Nuanced. - 23. Spencer Huesken: Sociologist & Organizational Researcher

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

Spencer Huesken is a sociologist, organizational researcher, consultant and instructor at the University of the Fraser Valley!Spencer grew up in Chilliwack on the farmlands of Greendale playing music and driving tractors. Spencer currently splits his time between Chilliwack BC with his partner and their animals, and Kingston Ontario where he is working to complete his doctorate at Queen’s University. Spencer’s research interests are in the social psychology of self, selfhood, and organizational behavior. His PhD work primarily focuses on the digital transformations of work and labour and the reorganization of self in the age of new media. More recently, Spencer has been active in community focused research, bringing his program of research to the Community Health and Social Innovation HUB at the University of Fraser Valley, working on several COVID-19 related projects.Spencer is driven by his passion of love, learning, and understanding.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Spencer, it is an absolute pleasure to sit down with you because you've been through so much over these past few years that we've kind of known each other and when I saw that you were becoming a professor and that you were already getting reviews on rate my professor, it was fantastic and I had to reach out and have you on. So please tell us a little bit about yourself. Oh, thanks. Yeah, no, it's great to see you again, Aaron. I guess we've known each other through the years and had mutual friends that we've gotten to know each other through. So it's been a privilege to watch your growth over the last few years. I guess it would also be disingenuous to call myself a real professor considering I don't have

my Ph.D. yet. So I have the title of, you know, sessional professor, sessional instructor at UFV. But yeah, I am Spencer. I'm a sociologist by trade. And I do a lot of things, probably too many things in real life I think but yeah I've spent the last couple of years back and forth between here in Kingston Ontario I'm doing my PhD at Queen's University right now so that's a lot of fun and so yeah during the fall and winter semester I'm there and then the summer and at Christmas I come I come back here and I took a year between my my master's and my PhD and that's when I started teaching at UFV so I was here for that whole year teaching in person and then

of course COVID happened so okay well let's get right into the education then because I think that that can be the part that gets overwhelming for people who don't go to school absolutely so let's start off with your bachelor so you choose to go to university what was that decision like was it a decision at all or was it just part of the plan yeah you know um I was never one of those uh kids where my parents said you know you're going to go to university and you're going to do this that I um I come from a very working class background. I'm the first one in my family to even go to university. So there was not there was not a particular expectation for me to do that. So after high school, you know, in high school I was, I was enamored with music. I think that's definitely still like, you know, consumes my

identity. I played in a band. And so for me, that was my passion. That was everything. So I was never, you know, the academic type in middle school and high school. I could really be bothered to To be totally honest, I just wanted to play drums and playing a rock band, and that was it. So, yeah, so after university, I worked in several different fields, you know, worked construction and did this and that. And I realized that, you know, my passion was really for learning. I have a passion for learning. So there was a bunch of things that I was interested in. And I think that's one of the great things about UFV is I could, you know, I didn't have to go there and say,

I'm doing a business degree or I'm doing this. I went to UFV and I just started taking classes in things that interested me. And then I just kind of rode the wave. I guess that's the best way to put it until, I mean, I still am. So I guess that's my educational background. There was no plan. There was no, you know, trajectory that I had in mind per se. I started out as a psych student, did most of my undergrad in the psych department.

and then took a couple sociology classes that changed my life. Tell us about those. Okay, so, yeah, so there's two professors in particular, Dr. Catherine Watson, Dr. Martha Dow, and you should really have Martha on the podcast. Next week. Oh, really? Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. She is a wonderful, wonderful human being.

And I guess for those courses, I, how do I put it? I was studying psych, and I thought I was. was really interested in psych, you know, very individual level perspective on stuff. I was never particularly drawn to the neuro side of things. And then I took these sociology classes that sort of contextualized everything. You know, what is the context in all these, in all these ways that we speak about the self? What is the, what is the context from which these discourses about medicine and health, etc., become institutionalized or rationalize as something that we must adhere to and cohere with and for me that was uh perhaps it was you know my um sort of can you give us an

example of that yeah um and i i think there's room to to unpack this a lot further but i i guess i would say that the i was i was always interested in mental health and conversely mental illness when i studied uh psychology um but then once i started studying sociology i really realized that you know everyone has these experiences that we identify identify as these things that we label as these things. And this is not to take away from anybody's experiences or to say that they're not real because they are. Subjectively, the most real thing one can experience. But I was interested in the ways that society organizes and coalesces around these things and particularly what the unintended consequences

are of these discourses of speaking about the self. So, you know, I'm not one to say, you know, there's 12 people sitting in a room, planning this and that. But there's a way that we speak about ourselves and speak about our existence through these terms that makes us understand ourselves in a particular set of constraints, I would say. And inevitably, any sort of discourse that is about labeling or identifying anything and unintended consequences of that is who is cast out of that and who is marginalized by these things and who is excluded. So sociology for me became a way to sort of draw the lines of those peripheral margins of what we call normal and really ask questions about, well, what's normal?

Like, why do we take, like, why is this normalized? Why is this something that just is that we just taken for granted type of knowledge? So is there like an example that people can relate to that we would see this where maybe it isn't appropriate to have that cultural norm or have that expectation? I wouldn't say it's it's not appropriate so my my particular mode of study like I'm never I'm never interested in in making a normative judgment whether something is good or bad but rather understanding how it functions so I think the example that I was laying out before when we talk about let's talk about mental health and we and we talk about you know a very 2021 type of discourse around self-help, right? I'm always interested in self-help and these mindfulness types of things and

the way that they work on people. And again, this is not to say that they don't work, but I'm always interested in, and how are we thinking about the stuff? You know, at what point in time did the individual become the most paramount unit of analysis that we ought to care about, right? And, you know, we can look at particular economic developments post-World War II when the economy was, you know, after the war, when there was a boom in the economy for a while, and, you know, marketing agencies, companies, right? They created particular types of consumers. So you can really draw a certain point and historical reference point when we started thinking about this self. like why is it that we need to focus on the self so much the self is the most important thing and again this is not to say that these things aren't important but um i guess when i in my

field of study i'm always interested in well why is it that we're thinking about it in this type of way so i think for me one of the things would be um the the the the self-help industry and and i'm not um i see the way it works and i'm very um i admirement many of many, many people that I look or that operate in these spaces. But the real genuine thing that I see in there is relationships and building relationships and love and passion. And for me that those things matter. Those things matter.

They're not these cheesy sort of cliche terms. They really matter to me. So then I look at this like industry of wellness, this industry of, you know, when we're thinking about mental health or we're thinking about. But wellness, you know, in some regard, we're medicalizing all aspects of our life, as though like every aspect of your life needs to be something that needs to be worked on to produce some sort of potential for happiness or success. And in the pursuit of that, I think a lot of times we might miss that. You know, if it's down to, you know, someone on a screen yelling at you to take a cold shower and go for a 20 kilometer run in the morning, there's, of course, there's a utility to that. and we can admire these folks.

I mean, it's amazing some of the things that they do with their body. But when we're, you know, navigating our daily life and we're thinking about ourselves through these types of terms of being well or being, you know, these things, it causes us to really think about potential, think about potentiality, think about ourselves as these entrepreneurial agents when I think that misses a lot of the beauty of life. I think that that overlaps with what the podcast is about because my concern, my one of the, one of the, the things I've tried to be careful of is to not have people on who are only good at one thing and only pushing one agenda because they miss out on all the other parts. So somebody can be a terrific lawyer, a phenomenal accountant, an amazing professor. But they're also a father, a husband, there's so many other things in their community that also matter. And I don't want to come across as supporting just one aspect. Of course. We've often done the career is the most important

thing and everybody's asked what like what career are you doing what are you going to be doing for a living and I feel like we're kind of watching women get pushed more and more in that direction from what I'm seeing that all women need to have a career plan where in historic perspectives that hasn't always been the case and it's great to see that but there is a shift going on that I don't think we know what the outcome is going to be long term and what the benefits and the cons because there's always cons and I think pretending that there isn't can cause us issues, that there's downsides to everything that we choose to do. And I think that I'm trying to make sure that we recognize the whole person, their family life, their personal life,

their work life, the activities that they participate in. All of those aspects make up a person. And when I look at resumes or I look at LinkedIn's, the part about what you actually enjoy doing is kind of treated like the, and I also enjoy soccer, watching TV. And it's like, that's such a superficial way of looking at a person's personal life. Right. Like we kind of gloss over it as if it's not necessary. And with things like resumes and stuff, it's all about what are your accomplishments? What have people awarded you with?

And it's like, well, how did you treat people when you were working at Dairy Queen or McDonald's and all these different roles? How did you approach the job? Did you do it passionately? And one thing I've been thinking a lot about is this idea, I don't know if you ever had this, but when I was growing up, I was always told, if you did a good job when you were working at the McDonald's, somebody. might walk in and hire you based on like they work in another place and they're like hey you're

you're putting in good work at this five dollar an hour 10 dollar an hour job at my age it was like eight dollars an hour when I started working and the idea that somebody might walk in see me cleaning that table that really motivated me and then that never happened and I never heard that ever happened to anybody and the reason that that that frustrates me is because that is people showing their resume through their work like that is people working hard for the benefit and I think that that kind of overlaps with what you're talking about about what we choose to prioritize and what we're telling people is the most important thing because I agree entrepreneurship is kind of the theme of our generation right now is go get a job go work

hard much do it yourself get four jobs yes and work 15 hours a day to show everybody how hard you're working and bringing in that money and you miss out on so many other important parts of your life that people start to lose their marriage or lose their relationships and stuff. So what is that like for you? What can you say about that? That's a really good question. Um, and first I'd like to say I admire your, your ethos regarding guests and, you know, not being specifically, you know, um, focused on one thing and having well-rounded, um, individuals because I think, um, I think I'll, I just do a lot of things like, okay, you know, I would, I, I, and I think that's something that I really struggle with when, you know,

Everyone has this sort of master status that we have, you know, and I'll only say in terms of when you're meeting someone or you're introducing to yourself to someone and you're engaging and opening a dialogue, whatever, for the first time, what's one of the first things you ask people? What is it that you do? As though that's the paramount, you know, narrative in our life and people, again, what takes the place of what is it that we do so often? Career type of thing. So yes, I think that. And to just quickly compare that to indigenous culture, where it's who are you related to and what's your last name is that is the most common question I've ever been asked when I'm in a room full of indigenous people talking about indigenous issues is what is your last name and who are you related to? That is the paramount question. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, why don't you, your question was how does it relate in my life? So I guess I'll talk a little bit about that, but I'm really interested in hearing more about precisely. what you just said. In my own life, I think it is just about being well-rounded. Like I said, I do a lot of different things. And for me, it's kind of just whatever's interested me or has my attention and whatever I'm passionate about, I try and just pour myself into that as much as possible.

I've been very privileged to be able to cultivate a career around a bunch of things that I care a lot about. I mean, you know, that's pretty awesome. And in terms of relationships, I think that that is probably the most important thing in our, in our lives. Um, you know, I have a I have a tremendous partner who supports me. Um, and I support her and, you know, we both, um, you know, she, she, she, she catches me in times when I'm a little bit too neurotic or, or whatever. So, um, yeah, she, she's great and I have great parents and the friendships and relationships that I have in my life. I think I am very privileged to be in spaces where people are lifting each other up and people really want to see each other grow and learn and love. So I think that for me,

that relational aspect, the who of our lives, for me is the most important thing. And so I would be very interested to hear more about your experiences. Well, first, I think that creativity and passion is something interesting because it isn't you and we were my partner and I were looking into this last night what is it what drives creativity like what pulls at people to be passionate about a certain topic instead of all the other topics and one thing that we were looking into is I don't know if you've watched Harry Potter but the golden snitch is actually that archetypal idea of what pulls you forward right and what brings out

creativity within you and so and Harry is called a seeker and a seeker is somebody who goes out and seeks knowledge and allows that creativity to pull them forward. But we don't know what that is because it's not like you look at all of the list of things and know exactly what it is. It's like you do something and then all of a sudden you're really engaged and time just flies by and then you're like, I kind of want to do that again or what was it about this topic or why can't I stop talking to people about this topic. And so I think that that is one aspect that's really interesting about people is that we don't get to choose what we're curious and interested in. But going back to the indigenous

topic, there are a couple of things I've already mentioned on the podcast that I find really interesting about indigenous culture. One is that we're more communal. We're more collaborative in our approach, which I think is likely why indigenous culture isn't scalable the same way that European culture is because it's based on the individual. And so how the common law system works and how it's set up is that everything is done on the local level. So if you committed a crime, it would be your local jurisdiction and then it would work its way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.

And the reason that that works is because it's not a top-down approach. It's a bottom-up approach. Whereas with indigenous culture, it's a top-down approach. The chief or whoever the elected leader is talks and communicates with the community on what needs to be done. And that was typically a chief in history as well. They didn't have written down laws. So it's very difficult to hold somebody accountable for whatever they did.

If you don't have proof, evidence, procedure, like those types of things, didn't really operate as much in indigenous culture because they weren't following case law or anything like that. So there's reasons that I think European culture is an effective tool for law. Now, obviously, it has many flaws and has lots of work to be done on improving it. but I think that that's why our culture can remain stable is because there are these implicit assumptions made like freedom of speech, innocent until proven guilty. These are ideas to me that are so unlikely.

If you were in a community of 100 people and somebody committed a crime and you're pretty sure they did it, why on earth would you assume that they're innocent until you can prove them guilty? You would just assume they're guilty, charge them, and do whatever you have to do to them to hold them accountable. And so the fact that we have that, like I learned that and then I didn't I didn't understand how unlikely that would be but when you're frustrated with someone or you're angry with someone they're guilty you're there's no instinct in you to be like I'm sure that they're a really good person and like it was just totally on me and so I think that there are elements of indigenous culture that we absolutely should find a way to incorporate and that is respecting our elders that's one thing I've mentioned a few times on the podcast because I think that indigenous culture does that really well no matter who you are whether you're homeless or you're a

wealthy indigenous person, you respect your elders. And that is just ingrained where I'm seeing with European culture how we've handled it during COVID-19 and just our approach. I see a lot of people taking photos with their grandma or the grandpa being like, oh, look at this cute old person. And it's like, well, that person likely fought in World War II was around during the Great Depression. They have a lot of knowledge to share on the mistakes that we've made throughout history. So you might want to sit down and have a conversation with that person. And so I think that there are elements that can be learned, that and family. Family is the most important thing to indigenous people.

And I see with some lawyers, with some career paths, family is low on the totem pole of important things to prioritize. And so those are kind of the areas that I see an interesting dynamic going on with both sides. That is really interesting. So the token senior that you mentioned when you talk about someone taking a picture with the old person, I think one of the places that really comes from, again, is our current arrangement of contemporary Western capitalism insofar as the use case for the individual is still as a unit of production. So it's this idea that when individuals are no longer productive in terms of economic cultivation, they are, you know, they, become cute or they become some other categorization of something that is not what it means to be a productive member of society. Right. So I think, you know, there's an interesting

contradiction there because you have, you know, this desire to foster community values and this, this, this, this, um, desire to foster, um, respect for our elders. Um, so what does that look like then in terms of you know renegotiating the role of elders in in our communities in our societies there's some i think there's some important community work to be done there so that um you know again so it doesn't become a project of the individual but rather we are reorienting reorientating our our societal understanding of the elder um to something that is harmonious with with

well and showed out to your your role model Martha Dow who was involved in elder support and bringing elders into a position where they would be able to contribute back to the community because I was looking into that for her question yes yes which project in particular were you

it's called something like elder city or elder support right yes yeah she's she's worked on several and actually at UFV's community health and social innovation hub there's also a lead researcher, Larissa Kowalski, and she also leads to charge on elder-based research and, you know, really straightens me out when I say problematic things about seniors or make ageist sort of remarks that I don't intend to do, but, but, you know, there are, again, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's this, this way that we've, we've organized society that, you know, our elders are, our

You know, they're cute or they're, you know. Well, even retirement as a concept, you retire, and then all of a sudden, you're done? And, like, what does that mean? Even though, really, what that should look like is you're done that. And I liked Naval, if you've ever heard of Naval, Ravocant, he does a really good job of kind of describing how the Greeks approached it, which is first you're a tradesman, first your student, you're learning, then you go to war and you fight for your country, then you move on. on and you start a business and then you go from being an entrepreneur over to a support for others in the community and you open doors and then you become a philosopher and you you have different periods of your life where I think that we've had a bad job of either your career or

your family and those are all that you can do where that's why I kind of like the bios on the podcast is because I'm trying to point out that you're like you have a partner that you have a job that you have a personal life and you're all these different things and you're going to be different things in 10 years than you were today and play a different role in the community. And so that job is always updating. But people who view retirement as like, I'm just going to go lay down on a couch and just enjoy until I die. It's like, well, we're missing out on your knowledge. We're missing out on your ability to help others who are struggling. And I think for communities that have less men in the home supporting their children, we need those people who

have been successful and are adults and ready to relax now. We need those people heading to the communities where there aren't great role models and that's what I'm trying to, I guess, democratize role models so that people might reach out to you and say, hey, I really want to take your class based on like what you said during this point. Like I would, that would mean everything to me if I could continue that and create an environment where people want to learn from you based on everything where when you look at your bio on UFB and everybody's bio, it's all about what are you researching? What are you working on?

