Nuanced. - 29. Nina Púlemiya Zetchus: Owner of Luna Float & Indigenous Leader

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Nina Zetchus is a wife, mother, owner of Luna Float, Account Manager II at Vancity. Nina is on the Board of Directors for Sto:lo Business Association and Moytelexw formerly Sts'ailes Development Corporation. She is also a Lending Committee Member for Sto:lo Community Futures. Luna Float is Chilliwack’s first and only Float Therapy Wellness Centre, conveniently located in the heart of Garrison Village. Float Therapy, or simply "Floating", is based on a scientific approach to deep relaxation called Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique or R.E.S.T. for short. People float for many many different reasons, including stress and anxiety relief, relaxation, meditation, enhanced healing and recovery, pain management, creative exploration, introspection and mental conditioning.In this conversation, Aaron and Nina discuss Indigenous culture, financial literacy, small businesses, Vancity, Luna Float, her relationship and becoming a mother.VIDEO INTERVIEW: https://youtu.be/vs-gu2h2RyA Luna Float:https://www.lunafloat.ca/about.htmlSend us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Nina, it has been a long time to try and get you on. I've been very excited to have you on because I think that you are an incredible role model for our community. And I'm hoping that we can start from the very beginning and talk a little bit about your background, your family lineage, and move forward. And towards the end, we'll get towards how Luna Float came about and your involvement with Van City. So can you tell us a little bit about the beginning? Yeah, for sure. So, yeah, it's kind of funny. It's a story. We had talked about me being part of Van City or working at Van City for just over 10 years. And then I left for about four years to pursue my dream of opening Lunal Float in that four years. I got married. I had a baby. Just had that whole pandemic thing happen. And I'm actually back at Van City part time as well. So surprise. But, I'm Chilawak, born and raised. I also graduated from UFB.

Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. Tell us about your family and your background, your connections with Stahelis and all of that. Sure, so yeah, like I said, Chilok born and raised, my dad graduated from Saras, my mom from Chilawak, but on my mom's side, she's originally from Stalas. She and her six, well, so she was born off-reserve. actually just recently kind of came to light that her mom, my grandma, it was non-indigenous,

and her dad, my grandpa, was from Seylus and is indigenous. And some of her siblings were born in Seyalus on reserve, but they were still doing like there was day school and like, and my grandma basically saw what was happening and move them off reserve, which was the whole thing. And, yeah, so they grew up mostly in Lake Arock, but still with connections. But, yeah, and then eventually moved to Chilawak. So that's where my family's from me. My mom's maiden names Leon, and just, yeah, really close ties still.

My aunt and uncle, caretaker bed and breakfast, Sasquatch Ecologge owned by St.Alas. So, yeah, anytime I get a chance to go there, I do. Or visit the community in general. I used to play soccer, and we'd go play there, play on the island and all sorts of stuff. Stahilis is like a very unique community, though, because it is one of the largest leaders, I think, on the West Coast of indigenous communities, really working towards being self-sufficient, developing their community in a way that they want, partnering with different communities. So what is that like to see that growth? because I think that it is, it stands out amongst the rest in leadership and in pushing

forward because when I was a native court worker, I had the pleasure of meeting with Ralph Leon, I believe, Jr. and talking to him about what their goals are for justice and some of their other projects. And I think that they're really setting a strong example. So what has that experience been like to be able to work with them? Right. So just recently I accepted a position sitting on the board for they call it Moitluck, but it was previously known as the DevCorp, right? The Economic Development Corporation, Forsta A-LIS, which has been a huge honor to even be considered. And I just, like I said, I love any opportunity to go back into the community and on, like, it's interesting to be able to, I don't know, you're staying on a board, sometimes it can be very

bureaucratic and it's, or business, right? But there's something like just healing as well and like calming about it and just being around certain people in the community, but this Monday, I have a board meeting, and we're actually, it's going to be at the bed and breakfast at South Scotch Eco Lodge, and I'm excited because they make delicious food, and then we're actually finishing the meeting. We're going out on doing a boat tour. I'm not sure who's doing it, probably Kelsey or Willie Charlie, and it's going to be a cultural tour around Harrison, so just a huge opportunity. But, yeah, to answer your question, Like, I wish I knew more of all the amazing stuff that they're doing, because I know that they are doing stuff.

A highlight, I think, is, I don't know if we had talked about this before, but their work in the community of, like, bringing back youth especially, who have been, who are in the system and have been removed from their culture. And I know Willie Charlie, in particular, had a lot to do with that of bringing youth back into Sealis and, you know, you know, people that were working with the youth were like, oh, like, they're not interested in that. And, like, it's probably, like, maybe they were, like, hesitant or didn't think there'd be as many benefits as there were, like, were. But the proof was kind of there. And, yeah, it's just, I feel like, you know, kind of our ways have been ignored or kind of steamrolled for so long. And it's like, no, like, there's something to it. And people should be listening and learning and looking for different ways to do things.

That's awesome. Can you tell us a little bit about the history of Stahelis? I mean, I probably can't tell you as much as other people can. I mean, for me, my traditional or ancestral name is Palaimia, and that is derived from my great-grandfather, Ed Leon, Sr. And from what I understand about him, he, unfortunately, he passed away five years before I was born, 1980 and but I I love hearing stories about him Kelsey Charlie had spent a lot of time with him and I know he wrote a book well he didn't write it but he told it and someone else wrote it for him because he didn't write and it was called well he wrote a couple but Mr. Bear and the Baby was my

favorite and you can buy it to sell a gift shop um shameless plug but so he had two traditional names And I'm learning more as I get older, but so his, my guess his more common name was actually from Suwali, and it was Shulimuk, and his second name was Pullum Quinn. So Pullum is where I got my name from. And the E, like the I-Y-A at the end, is just kind of like a feminine form. to let people know that the name belongs to a female. And, yeah, it was kind of interesting because, obviously, St. Ailis and the, like, surrounding communities, we speak calcabalum, or traditionally. And Polam, Quinn, was actually from Lillwatt, like, from Lillowet.

So I'm still learning, actually. Like, I had the naming ceremony when I was 18 years old, and I'm 30, oh, am I 36 now? And, no, I'm 35. And I'll be 36 soon. And, yeah, just to recently find out that I thought my name was Hulk Gamelum, and it's potentially not. It's, yeah, from Lulowet. Wow, that's amazing.

And I think that naming ceremonies are often, like, not as acknowledged by other people because we don't have the opportunity to kind of share both of our names. And I think that you're doing a really good job of tying that in to your LinkedIn page and to really trying to get the word out. Because I think that it, those are those connections that help people understand where you're from and what your background is. And I think that another interesting aspect about Stahilis is the connection with, I guess, what we would call Sasquatch. Because they're one of the original people who kind of discovered it and had like ancient stories about it. Yeah. And I feel like the Mr. Bear and the baby story, it doesn't talk about Sasquatch, but it's, and so again, my grandpa, a great grandpa.

funny guy. He was really good at trapping and he told stories. He just seemed like such a character and he was very independent and free and he kind of just did what he wanted, but he also was very instrumental in keeping the language and potlatches alive when it was illegal. And so I think he was a bit of a rebel. And for me, I mean, it's been a journey. I'm very fortunate it that even though my mom was born off the reserve, she had, you know, I think there was a lot of racism, obviously there was growing up, and there's that identity piece that's probably taken from her to a degree. But again, because she kept a lot of ties and connections to her family, it wasn't like fully lost. But I, and then when we were in school, she actually went back

and she became like a teacher's assistant with kind of like the indigenous lens so she was a first nation's teacher's assistant and that put her in connection with more like teachers and like knowledge keepers and so she had a lot of like learnings through that

which I'm super grateful for and I mean growing up in Chilliwack I had I felt you know I was far from that family and st A-LIS but such a welcoming, connected people. And so I had cousins who were also from the Jimmy Reserve,

so then all the jimmies were just like, well, we're cousins now. And I'm like, okay. And it just felt connected. But growing up, like, looking at me, people wouldn't assume maybe I was First Nations, which opens up a whole other kind of weird, I don't know, like opportunity for people to be racist in front of you because they don't know that they're going to offend you. And not that that's better.

