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: So yes.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: And most people are avoidance, right?
34:06
SPEAKER_01: So tackling tackling that head on would be completely foreign to a lot of the EOs and a lot of leaders.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: When you use your positionality to power and specifically in male-dominated spaces, that now becomes harm.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Right?
34:23
SPEAKER_00: So when you're use your own avoidance in the capacity and influence because you have that that closeness to power, money, and/or influence, now that's creating cyclical and systemic harm.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: So that's the other thing that we need to talk about as well.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna ask a edgy question here.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: If you had a 50% male partner with you in this space saying the exact same thing you're saying, do you think you'd be taken in a different way because it was coming out of his mouth, not yours?
34:58
SPEAKER_01: Most likely.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Most likely.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm a nagging bitch.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm the thorn in people's sides, right?
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I was talking to a friend the other week, and you know, we were joking around.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm always looking for my next ego death.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm always on the hunt for it somewhere because I'm gonna find some magic in that.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be terrifying, but I'm gonna find some magic in it.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: But when the patriarchy speaks to the patriarchy, and that person looks and sounds like the patriarchy, it's a lot more believable, it's a lot more palatable, but I'm okay to not be palatable to everybody.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: So that's how we get shaked up.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
35:37
SPEAKER_01: I was just talking to a business owner the other day about having employees and how that's a totally different realm of managing and with women in the CEO or ownership position.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: It's like if you say something, you're a bitch.
35:51
SPEAKER_01: But if a male says something the exact same way, he's just being assertive.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: I've handpicked humans in our organization and we are a diversity hire.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: We hired a couple of straight white men, we hired our diversities in our company.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, check, we check, check, straight.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: We've hired our diversity hires, and I shouldn't laugh because I do love these individuals, and they were actually students of of mine from old.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: We hire based on culture, and we hire based on values fit, and these individuals would never they question me.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, they challenge and they question and they seek things from me which I love.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: We are able to have uncomfortable conversations when we are required to, but it's always met with compassion.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And when I hire people, I'm looking for compassion.
36:41
SPEAKER_00: Do you have compassion and capacity to sit in uncomfortable conversations?
36:45
SPEAKER_00: And once again, I don't believe in hierarchies.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: I hate it when people are like, oh, this is so-and-so's boss.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm not anybody's boss.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Like to me, that I'm just like, ooh, ooh, that's not my title.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: Cringe.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm just a creator of chaos that pulls the barrier in its strings every now and then and hope it works out.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever had to make a business decision where what was financially best for Exhale conflicted with what you personally believed was right?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes and no.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: I've pulled our beer off taps.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: I won't go into sales meetings with people who have shitty business practices.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Personally, I publicly spoke out about somebody extremely problematic in industry a number of years ago.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, and people told me that uh I did it for attention.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it hurts my business to speak about sexual assault in the hospitality industry, and somebody that is prominently known in the hospitality industry and owns venues in the hospitality industry.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: And I spoke out against an ex-employer who brought this person into their organization.
37:45
SPEAKER_00: And those things don't they don't help me at all.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: When you speak up about something, it makes your life incredibly difficult.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: Nothing about it is attention seeking or business building.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: So I have made decisions uh where we don't have our beer in certain places or certain venues, and I think our community knows if XL has their beer in a certain place, that is a safe place for them.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we carry out our values.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have trans ownership in our organization and queer ownership and non-gender conforming individuals and those who are also not white, and we want those people in our organization to be able to feel comfortable to go into any space where our product is and know that they will be safe.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: And that is the promise that we make to our community as well.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that mission.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: That is true.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, being on the consumer side, when I see your brand and I see you on the shelves, first of all, I'm like, fangirl.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, Christina's on the shelf here, that's awesome cover.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, and somebody who does fall under that umbrella, it does make me feel very safe knowing that when I'm supporting you and you're representing exactly my value structure.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: So thank you.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: Because I know there's definitely been tough moments where you're questioning, is this the route you go?
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Or do you take this fork in the road and go, okay, this will help propel us forward, or do I do the right thing?
39:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that would be a road less traveled, right?
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I uh was on a leadership mental speaking engagement thing with a university last week and uh was with some young athletes in a specific leadership program.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, one of the things they said, what's the what's the best bit of advice you can give somebody?
39:32
SPEAKER_00: I said, do the right thing, not the correct thing.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: And they kind of looked at me and I said, Do you want me to break that down?
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I said, the correct thing is is things that are generally made up by people that protect a certain structure or group of people.