And it's like, it's not, who are you? Exactly. What do you care about? How are you going to approach people? And that's why I really liked Martha Dow. She had an article in the Abbottesford News that was like, I'm going to test you in the way that works to be tested for you, and I'm going to approach you in the way that works for you, and I'm going to try and help you change your perspective on things.

And if I don't succeed at that, then I will pay for your course. Like that is how... Oh, I didn't know. She had that disclaimer. Yeah, she had that disclaimer in that article. at least. And that is such a unique idea compared to the traditional model. So can you tell me a little bit about how you connected with Martha Dow? Yeah, yeah, I can. Before I get to that, I would like to first say, I really enjoyed your union psychoanalysis of Harry Potter and the

Golden Snitch. And there's an important piece there, I think, with the elders, is that this idea of retirement, this societal organization around, what is it called, Freedom 55 or something like that what's the term right that freedom right um what does that mean and um this idea that um our elders when they retire they suddenly what do they not have that passion like do they do they not still have that thing that draws them to the golden snitch of course they do right that might and with that much life experience that might look a lot different and like you said we need that um in our communities i think um i i agree with that entirely um martha dow um Yeah, I connected with Martha Dow when I did my undergrad, and I guess that was, again, I didn't know she would have paid for my course, but yeah, it was nevertheless life-changing.

Just watching her navigate a room full of people, and it was very much, you know, there was so much emphasis on lived experience and people were really encouraged to express or, you know, there was so much emphasis on lived experience and people were really encouraged to express or, you know, you know, comment on their, their own experiences and bring them into the course content. So I think that was something that she does really well. It's because, you know, you can be talking about these esoteric type of concepts from a textbook. And, you know, she'll drop the, given what we know, you know, what does this look like in our community? What does this look like in daily life? That's a big problem, though, that you just landed on. Because I've had and heard a lot of people say, don't bring your university education into this conversation.

or don't go all textbook on me, and I can't stand that because, first of all, for someone like myself, the idea that I have a university education is a tremendous accomplishment for my family and my family lineage. And so please don't put down my ability to attend these classes and learn about deeper philosophical concepts. But then second, it's discouraging knowledge sharing in a group. And I've had, my partners had, like, her parents go, oh, like, please don't talk to me like I'm a university paper. And it's like, no, she's explaining you psychological concepts that are interacting in this conversation that are impacting your ability to communicate. And she's trying to explain that to you. She's not trying to be a textbook. She's trying to inform the conversation with evidence that things we actually know about and can say, this is how you're manipulating me.

This is where the manipulative term is in my textbook. this is how it's impacting me, that's knowledge sharing. That's not something to be pushed aside. And I think that just to your point, that idea of esoteric discussions on what is free will and almost like disconnected, it's not disconnected if you're willing to follow the conversation all the way through like Martha and you are willing to do. So please go ahead. No, you hit the nail on the head there.

And I think that's something that in my opinion in my venture so far in academia that really needs to be worked on that I see a lot of. I've, again, I've had the privilege to have great mentors like Martha and Catherine and at Queens, the mentors that I have there. But the greatest professors or lectures or whatever you want to call them, to me, when I took their classes, were always just interesting people and they could captivate a room full of people. They could, they could engage with the concepts in a way that was meaningful to everyone in the room. and encourage people to express their own experiences through the work that we're exploring. And, you know, if you're not doing that, man, what are you doing?

You know what I mean? And so I think that's the importance of that. And, you know, coming back to university, I think that's, and you can speak to this in your consecutive years of study that you've had. but UFV really has a tremendous advantage, I think, that there is an opportunity to engage with instructors. There is an opportunity to engage with other students in a way that feels conversational. You know, a lot of schools, you'll be in a lecture hall with 500 students. So you might never get to, if you didn't have that circle that you're engaging with or cultivating, you didn't have that supportive.

group of people already, you know, you might not have the opportunity to cultivate that in the same way that I think you do at a place like UFV. So I think it's a really special spot all around. Awesome. And so how did you move forward from being in your bachelor's degree to moving into a master's? What kind of led you down that path? Um, well, um, so Catherine Watson was my undergrad supervisor. So she, she, you know, at about third year, I'd say, my undergrad she had kind of been talking to me about you know you should be thinking thinking about grad school I think that's something that that's for you and uh again I knew nothing about it and so there was particular authors researchers that I was really interested in that I found myself reading

a lot of um so I looked them up and I emailed them and uh the ones that I was really interested in were at Queens so I was like oh okay oh wow so that's that's something that motivated you yeah Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, that's, yeah, that's what got me across the country is that there were people there already that I was reading and really engaged with their work. And it's weird because you read them and you think like, oh, this is this prolific researcher, author type of person. And then, you know, Catherine would say, well, just email them. And so I just emailed them and they were great.

And, you know, I applied to, you know, a few different schools, but Queens was was the one that I wanted to go to. what about the research what about what was calling to you about queens so um one of their uh in the sociology department there one of their streams of research they have three they have uh social justice and inequality um there's a criminology um field in the sociology because in most schools criminology is just part of the sociology departments um it's only like some schools that have their own crime department And then the third one is media information and surveillance. And those were the things that I was studying in my undergrad. I was really interested with, you know, big data and privacy and coming from a very

Foucautian perspective French philosopher of, you know, how does this, how do these discursive apparatus, how do these technologies produce particular types of people? So I was really interested in that sort of our engagement with new media. media and the ways in which we understand ourselves through it and the consequences of that. So there were people just writing about exactly what I was interested in studying. So that was the place to go. So I went there. What do you mean new age media producing a new media?

Sorry. Producing a new type of person. Yeah. So I mean, you think about, okay, well, we'd have to have a lengthy conversation of what we're going to define as as new media, but broadly. speaking, new media, social media, these sorts of media forms that we can engage in that aren't, you know, we're not passive recipients of, how these things are worked into our already existing repertoires of daily action and how we understand ourselves through them. You know,

something as simple as there's this researcher called Judy Weikman. She's at London School of Economics and she studies gender inequality in relation to new media technologies. So she She'll talk about, you know, the something like kitchen appliances or the development of kitchen appliances and how those produced particular types of gender norms, how those, you know, historically, how the idea of technology was modeled around a mailness, you know, tanks and guns and all these sorts of things and the sorts of assumptions that are embedded in these things. So you can think about, for instance, let's fast forward until now, new media, and you're out with your friends, you're going to a restaurant, whatever. Part of that whole social interaction now, arguably, is, you know, looking at your phone or like taking pictures of the place. Did it happen if you didn't get a photo of it?

Right. This idea of doing it for the gram, right? You know, Instagram has, and our practices, our media practices, have been worked into our repertoires of daily. action down to, you know, our morning rituals. I'm going to set my mindfulness timer. I'm going to time myself when I brush my teeth with this app. So the way that these things are embedded and worked into our, into our daily life. And this isn't to say they're governing us in this, you know, top down, producing, you know, certain things. But you can see how as they're

worked in, how we make sense of these things, whether they have open-ended scripts like a MacBook or something like clothes, like a toothbrush. But how we work these things in. And how we work these technologies into our life and the sorts of assumptions that they produce, the sorts of people that they produce, you know what I mean? Like, you know, there's a, you can look at how media forms have been worked in to our morning rituals. I'm really fascinated right now with this idea of the morning ritual, right? Because that's something that you only see on podcast.

Like, what's your morning ritual? How do you start your day? And nevertheless, they're worked in in a way that produced particular assumptions about what it means to live a life, what it means to be productive. If you're not doing these things in the morning, then your day is not productive. And it comes back down to this idea about being a productive citizen. I think one really brutal example is Instagram with females because it incentivizes less clothing and in comparison to things like Facebook and other tools. And then Twitter seems to incentivize disagreements.

and it seems to embed that into the conversation. And then I don't even know, what do you think of Facebook? What do you, how do you, because it's the biggest one. Does anyone still use it? Or is it still the- It's still the biggest one. Okay. TikTok's on the way, I suppose.

But Facebook's still the largest way of communication because I think it allows, it kind of allows all different types of communication, which I think allows it to have that edge. It allows stories. It allows everything that Instagram does. It allows everything that Twitter does. And so it seems to be the one-stop shop for everyone, for the most part, for communication. I don't know where to put Facebook, partly because its founder is so questionable.

Right. But I don't know what its impact is. One thing that kind of freaked me out was I started acting like what was going on on Facebook was representative of what was going on in Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley. Because I don't know if you heard, but there have been. women who have gone missing and through Facebook specifically it created an environment where everyone linked all the murd all the missing women together yeah and then the police kind of responded and we're like we have no evidence to support this this is just conspiracy theory

online but it was like that whole idea of the algorithm impacting the society happened on a local level it happened right here in the fraser valley and i knew people who were buying weapons because they were convinced what they saw on social media was going to occur to them. So I knew a few females who had bought knives to prepare based on a trend on social media. And I don't know where to put Facebook because it does seem to create an environment where if it's controversial and terrifying enough, it will get support from a small subset of the community. But if you're on the platform, you start to think that that is the community. Of course.

There's 86,000 people, and I have no idea how many are on social media, but it's the same people liking and responding to the posts that I can start to see, okay, this isn't everybody. This is a small subset of people that are repetitively posting the same type of information. So I don't know what to do with that, but I am worried about our communities in terms of what these platforms do to people's thinking. Because once people start buying knives to protect themselves, we're playing a different game now. It's not just an app. It's, I don't know what to call it. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a couple of things to unpack there. I mean, the first is, you know, you have to underscore this. We live, this idea of the information society, right? I like the idea of flipping that on its head to, no, we live in an attention economy, not an information society. Because, you know, if we look at how societies are governed and what is valued, based on scarcity and demand. There's no shortage of information.

There's just a shortage of attentive capacities to sort through it. So, you know, all of these, these, again, I didn't write the algorithm, so I don't know how they work per se. But, you know, they are manufactured in a way that, like you said, they sort of foster, foster dissent or foster disagreement, right? because it what Facebook's goal is to be that prime real estate the first thing you look at in the morning and the thing that you stay on the longest the valuation is often you know a lot of apps might not even use valuation for click traffic anymore it's time spent on things and you know you can

look at Facebook's development of the different when it switched from just the thumb to like the emojis or whatever and again this wasn't I'm not of the train of thought that you know they were sitting there coding this nefariously saying like you know we're going to we're going to really get people with this but if a business perspective it was a way to keep people engaged for longer and so if that's if that's how you're you know generating your revenue well of course they're going to have you know find a way for people to to to disagree with one another and that be sort of that's the information that that you're being given and then on the other hand I think we need to think about algorithms like in some regard they almost feel like a living entity especially if you want

to talk about it you know from a psychoanalytic perspective is this like algorithms are just embedded habitual web traffic so it's like it's like our our web habits and of course they they they work on us and i think that's one of the things there's this concept of deep mediatization where um these things are becoming so pertinent to our daily life they're becoming so integral in so far as the way we do everything in daily life but how they function is becoming more and more ambiguous to us and i think that's the case with algorithms particularly on facebook because um the same the same string of events uh i watched unfold on facebook and the same thing i like i don't know if there's any more toxic wasteland than the you know the

facebook comment section for something like the province you know what i mean so i i i don't really know how the algorithms work and I don't but yeah there's again there's a couple things to unpack there there's the context and like what in what context are these algorithms relevant and where is the valuation of this web traffic coming from so we need to consider that but then I really like this you know social construction this perspective where we think of algorithms as sort of this living thing that is kind of just I don't know an amalgamation of all sorts of web habits. What do you, what do you make of any of that? So I'll just tell you how I approach the algorithms because trying to grow a podcast is you have, you have to ponder how you're getting

your word out because right now I'm not doing any mailers so people aren't, the only way you can really find out about the podcast is via social media. And so that's been something I've run into. So one unwritten rule is only post once a day. Don't, don't post multiple times, especially with Facebook, because it has to choose. between, so even if you post, say, today and tomorrow, the algorithm has to choose between yesterday and today. And so which one is more important? Which one is going to bring in, and so whatever one has the more views and the more likes and the more comments is going to be the one that it chooses. Right. So, ideally, I would only post two to three times a week, max, and it would

need to be like on a Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in order to have a successful post. And that's not even including the content. That's just, if I post five days a week, none of my posts are going to succeed. And I can see when it's only hitting 20 people, 15 people, and hitting lower amounts of people. And adding in certain elements, you start to see and start to think, okay, when I share a little bit about the podcast, about the impact or what they said, that seems to increase the response because people are like, oh, wow, this was said, or that comment was made,

and that facilitates that. where if I just say Spencer is, this person, that person, he does this and that, people will go, okay, that's cool, keep scrolling. And so it's interesting to see what seems to pull people in. Videos, obviously, YouTube is one of the biggest because videos really catch people. And so I run into issues of, do I post the video on YouTube and then post that link on Facebook, or do I post the actual video on Facebook? Right.

Which one is going to do better? If YouTube is, you can monetize YouTube eventually, you can't monetize Facebook. So there's an incentive to use the YouTube link. Right. But if I actually want people to see the video, I should do the actual video. And how do groups work? Right. How do these different modes of communication affect?

Like, I'm terrible on Instagram. My Instagram is like not very good because I don't get it. I don't see what other people are looking for. And I'm also not posting what Instagram is famously known for. When people utilize the platform, they're thinking of people being on the beach and tanning and going for high. and so that's not what the podcast is about. So I'm not as competitive in that space, but I've noticed benefits with LinkedIn

because those are the type of people who are looking to learn from other professionals, hear different ideas, and professionally develop themselves. So I've noticed great success with something like LinkedIn, and I also think LinkedIn's just a lot less controversial in what it's promoting and what the topics are. And so just trying to understand that.

I'm working with Patreon right now, so I'm trying to start to utilize that platform, because I think that there are certain elements to the podcast that are interesting enough to people that it might be a revenue source to help me pay for more things because everything that I've done with the podcast so far has been personal investment

of trying to bring information to the community but it's very expensive and it just turns out that there's just never an end to the things that you need in order to improve the podcast like one thing I'd like to improve still is the video cameras because I've had a few people say love watching it but sometimes the video cameras lose their focus for a little bit

and then come back in and it's like, well, I'm not going to go over there and keep an eye on them. I'm recording a podcast. So just improving those types of things and trying to find ways to connect with the community and create it. So it's not just me because that's one thing I've been running into is. I don't want it to just be my definition of what a role model is. Like I've had artists on. I'm not an artist at all. So I'm trying to create the environment where if you're somebody in poverty like I was who doesn't have a role model or somebody to follow, I need to give you the greatest array.

of different types of people so that you can choose who you relate to and then go connect with them if that's an option for you or if that's something that interests you but it can't be just my perspective but then I run into problems of like well what do I know about them and what have I heard about them and I get hesitant on having people I haven't heard a lot about on because it impacts the brand if this person turns out to have been inappropriate has a scandal in the newspaper I don't want that publicity as I called them a role model so I'm constantly walking this weird tightrope of trying to communicate and bring on people that are relevant, but also have the respect of the community.