I obviously have like a lot of privilege behind that as well. But as I got older, you know, I play soccer and then I would get questioned, prove that you're a native, right? And I was like, okay, well, that's my mom, that's my cousin. You know, and so that was something I grew up with was feeling, I don't know, kind of like scared to be myself or not knowing what that was and not, you know, knowing where I belong. and you know what's my place and stuff like that and it's ironic because again working at van city of all places helped me kind of rediscover that connection i was planning a um an executive retreat and i was i was always been proud of my communities to alist and so i reached out to them and i was like could we could we do something like that i know there's like a lot of storytellers

I know there's so much culture and it's a beautiful space. And again, any excuses should be out there. And so we did it. And it just was so reaffirming that this is where I belong. And again, I keep on saying Willie, Charlie and Kelsey Charlie. It was the Charlie Longhouse where we had our naming ceremony. And he just said, like he talked about my lineage. And like, they're just so amazing to listen to them to speak and to have someone

know so much about your your family and their history and to also just include you in that and that like this is like he basically said like this is your birthright you but like you belong here and i needed to hear that because i mean i felt it but i don't know i also i guess had doubts as well right and so yeah that was really just again really good medicine and um i knew i wanted to do something more along the line like just I wanted any excuse to go back into the community and be a part of it in any way I can so in kind of a roundabout way I mean now I'm on the the more intellect board which is awesome and we're still learning more and sitting back and watching and learning contributing however I can but

yeah and then I think I guess not necessarily directly to my community but But Stalo, in general, I've sat on the Stala Community Futures Lending Committee, part of the Stalo Business Association. Yeah, just wanting to... Can you tell us more about what that struggle was like between the two communities? Because I think that that's something that is a deep problem. Indigenous people have. My mom had it because she was part of the 60 scoop,

so she was taken in by this Caucasian family. That ended up helping a fair bit. but then she always felt this disconnect between both communities, Chihuahawthal and her Caucasian family because she didn't feel like she was 100% in either camp and she still struggles with that today. And I think that that is one area where the disconnect from culture is important for people to understand because it's like you have one foot in both camps and you don't feel fully accepted by either and having somebody just be able to say, hey, like you're accepted here. is your family. You have a right to be here. Nobody can take this away from you is something that I think

helps people to feel more comfortable and not acceptance of being brought onto boards and being brought back into the community makes it a big difference for people. So can you tell us about some of those struggles at certain points where maybe you wanted to reach out and you didn't know how or you didn't know how to reconnect with the culture in the right way or any of those types of stories? Yeah, I mean, I can't speak to on behalf of my mom, but I know that I could know that she would be able to relate with that, I'm sure, especially going to, like, high school and stuff like that, where, I mean, she graduated in the 70s, and now she still is in the school system teaching, and there's books that they still, unfortunately, use now that they're so old, and

it's, like, just, it's racist, it's bad, it's bad, like, they shouldn't be having these books in there. Yeah, just the way they're describing them in this, like, kind of like anthropology way of like oh yes the local indian is you know they have coarse features and small hands like it was just weird and like these are books that are still in the like the system like now and you know she yeah i feel like probably didn't feel like she like fit in in either way but she's a strong confident woman and and she's very resilient and amazing but um yeah so i think I maybe fed off of that or just her confidence and yeah and then again having family just support you and and let you know that you belong but um I think it's the hardest part

is now like not like not that it's popular to be indigenous but it's people are a little bit more hungry for that knowledge and they just assume now like okay like the steps of me um it felt like not knowing necessarily where I fit in um and then people accepting that oh okay so you are you are indigenous you are first nations and you have family and stahilis but what does that mean or they just assume especially as my role in like solo business association that now I know everything about indigenous culture and first nations culture and um like I must be you fluent in the language and they kind of put those on you when it's like no we're still very much like the learnings that people have are it's a privilege to learn about our culture and

sometimes you know non-indigenous people who have who've done the work which is really awesome but then they just assume that every indigenous person knows the same thing and it's like no like this was it was try like it had been tried to be taken away from us in such a brutal way that we're slowly getting to like relearn it and I remember it was kind of unfortunate I had most of my learnings and reconnecting through the community because of tragedy it'd be because of someone had passed away in the community and or someone was sick and we would go to a ceremony um or we'd go to a funeral and then I'd learn a little bit more about the culture and and people were slowly like elders were slowly sharing that that information and

And yeah, so it's kind of a sad way to learn about your culture, but I'm grateful that, you know, it happened and that there were opportunities for that, for sure. Yeah, I think that that is definitely a hard part, especially right now, because I think there is this deep hunger for the language and for learning about the stories and what it means to be indigenous. But I think that indigenous people are put in a rock and a hard place of regular society wants to learn more. And I've had a lot of people reach out wanting to do, like, indigenous awareness training and how do we communicate that information in an effective way that brings people together. But at the same time, it's like a lot of us are still trying to gain that understanding and learn more about it to be able to share that. And so we're in this weird circumstance of, like, tell me more.

And it's like, we're still learning. And how am I supposed to play both hands and play this important role? And then I think for some people, they've had that disconnect. and now they don't know and people are like well tell me about your culture and they're like you took it this is well not you but

yeah like I've had this stolen from me I've had this stolen from my family and now you want me to tell you all about all the great qualities about it and it's like it's a little late for that this would have been nice before all of the tragedies occurred because it is and it always has been an interesting culture to understand

and to see the depth of it because one thing I really I really took away from the eddie Gardner interview was how he described creatures because I think in Western culture bugs are somehow looked down on because mosquitoes, bees, things that might be inconvenient. Yet he described them as the ones that crawl. And I thought that that was such an interesting way to go about. And we didn't end up talking about it, but there's that idea there that he's talking about

them as if they're equal to him, as if there isn't, he's not better than them. And I think that that's something Western culture really struggles with because we do talk about all of these things as if they're not intelligent, as if they're less than, as if they're just tools for our own success. And I think that that misses some of the beauty of our culture in that we do have this symbiotic relationship with most things that other cultures, especially Western culture, doesn't. And I think that you see it a little bit with hunting, because I do think that most hunters, a lot of their proceeds go towards supporting ecosystems and stuff. But there's that deep divide right now with this relationship with food, with

animals, with the relationship we have with our ecosystems that we think we're on top. And so that everything else we can just fix if there's problems. And I think that that's probably the wrong way about going about that. It's funny for the longest time. And it's, it's funny because the way you learn about your culture again is like, it comes from different angles, comes from different ways. And I think just like being around family and there's maybe even slang or like one of my co-workers was, what does OCM mean? Can you? And like, I was like, how do you spell OCM? And then I'm thinking like, because I'm like, if you're hip, you just type out OCM, right? I'm like, that's like, there's just a slang. And I'm like, so it's kind of funny learning it through that kind

of lens or all my relations. All my relations, this is like kind of a funny admitting this. But for when I was younger, like, we always said that. And I always thought it might, because we have so many cousins, all my relations, we can't keep track. But, like, obviously, I, like, learned later on that, like, it means more, like, all our relations, like, how we're interconnected with everything and the animals and the creatures and the world, right? Yeah, that seven generations idea, I think, is just it needs to be stressed again and again and again. Because right now, I feel like we have this, like, hunger for, like, what is our purpose here? why are we here? What's the point of it all? And I see these ideas of like, well, the goal is to be happy and the goal is to have a good day and like self-care. And it's like the idea is so much deeper than that because it's like you, the idea in indigenous culture is like you have a responsibility to the seven generations before you. And when I just talked to Andrew Victor and the idea that you, they had prayers about what their next generations would do and would see and would experience. And you can only imagine.

what the prayers of people going through Indian residential school would be, what their hopes would be for their children and their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. And you can imagine that they were hoping that we would get out of this and that some of this tragedy would come to an end. And I think that we're seeing that today. A lot of the tragedies have at least stopped getting worse. And so we have a responsibility to those individuals who survived hell to pay that forward to the next generations and to help

the next generations do better. And that idea that we look back seven generations and look forward seven generations, it puts such an enormous amount of weight on an individual because you try and think of all, like, I can barely keep track of two generations back, let alone seven and what they would have been thinking. And then you try and think seven generations forward. And that's just as difficult because we're in the cycle of new iPhone, new laptop, what's my, what's my plan for my family, we forget that this is bigger than all of us, that this has a longer term outlay of what's seven generations forward, you're likely, like, they're not going to remember our names in seven generations and who we were and what we were thinking at this time.