39:47
SPEAKER_00: I said, but the right thing often is uh in competition with what the correct thing is.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: But the right thing is the things that hold integrity and hold ethics and allows you to put your head down on the pillow at the end of the day.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: It's the harder thing, but if you're going to be a leader, that's that you need to do the right thing.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: But do the right thing, and it's not always the correct thing.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And the correct thing would be to take everybody's money and have XL everywhere, but then that dilutes who we are.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: And now we're working and being money makers for people who don't have ethical business practices, who aren't uh inclusive, who have uh people who are problematic at best in their uh organization or as ownership.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's where it differs for people in my industry, mostly males, they don't think about that because they've never been sexually assaulted in their workplace like myself, right?
40:39
SPEAKER_00: They've never had to face that.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: So when we make a stand, we make it for a reason because this is not okay.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: And if we're going to be in this system, then we need to make a stance about that system.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
40:49
SPEAKER_01: And one thing I noticed with Excel is certified living wage employer through the Alberta Living Wage Network, talking about doing the right thing.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: So for anyone who doesn't know what that means, can you explain why it's important for you to make that commitment?
41:02
SPEAKER_00: So I also come from Australia.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: We don't have minimum wage, we have living wage and we're unionized, and I know that that's a bad word over here, but there's things like penalty rates that you get when you work over a certain amount of hours.
41:13
SPEAKER_00: I find labor laws here quite egregious.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm also a teacher in the background where we're seeing teachers and nurses who work a full-time job and then have to go and get an extra side gig to pay their bills.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: That breaks my heart because the people who are actually looking after our society shouldn't have to go out and do that.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: The people who are the backbone of our society shouldn't have to go out and have side gigs and then go to their other job tired.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: Uh just put food on the table.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is also, you know, we're we're giving shares to our employees as well.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Like I want people to be able to use their skill and labor at a three to one rate and to be able to buy into that with a living wage, you know, and I don't pay myself out of the company, I work extra jobs and I live on low income.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: So technically, you could take one for the team, but I have a bit of privilege behind me that it gives me that capacity most of the time to do that.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: So once again, we need to challenge those top-down and autocratic and capitalist systems.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: I never see myself taking the biggest cut.
42:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't need I don't actually don't need much in life, but I never see myself taking the biggest cut because I genuinely don't believe that I am the smartest person in my organization or I deserve the most amount of money because it's everybody that that is making this whole thing work.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: Right?
42:38
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: That's leadership right there.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: But I also think it's an amazing value that everybody that is part of your organization has that ownership mentality.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: I think you probably see a lot more grit and resilience because there's more skin in the game, too.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And building skill sets and building like one of my favorite things, I've been in sports coaching for 25 years now, and that's like coaching youth athlete development is like my biggest passion in life.
43:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's building mindsets and it's building resilience and it's building nuanced skill sets and these soft skills that we talk about, they're actually hard skills and you know, emotional regulation and grounding and curiosity and removing fear and removing shame from decision making and being able to bounce back when mistakes happen or being able to make decisions in and under pressure.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: I give a lot of autonomy to my team.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, they have a role in business development and not just doing a job.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: That's a a retention strategy, but it's also an exit strategy at the same time, right?
43:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:46
SPEAKER_01: Because if you can involve yourself less in the business too, I mean that's the ultimate goal, right?
43:51
SPEAKER_01: Is you have a thriving, successful business and you're able to go on vacation and unplug.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many business owners can say that they can do that?
44:00
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, this might be controversial in some circles.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: I want to go on and just really do philanthropic work.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I want to remove myself as much as possible from the business or the day-to-day operations with people who are younger, smarter, more creative, stronger, faster, more resilient than I am, with more of that foundation in underneath me and the scaffolding and the roof and the doors and the windows on my own personal infrastructure to go out and challenge more systems to do that philanthropic and do that advocacy work, which is what I want to do when I'm in my old Crone era.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to actually talk a little bit about your involvement with each and every.
44:44
SPEAKER_01: So for people who don't know, it advocates for harm reduction and challenges some of the stigma during drug use.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: So what led you to get involved in that work?
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Well, you don't go into harm reduction generally without lived experience.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: And uh that comes from both my own personal experiences with drug use and trauma and understanding my privilege that I just had different systems around me and in a different meat skeleton that gave me access to services and support and community that I required.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm a multiple rape survivor and sexual assault survivor and domestic violence survivor, so that comes with its own uh trauma.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I also had a dear friend of mine accidentally overdose in his own home, and that was one of the things that, you know, I was already in doing some kind of harm reduction specifically, like in events.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: I've been in the EDM rave scene, my nickname is Rave Mom, for you know, about the same time, 25-ish years.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: And so I lost a dear friend, and yeah, it was okay with this.