And it's been very complicated, but social media has been one of the biggest frustrations because I'd much rather just do a mailer to everybody in downtown Chilliwack rather than the people who use social media, because it's not a representative group of people living in the community. And from what I've seen, I'm not hitting the demographic I'd like to be, which is youth, people struggling, people facing poverty. most I mean obviously I can't see whether or not they're facing poverty or not but that's my goal and I don't feel like I'm hitting that community as much as I'd like to be right so those are some of my thoughts on social media algorithms well first it sounds to me like you are an artist you say I'm not an artist but I think what you're doing is beautiful and I think it is the living embodiment of what art ought to be so thank you I would call yourself an artist yeah it's it's interesting And, you know, one of the things that you said, you know, when you said, I'm not good at Instagram or my Instagram, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, it's funny how each of these social media platforms has its own particular set of rules.

It has its own habitus, right? There's a very salient method of doing Instagram, what it means to do Instagram or what it means to do LinkedIn. And your business model depends on you being able to navigate. spaces or the sort of normalized forms of conduct in these spaces so that's I mean that's really interesting to hear about just because like I would just say I suck at all social media so yeah it's it's really interesting to hear how you navigate those those spaces and I don't particularly oh hello no problem no problem all

You've got a nice spot. Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah. You seeing any rare little birds? No, I don't think so. No? Yeah, there's some beautiful birds here. Tohys and Junkos and haven't seen any chickenies, though.

Oh. Are you guys watching your birds or bears? Oh, we're recording a podcast right now. No worries, no worries at all. Have a good day, guys. Um, yeah, I don't think I'd know rare birds to see them, unfortunately, although I'd like to. There's probably a lot of bears in this area, I'd say. Yeah, that's one of the things I was thinking about on a walk up here.

This is a beautiful spot. One thing I wanted to ask you from the get-go is how did you, like, how did you find this spot? Oh, Rebecca and I go on walks every single day and constantly try and find the spot that there's not many people. Because we like having conversations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when you're on the vetter trail or something busy, it's hard to get into the flow because you're moving out of people's way or you're responding to other people. And so spots like here, we can go for a walk. We walked to this one for my first year of law school before every exam.

We would come up here, go for a walk, try and just breathe that fresh air, get away from the devices. And when it came to trying to figure out how to do the podcast outside, I started trying to figure out what are those spots that are kind of off the beaten path, not going to have a lot of traffic, but going to have good. quality people who are walking through cute dogs. And this was one of the spots. And I'm trying to find more. And people seem to like it. The only problem I run into is trying to make sure it's not too busy. And so this seems to be a good mixture of quiet enough.

Gotcha. Gotcha. So coming back to social media then, you were, you know, we should talk about your experiences, I feel, in law school because there's probably some, I don't know if media law was anything that you studied or interested in. I know nothing about this. But, you know, I'm very, you know, sociological, social psychological in terms of these things and how do they operate in our minds and how do they, you know, inform the way we understand what it means to live a life. But I can't speak to specific policy measures. I know you were talking about

YouTube being a place where you could monetize the podcast, whereas Facebook is not, is that one of your can like is that from from a someone who produces content for um what you're doing is is that a that's a a notable limitation of facebook or is that something yes for me so i did take um freedom of speech uh law and um communications law which was like media production um and the CRTC right all i hit Canadian heritage those types of topics and so what i've wrote kind of both papers on the freedom of speech paper was focused on the presuppositions of freedom of speech. And so why would we have that? And I think everybody just assumes that that's the correct thing to have, but they don't understand the underlying reasons as to why

that seems to function in a society because dictatorships don't have freedom of speech. China doesn't really have freedom of speech the same way we do. And so I tried to focus on that with the freedom of speech paper because I think that communication is important. But I I think podcasts are hopefully our future because they allow people to sift out the information. You get to hear body language, like you get to see body language if you're doing a video podcast. You get to hear the voice. You get to hear the tone. You can kind of gather the intent better than social media platforms.

So in the freedom of speech, I've talked about what are the presupposition. So to speak is to assume that somebody has something to say. To say something is to try and impact somebody's like viewpoints on things. It's to think, it's to seek truth, and to seek truth is, I think Facebook's doing a terrible job at getting their footing in terms of allowing for truth to out. And I think that there are things they could likely do with their algorithm to try and improve the quality in which we ascertain truth, because one of the comments I made from Chimath Palpatia, who was one of the executives of Facebook in its early stages. he's no longer involved in it but one of his comments was that Facebook confuses truth with popularity and I really like that because I think it is a reflection when I look at my social media feed that it's what's popular not about what's accurate and what's true and just going to journalism really

quickly I feel like journalism is becoming more and more about what's popular and not about what's true and that's that's alarming to me as well and so I tried to create this podcast which also has that element of truth to it because I'm trying to figure out what do you value, what do you believe in, what do you see, and what are you working towards? And is that something that others should emulate? And for the most part, I'm always trying to find those people that I do believe are worth emulating and worth following after because whatever they're pointing towards could have an impact on the community to benefit it. And that's constantly, and then switching over to the communications law, what I enjoyed about that was because it was much more practical. It was

about what's kind of going on right now with Canadian heritage, about Facebook and controlling social media, but my argument was that we should let go of these platforms to the best of our ability and try and move towards something where you get to have someone who's accountable. If I make a mistake on the podcast, people can hold me accountable and hold the guest accountable if need be, but that creates the environment where you can tune into all my episodes and kind to see what I'm thinking and then make a judgment based on that. If you think I'm wrong, I don't have an issue with that. But with Facebook, some random person can share something and then you like that post.

And that person isn't really held accountable for their position because it can be an anonymous account. It can be a provocateur. It can be all types of people that really have no specific accountability. Even when you see conservatives versus liberals on social media, neither side is truly holding the other side accountable. because it's all theatrics. Yeah, of course. It's not a real conversation where I think podcasts

create that environment for a real discussion and so in the communications paper I advocated for the CRTC to invest heavily in supporting startup podcasts as a contrast to supporting social media and raising awareness of them

and regulate the social media companies where appropriate, but leave podcasting is an open space for communication because I think it's hopefully the way of the future. Like I listen to biologists I listen to all types of different philosophers,

mathematicians, neuroscientists on podcasts. That's not really, you don't get the same quality when you're just on social media scrolling because your brain isn't even, like, I have Andrew Hubberman, who's a neuroscientist, who breaks down what you should be doing in terms of sleep, what do you do if you're chronically stressed, that are free remedies based on the neuroscience.

And I have him on social media, but I almost never, when I see his feed, I keep scrolling. And that's just an instinct with the platform, unfortunately, that is almost unconscious, because then I'll be like, oh, like, I love the following Andrew Huberman on Instagram. And then I never really tune in the same way as listening to a podcast. So those are kind of my positions on media and communication law. Yeah, I think, well, I couldn't agree with you more in terms of the importance of podcasts and having just an array of thinkers that you have the opportunity. to be exposed to and I think that's you know definitely something that we miss with social media

um you know it's we talk about social media it's often articulated as just a bunch of echo chambers or echo silos and I mean to a certain extent I I wouldn't disagree because you know you could make any egregious claim and go find some sort of information to support it, that confirmation bias is rife in society. So I think that, you know, we can, we can unpack this idea about, about truth and information, but, but you are, I would agree with you in terms of, you know, what is popular is deemed as though it is, you know, the, the truth, you could say. Yeah, I don't really know what else to say about social media.

It's, it's a big mess and I don't have the tools to fix it. but I think one of the things that you're doing here is this community-based podcast and, you know, reaching out to people within the community and this sort of bottom-up approach to these sorts of things, I think. Do you see the change for these? Because, I mean, big tech is a beast. And do you see the opportunities or the potential for change from the sort of bottom-up type of Yes, I think

And people might not like me saying this But I think Joe Rogan is a phenomenal example Of what's possible with the space Because he's a regular person Some people don't like what he says But the whole point of his podcast and his approach Is that he is a regular guy He is nothing special

He is just a normal person He does have a background in comedy And the UFC which is great But the idea of his podcast Is he's a regular person asking brilliant people questions And I think that that gets lost when you hear his opinions on COVID and stuff. Of course.

He is not a scientist and he's never claimed that he has this scientific rigor that you should go do his things. Now, the fact that people listen to him is a testament to people's willingness to follow, not a testament of him telling his followers to listen to what I'm saying and go enact it in the world. And so that's definitely a concern long term with my podcast is if I'm offering my ideas that doesn't mean they're correct and if people have better ideas come on the podcast and lay them out and I'd like to learn I'm not saying that I'm always going to be correct but having if you have a hundred people following you the odds that one of them is going to stupidly follow you on something stupid that you said that you shouldn't have said is very high and he has millions and

millions of followers I've met like Rebecca and I went on a ski trip and all of a sudden Joe Rogan came up and she was like yeah I listened to him all the time and it was like interesting i wouldn't have like who who do you expect listens to this guy and then i've met professors and i've met um very intelligent people who hold him in the highest regard because of this willingness to just have the honest conversation and to admit when you don't know something but to still try and find the truth in what they're saying because i've seen him grill some of his guests to a point where it's like this is a tense conversation but he's holding them accountable and i think the best example was candace owens where she is uh a conservative

and she was talking about climate change and how she hasn't seen the evidence for it and he was like, what evidence have you not seen to sport it? And just kept pushing and she had nothing. It was an empty statement based on being a conservative that she's been probably... It's a talking point that you say, but no, what scientific study pointed you in this direction?

She was like, well, I just was, I looked at the evidence and I wasn't convinced. And it's like, what does that mean? What evidence did you look at? And so that ability, I think, is what I try and bring to the podcast, but is also what makes it, honest endeavor because she got ripped apart in the comments section but by everybody who listened to

the podcast because it came across as very insincere. And so that's something that social media to me is missing. And so to that question, I think people like Joe Rogan, people like Andrew Hubberman, who's able to make a podcast on neuroscience, people like Brett Weinstein, who has, he's an evolutionary biologist. The fact that we're able to have that shows that we're moving in a better direction in terms of what's possible with something like podcasts in my view um yeah there's a lot there and uh first i totally agree with you um i i i i don't think i don't know it's tough to say but i feel like i wouldn't be who i am today probably without without that podcast um so yeah i will um what does that what does that mean because it's like you're hearing somebody else's

ideas on things what does that mean to be able to access that and that exactly an impact on you because it's i run into the same problem i hear a lot with um harry potter and the avengers and they're just movies and it's like but people decide how they're going to behave in the world based on these movies so it's not a trivial conversation same with people like joel rogan what does it mean that it impacts people in a sincere way yeah and well you know for me i think uh what it is um you know you say he's good at teasing out truth. I'd like to just put, you know, truth claims aside and say, you know, I think something that he does really well is he teases out intent and intention. And I think that he does that probably better than any interviewer I've seen where, I mean, any long form conversation

it becomes salient quite quickly what someone's intention is. And I think with him, you know, there's a conversation that's happening but there's also a conversation that's happening between the lines where you can really see how he's working an interview how he's working that podcast and where you because you listen to a podcast right any of these things and you know he has some brilliant intellectuals on there who probably outside of that podcast are particularly awkward people socially they might be you know um a lot of academics are and he speaks to the them in a way where you really feel like you get to know this person a lot of the like the professors that are on there you know you you probably wouldn't have that same experience sitting in one of their

lectures that you get in his podcast in the way that he speaks to them so i think that he really um teases out intent really well so i'm and you know what of course he he he says things that um are that can be entirely problematic um he holds himself accountable and again you know if if you're listening to this podcast, I think his podcast, I think you should know that he's not an expert on these things. So sometimes he may talk a little bit too much about particular types of things. But again, that's him. That's him being him. And so I'm not, I'm not one to to quickly dismiss him like a lot of people are because I think he's innovated this space and innovated um the art of conversation um in a way that i haven't seen otherwise perhaps you know

someone older than us might say well you know there was this guy in the 80s and he did exactly you know but um i wasn't there i don't know um so in my own life um that's he he he's been a particularly profound uh person for me i because again it's kind of like coming back to what you said earlier, I want to have access, or I want people to have access to this podcast that need mentors or need, you know, just, just want to hear a conversation or ideas. But speaking to myself, I would have never had access to neuroscience and other things that I became interested in if I hadn't been exposed to some researcher in a very niche little field. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. And that's part of what motivated me to do this.

was seeing others be able to take the space and utilize it, and those are, again, role models to set the example on how you could utilize a platform to communicate an important message that may not be reaching the community that could really use it because, as I said, I started from a community where there were no lawyers, there were no neuroscientists, there were no real people to look up to, and it was during my undergrad that I got to start listening to these conversations and going, wow, what could I bring?

And I listened to podcasts for four years before kind of seeing the space for this. And it was on a drive home right as the pandemic was about to, we were all about to lock down. I was like, you know what? Like I'm looking at the newspapers. I'm looking at the conversations. And I don't think we're having the ones that we should be. And I'm approaching it differently. I think that I want to hear from, it's very similar to his style because it is three hours long.

But it allows people to really get to know the person, share. vulnerable stories and hopefully allow people to consider, well, this person's a biologist, this person's a professor, this person's a lawyer, why can I be? And what makes this person different? And it's like, not that much. It's attainable if you're willing to put in the work. And it's only through good friends and supportive people that you're able to go and chase law school because the main reason I ended up going to law school was my friend Andrew Kim. And he just was like, hey, let's go catch up at Original Joe's. I just finished I'm getting ready to go to law school

and I was like oh let's tell me about it and he was the one who kind of walked me through what the LSATs were like what they were actually like not what other people wanted you to feel like they were and talk down to you about how oh I scored a 173 and that's that's unbelievable and you can't do that and like most people couldn't do that

so I'm pretty one of a kind aren't I and it's like okay maybe I won't go to law school and so he made it super accessible and that changed my whole future like now I'm almost done law school but it was through that one interaction and so that's my hope with this platform is that one person each podcast gets impacted that the social benefit will far outlast the the time i put aside for it would you um it you know speaking about your relationship it sounds to me like

you have you have a very supportive partner yes did was were you together when you started the podcast did she yes we've been together five years yesterday okay um So we met five years ago, and yes, when I brought her the idea for the podcast, it was a big investment. I budgeted everything out to figure out how much it was going to cost, and it was going to cost, like, close to $2,000 for all the equipment that I wanted to get, to get the studio set up the way I needed it to do. And I was a student. Of course. I would have been three months into law school at the time, four months into law school at the time. And so it was a big investment at a time where everything was.

shutting down and so it seemed probably a little bit crazy now looking back on it but she was completely behind me she saw what I was looking for because the year and a half prior to that I had told her I want somebody to look up to I want I need guidance I need someone to say that person's on the right track and I want to follow them and that's when I dove deep into podcast so I was driving back and forth between law school and home and listening to I don't know it's like three hours to school each morning because I was coming from Chilliwack to Vancouver each morning. So it was like, yeah, like 6.30 a.m. leave and then get to school at about 8.30-ish and then

listen to a podcast until class started at 9. And then back from like 1230 till 3. So I was listening to a ton of podcasts and really immersing myself and feeling like by the end of the day, I knew way more because I had done lectures and I had done podcasts before and after. So I was overwhelmed with information and I felt more competent than I had ever felt and more. sure of myself. And so her and I go for like a two-hour walk every night where we talk about family life, work life podcast, goals, long-term planning, all those types of things, whatever kind of arises. And that's when we were kind of talking about, well, who makes sense? What would it be called? And working through those things and trying to figure out what the mission would be

and how I would approach that. And listening, I don't know what kind of music you listen to, but I'm really into rap. And because for my, like, my top favorite rappers, they all talk about starting from poverty and finding a way to become successful. And then realizing that success isn't just monetary, it's making sure that their friends and family are taking care of as well. And so there's that level.