And so we're working for those individuals and trying to support the people behind us. I think that that is a far better, more meaningful way to live a life, because when you are carrying a lot of stress or weight, it's all for a greater purpose. I think that that's something that's really missing from our community. No, that's the perfect way to say it because, I mean, I've struggled with anxiety and mental health. And I feel like anxiety, there's that overwhelming sense that you just have all of this weight on your shoulder. And the people that I look up to the most in our community, they have this just natural calm about them. And it's like a slow, purposeful, just intent.

And they just kind of, and I think, like, how can they be like that when they're also. caring so much and doing so much but um yeah it's like you just strive to to have that or you're being be close to that energy and i think it's because yeah you you're not thinking about well a you're removing the ego piece right it's not about you um and you know if it's like the ecosystem everything's connected but it's like that one salmon you caught or that one deer that you've killed and you're and you just focus on the one thing and you're not being overwhelmed by everything else right so it's just like having the intent and the purpose behind it and yeah yeah there's a different energy when I was speaking to both Eddie and Andrew about their mindset and how they

approach things there was like I really quickly realized because I'm a pretty quick talker I'm I'm fairly fast paced and then just sitting there and being like I need to slow my brain down because This is not the pace that they're thinking at or trying to work towards. The goal to them is to deliver the message in a clear, calm fashion rather than trying to get out the next point as fast as possible. And I think that that's something when I'm in law school, the gold standard is to be say the thing as fast as you can, as concise as you can. And that element of delivering the information so that people are paying attention and hearing what you're saying and being able to flow along. and having listeners reach out and go like I just felt like at peace when I was listening to him talk was like wow that is something I don't have like at this stage of my life I don't have that that calm sense of tranquility that others have and that's actually yeah that's one of my goals I think or like I want to work towards I speak when I do any speaking stuff it's not because I'm a gifted speaker by any means it's more of like a self kind of proclaimed um exposure therapy, like being anxious. It's not something I particularly want to do is speak in

public, but I don't know. I feel like I'm looking for the lesson or trying to grow and improve on something. So if I'm not good at something, I want to be better. And I feel like there's something there that I need to learn. And I feel like sometimes, I don't know if it's like self-proclaimed ADHD where my thoughts are happening faster. And so I just try to want to get them all out. And so my, I call it verbal diarrhea. It's just like, blah. So sometimes when I'm speaking, as much as I want to be prepared, I also, the double-edged sword kind of fine line to cross, but part of me wants to be open to whatever. My ancestors tell me I need to talk about today and just kind of go with it. But then that sometimes I'm like, I wonder if it's going out of my mouth

today. That's something I don't think people are honest enough about is that for the most part, It's not like I'm going, when I'm speaking, that I'm going, I'm going to say the sky and like going through each word. It's like you have an idea in your head and the words are just kind of flowing. And it's like you're thinking while you're speaking because you don't exactly know what the next sentence is going to be because it's all part of this bigger whatever you're talking about. If you're trying to explain like what Luna float is, there's so much to it that it's whatever is coming out first. It's not like, okay, I always go, first I talk about this, and then I talk about this, and then, like, your brain doesn't really work like that. And so I think that it's important that we give people that grace. And that's why I like the three hour format is because we'll get there. And we don't have to stress so much about like, I need to make sure that I mentioned this, that or the other thing. We're just having a conversation and it will go where it needs to go over time. And I think that that really helps people not have that stress on them. Yeah, I try to, if I do try to explain it to anyone, it's sometimes like, if you're talking on a phone. And I guess now I'm thinking about this, I think it still happens with cell phones, but I was thinking an older school phone landline.

When you're talking and you can hear, like, yourself kind of like echoing. Sometimes when I'm talking, I feel like I'm hearing myself like what I just said versus it's just, it's a strange phenomenon. So, practicing the pause is what I try to think of. I also used to really not like silence, so it would just like to have someone not respond right away. It's like, maybe I'll just keep on talking because they're not, they're not responding yet and just learning that, like, just to appreciate that pause and it's a time to absorb what you just listen to. And I don't know, just like, again, it's a more calm way, not saying that one way is better or worse, but it's definitely something I, yeah, I also really appreciate and try to take. as a lesson and trying to do it myself a little bit better of just being okay if I have to like pause and think about what someone asked me because yeah and giving yourself that space to

kind of prepare a response rather than trying to come out with the first thought that pops into your head because that might not always be the best one yeah can you tell us about going from high school into university what decisions were you making at that time because it jumps out at me that you were so interested in like the business side of things? Yeah, yeah. Hold you in that direction. I kind of, yeah, skim past my, my childhood and all that stuff, which was just fine. Fine by me. But it's interesting where I am now. And then looking back, I was, so it's kind of funny. When I was younger, I was like the kid on the corner doing, selling freebies and that sort thing. So I always have had this kind of entrepreneurial spirit. My sister, my younger sister would

help out and I would pay her and I actually calculated profit and like at a young age I had these little books and ledgers it was I was a nerd um I loved going into the bank and getting the rate sheets it's it's so strange um because my sister is definitely not like that um so I don't know where I really got it from but uh and then in high school I mean I was A B honor student like I was doing pretty good um had a lot of stresses put on me because of that like I don't know you just feel like you have to, I don't know, they put so much stress on high school students. I'm sure they still do, that you have to have your whole life figured out. You know, I mean, they do.

Oh, you have to take this grade 12 course in grade 10 to make sure it all fits on your syllabus. And I had no idea. I really like sciences. I love biology. I loved animals. I worked at a vet's clinic for a brief moment, just part of the workplace program, which was great because it taught me that I didn't want to become a vet. I loved animals and the vet just seeming, I mean, they did amazing work, but they were doing a lot of prescriptions and the surgeries.

And it wasn't, it was the vet techs that were doing more of the hands-on with the animals. And there was like lots of other stuff that I was like, okay, maybe not. But, you know, that was my dream as a kid. And so it was kind of nice to have that experience to find out before you take seven years of veterinarian school, if this is actually something you would want to do in the environment you want to work in. So I was like, hmm, maybe that's not the course for me. I, even though, like I said, a B honor student had graduated, I paused and was like, I kind of stumbled and I was scared of going to university and taking that next step.

I kind of forgot about that. But yeah, it was, it was scary. I even, I tried to stay back and take like a grade 13, like, physics and chemistry course because I just wasn't sure yet. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And that huge lesson there was just that like keep moving forward because at that point I was I was like moving back. I was or at least staying still and not and like refusing to move forward because fear of failure really. And I think my yeah, my biggest takeaway from there was just keep moving forward.