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Is this a privileged person's problem?
45:49
SPEAKER_00: But also, how do we create destigmatization around drug use?
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Because we've also been pushed out of the space as people who produce a restricted substance.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: We weren't allowed to talk about it for years.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: It was, it would, there was just such stigma and taboo around it.
46:03
SPEAKER_00: And once again, it's like screw this.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: So I was on a podcast in 2020, and Ewan Thompson heard the podcast who founded uh Graft uh Brew Labs, one of the most amazing minds and humans I know, Ewan Thompson.
46:17
SPEAKER_00: And he contacted me and said, if we what would you what would be your response to should we start an organization that challenges the stigma of drug use, recovery, and harm reduction as a as a craft brewing company and as venues who serve alcohol?
46:31
SPEAKER_00: I was like, we're all safe consumption sites, so fuck yeah, I mean, like, like let's do whatever it takes.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: So six years that was yeah, 2020, and uh you and I are still going.
46:39
SPEAKER_00: We have some incredible humans now doing some things in the background, and we've affected policy from both a city, provincial, and federal level, and we're continuing to be disturbing in the space, so yeah.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: And give people in business voices because it all started from being scapegoated that businesses didn't want OPS or safe consumption, and and there's a lot of businesses out there that are actually are compassionate and understand that everybody in our community is everybody in our community, and we're all affected.
47:08
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I often put this the stats in front of people that 70% of accidental overdoses and poisonings are men between the ages of 35 and 50 alone in their own homes.
47:17
SPEAKER_00: But you we just don't see it because it's not in public.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: But we're also not we're not separate from our houseless population either.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: That's all of our that's all of our responsibility.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: I think what you're doing is incredible.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously there's so much to digest in this episode alone, and that's why I love having this platform.
47:35
SPEAKER_01: But what you touched on the most is that change doesn't just start from the top.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: As small business owners, we can actually do something, right?
47:45
SPEAKER_00: We have economic pull and economies talk.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, economics talks.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk from an economic perspective, which is once again, it is a privilege to do so, we need to use our positions of privilege to be able to create that change because it's policy.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: And I know there's a lot of people out there who are going, oh my gosh, if the government did this, if the government did this.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: I mean, at the end of the day, like we can't change what they're doing, but we can still use our one voice.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: We can still create change, we can still advocate for those causes, we can still ruffle feathers.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to wait for them.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: Because we're gonna be waiting probably a long time.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: And just because the government says it, it doesn't mean that it's right exactly.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that it's right.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: Do the right thing, not the correct thing.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be uh the tagline for Sapitha.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we talked a lot about the company, the challenges, and the impact you're trying to make, but I want to bring it back to you for a moment because I think people often forget that behind the business is the person carrying all of the responsibility.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: What has been the hardest part of building Xhale that people would never know from looking at your social media?
48:53
SPEAKER_00: Um the stresses and psychological and emotional weight that you carry living on low income and working other gig jobs and seeing people who don't have the amount of experience and knowledge and connections that you do get the money that you just will never have access to to do the thing that you've always wanted to do.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that would be extremely challenging, especially keeping up your energy and your mood to keep growing your business and then having all these other stressors to take on and financial stressors.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs will resonate with that.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh the other thing is I'm very transparent in our team.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Our team is a very compassionate team, and we talk about our challenges.
49:40
SPEAKER_00: Every time we get together, we talk about our challenges and we make room for what that looks like as well.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: And I don't pretend for my team because I never want them to pretend for me.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: So we we don't we don't operate in performative spaces.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: So that's something that we've built as an internal culture that uh we don't we don't do performative spaces.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: I bet they all really enjoy I don't want to say working for you because I know that is probably something you would cringe at with us.
50:09
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Um so if we're sitting together again in five years over a beer, of course.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes, from now, what would you hope Exhale has accomplished and what would you personally be most proud of?
50:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, hopefully we'll be sitting in Exhale in our own space.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: And look, we've won 18, 19 awards for our beer.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've now got an award-winning best in class, best in Alberta soda.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: That's cool and all.
50:37
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh being awarded from the City Calgary Award for Social Impact, which is was weird because social impact is directly in opposition to the system, and then the system gives you an award, and that's just that was that was kind of weird.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: But it would be in five years, I think the biggest thing would be showing our industries that we can create profitable businesses that create and open up compassionate spaces for people.
51:05
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just a visual representation, but it's done through careful and intentional bylaws and policies and advocating and joining in with community organizations um to help create stronger and more resilient um societies, not just communities, but societies.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: And you said, correct me if I'm wrong, you said you just got some funding to move towards a brick and mortar.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
51:34
SPEAKER_01: So what does that look like for the next steps?