And I have, like, I have a whole playlist of songs that exactly repeat that mantra, that specifically go, terrible life, now I'm here, now I want to help my friends and family. And so those were my favorite songs. Those were my favorite podcasts. And then it was like, well, that's, that's the podcast. That's what you need to deliver to your community.

Plus, I had interacted with people like yourself, like Johnny, who really impacted me, but nobody else was aware of. And so to create an opportunity for them to have a platform to deliver their message and what they're all about. Because you can see people at like a place like GNC supplements who doesn't care versus a person like Johnny, who's incredibly passionate and will like refund all. of the stuff you just paid for if they don't make a difference and try and get you on to something that is going to make a difference. And so seeing those people day in and day out, willing to go the extra mile for people and yet never receive an ounce of recognition, people asking for discounts from him. Like, oh, why is it $50?

Why isn't it $45? And you're like, he just spent an hour teaching you everything he knows about a product. And you're trying to get $5 off. Like, is this for real? And so seeing people willing to put in that extra effort, like my, um, Principal at Alpine Legal Services, he was on the podcast and he was breaking down how even down to the pen, he was trying to make sure that the pen was dirty. So if a year down the road, you're using that pen, it's still as stable as it was the first day because he doesn't want you to have that taste in your mouth of, oh, this pen just fell apart in my hand. That mindset, I want to get out to people because there are people who are really serious about, because we talk a lot about small business, but we need to talk about the people within those roles and what they're trying to do for the community.

And so that's what motivated this. And my partner's been supportive from the very beginning about who I should have on, how I should approach things, how, because at one point in time I had a guest come on and somebody wrote that person a letter that absolutely eviscerated their character, how they approach things, what they've done for the community, who they are. And it was horrible. And so I knew I needed to make a response. And so trying to navigate all those things has been a real learning experience and I've relied on. her to kind of explain and help me see where my thoughts go wrong because one thing I came to a revelation about was a problem I have with podcast guests before they come on how they interact

and so I've had a few people I guess not know what I'm doing or what a podcast is so I reach out to them as well-intentioned as I can say what I think they're doing for the community and then the response I've kind of received is yeah maybe sure and then it's like okay we'll we'll schedule it for this day and then they were like i thought this was by zoom and it's like well i have like a document that says it's not by zoom i told you it's not by zoom so you didn't look into the podcast enough to know what's going on or ask the question prior and so i've had a tough time navigating that because there's still role models despite my personal frustration with how they approached one situation and so how do i like what role does that play and so um yeah the that's

Those are the types of things I run into. And did you have, did you, when you started law school, because, you know, coming back to this idea about passion and intent and all of these big topics that we're talking about, you know, you started the podcast at what was undoubtedly probably one of the most uncertain and difficult times in your life just starting law school, that's huge, you know. And to start a passion project, to start a podcast, this is what I'm going to do. you know you that internal compass that you have you you knew that you needed to do that um your golden snitch yeah coming back to that um did you have a community of people or do you have a community of people uh law school that are friends and and that that that cultivate that sort of thing i'm really curious to hear what that what that experience has been like growing your podcast growing your business while being a full-time law student and navigating that space i mean kudos so my i i i

I have a lot of frustrations. I have a lot of concerns about how the law school is what direction they're choosing to move in. Because I don't, they don't create the environment for good conversations about the good. And what a lot of students seem, from my perspective, get sucked into is the idea that you need to go work for a firm. Right. And so from beginning to end is how to go work for a firm. And my principal, Chanel Prasad, and I have had the opportunity to kind of discuss what a firm is. And just like how you talk about a toothbrush has certain things that it pulls out of you. Right. So does this whole idea of going and working for a law firm. And the idea that you go and become an associate and you work for other people and you do what they want you to do and you prioritize what they tell you to prioritize. removes the opportunity for you to see what else is out there but sometimes that's necessary

the issue that I have is that there's no incentive to go and figure out how to practice the law in your own best way and so the reason I can say that confidently is because I don't think that legal services effectively reach indigenous communities at all and if we were really trying to address these issues of access to justice I think that we would see

up-income entrepreneurs trying to fill these gaps that clearly so exist within the legal community, but this whole go work for a firm, go do what they tell you to do for five years, then maybe go take a risk, removes all the incentive to think outside the box and approach things in a way that you'd be passionate about, but there's a lot of financial risks and barriers that exist to starting your own firm, and then on top of that, there's not enough discussion about how to operate a firm effectively in order to be profitable. And I think university can have the same problem, which is go start a business, but what are all the fine details of starting a business that you're not going to be passionate about if you're starting

a bakery or starting, like what are the basics that you need, no matter what business it is, like marketing and like sales and stuff like that, that aren't as glamorous but are important to know. And so if I could have my impact on the law school, it would be how do we create legal entrepreneurs, people who are willing to go out and find the frontiers of law and push those ideas forward in communities, not in the institution, because that's where all the legal research and genius occurs is in the institution, but it never funnels its way back into people who could actually use legal services tomorrow. And I think that there could be a lot of technological advances in getting legal knowledge to communities if we were just able to take that. And so I don't,

I didn't find that with law school. I don't find that the community is very healthy. because all the students are pitted against each other when it comes to the firm. So it's not the law school's fault, but the law school advocates that you go and find a job with firm. And the firm advocates that you compete with your other colleagues to the best of your ability, which creates this non-cohesive supportive environment

from what I've seen. Now, there are amazing people I've met in the law school, but the norm isn't this idea of support. And one thing that the law school at Allard ran into was last year they were taking personal information of all the students like students were taking personal information of other students and creating a master list of all the people who breached COVID protocols and sending it to the law firms to exploit them and say well now you're not going to get a job because we proved that you broke

this rule you were out on the beach we have a photo of you not being socially distanced during this period and so i'm going to send that to your possible employer so they never hire you and so that's a bunch of narcs but that's what it's breeding that's what the whole culture is kind of all about and so I was very grateful when COVID came just in regards to not having to be in that environment because I found it not aligning with my values, which is also what helped motivate the podcast because it was like, I'd rather just network with people that I actually want to talk to. And the whole idea around networking with law firms is that you go out and drink and that you're hanging around these lawyers at a bar and you're playing these games. And none of that jumps out at me. I'm not that person. I don't want to do a trivia night with a bunch of people I don't really know.

I'd rather have this conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, yeah, that's fascinating. And I think I guess most professions have that sort of bureaucratic structuring that often gives us that yucky feeling. But with yours in particular, it's so pertinent to everything that it's, you know, I guess a little bit more pressing. But let's talk a little bit about you. So you're in your PhD now. Yeah.

What does that mean? What is a PhD for the listeners who don't know? And what is that like for you to be working towards? Yeah. So your PhD is just your doctorate. And if you're studying anything in the behavioral social sciences, it's usually, you know, your doctorate in philosophy and then your sub-discipline, whatever it is. And it's, how would you?

I guess like your PhD is kind of, you know, your, you're doing the thing, you know, you're there, but you don't have the sort of status or prestige yet, right? Because you have to essentially demonstrate your knowledge. So you do comprehensive exams in your field of expertise. And then you write a dissertation and then you defend your dissertation in front of a committee who you've chosen your committee and your committee helps you through your PhD and they help you work through everything. And then at the end, you're defending in front of a committee and, you know, you stand in a room and you, you give your magnum opus speech I guess about what it is that you've just researched for three or four

years and then you have your your doctorate and obviously there's a lot of speed bumps along the way you're teaching there's uh in academia there's obviously pressure to publish and that's something that you know I think there's a lot of you know I see many sort of uh parallel uh parallel themes that you experience in law school, that you see in academia where, you know, students are pitted against each other, or I guess law school is academia, but in, you know, social sciences. Students are pitted against one another. So there is this sort of, this, this, this pressure and this competitiveness. And one of the, the critiques that I've really had of the program and seeing, like, it's amazing. I love every step of the way. I love every speed bump. But I

think that is part of like I feel like I'm in there I'm doing my thing I feel like I'm just working on me and we can problematize the whole me me me thing but I feel like I'm just doing a bunch of things that I'm passionate about researching questions that I have and and and and just being given an opportunity to have experts comment on that so for me it's been great I see a lot of students who who have burnout or who don't they're they're really going through the motions and I know it can be tough and it's the same thing as you've said some people are just

they're doing it for the sake of doing it and I think that you really have to be invested in what it is you're researching I don't know if that really answers your question so what are you researching specifically right now what are you looking into for this PhD so first I'll say one of my

problems that my supervisor always tells me is Spencer stop floundering So I flounder a lot. So I have so many things I'm interested. And so I'm always needing to narrow my focus just specifically for my research. So now when I did my master's, it was about big data, media information, surveillance, these sorts of things. But I've really been interested in organizational behavior because that's that sort of relational aspect that I lost a little bit in my MA in terms of research where I studied more in my undergrad with social psychology. that relational aspect. I'm like, okay, so all these big principles that we're talking about,

these big sociological concepts, where can we start to see them at work and what's relevant for me to study? And organizational behavior for me is really interesting, are organizations more broadly. I'm studying the transformations of work and labor, digital work and labor, and I'm going to be looking at them specifically through after the pandemic. So how, how, How is organizational, how have organizations reorganized or what do they look like now after the pandemic? One of the things that we're going to see after this pandemic is the idea of a hybrid working environment, right? So, you know, three days, maybe you're going to be in the office, three days you're maybe going to be working from home. There's really no frame of reference for that.

There's no, there's not, I mean, I'm sure there's researchers out there doing that much farther along than I. I'm really interested in, okay, so what does that mean for the dynamics of the organization? What does that mean for relationships? What does that mean for community in the organization? So again, you could zoom out how might this post-COVID reorganization of work and labor impact communities differently? Is there fundamentally different conceptions that we might have about what it means to be a productive worker where people could be contributing to their communities and different ways that they've realized they might be able to through COVID. So, broadly speaking, it's the transformations, digital transformations of work and

labor through COVID is going to be my dissertation that I'm working towards. And then my substantive areas of study are, you know, work in organizations, the social psychology of self and selfhood and median information, those three things. So, you know, in a perfect world, I would, you know, teach classes in those three things. But yeah, so that's, that's my research. I don't know if that answers what you want to do. That definitely answers my question and I'm also curious

because now you're a professor what was that transition like and did you always kind of plan on doing being a professor and offering that? And what has that been like for you to teach other students to have been a student

and now to be sharing that information with others? It's a dream. I love it. You know, there's one of the things you know, I don't want to I don't want to, well, one of the things I often see with academia and, like, established academics, whatever that means, is this, like, this idea that teaching is less than, you know, like, if you're, you know, oh, you're teaching, did you not, do you not have enough funding dollars for your research? Why are you teaching? Like, there's this, like, and, and for me, having the mentors that I had in my undergrad, I'm always like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm passionate about these things. I can pace around and rant for two and a half hours.

Like, who wouldn't want to do that? So for me, it's been a dream. And I think there's really no, for me, there's not, maybe it's because I am still a PhD student, but there's really no difference. Well, I guess there is occupationally, but like, I think what makes me passionate or, you know, if I am good at my job, what would make me good at my job is that I have a passion for learning. So I always feel like I'm a student. You know what I mean?

I never, I'm never talking about things as though I have all of the answers. It's almost like, you know, hey, here's some things I'm really interested in. Here's how I look at them. Here's some other ways of looking at them with people who don't look at them the same way I do. What do we think about this? Let's talk. In a nutshell, that's kind of what I try and do. So I talk about topics that I think about.

And even if I'm teaching, you know, like an intro class that has a pre-exhaired. pretty structured. Like, you know, there's certain seminal pieces of work that you need to cover, you know, intro, different law classes that you took. You know, even if there are those things that I, that I have to do, I'm always contextualizing them in issues that I care about. You know, if we want to talk about centralized finance, sociologically, I'll, you know, start talking about Bitcoin or something that I'm, like, thinking about or interested in at the time and so I think for me that's that's what brings such joy to me and I and I hope that I convey that in my job because I just like I said I just pace around and rant about things

that I care about and you know if students are interested and they email me and there's been students who have you know cultivated their research interests in my classes and for me that's like that's the best thing when you when you when you when you when you when you see that you've inspired somebody or someone has an idea, something that they're thinking about and you help them cultivate that, you ask them questions and you get them thinking

about it and they go down this rabbit hole researching this thing and find out like, hey, I really want to explore this further. There's no better feeling to me than that. That's awesome. I'd like to know what classes you actually teach and then what is the gist of the topic because I do know

that we have some listeners who haven't gone to university and so just the term sociology, I'm sure they've heard it, but what are the courses you teach and what are kind of the basics that you're trying to pull out of them? So the first class that I teach is introduction to sociology, so SOC 101, and we basically, I cover all of the, you know, the seminal topics in the field. I look at what I do is I take each topic, so, you know, one week might be deviance, gender and sexuality, law, all of these broad topics, and then we look at them through

the three main sort of paradigms, which are fundamentally different ways of, you could look at the same social phenomena, but from a different theoretical perspective, and the detail that you're looking at is going to be completely different, right? If you're looking at crime from a critical race theory, it's going to look a lot different than, you know, a functionalist perspective who, you know, uh, so anyways. So 101 is, is, is, is that. So I guess and between the lines there, my goal for introduction to sociology is not to teach a topic, not to tell you what to think, but to, uh, it should be like introduction to critical thinking, I think. So, so ways of think, different ways of thinking about topics or what are the questions that we

might ask about these topics. So if there's, any takeaway from that course, it's how can we start thinking about issues differently and how can we recognize differences in these perspectives and what do we make of all this? So that's the goal for that class. I teach a second year class right now that's big data surveillance and society. So that's a lot of my own research interests into, you know, we talk about what is big data, what is platform capitalism, what is the attention economy, these sorts of topics. So again, it's thinking about these things with different perspectives I'll often pick readings where it might be confusing at first until the lecture comes because

there'll be two readings that'll be the same issue but we're talking like completely different perspectives on them right so it's what's you doing here so I try and do that a lot not to confuse anyone but just to say like you know we can look at these things differently based on what sort of theoretical aim we're taking I also teach a fourth year class with which is issues in the information society, which is essentially a lot of the same as the second year, but there's more expectations of the students by that point.

So whereas in the second year class, I'm really cultivating an orientation towards a research perspective or finding an area of interest, cultivating those questions. By the fourth year class, I shouldn't say I have an expectation that they have their research carved out, but a lot of them are thinking about the next steps after their degree, whether it's grad school or they're going to go into the workforce.

So I think that I take these topics and I cultivate their research to get them thinking about what the next step is going to be. So I guess the fourth year class is similar to the second, but with more of a professional development spin on it. And again, that's something that I learned from my mentors is like, how do these things translate? I don't just want to come into a classroom, talk about these topics. It's like, what can we actually go do?

How can we take this and go change something and go do something great? And then I also teach stats, and well, that's stats. And I love stats. So it's quantitative research statistics. So they're not taken, you know, their psych stats where they're punching it into the sharp calculator. But I think they all have to do that. But it's an applied stat. So they're working with the statistical software.

and we can take census data and they can look for relationships and we explain all the you know the different concepts of when we're looking at linear regression logistic regress all these mathematical concepts but rather than saying this is what they do we can be like okay we can take these formulas and just punch them into the computer and we can really make sense of some of this data so the stats is really just telling a story with numbers yeah okay so let's i really want to land on what is sociology in comparison to something like psychology because as I said I think that that will be valuable for people to understand and then what pulled you in the direction of sociology just as a broad field um that's a tough question I don't know if I have the answer of of what delineates or

demarcates the discipline uh in a succinct way but I think I find at least myself included when I was doing my undergrad a lot of people think they're interested in psychology and like the thing like yeah I'm I'm really interested in psychology but the sort of concepts or the things that they're interested in looking at are often more sociological so I guess I don't know I you know to me someone else might have a completely different answer than me but to me psychology seems to be more, you know, especially right now, there's a lot of, you know, there's a burgeoning field of neuroscience. So there's a lot more focus on the neuro, obviously, in psychology, cognition, in psychology. So these sorts of things where sociology or, you know, my interest in like social

interaction or symbolic interaction just straddles that line between sociological, we're looking at how society operates. What makes society tick? And what are the implications for the individual versus, I think a psychological perspective is more centered on individual level outcomes. It doesn't have to be, but what makes the individual tick in terms of cognitive neuro processes, interactional processes. So there's a lot of overlap, but I think the broad question we'd be looking at with sociology is what makes society tick. And then we can look at what the implications are for the individual. Whereas the other. And yeah, that's precisely what drew me to sociology.