You don't have to have it all figured out because there's learnings and mistakes and like kind of embracing making a mistake. Take a course that sucked and that you didn't like. but guess what? The learning is that you, that's not for you. Or there's other things that happen when you go down a path and you're not quite sure where you're going. You know, there's sometimes reasons for it, or at least for me that's what I try to take away

when we're talking about adversity. Sometimes it's hard for me to think about it because whenever I'm given something that's an obstacle or, you know, not to the greatest, I tend to try to turn it into a learning. And I'm not saying that's necessarily the best thing. It's probably a trauma response, but that's what I try to do. So, yeah, I kind of, it was a slow transition into going to UFB, but I did, and I just did that.

I started with a couple of courses, sciences. I took biology, chemistry, math, all of these things, and I wasn't loving it. I mean, I love biology, but just, and then I'm like, okay, I'm going to get this degree in biology and, like, I guess a bachelor science degree, but then what? And so even early on, like, within the first couple semesters, I was like, and my parents, I asked my parents, like, you know me, like, what should I do? And this is something I miss, like, not growing up in my community is what they do when babies are first born, they, they, all the elders, all the family watch them, and they let them be babies, they let them be kids and play. But through play, you learn a lot about a person and potentially what path they're going to take. and usually by the time they reach puberty they're more ushered into this like and guided into

a more of a role like hey we've been watching you and this is what your your skills are and I really wish I had that kind of guidance and I mean my parents are amazing and they they did reflect and say well you know you've always been bossy maybe you'll be a good boss or you should be like entrepreneurship or something or try something in business I think the they had brought up dietitian because I would tell people what to do and that would at least be, take part of my science learnings and stuff like that. But I took a marketing course, and it's also funny. So I took a marketing course with Mark Breedveld, who he was in his first year of teaching,

so this was many years ago. And I just laugh where I think it's funny because he actually just reached out to me recently, and he's now like the head of, I think the marketing department, or maybe even the business department at UFB and he found me on LinkedIn and we reconnected and talked about some stuff. But yeah, I thought marketing was cool. It kind of has different elements.

Like I ended up getting a business degree and focused on finance and accounting, but my electives were philosophy and psychology. And actually, right before I opened Luna float, I re-enrolled and thought I was going to get a second degree in psychology. I'm super passionate about it. But, yeah, apparently starting a business is really time-consuming.

And so it kind of petered out. And I was like, okay, I need to focus on this. But it's always just been something that I like learning about. So marketing was kind of my gateway into business. And I started taking more courses. And then I realized that at least if I have a business degree, maybe there's more different kind of opportunities. And, you know, I was really envious.

I even considered becoming like a dental hygienist because I was envious of my friends who were in trades who it was like, okay, you do four years, but you're also on the job training. And after it, you know exactly what you're going to be. You're going to be an electrician or you're going to be a plumber. And I still, yeah, I didn't like that unknown because, again, this was my lesson, learning to just take those steps, even though you don't know what necessarily the final result's going to be, is just go through the steps and go through the motions. And I really, another kind of weird learning was I was really good at communications and human resources.

Again, human resources, a lot of the psychological elements behind it about people, right? In general, we're odd people, we're odd things to study. And yet, I kind of struggled more with accounting and finance. And back then, I felt like there was more, if it was difficult, if it was hard, it was maybe more rewarding or it was almost like better when like because I was like oh this is this HR is too easy but maybe I should have focused on that I don't know so in the end I actually got a job at Van City I heard about Van City through a presentation at UFB one of the students did and I was like that's a cool cool company to work for and so I inquired and I got a job as a teller a bank teller

called it financial service representative. And yeah, I started early on. Like I had basically, after I graduated, I worked at Stream. Most people have worked at Stream in the call center. And I worked there for three years and then Van City. And then I worked at Van City for, like I said, just over 10 years. I basically was working and putting myself through school, which can be expensive. And so I ended up having to work full time.

I was promoted or I worked my way up to an account manager. Account manager won at the time. So doing loans and mortgages and that sort of thing. And I couldn't, I was working Monday, Tuesday to Saturday, I guess. And there weren't a lot of courses available that maybe even interested me. And the ones that were available were like night courses, 7 o'clock to 10 o'clock. And they were a lot of finance and accounting courses. So that's basically why I ended up getting a finance and an accounting degree.

I also thought maybe I want to keep my doors open. and I thought maybe I'd become an accountant one day because my neighbor was an accountant growing up and she seemed like she had it figured out she kind of worked for herself and picked what kind of job she wanted to do and there was, it seemed like a lot of autonomy there which apparently I wanted autonomy

and I got to this point where I had worked my way up at Van City so much that I had a good benefits, I had good pay And if I even wanted to go and become like an accountant, I'd have to start out as like, I think they call it like an articling student or, I'd be taking like, it was almost like a $10 like pay decrease or something. And I was like, oh, and I mean, that was my dream. If I was super passionate, obviously, sometimes you do have to take a couple steps back in order to move forwards. But it obviously wasn't in my heart. It wasn't something I was super passionate about.

So after I had my degree, I mean, it actually helped me in my career. at Van City. So again, kind of an example of how I didn't really know where my, you know, life was going with Van City. It was just, it was just the job at the beginning of it. But it actually kind of became the core of a lot of my stories and my life endeavors after that. I definitely want to hear more about that, but I do want to wrap up our discussion of university because I think for a lot of indigenous people, I don't know if it's as common now, but there are indigenous people who feel like going to university is leaving their culture. And I think that that's something I saw a lot of my peers in high school and middle school struggle with

is this idea that you're now going to the institution, you're not going back to the community, and just even within my community, just kind of seeing the individuals who get supported through university and the individuals who didn't, the individuals who were more connected to their community, it didn't seem like they were getting the supports to go off, leave their community, and get the education. And I've heard through a few other people that leaving made their community kind of look at them differently or go like, oh, now you're off being big city,

big successful person, you're not as connected to us. And so I think that it's important for listeners to understand that you're actually bringing the two back together. And through your experiences in university, you're actually bringing a lot of that knowledge and expertise back to the community to help them, But the other part that I think is important that you mentioned was this idea that you kind of go down a path and now you should kind of stick with it because you already started it. And I think that there's there's an analogy there of like hiking a mountain.

And then if you get halfway up and realize this isn't going to get me to the top, are you going to be the person who goes back down and are willing to go back down and then come back up the right way or are you just going to stay there? And I think I know a lot of people who got hesitant and stayed in the position that they were in because of this hesitation. of why going back down the mountain is a step down and it's like for the short term perhaps but in the long term you actually end up getting all of these benefits and so that decision to go to university and leave

high school was one of those processes it sounds like for you to be like you know what I am going to take this step and move forward and take the risk and I think that that's obviously paid dividends long term and so I'm interested to know more about any of the courses that you took there that you found impactful

or that stood out to you amongst the rest if there were any professors there that were really insightful or offered that guidance yeah it's it's interesting um i i feel like again like in retrospect it's helped me bring things to the community and even just recently there there have been some community members who are like who are these people and they don't recognize my last name such is right is my married name so like well who's this person on the board like why are they on our board like like they're not from the community and like that's that's totally fair um kandis charlie she's this amazing inspiring woman as well who um who lives in stateless and she was on the dev corp and now

she has a different role a very important role in the community and she has her master's degree and she she uses it to benefit everyone in her community and um i feel like that is the trend now is is that more people who want to and are able to are getting that education because they see how it can potentially benefit themselves in the community. But I also agree that there's many people who probably are still a little intimidated. I mean, I would compare like the institution, like the educational institution as similar to a financial institution. So that's something that I've struggled with being part of the financial institution

of people not wanting to come. in because there's this fear of judgment and I think there's a lot of work to be done to like decolonize both institutions it depends on the you know how I'm feeling university obviously like I have a degree but there are days that I felt like I bought a degree you know like you go in and you're memorizing stuff to basically pass a test and then you get your piece of paper and be like okay hire me because I have this piece of paper, versus, oh, I'm super passionate about the subject. And I think, I wish there were ways where they could implement something where there were