51:38
SPEAKER_00: That looks like company restructuring our bylaws, doing a company evaluation, understanding what our share prices look like, raising another 500 to 750,000 in community funding and um hopefully some grants as well that are non-repayable.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, we're also looking at doing a really cool uh circular energy project with heating our hot liquor tank and uh brew house.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Um that's all I'm gonna say.
52:03
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna involve something quite controversial and also solar and showing we can make something that's really shitty and make it into something that was quite good.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: So just doing things once again, just that bit differently, and straying away from financial institutions and because I never, you know, fitted into those institutions and yeah, putting money back into our community and giving people autonomy and showing self-agency.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: And if anyone listening and that resonates with you, please reach out to Christina because uh if you have some extra dinero, uh throw it her way.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I don't waste it.
52:40
SPEAKER_00: I literally turned$9,000 into almost$200,000.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: So exactly, yeah.
52:44
SPEAKER_01: Her character speaks for itself.
52:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we've covered some pretty big topics today.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna switch gears a little bit.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: I do this with all of my podcast guests because obviously we're all about the 403 um and what's happening in our city.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: So don't overthink them, just say what comes to mind.
53:02
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's your favorite Calgary restaurant?
53:05
SPEAKER_00: Uh, favorite Calgary restaurant.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: You're really putting me on the spot here.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: There's so many amazing places I like to eat.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: I love to eat, by the way.
53:13
SPEAKER_00: I love to eat so much.
53:14
SPEAKER_01: I love trying new places in our city.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: It's my gosh, it's like my favorite.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: Um so comfort food.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, and sitting up at the bar at Rhea's in the Northeast.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, drinking a bottle of red and then gnocchi is amazing.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of a little Calgary institution.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: But if you're also gonna go for breakfast somewhere, you should go to Queens.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Queens for breakfast and make sure you get on the wait list there.
53:44
unknown: Yeah.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh favorite hidden gem in Alberta.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know if it is anymore, but you used to at the Black Dog in Jasper, one of my favorite things to do is come off the ski hill and go and get some their chicken fingers and get um a pint of Czech F, which you used to be able to get on tap there.
54:05
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you can still do it.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: It is a Czech lager and it's delightful, and it was it's just I don't know if people know about it.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if it still exists because I haven't been able to get out there since the fires.
54:19
SPEAKER_00: So that was one of my hidden gems.
54:21
SPEAKER_00: Um favorite neighborhood in Calgary.
54:23
SPEAKER_00: Uh I really love my neighbourhood in Renfrove.
54:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
54:27
SPEAKER_00: Um I have amazing neighbours.
54:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm really sad to see um the beautiful bungalows see torn down and those giant infills that are not affordable housing get put up.
54:36
SPEAKER_00: So I hope that there's more people out there that will keep those beautiful bungalows around.
54:43
SPEAKER_00: It is a lovely neighborhood and it's also like right on 16th.
54:46
SPEAKER_00: So like I can get to the airport really quickly, I can get to downtown really quickly, and I can get on the road to the mountains really quickly.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and there are lots space, you just don't get lots like that anymore.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: No, it's completely unaffordable.
54:58
SPEAKER_00: I could never buy a house over there over there, but I do love the area and I love the rec center.
55:03
SPEAKER_00: I love the uh the city rec center, the retro aquatic center too.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: So morning person and an eight hour.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: Funny story.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: I used to be a massive morning person and at the gym at you know 5:30 in the morning.
55:15
SPEAKER_00: Um but since parametopause kicked in and I'm a small business owner that works extra jobs, I am neither a morning person nor a late night person.
55:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm just an existing person.
55:28
SPEAKER_00: I live in a state of limerence of asleep on the couch at 9 p.m.
55:32
SPEAKER_00: and dragging my ass out of bed at at 8 a.m.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: I do love a good sunrise though, especially when I'm driving into the mountains for ski coaching.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: Sunrises, sunrise is over the mountains.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that made me fall in love with the Rockies and and uh have a Canadian passport.
55:50
SPEAKER_00: Okay, if you could spotlight one Alberta entrepreneur, who would it be?
55:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh god, there's so many.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, that I would love to spotlight.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: Who could I so oh my god, you now you are really putting me on the spot, Carissa.
56:05
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, because that's what's great about this, is like we don't have time to come up with um who I love and adore is uh uh Kevin Kent of Knifewear who proudly wears his Protect Trans Kids t-shirts, who is an absolute weirdo who talks about me in rooms that I'm not in, who supports diversity in women's sports, who volunteers time.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: I met this individual through um through Be Local, which is a group of social venture institute individuals, is just been a massive supporter.