I think, to be entirely honest, I think sociology is like the Swiss Army knife of the social sciences, because with a major in sociology, there's really, like the whole point, I think, of the field, at least at the undergraduate level, is being able to understand and contextualize social phenomena within the broader scheme of things, right? So what does that mean? That means understanding how individuals function relationally and what's the social context that makes that first necessitates that interaction but also produces the foundations for any function. So like I said, Swiss Army and if you have a sociology degree, like you should have like a critical

understanding of how things work. Because you're able to make the implicit explicit. Yeah, exactly. You said it much better than I. Yeah, and I'm actually going to steal that. Okay. Well, I just think that because having a background in criminology, which, as you said, is a subsection of sociology, which if you tell a criminal student, they're not going to like hearing that because we like to think for our own thing. But definitely what I see is an understanding of, like, what I loved about, I think criminology the most was environmental crime and crimes of opportunity because it was where the rubber hit the road in terms of how people actually behave. When you think of something like broken windows theory, which has just been talked about to death by unqualified people,

but the idea that you can see an environment and it looks like a good area for crime versus an area that does not seem set up to commit crimes, that idea. And seeing how out of the community of Chilliwack has kind of been developed because I look at playgrounds now and I'm like, in this playground, there's nowhere to hide. Like you can see that the slide is super far away from the other active playground. area so that there is no if the police show up they can see everything about the park and every spot on there and so i've seen that kind of occur interesting benches i've seen when you look at like a park bench now it's no longer just a flat across usually there's little stumps in between so you have spots to sit so somebody can't lay out across it right and so there's ways of preventing crime without having to talk about it um another good example is a lot of banks have people at the front

entrance who greet you. And the whole idea behind that is it removes the confidence from somebody who's going into commit a bank robbery if the person when they enter is overwhelmed with kindness and positivity. It makes it harder to commit the crime that they were planning on committing. And so I've seen working at Alpine Legal Services going into banks constantly, seeing that greeder there to kind of discourage crime. And so it's super interesting to see how many people are trying to do that and how stores have rearranged like shoppers drug mark to make it harder to steal from the makeup section because originally the makeup section was its own little cubicle and it was kind of private and now it's super out in the open and you have a person

standing there who can see where you're looking around and seeing those changes over time to try and address crime has been very interesting to me just to see the knowledge from the research finally end up in the practical business and seeing that movement over has given me a great respect for criminology specifically just because I get to see those changes and see a lot of great, like, we have a lot of concerns right now around police officers and what's going on with accountability, but I have to say, the education that a Canadian police officer gets in comparison to the United States is absolutely incomprehensible, and the students that at least I got to interact with, and the professors I got to interact with, I have a lot of

hope and confidence in local police officers and municipal police officers, because I get to see how they're taught and who they're trained by, and these are people with a sociological understanding, with the psychological understanding, with the humility towards what causes people to commit crimes, what historic backgrounds have contributed to people needing to commit crime. And that gives me a lot of confidence because there is a connection there that you can miss if you don't get the education, if you don't go and learn more about how the world kind of functions and making that implicit, explicit, and being able to say, this is what people are doing. And we can see that people are robbing banks without this person here.

And so when we put that person here, we saw a reduction. The other good example was if you ever are speeding and you have that speed radar that lets you know if you're doing 60 and it gives you a frowny face. They actually found that the frowny face causes you to slow down more than just telling your speed. Oh, really? So just knowing that you're going. Makes me speed up. The smiley face or the sad face? The sad face makes you speed up.

Well, you would be an outlier in that research because overall what they found was that a sad face plays more of a role than just knowing your speed. When you see it, you kind of want to max you. it out where they saw with the sad face it causes people to slow down because it's a it's a social reinforcement of we don't like what you're doing and so I really enjoy learning about other people's research areas because it gives you an insight on to what they see but there's also links between where the university impacts the society and that's what I think UFE could vocalize more if I could ask them to would be to get your professors on the front lines and tell the society what you're doing

that so greatly benefits our society and our communities. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think, you know, if I can just plug the community health and social innovation hub, I think that's something that they are doing there particularly well, because that's the whole idea of turning knowledge into action. And that's the mission statement of the hub, turning knowledge into action, given what we know, how do we go and make a difference in the community, and having researchers from all these different disciplines,

that come through the hub and bring their work through the hub it gives students an opportunity to become engaged in community research right students can start to see you know have the opportunities in their second and third in first year to have research assistantships right okay you know all these things that I'm learning I can do something with this right so and yeah it precisely what you said getting into the community getting on the front lines I think that's really important and I do think that's an area that uh ufee needs to uh continue to put more resources into because it's really it's a it's a profound opportunity that that institution has uh to make a difference in the

surrounding communities um and so uh you know if you're part of that institution i feel like you ought to be doing that exactly i really want to talk about statistics with you because i think that that is another area where everybody kind of goes oh i'm i'm in over my head now and i know a lot Like, I had to retake my stats course because I was one of those people who was like, well, I'm never going to be a statistician, so I'm going to do the bare minimum. And the second time I took it, I had much more of a humility towards the topic and a hunger to understand where I had gone wrong the first time because I think I got like a C and I needed a C plus in order to continue.

And so I had to retake it. But I decided to take it a little bit more seriously. And I had a great professor, I think, Professor Ken Lee, who's a statistic. professor at UFE and super energetic guy but can you tell us a little bit about what you see in statistics and just give us an understanding of the basics of statistics and for the listeners just yeah bear with me okay yeah so statistics is is not scary it is simply telling a story with numbers so I mean when I did my undergrad I did all my statistical training in the psych department so i also took my first stats class twice i won't name the professor but less than desirable

so i didn't really have any like i had the same thing i was like okay what's the grade that i need for my gpa or whatever like let's just focus on that but then when i took quantitative research methods so that was kind of your applied statistics you only really need to understand how the what the functions of the equations are, what is it, you know, if we wanted to take two groups of people and we wanted to compare, you know, you could do a clinical drug trial, for example, and you know, you're dosing group A with placebo and dosing group B with some sort of limitless drug or whatever, right? And you were testing reaction time. What is the average reaction time? And when you actually get into the research or get into quantitative stats, yes,

you need to know like the math and all that but but you don't in so far as like okay i know what sort of you know what test that i need to choose to to find um the difference between those two things and see if that difference is statistically significant so i think the whole idea of stats like i said is just telling stories with numbers um and i think that um yeah it's it's it's really underrated and it's something that feels yucky and feels intimidating to students or people that might just want to learn stats, but I think data literacy is something that we should all be paying attention to because part of the problem is that we don't make these tools accessible enough to everybody.

It has to be this, or needlessly is this esoteric sort of thing where you think of stats and you think of someone drawing on the chalkboard dust and you know, like in the underground lecture hall, but I think there's an importance in data literacy. So making these things accessible to everyone and being like, hey, you know, this isn't rocket science really. And you don't necessarily need a background in statistics to go out and find the information that you want to find to infer some sort of claim. Here's something for you that I have a question about. Do you think that it's not practiced or that people don't know that they're doing it when they're doing it because like one area that I think of is reviews when I'm

going to buy a product on Amazon and I see that it has five-star reviews right and it's got like 2,000 five-star review right right and 10 one-star reviews right right I go okay this is a good product yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but you don't think I'm going to apply my statistics understanding that more participants enjoyed the product than didn't enjoy the product right you don't think that when you're doing it but our whole whole society has become review driven. If your Netflix tells you it's an 89% match, you're like, I'll check it out or 100% match, you'll check it out.

If the YouTube video has more likes than dislikes, you're more likely to check it out. If your Amazon product has more positive reviews than negative, you're more likely to check it out. And so we're using our basic understanding of stats unknowingly. We're unaware that that's what we're doing when we're analyzing that. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, yeah, I would agree. And I think, I suppose, yeah, that's one way to make the implicit explicit. I think another thing is just, I see a lot of websites now that might have dashboards or like stats dashboards where they can might explain something or, you know, there's a graphic user interface that makes things a little bit more accessible because, you know, You know, perhaps it's not Amazon products or, you know, buying something or watching something on YouTube. But rather, you know, you might hear a piece of news information, right?

And this comes back to this whole idea about, you know, fake news and truth and post-truth and all of this, these big terms. But, you know, when you hear the numbers, we think, oh, yeah, you know, reputable source said something about these numbers. That that might be the case. But just, you know, it doesn't take very much learning. or there's not a lot required to just get the information that you need so that you can go look at those numbers and you can sort of find out what's the story with these numbers because you could have any sort of,

you could give a statistician any data set, right? And then tell them, this is the story I need you to tell with these numbers, they'll find a way to tell that story, right? So this idea about data literacy, I think, is really important, especially in what you we've just identified as a data-driven culture, right? We're, you know, a review-based culture, and it's, yeah. Yeah, I definitely experienced that.

I have one song quote that just came to mind as you were kind of commenting on that, which is I was trusting statistics more than I trusted me, and I think that that is one error that people can make when it comes to statistics. And I think that indigenous culture, again, has this issue, is that we're hearing about the over-representation of indigenous people in prisons. We're hearing about the over-representation. of murdered women and those are obviously issues

but we're not talking about perhaps what could be the future over-representation of brilliant indigenous people and like you can get locked into if you looked at all the statistics on an indigenous person living in downtown Chilliwack you wouldn't think that they would go

become a lawyer, podcaster, entrepreneur these things because if you look at the statistics there's no evidence to support that and so statistics I think are incredibly valuable to give us information, but there's only so much information they can give before you have to make your own personal decisions because I think these discussions of crime and who's committing it and who's overrepresented in what populations can become a narrative in and of itself that's very discouraging and that's my main concern with this focus on

the crimes against indigenous people and the historic horrible atrocities that have happened is that it It's not a narrative that young indigenous people can go, okay, well, watch me go become the best CEO, the best politician, the nicest person, the best leader, these ideas aren't within the statistics because we're looking at where the problems are. And I think that that's where statistics can be a tool, but it can be a bias tool in that what you're looking, kind of like what you said, what you're looking for can be found as long as that's what you're looking for. and it can not yield other results that are just as relevant. So it reproduces the systemic inequalities that it first identifies. Exactly. Yeah. Definitely a problem.

And perhaps that's, again, an area where, you know, speaking sociologically, we need to, again, contextualize the data. If we're talking about statistics or we're talking about, you know, the overrepresentation of a given population in any domain, the conversation can't just end there that's the thing so I think that's that's that's the whole community aspect that that you're really bringing here and that that you do really well is we could talk about these things but we're not talking about people as a number where the conversation doesn't end there so it's given this how do we how do we change that how do we pivot on this how do we how do we how do we shift towards inspiration so those are some of the things that I

I think I aspire to do in life. I don't have the answers, but... Fair enough. So let's get into the community hub then, because that seems to be where the most answers are going to be found. How did that come about, and how did you end up getting involved in that? From my understanding, it had been an idea for a long time. Excuse me.

It had been an idea for a long time. And then when I came and started teaching at UFV, Um, Martha, uh, she had just finished her tenure as department head and the sociology department. And so she was starting this thing up as the director of the hub. And, you know, we, uh, we went for lunch one day and she was saying, you know, this, this is the idea. This is, this is my idea for this. This is what this could look like. Um, are you interested in being a part of this?

I said, yeah, absolutely. Um, and so there was a few of us, uh, at the instance. of the hub and you know there's there's that was my first really experience even though it was a research center through a university it was it was very much analogous to starting a business because there were so many different things where I thought like oh yeah it's a research hub let's get in there do some research but there's all of these bureaucratic the paperwork type of stuff the naming the branding like everything that came along with that so that was that was really fun to to navigate and and also terrifying because, you know,

I didn't have experience with a lot of those things. And I don't think Martha did either. But anyways, so that's kind of how things went fast forward. We've been operating for over a year now and I can't even, I don't even, it's grown, it's grown so much that we have, we have a lot of research assistants working on various projects.

We have a lot of faculty associates working on various projects. And I was in on tariff for the previous year. So my commitment to the hub was remote. I guess everyone's was because of COVID. So I didn't have the same footing. I think in the last couple of semesters that I did at the beginning. So I can't name all of the projects going on. I'm working on two in particular right now. And they're through the Canadian Institute of Health Research. One is explored perceptions of COVID and COVID-aware with UFV students and looking at, you know, there were questions, it was a survey last year,

right at the beginning of the pandemic, where are they getting their information from, and, you know, what are their knowledge about COVID? It was really interesting because there was also focus groups, so there was qualitative research done there too. And the focus groups were almost a year later. So after participants had answered the survey, it was right at the beginning of the pandemic, there was almost a year of reflection and change where they were kind of talking about the about the pandemic so anyways that's an interesting project and then the other one i'm working on right now is looking at the impact COVID has had on temporary foreign workers in the Fraser valley

so that's just started and we're going to be interviewing temporary foreign workers and looking at the struggles and the barriers that they have faced with access to various resources et cetera. So those are the two projects I'm interested in that I'm working on. And then I'm also trying to cultivate some research around psychedelics and use in therapeutic settings. So that's super preliminary right now, but you can probably expect that somewhere in the near future. That's awesome. Going back to the first one, COVID changes. I think my favorite one to refer to, and I don't know if you were in Chilliwack at the time, but we hit a point where everybody was going outside

at like, I think, six or seven o'clock and jingling anything they could to show their support for health care workers. And we live, like, not even a block from the hospital. And so we'd have fire trucks and ambulances all drive by during the height of the pandemic to show support for health care workers. And that went on like a month and a half, maybe two months, every night, 7 p.m. consistently my mom would go outside and ring her bell and everybody in our apartment would go outside

and all do that at the same time and it was so it was so great to watch and then that faded away and this new energy came in of questions and challenges and frustrations and it definitely changed people's perspectives because during the beginning it really did feel like we were all in it together and then we had a point where that started to fade away and some people went ahead first into supporting all of the regulations, any regulations, and then others went the exact opposite direction. And I think that that's a temperamental issue, less than it's a, it proves anything. I think some people are more skeptical of government and some people are less skeptical

of government. And I think that that's important. Like, both sides are important. We need people who believe in democracy and that these are elected officials. And then we need people who have questions and are willing to challenge authority. And so I don't think there's a right. wrong there but that was my only frustration during the pandemic is seeing media news say we're not going to tell this story because we want everybody to listen and that's that freedom of speech issue

that I have where it's like what's important that we hear all perspectives because there might be a nugget of knowledge that we're not paying attention to that we're overlooking from both sides and so those are my only comments I think on the pandemic because I think most people are a little bit sick of hearing about all the perspectives that you can have on that yeah i mean myself included but isn't it interesting the thing how you said at the beginning it felt like we're all in it together and that sort of was either slowly or rapidly fractured i don't know um but that idea of like community and that idea of of like the strength and the bond that was there and then perhaps you can attribute it to the alienation or the, you know, isolation of people where that was,

that was slowly eroded and people began to question things. And I don't say question things as in like, you know, is this information correct? But I mean like existentially questioned things. I know I went through some periods last winter where I was locked in my apartment in Ontario because, I'm going to be honest, yes, it was brutal in BC, but y'all had it good here compared Ontario we were it was shut down man and uh so yeah I spent the isn't it still probably probably probably I'm here now um but um yeah I I was uh yeah I spent the better part of three four months uh in my apartment all my groceries delivered I'd run up and down the stairs every day for my my exercise and you know do my pushups in there and um yeah