less barriers for people to become educated or to learn about something that they're passionate about or something that's going to help them help themselves or their community. I'm trying to think of, like, there's a lot of teachers that were there that were that were good. I'm thinking of economics, and how, I don't know, when I was in school, I'm like, actually, like, I'm not like I'm going to be hating on the university at all, but there were some teachers, being that it was business, that it was very capitalistic. And back in the day, like, that far removed, I was like, yeah, this makes sense, capitalism, efficiencies, and all this stuff. But as I got older, my vision,

and my, I guess, views on that have definitely changed. I mean, I'm a business owner, so you'd think, why don't you believe in capitalism or what do you have a beef with that? And, I mean, truth be told, like, if I would have potentially started LunaFloat as a cooperative kind of movement if that was something that could have been done a little bit easier. Yeah, and I'm a terrible business owner. I would just do it for free and let everyone do it. But, I mean, there was definitely, obviously, it helped me in different ways get the job

at Van City. It helps educate me to be part of these boards and stuff like that. It builds confidence. So there's so many reasons to do it, even if it's to learn what you like and what you don't like. I feel like now I know that Shirley Hardman is the head of the department in U of B that has more of a focus for indigenous, I guess, probably students. and just curriculum and everything like that. And I don't think maybe they're even utilized as much as they should be. But I like seeing that because I think that would make people feel more comfortable being on campus and exploring that.

I think that it doesn't have to be either or. Like you have to be cultural and part of the community or you go to university and get higher education. that kind of thing. And I mean, higher education, like, what does that mean? It's just different education, right? I think both are valuable, and there doesn't have to be this either or situation. The world is constantly evolving and changing, and being more, having more tools and having more background is always going to be good. It's like diversifying, right? Yeah, I think I know as older as I get, the more I realize that I know less than I think when I was

younger, I thought I knew a lot more. But I've always been, like I consider myself like a lifelong learner. Like I want to learn more and I'm open to new ideas and I give myself grace to be wrong and to change my views on things, right? So I don't mean, I don't know if I really answered your question, I think going to university is so much more than education, too. It's making connections. It's growing. And I think, like, I've also learned about my own family through education, through papers that I found, like Googling Ed Leon Sr. and sailors and I've found papers

written by people who are getting their master's degree in New Zealand even or UBC and they're actually so there is like a crossover you know that the institutions are

also helping us rebuild our culture and again because a lot of our culture is oral having it with permission recorded and for me I'm eternally grateful for that because it's helping me rediscover myself as well. So I don't know if that was kind of a roundabout way.

And I don't disagree that I think that the universities do struggle with connecting because I think right now there's such a lean towards the administrative side. And I think John Haute, who is a past guest, was kind of talking about what's going on in the U.S., where their administrative side has gotten so big and their support for professors has gotten so small that there isn't this feeling, to me at least, that when you're going to a university, you're getting taught by professors. It's like the professors get told

what they need to tell the students, and that's how we're approached. Because to me, if UFE wanted to step up their game and they were serious about it, to me, they would start highlighting the professors and what the professors think and have YouTube clips that are able to be posted on social media of what they're talking about in their classes,

because to me, that's the only thing missing. from all of the marketing I see them doing every single day is they're talking about how they're celebrating this day and that day and all of these days, but they're not telling this is what you get out of a business degree. This is what makes you a different creature than when you came in is because now you're going to be able to negotiate. You're going to be able to communicate clearly.

You're going to be able to argue for better pay. You're going to be able to write papers that make arguments for more funding from funder. You're going to be able to do all of these important things that are going to make the difference in your company or in your future business. To me, that's like the only thing they're not talking about, which seems crazy because for most people, they're like examples of individuals who started businesses without having the degree. To me, they should still want to go just to get like one accounting course so they can do their books a little bit better or one marketing course just to get a better idea.

But again, the university doesn't even advocate for taking a few courses just to hone a skill or something like that, which again, to me, seems like they're missing a whole market because their only market. getting 18 to 30 year olds and they don't really touch the other subsection of the population. Yeah. And I mean, so that makes me think of a couple things. It took me a long time to get my degree, but a four-year degree probably took me about seven years because I was working and going to school. At some point later on in like the tail end of those courses, I was older, like much older than some of the like first year students who were coming right out of high school and, yeah, they're in taking like entrepreneurship courses or different business courses. And it was, I felt old. And I mean, I didn't have a business experience per se in

that I didn't own a business, but I had a lot of experience through Van City and just basic finance stuff, right? Like financial literacy that we'll probably talk about later. And so there was a disconnect. Or we'd be in like a human resource class or talking about labor relations. And there's someone who sits next to me who's never actually had a job. And I'm like, how are you, how can you be learning about labor relations when you've never been in the labor force? Like, um, so yeah, I agree that there needs to be like that hands on as well. Like, and very like intentional, like we're learning this and this is how it applies to the real world. I think people sometimes, um, not that it's not the real world, but they're focused on like higher, like the higher education piece or learning about that.

but kind of how does it apply to your life and that's a big problem for some professors who are only in institutions their whole career they get their undergrad then they get their master's then they get their PhD and now they're telling young people how the world is when in my view they haven't experienced a sufficient amount of the pitfalls or frustrations of living in the real world that you develop through having a bad job where your employer isn't great to you or trying to start a business and maybe it doesn't work out and having these real world experiences where you kind of hit a brick wall and you kind of wake up because I had a few professors who put like one professor was like I'm not indigenous so I'm not

allowed to talk about indigenous issues so Aaron why don't you talk about it and it's like oh well I actually am not educated like I've taken First Nations 12 and I've taken maybe like a course and a half on this but I'm not an expert and I'm not the right person to be talking about this, but her mindset is, I'm not the person to do it. So since you're indigenous, you are. And that puts so much weight. And I've been in that situation and I feel shame. I feel doubt about like, again, identity. And it's like, oh, if I don't know X, Y, and Z, and I can't just answer like that, then maybe I'm not. Indigenous. Yeah, enough or whatever. And that's super unfair. I will give a shout out. I'm like, I hope you don't get him in trouble. But Ian Affleck

comes up. He was a math teacher. And I, ironically, enough, was not great at calculus, math. I liked, I did decent in stats. I love math equations where you're solving a problem, like algebra, geometry, I don't know. But yeah, calculus just wasn't working for me. And I had been getting A and Bs. I get to university. Now it's like, okay, Bs, B minuses, C pluses. I'm like, what's a C plus? Oh my goodness. But I straight up failed calculus the first semester, like failed. And then another four. $400 plus a textbook because it changes halfway through the semester and I take it again. I'm not telling my parents because I'm in my like shame.

And yeah, I take it again. I get like another letter grade up, which I think was like a P or a C minus or something. And I need a C plus for it to like be worth anything in the overall piece of the pie, right, of my degree. So I'm like, okay, take it a third time. Erin, that is like $1,200 just for one course. and I think I got a C and I was just like heartbroken. I'm like, was that it?