56:46
SPEAKER_00: There's so many other amazing people that I could talk about, but I'm gonna just put a shout out to that person.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: He's also been this is who I am, and this is what we're doing, and this is who we're speaking about, and also has equitable um standards for his workers and gives a lot of autonomy and has built what he's built with a lot of grit and recognizes his privilege and does lots of good things with it.
57:09
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
57:10
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so what is the when exhale beer everyone needs to try?
57:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh definitely see you next Tuesday.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: That is the that is the the creme de la creme, the six six award-winning.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I know people buy it for the name and they're like, holy shit, this beer is actually really good.
57:25
SPEAKER_00: It was inspired by my favorite Australian Sauvignon Blanc, uses all Australian hops on a cold base, as I sort of come from a wine background.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a great food beer, it's a great warm mowing beer, it's a great conversational beer.
57:37
SPEAKER_00: People like, oh, isn't that a name rude?
57:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, as a feminist, we're taking back the C-word.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and as an Australian, we use it affectionately amongst our people for our most favorite individuals.
57:47
SPEAKER_00: And as a queer woman, I think they're beautiful.
57:49
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, they're all the reasons that you should go and have a see you next Tuesday.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's very memorable, second of all, delicious and fun to say.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: So, okay, so before I let you go, I always want to bring things back to our community and the people who are out there trying to build something of their own.
58:05
SPEAKER_01: You've shared so much about what it takes to build a business, but also what it means to build something you genuinely believe in.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: So I have two final questions.
58:13
SPEAKER_01: What's one piece of advice you'd give someone who wants to start a business but feels like they don't have the money, connections, or experience to make it happen?
58:21
SPEAKER_01: And lastly, if people could take away just one thing from your story, what would it be?
58:26
SPEAKER_00: Um don't give yourself limitations.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have somebody that I could look up to that's looked and sounded like me.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: And I decided to challenge that and make sure that the next generation came through that they did have somebody that they could look to and that did represent who they were.
58:42
SPEAKER_00: Get into rooms where you don't think that you belong.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love that.
58:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that that's that's the biggest one.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: Shove your weight in there, hold the door open and sit at the table.
58:53
SPEAKER_00: The imposter syndrome is real.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to it.
58:58
SPEAKER_00: Move through it, approach things with curiosity, but be hard-lined when you need to, and be soft when you also need to as well.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: But I think that that that is the biggest thing, and find alternative systems.
59:11
SPEAKER_00: Um, but just because you don't have access to traditional financing doesn't mean that there aren't people out there that want to help you and see you succeed.
59:22
SPEAKER_00: And I can guarantee you for every one person that would rather lose an eye than see you succeed, and there's people out there that I know feel that way about me, there's 10 people who want to back you.
59:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's really easy to listen to the haters, but use some of that as fuel and put and put a chip on your shoulder to to give you that some of that fuel to get you going and find your community and your people because there are people out there that want to see you win.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: And then our second question immigrants aren't bad people, we contribute to economies.
59:50
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
59:52
SPEAKER_00: I think it just it comes it honestly, it comes back to do do the right thing and not the correct thing.
59:57
SPEAKER_00: It always for for me it comes back to that and thinking about for me, you know, I'm constantly thinking about what my legacy is and how am I going to make it easier for the people to come after me and how am I going to how am I going to create or support spaces in which everybody feels loved and sane.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_01: That's a good way to end that.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: Christina, thanks so much for taking the time to join me today.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons I started the 403 podcast was because I believe every business has a story worth telling.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: And I think your story is an interesting reminder that building a successful business isn't always just about how much money it makes.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: It's also about what you're willing to stand for, the decisions you make along the way, and the impact you leave behind.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: For anyone listening who wants to support Exhale BrewCo, what's the best way to find your beer and follow along for what you're building?
1:00:53
SPEAKER_00: Follow us on Instagram, uh, Facebook, order our soda online, uh, go into stores and ask for us being our unofficial sales reps and be kind to people out there.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: And I'll put everything like that in the show notes where they can follow you, your website.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: And to everyone listening, thank you for joining us for another episode of the 403 podcast.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure you subscribe, share it with someone who might appreciate Christina's story, and continue supporting the incredible people and businesses behind building our community.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: Because every city has stories.
1:01:25
SPEAKER_01: Ours just happens to be told by the people building it.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe to the 403 podcast as we continue introducing you to the people, businesses, and ideas shaping Calgary and Alberta.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_01: Because every city has stories, ours just happens to be told by people building it.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.