I got weird it got weird like I and I'm someone that I'm pride myself and being like, oh, I don't get lonely. Like, you know, I love being alone, pace around, talk to myself. But no, I got weird. Um, so, uh, this winter definitely reminded me the importance of relationships and the importance of community and those bonds. And, uh, you know, how much those undergird all facets of daily life. And I think that, you know, uh, any work around COVID, I really want to, want to highlight that because hopefully after this, um, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm optimistic that we can be like, you know, realize how important community is and how important relationships are and, you know, how much those sorts of things were falling by the wayside

in the hustle and bustle of daily life. Yeah, that's one thing that shocked me is how many people didn't realize that isolation harms prisoners. People who have committed crimes. Like, we don't, like, that harms them. That is the worst thing you can do to a criminal is put them isolation and then we put a whole society in isolation in these small areas and like I don't I don't want to beat a drum but knowing that getting outside and getting that vitamin D was one of the ways you could protect yourself against COVID and knowing now that being outside was one of the best ways to protect yourself from getting COVID because it can't thrive outside it just seems really unfortunate that either we didn't have that knowledge or we didn't have that understanding

at the right time because I do think that we've, A, lost a lot of lives we don't know how many people have exactly committed suicide as a consequence of being locked indoors. And so there were consequences to making that decision. It wasn't the only option type of decision. It had its own set of

consequences and I think being able to appreciate that and hopefully come up with a better plan because we always talk about the plan after the pandemic occurs. We should make a plan and then the pandemic occurs and we're unprepared a second time and I think about that a lot with the earthquake that's expected to happen in

BC. We've all been expecting. The big one. The big one. We've been hearing about it since I was a little kid and eventually that's going to come and I think a lot of people are going to feel absolutely unprepared because even talking about being prepared with Mark Laund who was a professor at the University of Fraser Valley but is also the head of, I'm going to butcher his professional but risk management for Simon Fraser University. So he was the one having to kind of of navigate with his team the COVID-19 and how the university is going to respond and he was like you should have food ready you should have like a way of staying in your home in case an emergency happens and then COVID happened a few months later and it was like what a timely podcast but I bet

most people don't take action when you hear the big earthquake could happen how many people actually have a week worth of food yeah like are actually prepared in a real way so I guess those are my only comments on the pandemic but moving a little bit more forward what is you your involvement going to look like with the hub moving forward you mentioned this other research project but what else is going on um yeah so moving forward i continue so i guess the the the naming of community health and social innovation that's like a pretty broad thing right so depending on what sort of research areas people move in and out of the hub and bring to it community health might look a lot different to a lot of individuals and for me um

from my research background and what I do, precisely what you are doing is sort of my definition of what community health looks like, social relationships, social integration, solidarity. For me, that's community health. So any work that I do, I think, will be focusing on those relational aspects. You know, I'm not necessarily a health researcher. I could talk to you about, you know, whatever,

health is and relates to my field but for me it's you know bringing students in um getting students the opportunity to work on exciting projects and to cultivate their own interests and how they see themselves make a change in the community so um i don't know if that answers the question but for me the community health and my role of the community health and social innovation hub i think will always be one where i am cultivating inspiration and bringing people in and and connect connecting people to projects and working on projects that have an immediate impact in our community because yeah I overall I want to see people thrive I think that's the only thing if I could boil my life's work down or any sentiment or anything that I have is I just want to see human beings thrive everybody thrive so at the end of the day that's all that matters well I really appreciate that because talking about temporary foreign workers I think is a really interesting topic because it is something that I don't

think we talk about enough or maybe at all in comparison to all the issues that we talk about temporary foreign workers are people that I see on a regular basis living in Chilliwack I see them biking I see them arriving on site to the agriculture that they're going to be working on I see them work incredibly hard I've seen them when I worked at um blue notes that's yes blue notes the store clothing store and I would see them go there and buy a bunch of clothing and I if I had to suspect I would guess that they're either buying that clothing for themselves or to send back to their family and I've I've seen them at various points working hard in our communities without any gratitude and then when you hear about the tragedies of them their living conditions at points

their financial income um that they're being underpaid mistreated um I think I've heard some stories of like trafficking of of humans and stuff like that. And so it's something that I learned a lot about in academics, but not a lot about in the community. And it's not something that I feel like we discuss. And I'm not sure why that is. Yeah. I don't have the answer to that question.

And that is something that I will be researching in the coming years. It's a lengthy project. So I hope to uncover some of those issues. issues, I hope to, because we're speaking directly to individuals, right? So, you know, and there's also, you know, there's, with research there's always, you know, we have to be ethical, right? So, you know, we, I never want to, well, can't put research participants in a situation where they would reveal information that may harm them.

So I don't know, I don't know what any of that is going to look like or looks like. But I agree, I think, that we don't have enough conversations about temporary foreign workers, particularly in, like, their impact on our economy. And it's, it's, it's, yeah. Well, and like being role models themselves. Exactly, yeah. Because if you were from whatever country they end up coming from and you're saying, I'm going to move to this country.

I'm going to live at, we have one spot along Yale Road. It's out a little bit of a ways. But it's one location where I know that temporary foreign workers live. It's a very small little type of motel. And they moved to these places. They go shopping for their family. And they're trying to give their family back home a better life. And to me, that is a role model.

And it's something where it's like we don't talk about these people news. Like you came all this way and you work 12 hour days and you sacrifice everything. And then you send your stuff back to your family so that they can be financially comfortable and hope. And you hope to bring those people to Canada one day or bring that quality of life from Canada back to your community. Like that's so positive. And we couldn't talk about them or seemingly care about them less not based on what we say. but through our actions. I don't know of any nonprofit organizations

that I'm aware of that specifically try and support and make sure that temporary foreign workers are doing well. I don't know about any of those services. So when you brought that to me, that's really interesting to really think about their circumstance, coming to a new country,

working hard every single day, getting there typically on a bike, and then going home with very little gratitude or recognition from the community. Yeah. absolutely yeah that's just interesting to think about different people because I'd like to have firefighters on and police officers but it's also those people who you don't think of when

you think of a role model when you when you're trying to come up with what that looks like that spider man that that typical person trying to find those people who might not jump out as role models just because of your circumstance yeah and those are often the best ones are the role models that you need to hear from too right exactly so can we talk a little bit about your relationship and how you met your partner and how that's all come about. Yeah, absolutely. We met, we've been together for four and a half years, I think, over four years. We met during our undergrad. So she studied communications as well as sociology. And we had, again, coming back to this topic of community, our undergrad cohort, we had like a group of probably 10 of us that

were super tight we hung out all the time you know went for drinks all the time it was um from what i hear it was it was unique to to to you know have that community so we had that we were both you know so i guess the same the same sort of friend group um and uh we just always got on really well like we are uh we're like great friends and so i think that um my relationship um my partner Sarah she's someone who inspires me she she she works in environmental protection and she has this deep desire to cultivate a sustainable lifestyle and sustainable environments and so she has this like I don't know how to get too foo foo here but she has this very earth energy where it's just like it's it's it's I think it's one of the most purest forms of love that I think that you can find

And she's the closest thing I've ever seen to a truly selfless human being. Like she just gives and gives and gives and gives. So anyways, it's impossible not to love her. So, yeah, she's great. I wouldn't be who I am today without her in my corner. She's, yeah, she's supported me on all of my ambitions. And I support her on hers. And, you know, most of our relationship has actually been long distance.

I was about to ask, what has that been like? So, you know, it's interesting because because of that, we both develop our own, you know, our own particularities in our life. So whenever we cohabit, when I'm back, it's always, there's always an adjustment period where it's like we, we both have our things that we do and our, you know, our rituals. Yeah, exactly. So at first, it's always like this and then and then it smooths out and it's great. But yeah, most of our relationship has been long distance. And I think for us, it's, you know, for a lot of people, it might not work. But for us, I think it's been beneficial because we've found ways to grow our relationship in deeper and more meaningful ways.

I think you get to know the person differently than I think you would when you are just with them all the time. So, yeah, it's been very healthy for us. You know, people are always like, oh, man, long-distance relationship, that must suck, that must be hard. And yeah, of course, it's not awesome. It has its moments. But in that, we find ways to grow together. And I think that really comes from us inspiring each other to grow as individuals. So I constantly feel like I'm inspired by her and she makes me, you know, just, yeah, better, I guess.

I don't know how else to put it. Yeah, how did you approach that? Because my partner, Rebecca and I were apart, I had to go do this law program out in Saskatchewan for two months. And it was the worst two months ever. Because being apart, we have been so consistent every day, hours and hours together. Like, I'm lucky enough to do a lot of my work from home now.

And so we both work from home. So we have the pleasure of being around each other all the time. So circumstance like yours seems difficult. But when I was in Saskatchewan, it was like, there was dedicated time making sure that we were doing a FaceTime or a phone call. We'd watch TV shows together and try and find ways to just enjoy the same things, even though we were far apart. And luckily, like, Saskatchewan has nothing else to do. So it was perfect to be able to just spend time. Like, I didn't feel obligated to go out or be somewhere.

I was able to just do that. So what was that like for you? Because you've got research going on. You've got school going on. You're doing all these different things. how do you how do you manage that's a tornado man uh i can't say that like you know i i manage it because i think uh a lot of the time a lot of my uh existential angst that i might feel comes from feeling like i don't have a grasp on all of the things but um it uh it it it works out

and in so far like speaking specifically to the relationship um i when we started dating i um you know i had no intentions of being in a relationship and she didn't either i was already like I had already accepted my offer for grad school I knew I was leaving right and so we just started hanging out all the time and it just like we click and and so we just kept it going you know what I mean so obviously when before I was leaving we had more difficult discussions about you know is this you know is this what we want is this going to work and then we just said well like we don't know let's go for it and see what happens and then you know four years later four and a half years later here we are and uh everything is great so yeah i

think we had some of those things to um you know we would plan calls i usually call in the evening or whatever um but yeah other than that um i think that's one of the things about my relationship that we work really well as sarah's very she's able to go with the flow in a very productive kind of way like she has this like this flow this energy about her where she can navigate things with so much grace and just like if you know whatever comes her way in terms of difficulties or struggles it's just like she she rolls with the punches and it's it's really admirable whereas I'm someone you know I struggle with that I'm neurotic I have my my outlook is scheduled down to the 30 minutes every day like I am like this so I think that

it's a it's a great contrast where she can draw that out of me times when I need to be more mindful I need to be more present she really reminds me of those sorts of things inspires me to be like that because otherwise I'm just yeah I'm just yeah I'm intense yeah I feel the exact same way I have this going on the podcast work and I'm very much like I'm still working Saturday Sunday on something whether it's this or something else and um Rebecca is very good at just being like let's go for a drive let's go for a walk let's get out let's not do anything and not focus on anything no podcasts no because that was a bad habit I was getting into it for a while which was just all the time, like, if I'm not learning, because at a certain point, I was like, okay, so I can listen to podcasts and learn things, how much more can I learn than the average person if I'm listening to all the podcasts? So I was hitting, like, I ran out of, I was re-listening to old podcasts with like biologists and philosophers and stuff and just trying to collect all of it because I was like, well, this is my point of differentiation. And so how big could I make that point of different?

to the point where I don't think you can consume that much information. You need to be, take a little bit, really think about it and absorb it. And so I was struggling with that. And she was one of the people who was like, it's really good to listen to podcasts. And learning is great. But if you're doing it all the time, you're not absorbing it. You're just constantly eating and never really digesting and getting the information. That's a good analogy.

Yeah. And so that's something that she's really helped me with because she wants to talk about what we learned. And I've gotten into, I got into a bad habit of listening to a whole three-hour podcast, not saying a word and finishing it and then moving on to the next one where she'd be like, let's pause it. Let's talk about what does that mean? How does that apply to Chilliwack? Where does that take place? And so I've been really grateful to have someone who's willing to hit the pause button because there is an opportunity to reinterpret information and ask questions about how that applies here in the Fraser Valley and stuff. And so I definitely agree with you that I can get into that. Just go, go, go, go. Next task. task and really miss out on what there is to learn and offer people yeah yeah yeah that's my biggest problem man i still i still i still i still struggle with that where i'm just like it's just information information and and uh yeah i think i think that's something that i will you know i i don't ever know if i'll find an equilibrium where i'm where everything it's like i there's there's always going to be like okay i need to work on this okay i need to you know so

because there's like you're you're pulling between two sides and the middle is constantly moving because your interactions with people are constantly changing until there isn't like if you were only in one spot dealing the same day to day like in the office then it would be different than moving back and forth so what's your plan with that are you are you going to finish your PhD in the next two years then never go back to Ontario or how is that going to work um well I wouldn't say I would never go back um because um you know I I definitely have a life in Ontario I have like friends and people I consider family family in Ontario now too like that I love and so I don't always want to see them but

BC's home yeah so so my my my my intention you know if everything went as I would like it to go which can never always happen but yeah after my PhD I would I would definitely reside here and you know I think I'm particularly happy now residing in the Fraser Valley I love Chilliwack and I don't know if you experienced this but I know when I was younger, you know, there was always this desire like, oh, I got to get out of Chilliwack. You know, like I'm going to move to Vancouver. Like there was always this, this angst where we had to, you know, get out of here kind of thing. And, you know, I went and worked away for a while before I did my undergrad.

But it wasn't until I was living in Ontario where I really come to love and respect the Fraser Valley and love and respect Chilac. And I think the biggest component of that was just realizing in my own personal growth that, you know, like I wasn't running a, I didn't want to run away from Chilac all those years. I was running away from myself. So as we grow, become adults, et cetera, whatever that means, you know, we can talk about that. But, you know, as we live, love and grow and all those things, you realize that like, oh, you know, it wasn't this geographical location that I had some contention with. It was this profound existential dilemma that I might have had and I don't know. So yeah, so I love it here. So I'd like to be back here.

Yeah, I definitely felt that growing up in downtown because, as I mentioned before, I grew up only downtown, only seeing downtown. And we didn't have like money for buses to Coltis or Harrison or all these places. So it was concrete downtown. That's all I know. And downtown was not the greatest place when I was growing up. It was not the safest place. It wasn't the most secure place.

I had seen robberies gone on. I've seen, I've had a knife held to my throat. So, like, there was a lot of negative stuff going on in the downtown. But then once I got a car, that freedom allowed me to see places like hill keep, places like the Fraser Valley Trail, like different areas that are calm, enjoyable places to be, no matter who you are, no matter what age you are. If I had to have gotten to see this growing up, I might have had a different attitude. But being stuck in one location for so long made me so eager to go and become a hot shot somewhere else. and that feeling of I need to get the heck out of here

but I don't really I don't know if I It's not that I'm against the term Chilliwack It's just that I don't think it encompasses The beauty of the Fraser Valley Like I like the term Fraser Valley better Just because to me it incorporates Like Bridal Falls

Coltis Lake It incorporates all the different areas Throughout the Fraser Valley that I love Saying Chilliwack It almost seems too narrow Because it doesn't include all those other different areas that are just as important to me. It incorporates a life rather than a location.