Like that's like I tried and I mean, I didn't make it. So like that's it. And like you needed a C plus to be in business or in sciences. So I was like, I guess this is not cut out for me. So there's another opportunity for me to just piece out. But I knew at that time I was,

I knew that I wanted to be, learn more about business. And I liked the other courses. It was just this other course. It was just, hanging on and causing me grief and Ian was one of those teachers for one of those times and I talked to him because he was a really good teacher and I felt almost like me not getting my C plus was like like I let him down because he it wasn't a reflection on his teaching he was patient and he

he was thoughtful in the way he taught um so I just talked to him and I was like I guess I suck like what do I need to do. He helped trying to teach me on my level to grasp it. And he actually, I don't get, I don't want to get him in trouble, but he let me go into calculus. He let me bypass the prereq of getting a C plus to get into the course that I needed, which was like calculus two or whatever. And it seems kind of like, well, that's silly. Like if you can't even pass or you can't get a C plus in calculus one, why would you want to go into calculus two or why would they let you in? But he did. And first try, like, same. amount of effort and I got like a B minus or like a C plus in that course and it it was so much

easier it was so much better and this was supposed to be like a second level so I don't know but the point was that someone like cared enough to listen and it wasn't just like a you don't fit in this box so because that's so easy for someone like not to like give myself accolades but when you're in that shame and you're just like you could just it's easy enough to just slip into the background and no one would notice someone dropping out like I'm sure lots of people do it um so yeah I think that was a pivotal moment for me to someone believed in me and that was you know it was a barrier and yeah I think that that's a really important story because I think that that happens to so many students and we don't talk about our failures we only talk about our GPAs and how great they are and

and try and show off that side of us that when somebody does do less successful in a course that we feel that sense of judgment and discouragement and then we don't want to say anything to anyone because we feel like they're going to see it and I think that for for people like Rebecca I think one of the issues is being able to share that with your family because they don't even know what it means to take a university course let alone what it means to not do well in a course and so they're not able to be understanding and be able to say you know what like to me it's really important that I always stress that grades really for the most part don't matter at all because it's a perception and you should measure somebody and if it was possible measure somebody

on their effort to understand the information more than trying to figure out whether or not they checked a box because a person can continue to develop over time if they're encouraged to do so just like it sounds like with that's course if you had to been judged based on your effort and time put into it rather than purely based on a mark on an exam which is somewhat arbitrary as well because I'd have professors who would tell us exactly what all the questions are going to be before an exam. And then I'd have other professors who would say, we're not going to tell you, or they'd tell us, and none of that information was on the exam. So there's this vast inconsistency with what professors expect on an exam, what their mindset is, because I had one professor

who had 12 essay questions and have added two hours. And it's like, where should I focus more of my time? What's more important? How much information do you need for this question? like all of these questions. And so for him to say, you don't understand this information. It's like, no, you asked broad questions and I did the best I could with the information. Yeah. Yeah, no, you're definitely, yeah, you're open to interpretation. I, first, I liked open-ended ones because I could massage, you know, my answer to describe that, hey, I don't really remember what that word was, because I haven't memorized it, but I get the general feel of it. And like, here's what I know. So I was just, like, dump, like, all my bring goo onto the page. And that worked sometimes for biology, at least get like half marks because they're like, they can tell that I kind of generally knew, but I just forgot a couple of words or philosophy. I did awesome in with that because I was able to just kind of go down there. English, I came across that. I didn't care for. It was an opinion piece that you had to write, and I feel like my teacher just graded me because I didn't like my opinion.

And I was like, rude. and discouraging, but it's, yeah, it's not just one person or one scenario, it's having that help throughout your journey as well. Like, I remember, I mean, I carried a lot of pressure on myself, and I remember even in elementary school having a bad grade or like getting something that wasn't a gold star and coming, like, feeling sick. Like I was going to be in so much trouble when I got home.

And I might, especially my, of my dad, I was kind of scared, and he, he, I remember him just being like, did you try your hardest? Like, do you try your best? And I was like, well, yeah, obviously. And he's like, that's all I'm ever going to ask for me. And, like, it's enough of a moment that, like, I'll remember that. But it didn't cure me. Like, it didn't just like, oh, okay, my dad says this is why try my best. Like, I still is that, okay, well, I did try my best. And it still wasn't good enough. So now what? And, you know, it's, you just have to, those are gifts when you have those moments. But it can't just be one moment. And now you're going to be fine, the rest of it.

And I think that that's important for people to grapple with because I think that that is one of the milestones of becoming an adult that we, right now I think we have a really bad sense of what becoming an adult is because it's looked on as like all the problems of being an adult with none of the benefits. And I think that that's because we overlook the value of family and community and responsibility and connection and obligations to your community is, is like part of the benefit to me of community

and I think we lose that sometimes because I think to that point it's really important that we do realize that you can put in a hundred percent effort and not go your way that's a part of life just like sometimes you'll put in but the benefit is that the odds are always better

if you put in the effort it might not always go your way but at least there's a chance it could go your way but if you don't put in any effort the odds that it's going to go your way are very very low because you haven't done anything to kind of earn it or set yourself up for that opportunity. But moving forward a little bit,

because you talked a little bit about philosophy, I agree with you. I think capitalism has plenty of problems, but to me, it's the only system we found that actually works. So I'm interested in what your thoughts are on capitalism. Yeah, I mean, I'm not just like general capitalism. I feel like it's, it can just look to the ugly side of it when people, it's like max efficiency

and they'll do anything for that extra dollar. and that's like at the detriment of other people's welfare. I liked economics, and that's kind of where that stems from, like, that capitalism is the most efficient, you know, free market, Adam Smith, all of that stuff, the invisible hand. What's the invisible hand? Invisible hand is basically like the, it's part of Adam Smith, the philosophy of economics being that a free market, like if you just operate in the free market, that the invisible hand, is like the supply and demand that if you just leave it be like the businesses that do things the best are going to like be the ones that will get the most money and and that sort of thing that you don't have to do anything like I guess like that would be the antithesis of socialism that if you if you affect or if you implement something then you're trying to control it whereas you don't need to control it just capitalism is magic and it will just all work itself out when in actuality like we are a system right now like what we live in isn't it's a little bit combination of both right what i would say is i'm just starting to read indiginomics by carol and hinton i think is the last name

um she's amazing and if you ever get a chance to hear her speak it's awesome and so i've just just begun like as a new mom unfortunately having time to read in my own time is is kind of hard but with on one hand people asking us questions, tell us about how it is to be an indigenous person and like you're supposed to come up with this canned response. Like it's just a one size fits all. And that's not true. But there's also things that I like learning that it's like, oh, for instance, like wealth. So you ask, what does wealth mean to you? And that might mean like savings in the bank. But very often in our culture, it's about giving back in reciprocity, if you want to call it wealth, but like, you're doing well in life

if you're able to provide for more people, right? So I thought that was pretty big, right? Because a lot of times true capitalism, people are like, their wealth is the numbers in the bank, and it's not what they're doing with that money. And that overlap is kind of this reciprocity piece. I guess philosophy of Van City that I thought was really cool being that it's a financial cooperative they didn't want that profit isn't a bad word that money isn't bad

it's what you can do with it and the good that you can do with it I almost had the opportunity to go to Italy with Van City Bologna in particular and they have this community that I can't remember what the professors name is. But basically, they think of the economy, like, there's like Ferrari and I think

a Ducati production plants out there. And if one is like, they're competitors, but they also work collaboratively because they believe that like together, like, they will rise kind of thing. And so the economy, they would describe as whether it's like a sum or a product, meaning that like if we're thinking of ones and zeros and like zero's so bad is someone who's maybe not contributing to the economy for us we typically think it was like one plus one plus one plus one plus one and that's like the sum plus zero well you're not adding anything um where's if you look at it as a product where one times one times one times zero okay as soon as you times zero everything is zero so it's again we're all in this together so if there's like a dip in

employment, they'll actually provide different kinds of tools for people to still contribute, whether, and it's not necessarily, like, financially driven, like, it's more of, like, making sure that everyone has a certain, like, style of life, right, that everyone is taken care of, and so, and just that the trusting that, I don't know, I think there's this feeling that people are just inherently lazy, and it's just, like, like, if you get them a handout, hand out, that's like they'll just sit back and take that. Whereas people want to be part of a community, it's more about connection and not that. So if this, it's not a handout, they're just like, here, this is where you'll fit into

the community now and they find spots for people. And I think that's important. So yeah, I think there's a lot of inefficiencies, unfortunately, with capitalism too, mostly just like the exploitation of people and our environment. I get what you're saying. I get that there's, yeah, the efficiencies. Like if I'm really good at this, like then that's just the thing in theory, and that's what they teach you in school, the theory, but in practicality, what does that actually look like, right? Like if I'm really good at doing something and you don't like doing it or you're not really great at it, then it probably would make sense for you to let me do that

and then either pay me for that or we trade services and stuff like that. So I get the general idea and believe in that efficiency piece, but I just think that we as a people, as a society, have exploited it too much, where it's like, well, I can do that cheaper and cheaper is better because then there's more margin, but it's like at what cost, right? Like when do you eventually say that doesn't make sense? I agree, and I think that that's one thing that I was surprised by

when I started the podcast because one arm, of it that I was hoping to utilize more is I have this audio and video equipment. And so in my mind, when I was starting it, I was like, well, if I do have a small business owner on, what can I bring value to marketing them? Like, I have all of this great equipment. We can go into your shop. We can shoot a couple of different takes of your store. We can tie that into the podcast. We can either make that its own ad video that you can put on your Facebook and stuff to market yourself in a new way that you might not have the audio and video equipment or know how to use it or want to learn about it. I wouldn't need to charge for that because it wouldn't take too much of my

time. But this could be something that benefits their business to market them in a very cost-effective way. And the response I got was nothing. Nobody was that interested. The people that I mentioned it to and I was like, hey, this is how I could see this kind of working. We would record the podcast and then we can take parts of what you talk about. We can voice over the video footage. This is how I see it. And the response was like, oh, yeah, sure, if you want to. And it was like, Oh, that's, that's all on me now. Like, you don't want to, any participant, like, you don't want to try and work collaboratively to bring this about. And I think that one of the side effects is people get so siloed, carrying their own weight every single day, trying to run their business, trying to make sure that all the details that I'm sure you get, as a business owner, lots of people who come in and say, I've got the next best thing for your business and you just give me a few minutes.

And they get so many pitches over time that I think that they end up. And it's always like a fee. It's always like a, and for the small price of $400 a month, we can do this. And I think that that's caused people to feel siloed and to do their business and whoever they hire they have to pay. And it becomes so independent that they start to forget that there are people out there that are just willing to support because they believe in the work you're doing and that that doesn't have to come with any strings attached. And I think that that's what capitalism taken too seriously on the small micro level. causes people to just be like, this is my business. Nobody else cares. If I don't do it, nobody else is going to do it. So I'll just do it. And there's no point in asking this person to

help or there's no chance that they're going to do this for a fair, reasonable price. Because we are always grinding so much. And with the podcast, like I know most people have no idea what goes into the background of it, which is okay with me. But I can see when you're running a whole business, you've got staff, you've got so many different arms and legs that you're dealing with that it's hard for you to imagine that something could be so simple and easy. could be an exciting thing because I think that sometimes small business owners lose passion for what they're doing because they've been doing it for so long and gotten this jaded feeling of like customers don't know what I'm going through. Like my staff don't know what I'm going through.

Nobody understands what I'm going through. And like it drives people to lose motivation. So can we move in a little bit into the financial literacy piece? Sure. And what you see from that because one of the biggest frustrations I have right now is feeling like indigenous communities are not getting the financial literacy that I think could really give them a leg up because I've spoken to at least my chief and council and I know that our community members have received money but they don't know what to do with it and then they ended up spending it and now all of that money

is now gone and there wasn't that education piece and I know that my community is looking into getting more education but what has that been like for you well it's interesting because I mean yeah kind of what we were talking about like sometimes you're in a position and financial literacy, it makes sense and I'm passionate about it, but it's about the system that we're in as well. So it's like when I'm going into a First Nations community, you're not coming in preaching about this is how you need to do things because it's different. You're just more educating on this is like what I know as part of the system,

and this is what can help you in that system. Like, for instance, the credit bureau, like that's a real thing. and you know like you could ignore it but like that's a thing if you want to go to a financial institution or you're going to a car dealership and you want a car like those are things that to navigate that world that being said so yeah if someone were to receive a lump sum of money there's a lot of different questions we would also ask just to see what you know help them reach their goals but there's probably you know the people who typically facilitate financial literacy workshops and come from a financial institution, they're going to be talking about RSPs and tax-free savings

and savings and savings and investing when we had already talked about the reciprocity piece or the generosity piece of like, I'm wealthy and I feel my most wealthiest when I'm giving back or when. And so maybe that's by everyone presence and we would say, well, that's not financially responsible. So who are we to like put that judgment on them? But if you get to sit down and again there's like acknowledgements like if they have if there's that reciprocity piece that they've helped everyone and they know that it's coming back you're not helping someone because you're expecting something back in return but you know that you've taken care of this family and that if you ever needed help that they would take care of you and there's that something that i'm

really proud that vansity is actually kind of acknowledging that a sometimes um people who are living on reserve, aren't able to build the same amount of wealth in terms of, like, assets, cash, having equity in homes. That's something I'm working on right now with different, like, on reserve mortgages and lending and stuff, but they just didn't have that opportunity. And, you know, sort of seeing that there's other, other valuable assets, for lack of a better word, in having community connections, in having that sort of thing, right? So I actually, I did a financial literacy workshop with Stala Community Futures and Van City at Chalasal a couple times.

And I actually, there's kind of two different arms that we do. One is just your basic financial literacy, you know, trying to demystify or make banking not so scary or intimidating. And things that often people are like, I never learned that in school. I wish we learned that in school instead of X, Y, Z. Like, why didn't we learn about how to, I mean, maybe this is a little old school, but, like, write a check or use online banking or the difference between checking in a savings plan or a credit bureau and credit cards. And what does that actually mean? You know, often I see people after the aftermath of like, I racked up all my credit cards and what, this is in free money. And, you know, it's just, you know, having that piece.

But what I was in Chihuahawafel for was actually what they call each one grow one. And that was more of financial literacy for small businesses and entrepreneurs. and which is kind of more of my, I started, I preferred kind of going down that road because it was just because you work with passionate people who are, who they have an idea or they have a passion and then you help them kind of, they can still do the passion piece, but like let me help you do a cash flow projection because that's what you're going to need if you need financing kind of thing, right? And just help them navigate that to help them reach their goals.

Not everyone's going to have the same goals and you can't assume that everyone does. But I think the main takeaway is just empowering people. And that's like that's the part of the education where it's not just even teaching them. It's more just letting them like here's the information in an easy, digestible way. And then they can use it either to feel more confident to step in the bank and ask for what they need and that sort of thing. But yeah, I don't know if that answered your question. Yeah, because I think that it's important that individuals are just at least given the information. so they can get started, because I think that that's so lacking, especially with our education system,

is that I don't think we're given these basic tools that just allow us to consider all of our options. And I think that that is something I think a lot about, because there are arguments in support of keeping the reserve system, and there are arguments in contrast, and I think one of the detriments is that they don't have the same level of regular access to financial institutions, to just being in the community where things are taking place where you can hear from a lawyer or hear from an accountant or run into your bank teller at the store and ask a quick question and that disconnect always concerns me because I think that it puts my community on a worse footing and it doesn't give us the same opportunities because that's why I wanted to have Tim McElpine on is because he's his great voice for entrepreneurship and those are the voices that I don't think

reach community regularly enough. where it's just in your mind and I think I just imagine this hypothetical indigenous person living on reserve and having this brilliant idea and telling everyone about it and then being like oh sure grani's got another brilliant idea and like he's going to go become a millionaire and like that teasing when other people don't understand what your vision is just kind of comes when you're like when I was starting the podcast I was so nervous to tell anyone because I'm just imagining what other people are thinking in their head of what I'm doing and the worst possible analysis And so it's hard to voice what you're doing when you're starting something like that out.