Yeah, but moving forward, you mentioned like, let's talk about what an adult is. I'd actually like your thoughts on that because to me, I've really, I hear the term like, oh, like adulting as if it's like some sort of, oh, it's cringe. Yeah, thing to avoid. And for me, growing up, not having a whole lot, knowing that like food was scarce at points and having that struggle, I took on that responsibility at an early age to try and make sure that we had food in the house and have that security. And so that opportunity was almost more of a gift to me because it meant we had food in the

house, because it meant we had security, it meant we had comfort and stability, which is something to me growing up that I lacked. And so I really feel bad for people who have that attitude of like, I have to adult or I adulted today and I acted like grown up because it's such a gift for other people like I don't know if you get to experience this a lot but when Rebecca is going to be kind of managing my Patreon

account and that's such a gift to me because I really do my best with the podcast but it does hit a point where by the time we're done recording and I'm done editing the video and the audio and getting the bio and putting all these pieces together I'm done and I'm ready to

just say thank you for coming on this was great and put the nail in the coffin and move on but the Patreon and the advertising and the marketing side of things is so important but by the time I'm done I'm like I've heard the podcast seven times now I know what the story

is I don't want to talk about it anymore and so when somebody's able to fill that role and take on the responsibility that I could be shouldering and when people do that for you it's such a gift to make it sound so inconvenient like adulting

like paying the bills for your family or making sure those things are taking care of. I know a few people who pay the bills for their parents and I've been in the same circumstance. And so to me, that's a gift to see them not stress about that anymore. Yeah. To have that peace of mind that somebody's taking care of you in a way that makes a difference and like having a parent be able to pay for tuition or those adult things that you could look at and be like, it's another, it's another bill that I have to pay.

You could look at it like that. But it's really somebody's relying on you and creating the space for you to lead the way for them. And that's something that I feel like is missing from what it means to start as a university student and then end your bachelor's degree, hopefully, as more of an adult. Because now you're writing the paper, not because the professor told you to write the paper, but because you're interested in writing the paper. And you're interested in learning more, not because you have to learn more, but because you could actually bring that to your community and say, hey boss, I just took this marketing course and I learned about marketing this. And so I think we could approach this differently and this might make you more money. And that's that energy that I feel is like a lacking from this idea of growing up and becoming an adult.

What are your thoughts? Yeah, I think. Because you grew up on a farm. Yeah. That's some of the hardest work where you get no appreciation really at all. That's true. It's funny because, you know, it was you know really growing up there was always i always felt like it was almost like

a stigma like oh my dad's a farmer you know what i mean there was like this cultural sort of like oh you know farmer um and the older i get the the the more i realized how much of that sort of societal projection of class status values um how problematic that that can be and you know i I don't think there's anyone that I look up to probably more than my father. And when I was younger, one of my only goals was to, you know, I don't want to work as hard as my dad. And, you know, now I think I do, but in different ways. But yeah, I just, I think that I learned so many good values growing up on a farm. And, you know, it wasn't the farm.

I think it was, you know, my dad leading by example, right? you look at a farm and um i don't know how many animals they have on the dairy farm but you know there there there was all of these things that needed to be done every day and there was nobody that you know there was no one my dad could call there was no you know there was like it it it was the most radical form of responsibility that i have ever seen right because you know um all of these animals are dependent on you um providing for them and um you know um cultivating the land in a way that produces food um so it was um yeah it's it's farming is is is a radical form of responsibility and uh boy do i respect it now so that that was that was definitely my

childhood, but I don't think that I really, I don't think that I really learned of those lessons or appreciated that until probably this point in my life. Which is really weird, right? Because if you were growing up right now, I feel like the farmer energy is actually really positive right now. To be a farmer in right now society is super positive and you're a pillar in the community. But I agree when I was growing up, the farmer person, the child of the farmer was not considered the coolest or the neatest person, but yet that's one of the most necessary jobs in our community is the farmer. And so for you to grow up with that lack of respect being put on to your family and

like what that impact is for the community is so unfortunate. I'm glad to see the tide shifting a bit because I do see a lot of local farmers really getting a brand out there and really getting like I'm hoping to have bright side eggs on. Okay. And they're right along Evans Road and they're getting a lot of publicity for their work. But they're fourth generational farmers. And I'm sure they've seen those waves of love for the farm and dislike for the farm kind of change over time. Yeah.

And so what was that? Can you tell me a little bit more about your father? Yeah. I mean, my family farm is, I believe he's third generation running the farm. And he's him and his brother, my uncle, run the farm. and, I don't know, there's, my father, he's, he's, he's, he's, you're very, like, archetypical stoic male, right? Like, you couldn't paint him more, like he's a farmer, he's the, you know, the embodiment

of that, but nevertheless, very kind and nurturing, uh, in his own way. And, you know, again, both of my parents, I think, um, the older I get, the more I appreciate their parenting and the way that they parented me when I was young because I just see the ways that both of my parents cultivated, you know, passion and just the way that they wanted to see not just me, but everyone succeed. So I think the one thing that my parents really instilled in me was this idea of kindness and love and just help. helping and giving back because both of my parents are just selfless, selfless individuals. And, you know, yeah, I grew up on a farm, but by all means, I had a very privileged upbringing.

You know, I don't think I had societal disadvantages. But nevertheless, my parents still taught me the value of hard work, but more importantly, love and kindness and how to foster that. That's awesome. Just by being them. That's awesome because I think that that is one lens I really am interested in is the hard work mentality because that's something I didn't really do hard labor jobs through most of my life. What type of farm was it for your dad? Dairy farm.

Dairy farm. So yeah. So, yeah, it's a dairy farm. And I can't speak to the logistics of farming too accurately because I don't know the ins and the outs. But I did work on the farm growing up. And I can remember, you know, like, you know, wanting to buy something when I was a kid or something and I didn't have the money to. And my parents, it was like I had to go out and work for it. So I'd wake up with my dad at 3 a.m. and go out and do the farm work.

And so at an early age, I learned about these, I guess, I guess these values, these societal values that we have about hard work and opportunity. And we can, of course, unpack that much further. but yeah what was the initial question your dad and his impact in how yeah so yeah i think that he's had a i don't know there's so much about my dad that i think i still i don't really know because anytime i'd go out somewhere with my dad or go out in public right he seems to know everybody in town right so there's this this network of farmers and and the generation before us who they all know each other and have some context or understanding and of what the Fraser Valley was 30 years ago.

So I think that's, uh, I think that's, um, really important. But yeah, I think, I think both of my parents were just, we're just mentors and leaders just by virtue of who they are and, and the values that they instilled, um, implicitly, rather than explicitly. You know, there's a lot of my friends now, I'm sure a lot of your friends now are having kids and, you know, and doing that and there's a lot of talk about, you know, certain things that you'll let your kids do and won't do and like these these explicit sort of guidebooks for parenting um and my parents just by virtue of who they were just sort of like i don't

know i can't really explain it but you know um but that's a real leader somebody who doesn't have to say is a real leader because they're leading through example rather than stressing about whether or not you pick up on because i definitely had that with my uncle who um in one circumstance uh there were these people who almost hit us with the car and he just kind of like banged on their trunk as they were driving by because they didn't seem to care that they almost hit us and their reactions kind of like oh like we shouldn't have done that and like their reactions changed and he didn't really explain that moment to me in that moment but what I took from that is like you stand up for yourself but you don't push it you don't look for the fight you just say that what you did wasn't okay and putting your foot down and so those

moments where it's like you learn a lot but you learn it five years later being in a similar circumstance and going, well, that's how they approached it, and that was kind of perfect. And so I think that that's so important. And that's part of what the podcast is about is you say who you are and then people see themselves through what you said. And then that's where that willingness to emulate comes through. And I don't know if I've ever elaborated on the idea of emulating others, but it's something that's instinctual to human beings. Yeah, absolutely. But we don't talk about it. And we don't say it. But there's an instinct that everybody has to emulate and it's who are you going to emulate? Are you going to

emulate the drug dealer or are you going to emulate the leader of the community? And how do we move people away from that? Because I was approached by a kid downtown, the person who held the knife to my throat was trying to bring me into his gang and was trying to recruit me to hang out with his friends and start taking lessons from how he lives life. And I was like 12 or 13 at the time. So I didn't have this good understanding. But I knew that this is not a person. that I looked up to, that I believed in, that I had confidence in, and then I looked at other people in the community. I was like, I do like these people. The problem for me was, how do I have a three-hour conversation with them? How do I take the time to actually get to know them?

Because, like, even when professors say, come to office hours. It's like, it doesn't say, come to office hours just for a great conversation and just to tell me what you're seeing in the material, and it's just so we can get to know each other so I can see how my material's landing on the students. Like, that's not what's said. And so most students that I know have never gone to office hours, we'll never go to office hours, and that relationship is never built. So I'm curious as to what it's been like for you as a professor, because everybody who's listening, he's got a five to five stars on rate my professor. So he hasn't looked at it, but he's doing very well on there. So what has that been like for you to kind of build those relationships with students?

Yeah, it's fantastic. It's the best. And I think that those office hours and that sort of dialogue, I think, is one of the spaces that most or the learning occurs, right, when you can actually engage. And, you know, we have the opportunity to do that at UFB where we can talk to people like in a class environment, really engage in that same way. but you're asking specifically about that sort of informal dialogue, the office. Just building relationships with students as a whole. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing in academia. And the first space where I really got to do that was a teaching assistant at Queens.

So you do that as part of your grad school. It's both a professional development and sort of, you know, dare I say, exploitive labor on their end, right? because they're getting your resources. But nevertheless, you get to, you know, that was my first opportunity where I, where I had students that I was accountable to or I had students that I would, you know, answer questions, et cetera. So I got to build those relationships and, you know, in grad school as a teaching assistant,

the dynamics a little bit different because, you know, you're also a student and they, they see you as a student as well. So I think that that mentorship role is a little bit easier to cultivate there because you're already in a position where you're not like, you know, a professor or an instructor. You're also a student. And they see that you're a student. You're doing the thing too. So I think they can identify with your identity a little bit easier. And so I've made many great friends that way.

And then when you're teaching, it's a little bit different role. And I think that the one thing I try and show students is, you know, like, you know, I'm, I'm a student too. I'm just learning. And I still am a student quite literally. But, you know, I'm just learning these things and I'm conveying ideas that I'm passionate about. And I think that's where the relationships occur. And that's where it's, you know, I always tell my students or let them know how much I learn from them too. And that was one of the biggest things that I learned going there is every semester, each class is a very unique sort of, very unique environment.

It's lightning in a bottle, but I learn from my students every semester, probably more than they learn from me, if I'm entirely honest. So that's really important. And I think that's where those relationships develop. So I always want to cultivate passion in whatever way that that looks like for the students' research interests. So that's just what I try to do. And if, you know, I'll get heartwarming emails or messages after a semester. And it's great. That is good because that's one thing that I think most people who don't end up going to university often think is the elitism that can occur in a university.

That feeling of, I'm here to tell you things you don't know. And so you just shut up and I'll tell you everything you need to know and it seems like you and Martha are very aware of that mentality and work hard to avoid it. Is that where you learned that from specifically her or where did you kind of develop this willingness not to bring? Because you're getting the credentials. You can have that. Yeah. That's a good question. Definitely. I think she modeled that. But I think just being, you know, my relationship. relationships that I have with my friends and just the interest that I have and the mentors that I've I've picked up and had along the way, they were always just genuinely and authentically themselves. And, you know, I think you can really sniff out that sort of moral grandstanding or that, you know, that academic sort of elitism. And it feels really yucky. So at the end of the day, like, all I have in my work is just a reflection of who I am. So I always just want to embody the sort of ideals that I'm espousing. And that is just, you know, I guess humility and, and, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe it's just a passion to always learn. So I always feel like I'm a student.

So I, there's never a time when I feel as though, like, you know, I'm trained in an area of expertise and I can convey some information. But I never, I never really feel like, like, elite or professional. so to speak, because I'm always surrounding myself with information or with people where I'm learning. So I think by default, I'm always in a position where I'm looking up rather than looking down. So if others look up to me, that's great. And I think that that's just perhaps the reason they do is because they see that I'm looking up to others as well. So I never spend any time looking down on people. I'm always looking up.

Yeah, I really hope that UFE can work to work. towards continuing to raise awareness of the great professors like yourself who have that mindset because that's what I think the disconnect is between high school students going to university and feeling lost at university is because there isn't that sense of like who is at UFVU who I can go connect with and have a positive relationship with and just the whole idea that there's a room you can go to that's the inclusion room is just like it's silly to me because all the professors should be the inclusion space of like having the conversation and learning more and I think that that's what can easily get lost at scale is when you're dealing with

thousands and thousands of students every year turning them out is that that individual relationship that are going to be created that are going to have the largest impact on the students and where they go in the future and so if it if we're talking statistics and it's 52% elitism and 48% not elitism you can run into a pathologized system and so I think it's important that we raise awareness of the individuals, the individual professors who are working so hard to deliver the knowledge in order to make sure that the individuals going to school to get the education are actually receiving the benefits they would need in order to either take foot in the university or bring that knowledge back to the community because it's one or the

other. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, to unpack too, any sort of elitist mindset is like, what is elite? What's solely? Like, everyone, is moving through life and learning and trying to figure things out, it doesn't matter where you are in your crew, so I don't, it's tough for me to don't even understand where that sort of, well, I understand where it comes from because I see it in academia, but, um, but what motivates it, what it creates. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, a lot of the time, it's a very thinly veiled mechanism of ego protection. Uh, as though it seems like, you know, the elitist mindset. But yeah, um, I think, um, um, I think, um, um,

it's easy to to to for I guess a university to get lost in the business model of and we saw that with the states that's what I guess terrifies me is I see a lot of Canadian universities following the footsteps of the American universities right who have already like John height who's a professor at UFE who is in criminology we him and I talked about how if you go to the states right now as a professor you're being paid terribly you have no job security yeah and And because the administration has the foothold in the universities. And so the administration don't have to stress about job or pay or prestige. But if you're a professor with no name, no name recognition, then you're really at the bottom of the hierarchy in terms of keeping your job and holding on to it. And I really don't want that to happen to us here in B.C. And so I'd like to see more podcasts, more YouTube channels, more Patreon channels, where professors are getting. to the community and creating students who say, I'm not, I'm going to go to UFE. I'm going to go to UFE and learn from.

And then that's what I'd like to see the change occur. Exactly. That's something I often romanticize. And I think there's been people in the field who are critical of me of that. But I don't care. I think that's one of the affordances of COVID that I think might be a unique. turning point in terms of okay if let's just say like a bunch of online classes what differentiates these classes what differentiates you know class a here from class B at

there traditionally what the name of the institution presumably right but I think that that sort of transfer transfer of the content to the instructors or the people teaching the classes I think is important so on one hand we could problemize that we could say yeah It responsibilities instructors in a way that they are obligated to view their classes as content or create content or put out content. And then on the other hand, you could also argue well, there's a unique opportunity here where you have an opportunity, like, there's an opportunity to stand out. And what is it about your class that's special and like draw students in? so you know like at ufee we have an opportunity to take or we had an opportunity when we did our undergrad to take you know oh i'm interested in this i'm going to go take this well how cool is it

that there's access to these instructors um outside of the class where you can you know almost feel like okay i can get to know this person a little bit or get to see what they're about before i take their class and then you're really taking their class to experience like you said learning in this environment or taking this class with this individual because when you go away to grad school that's what you're doing you know what i mean it's not just taking classes you're specifically going to study under people with the assumption that they will be your mentor and that they will be conducive to your learning and thriving um sometimes that's not always the case but that that's the you know that's the model there so i think you know we need to work to do to do that and cultivate that here

And that's where I think mentors such as Martha and Catherine and Darren Blakeborough in our department have done that really well where they are, you know, they do things and they are accessible. And you can see their work in action. So then you're like, yeah, I want to take a class with that person. Exactly. And I don't exactly know what, because I talk to John Hight and Zina Lee because to me, rate my professors is a great resource because it can be used negatively by people with. complaints and but I think that users in a university setting are able to differentiate between somebody who's complaining about they made me read the textbook like versus um I didn't like this learning style they didn't adapt it like I've heard and I'm sure you've heard of certain professors

who have their way of doing things and if you don't like it then you're done and good luck trying to survive this course and that should that should be stamped out by the university like I don't Rate my professor seems like such a great resource for professors. I can see where the hesitation would be of like, well, I don't want to be judged unnecessarily or insulted unnecessarily. But at the same time, you're getting information on what you could be doing better and how you could be doing your job better. And both UFB and many of the professors I've spoken to are both like, I don't touch rate my professors. And just as an outsider, it's like, well, I read the comment section of my posts. I read the comment section of everything I do. And yeah, some of them aren't always great. and some of them are just nonsense, but some of them actually help me do better, and if I'm actively avoiding that, then I can't do better. And perhaps what I'm saying or how I'm saying something

could be putting 20% of the listeners off. I should know about that in order to improve that. And just changing the bios, like why is the bio just about what you're researching, like how many people actually care about that specific aspect of who you are? It's a very good point. Versus I went to university because I want to improve my community. Like that one sentence is going to mean more to some people than all the accolades and all the papers you've been published in and that type of stuff.

So I really hope that we can find like an app or a tool that can have that more holistic view. And I do think that rate my professors is trying to find like they give you keywords to click now so that you have to say less. So it has to be less original content and you get to choose the statements that most fit what your viewpoints are. And so it removes some of the visceral statements that might come out if you're just wrapping up a class and you're like, oh, I just can't stand this idiot. And I think it removes.

So I do think that they're trying to improve the platform in order to reduce the amount of nonsense, vicious comments that are made. And I like the rating system because it's very similar to like Uber in the States and that ability to see, well, my driver has a five-star rating. So I can be pretty confident that this is a good course. And Rebecca's used it.

And every time she's gotten somebody with like a three star or more has always been a great professor. And the people who don't. So I think that the evidence is starting to show clear that all of my cohort used the platform, got the professors they wanted, got the benefits. And for the professors who aren't looking at that, it's like, why aren't you getting more people in your classroom? Gotcha. Why not go check out this resource? So I hope that there's an area that UFB can find where there are more people. personal stories about who you are. And I hope I can help with that because doing this with,

I think I've had four professors on so far, continuing to do this and raise awareness of the great people and all the different areas that exist versus criminology versus sociology versus all these different fields. I think opens the door to what are people interested in. And so I hope that I can contribute to that. But I think you and Martha are contributing to that because the more stories that are told about the great talent we have at UFE, the more encouragement people have to not go straight to UBC, because I don't know if you experienced this, but all the people who thought they were big shots when I was at Dairy Queen were trying to go to UBC, not UFB because of the prestige,

not because of the professors, because UBC has a name recognition that UFB doesn't have. Did you experience that at all? Yeah, absolutely, and especially, because I had, again, I was the first one in my family to go to university. I had no, like, I didn't have the, the, the, the, the habitat, of the university student down, right? Like, I didn't really understand, you know, the institutional elitism, et cetera.

And when I went to grad school, Queens, well, it plays in that game. So I went there and, you know, I remember the first day everyone in the cohort introduces themselves. And, you know, everyone in my cohort was like, you know, I graduated from McGill with this, this and this. And, you know, I published this. I went to UBC, I did this, that like, it was all that U of T, right? And so I was like, oh, so I'm from this little school in the Fraser Valley and it was awesome and this is what I'm interested in. But then as things progressed, I really realized the tremendous advantage that I had

having went there because I had mentors that I engaged with. I had relationships that I built. Like I had relationships with my professors that I built in my undergrad. And when I went away to grad school, all those things just served me. both in terms of the experience of how to navigate those spaces, but also I had this whole group of people who just wanted to see me succeed, and they were invested. They were invested in my education.

They were invested not just in my education, but more importantly in my path, like in my passions. And, you know, a lot of my cohort didn't have that. And that's not to say that they didn't succeed. They're all doing great things. but I think that advantage that I had became quite salient quite quickly where it was like, hey, I have all these people who are in my corner and I can call and email or whatever and that just want to see me thrive, whereas a lot of my cohort had never even actually

spoken to their professor before, yet they had, you know, tremendous accolades on paper. So yeah, I definitely, I definitely experienced that and that's one thing. I always say to my classes right away, hey, you have a huge advantage here. This is a special spot and I will stand by that forever. As for the ratings, perhaps it's, you know, they need to introduce something to, because when you're a sessional instructor like I am, there's a probationary period. So every one of your classes that you have every semester, someone comes around with the survey and then the comments thing where people write their comments and I read all those and to a certain extent my job was contingent on those

and so I've finished that now but I think now it's like random which classes get evaluated I don't really know how that works administratively but something that I'd like to do is just implement my own like feedback thing in my classes and I'm going to start doing that this semester where I pass something out where students can can fill something out and I don't want them to feel pressured or like they have to

And that's a good way where I can, I think, adjust to things I could be doing differently because, you know, I don't necessarily want to, like, you know, it's great to be told that you're great or whatever. We all love that. But I want to hear from students, hey, like, what are some areas, like, what would you have liked to see in this class? And I think it's more, it's more powerful, or at least for me, it's more beneficial to do that in the class environment because then they can explicate those concerns in relation. to the content and the environment that we've sort of captured because every class is its own unique story. So I'm going to be doing that at the end of this summer semester where I hand out something. But like I said, I think students that are really interested, I hear back from them.

You know, I keep my relationships with them. And I'll hear like, hey, you know, I think it would have been really beneficial for me if we would have maybe looked at this differently or if you or if you would have included um for this topic if you would have included specific case studies where we could apply these two and so i always take those things and incorporate them in and in this last semester actually i've uh i've stolen martha's learning contract that she does i was quite averse to doing that at first i was like what's a learning contract i'll tell you what a learning contract is so basically the student designs their own um it's it's a portion of their grade

so in my fourth year class I think it's 15% of their grade and in my second year class is 10% of my grade and they submit a proposal you can do whatever you want for that 10% I did offer some

you know like I know Martha's class is like there's some really interesting things that have been turned in I did say to my class like hey like I don't know how I would really evaluate you know like an interpretive dance like so maybe don't do that

But if that's what you really want to do and you can tell me about that, then, you know, yes, absolutely. And chances are if a student's really passionate and that's what they wanted to do, I'm probably going to get an A anyways, like on the assignment. But yeah, it's been, it's my first time doing it. And I've already got some assignments coming in where students have recorded podcasts. And they've just done really neat and artistic things. And I'm really glad that I did it. So I think it's something that I will definitely continue to use. So it's basically, here's a percent of your grade.

What do you want to do? Like, what do you see yourself doing? And for some students, it's daunting. I hated them when I did my undergrad. Even being an artistic person, I was like, I just chose to write a paper for the learning contract. And then in hindsight, I'm like, oh, I wish I made some music. I wish I recorded a podcast or did something.

But I never did. But I wish that I did. So I want to just give that opportunity. And I always tell the story, hey, I hated that. these when I did my undergrad but I regretted not doing something fun and exciting um so yeah so I'm getting some great assignments and I think that's been I think that's been awesome that's that's awesome because I really think that the an opportunity for a student to actually just have that one-on-one time with you is going to make such a difference yeah because it's we don't we don't talk a lot about

how much how little time we give people yeah I think they talk about at some points like the average amount of time like a parent spends with their child in a day is like 15 minutes or something a dismal and it's usually rushed and not calm and so that really good quality time I think is lacking and why I love podcasts so much is because we get to just sit here there's no rush there's no I've got a meeting in 20 minutes and so I got to get out of here and so it calms the conversation down and it creates the space for us to go different places with it and I think that that's when I was a student that's something I felt like I couldn't have with the professor if I went into office hours. It was like, sorry, I just have a really quick question about this.

And then they'd answer the question. I'd go, thank you very much. Have a good day. And then I'd send a follow-up email. Thank you for answering my question. Have a good day. Bye. And there wasn't that relationship built that I think can make such a difference for students to figure out and get their grounding on where they want to go. The other question I wanted to ask you about is beyond nutrition. Because you have a background there. And you've kind of gotten to see what that store can do for people. So I'm just interested. How did you meet Johnny, who's been a past guess and how did that all come about? Yeah. So when I first met Johnny, he's, I think he's a year older than me or two years

older than me. So he was, he was like we're almost the same age. And so I was like, I was always interested in the business and watching what he was doing. And as you know, you always have great conversations with Johnny. So I'd go in there and we'd do the same thing as you. We chat about life and all of these existential dilemmas that we might face. And you know you find yourself in there for a couple hours and it was uh at the time i think it it was after high school and i was working in construction doing these sorts of things i was just about to start um my undergrad um so i would have just finished working in the oil patch uh at that point so it came back i was just going to start my undergrad and i'd already had a relationship with johnny and

so um one thing led to another and i started working out the shop with him and uh it was at the old location and then we moved to the vetter location and i was really interested in in health and nutrition and the directives um or sorry the the sort of mission statement that was beyond nutrition because it wasn't about sports supplements or you know buying creatine and getting nuts jacked and all that stuff it was it was more about a holistic lifestyle but more importantly it was it was building relationships building a community that was the first opportunity i think I had in Chilliwack or in the Fraser Valley to start building those relationships and to see community because, you know, clients would come in and, you know, at the end of the day,

they were coming in for, they were looking for a specific product. But, you know, you got to know their stories and you saw, you know, a lot of the time what clients were also seeking, you know, in terms of what is it that you're looking for. And I think that that's something important in customer service that, you know, having an understanding of people come in, they're looking for a product, but what is it that they're looking for, right? And you build that relationship and you, and you see that. And it's awesome that in Johnny's case, he's built a business around, hey, the products are also something that are going to improve people's lives and make you healthier and feel better. But you can also cultivate that underlying. So what is it that you are looking

for in life and um yeah johnny's just a selfless character he's a beautiful human being um so yeah so that was i i worked there for i don't know how long i was there a couple years i think um while i was doing my undergrad and um built some incredible relationships and i think that's where i you know started that that that that that that role of just like talking to people understanding people and and and i don't want to say helping because it sounds like you know like i'm helping someone but but fostering people's ambitions and fostering people's passions. And, yeah, I think that was the first place where I really had community engagement doing that. So, yeah, it was a privilege to be there.

Yeah, I have never heard anyone say anything bad about Johnny. But you also just think about what people open up to you. Because I worked at the store too. Yeah. Of what people are willing to admit to you that they're struggling with, whether it's constipation or an inability to keep food down or just different struggles, acne problems, all types of issues where admitting it to your parents or your friends or these people, you can't do it, but you walk into this store, this building, and everything opens up.

Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's interesting. You learn some intimate details about people, right, and engage with them based on your knowledge of their intimate details of their life that they come in to work through. So, yeah, it's pretty special. Yeah, it's pretty special. I definitely, I'm interested in what products you use because I love the cannabis sativa seed oil. I put that in my smoothies because it's got omega's 3, 6, and 9, and I think MCT oil in it and stuff. I also take the Lyons main coffee, the focus fuel, I think. I always like taking that when I'm, like, doing school projects and stuff.

And then I take magnesium because I take way too much caffeine. So I need the magnesium. to offset it. It's good. I've always had restless legs. I don't really have restless legs anymore because I got onto the magnesium. Is there anything you still take there? Yeah, absolutely.

So I've always struggled with gut health. And now, I mean, like, other than the certain dietary incorporations that needed to be made to regulate that, I've realized, you know, how much of my gut health has been just being a stressed out, nervous, anxiety-ridden individual, right? That's most of it. But yeah, as far as supplements go, so I'm on the probiotic train. Like I pump the probiotics. I take a basic protein.

I'm able to digest a weigh isolate, so that's okay. But I do really like the vegan proteins that are there. And then as far as supplements go, I do B12, 5,000 micrograms of B12 in the morning, five to seven thousand units of vitamin D in the morning. and then that's all I take so B12 D I should be taking just a general multivitamin so but I don't but I should and I will probably after I had this conversation and then at night I take 100 milligrams of zinc 10,000 milligrams I don't know if it's milligrams or units of biotin magnesium I don't know how much because it's in a powder form so one scoop of that so the zinc

magnesium, biotin, and then I take saw pulmonetto for prostate health in the evening. And that's it, really. I think that's plenty. And I think that that's a good insight into something I don't think we talk about outside of beyond nutrition enough, which is, are you trying to take care of your body in the less of the way possible? Because I'm sure for you as well, I'm trying to make sure that my body is not the thing slowing me down.

Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I've struggled with that in the past. I think you remember when I was. way overweight and when I first started coming into the store that's kind of when you and I first met and so being on that path and trying to be healthy is also about what you need to incorporate into your food and I think for a long time supplements were like a a waste of money type of people viewed it as like a oh you're just buying like high quality like urine like you're not doing

anything like that was the approach but I think now we're moving into this understanding that vitamin D is really good for boosting your energy and getting your hormone levels on and making sure that you don't get certain viruses and stuff like that and helping protect yourself. And so it's really, I'm glad to be able to talk to you about that because some guests don't have that background. And so any chance I have to kind of talk about personal health. And because some people, I'm sure you saw,

don't take their vitamins even though they buy it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And taking care of yourself, those basics. Yeah, yeah. Just to be a good person, to me, I need to make sure that my body's taking care of with a good night's sleep with the necessary vitamins to succeed. And I think that that's something we don't always talk about enough

is what helps you succeed. So how do you approach sleep and stuff like that? Oh, sleep, sleep, sleep hygiene. That's a big one that I've learned. What's his name? The researcher at Berkeley, the Why We Sleep. He wrote the book, Why We Sleep. Yes, Matthew Walker.

Matthew Walker, yeah, yeah. So I've never felt worse about myself than after listening to the Rogan's podcast with Matthew Walker. did a really good job because pretty much at that time everything he said was like you know this is bad like don't be doing that like I was oh yeah oh yeah that's me that's me so I was like okay we need to address sleep so we'll come to sleep but um yeah so in terms of personal health I do really take care of myself or at least I like to think that I do um growing up um I was really overweight as a teenager so I had like a dramatic weight loss phase and grade 10 or 11 and I don't think it was the healthiest because it was just like excessive cardio and probably under eating so then you know fast forward to now I probably did a lot of hormonal damage if I'm being entirely honest I'm not sure but fast forward to now I'm really um really um stringent on you know holistic nutrition um and trying to just um eat as much

natural foods as I can my partner is like my partner is the the healthiest person I've ever met in my life like she is and not you know regimen she she really gives me a hard time when I'm tracking things or putting things into my fitness pal because she's like just like this is what it is just eat it um but she all of her ingredients she she she only buys local like she's everything's organic so she's um yeah I didn't even she's kind of the guy lighting light in terms of food and dietary what comes in what comes into the house i've learned so much from her supplementation um obviously being with johnny and and learning from beyond i've i've kind of picked those things up along the years and sleeping uh is is one thing i think i'm

i'm really good now i i get eight to eight and a half hours um i'm not one of those people that can function on on like you know there's rare anomalies that can function on four hours of sleep. And I'm sure when, uh, throughout law school or during your undergrad, you've had a couple of those benders. I know I've had, you know, I've abused my body with, you know, vendors, um, both academic and not. Um, but, uh, I think that I'm, uh, past that now. Um, so yeah, sleep is really important to me. I, I, I notice for mood regulation, like a good night's sleep. I, I just, I need that in order to accomplish the things that I have in my day because so much of my day relies on me being on in terms of interaction and being, you know, cognizant and engaging critically.

So I need to be well rested. So yeah, I don't know that's, I train at any time fitness. I really like the gym there. I also have a nice workout space at home, but, you know, I don't want to, there's a great community at any time. I think there's a lot of important relationships that I have there, but I don't want I've pumped the business too much because I think Kyle Murphy has the best. He is a community leader and I think Murph's Gym is probably one of the best spots. If you're looking to get

into the fitness space or you're looking to improve your life, I think like Murph's Gym has a community of people who really understand community and cultivate that. So, you know, I love my gym, but, you know, if you're looking for for gym memberships, go to go to Murphs. awesome well we just did three hours wow okay so thank you so much for coming on and being willing to share your experiences and your education and your impact on students and hopefully the community with the chazy hub because i think that it'll be really interesting to see what comes out of that and i hope that when you publish more research and when you have new news that you're able to come back on i would love to i would love to thank you very much thank you very much

Thank you.