And I think that's a good point about reciprocity is that that is part of indigenous communities. But I think one other way that they could look at it is if you're able to build up these assets, they give returns so you can be generous for a longer span of time. Exactly. Yeah. Or generations, right? Like a lot of like wealth planning, investing, even like life return stuff is, you know, that succession planning. or leaving a legacy, right, like leaving something for your family as well. So, no, exactly.

And I think that, just you have to build that trust with whoever you're talking about, indigenous or not, like, across from me, if you're facilitating financial literacy workshops, not assume that everyone has the same goals, but, no, it is important. And I think that's the perfect way to put it, is that if that's your goal, well, we can even do that. like you don't have just immediately do it now we can build a plan and then help you execute that and I know there's like I think it's amazing that you're going to law school like I feel like the more indigenous people that can be in those kind of positions I mean I like to think there's

that inherent trust in general of like oh or hope that okay maybe this person will kind of get where I'm coming from more than maybe a non-indigenous lawyer and I know we often are looking for like accountants who understand different tax implications and even within Vanity with trying to help create mortgage programs, there had been barriers of finding appraisers and lawyers that helped that didn't just devalue the land right off the back because they didn't understand the value or how to do it. So, yeah, it's finding, like, a team of people that are going to help you who understand what your goals are.

Let's talk a little bit about what Van City is to you, because it is unique from a bank like Td, CIBC, and then let's move into a little bit of the mortgages, because I think that that is a really relevant point that, again, differentiates indigenous communities from non-indigenous communities in how the land is dealt with. So can you tell us a little bit about Van City and how it might be unique from other financial institutions? Right. So, I mean, Van City is one of, is BC's, I believe, still the largest credit union in BC. Credit unions are different than banks in that they're membership owned and driven. So they're a financial cooperative, meaning you buy shares and you become a member. You're not a customer, which might seem somewhat insignificant, but basically it's about following the money. Where does the money go?

So if you were a client at TD, for instance, or if you go into Vancey, it probably looks the same. You walk in, there's a teller's some offices. is. It's going to look the same. The transaction is probably very much the same. It's more about what they do with their profits. So their profits go, you can buy TD shares, right? So on the stock market, or mutual funds. And so it's publicly traded. So their profits go back to their shareholders, basically. And same thing with financial cooperatives, except that the shareholders are typically the members, so the people who are utilizing the services as well. And it stays in our community that way.

So, not saying one's better than the other, but that's just, that's the difference, right? And Van City is only located in British Columbia because they really just focus. And that's how credit unions typically operate. They're usually very, like, geographically connected, I guess. I think we can say that credit unions are likely better because they're more likely to act in the best interest of the individual in their business than a bigger business that's more focused on shareholders, right? potentially yeah i mean i again like the the end service like depending on what you want like if you're just depositing money or you know it's hard to say but i've only had really you're owing up uh my first bank account was at envision which is a credit union as well so um yeah

i'm definitely team credit unions for sure um yeah and then yeah so that's basically the difference or what the and what have your roles been like within vans city what has that been like for you to start as a bank teller what is that experience kind of like like, and then moving up in your role? Sure. So being a bank teller was just like a lot of customer service, right? You're seeing a lot of people and you're having those quick short conversations, but you typically see the same people, so you build that relationship.

And you get to, you know, it can be like the house, the weather kind of thing. But often you're seeing these people and you end up seeing them grow, whether you see their kids grow. And you kind of have this intimate knowledge or relationship with them. in a way because you're seeing them deposit money and it's you see people like deposit money from like a job so you kind of know like their job history their education history maybe some of their struggles and then to I mean to a degree you people come in maybe they're working through an estate so someone's passed away or they're getting married so you kind of you go to a credit union or

I say bank but financial institution at kind of different really pivotal moments of your life, hypothetically. So you kind of end up getting to know people on that level. And then becoming an account manager, it slowed things down a little bit. I wasn't seeing as many people in a day, but I was having longer conversations with those people. So then again, you're going down another level and people are coming in, looking for advice. Whereas beyond the front line as a teller, more transactional, right? They're telling you, just put this check in and then, I mean, you still want to give them some advice. Hey, do you have plans for this? Do you? You want to maybe talk to a financial advisor or talk to an account manager about this.

So it's a team effort, really, to help people navigate those times of their lives. So then as account manager, you kind of know a lot about or a little about a lot. I'm not licensed, so I wouldn't really discuss mutual funds. I could talk that they exist and that maybe that's something that you'd want to talk to a specialist about. but I was doing loans, lines of credits, mortgages, and like, so that's the lending piece, and then the basic RSP tax-free savings and term deposits and just helping educate people on the differences. I really ended up liking, I mean, we'd have to potentially consolidation loans.

I kind of like doing them because it was a great opportunity to educate people and help, like, put them on their path, like kind of redirect their path and again make more kind of an efficient plan for them to reach their goals moving forward by like reducing their debt ultimately or reducing their debt load and helping their cash flow and stuff like that so can you tell us a little bit more about that consolidation because I think that we have a lot of young listeners who may be working themselves towards a place where they need to consider consolidating their debt but haven't even considered it as like what does that even mean Yeah, for sure. So I think it's just, yeah, being aware of what kind of tools you're using. So like credit card, credit cards aren't bad. It's how you use them. I like to get the points. I like to use the ease of using your credit card. And then I just have one bill to pay at the end of the month. I highly recommend paying your credit card off in full each month. It's usually not a very good interest rate. I mean, that's all relative. But credit cards are usually 19%. so you don't I mean if you can avoid paying interest that would be great and just finding someone that you trust that you can ask questions and like for me my space is like there's no dumb questions ask me anything it's better to know than to yeah that shame of like I'm embarrassed I don't know I had someone whose husband got a truck loan and thought he got a really good deal and it was like almost 20% like he almost bought a new truck on like because he didn't have good credit. And so, or didn't have good credit. And so that they justified then increasing his interest rate. And that's true. So it's like, why, why does my credit matter? Well, if you want lending, like, that's a potential reason you might be deemed as riskier because they don't know you. So, like, they are kind of, I mean, I don't want to say they're judging, but they use the credit

bureau as a tool to navigate what kind of products they can offer you and at what interest rate, whether that's fair or not, that's how it happens. And so I just want people to have that knowledge so that they can navigate and plan for the best. I would say, yeah, to establish a relationship with someone at your financial institution, it's free. You sit down and you can have someone's like an hour of their undivided attention and get help navigating your finances so you're doing things smarter. I had someone who, so yeah, you're carrying a little bit of a balance on your credit card. and you see on your bill, minimum payment, $50, okay, well, that's not too bad. Sometimes it's even lower, it's like $20.

And I had someone who, maybe it's like this perfectionism or they're just like, oh, well, I didn't want to just pay $20, but I knew in like next month I'd be able to pay like $100. So they just skipped paying the $20 now and they're like, oh, I'll pay $100 next month. And I was like, no, that's not how credit cards work. You're like, that's your minimum payment. Like you have to make that payment or else you skipped a payment. basically, and like, you know, in their head, well, I'm going to pay them 100 next month. That's better than paying them $20 now and $20 next month, right?

Like, that's only $40, Nina, do the math. And it's like, okay, I get in theory what you're saying, but that's not how it works. And now you're actually, like, wrecking your credit bureau because it's showing as a late payment. And so that's just, again, no judgment kind of, we can joke about it. But moving forward, like, now you know. And you're going to pay the $20 on time because you want to preserve your credit. credit bureau and then it's like when you're buying stuff and you don't have the money to pay it off for instance what's the best route to go like maybe you have your car breaks down and you have your

you need the car to get to work so you're hate with a large bill you put on your credit card but should it stay there is that make the most sense or maybe you should get a loan what's the difference and why would I get one product over the other right so come in talk find out if you don't those answers or what like a line of credit is and that sort of thing so consolidation loans why I liked it was say you're just you're out living life you got a couple of credit cards because especially when you're turn 19 all of a sudden it seems like they they know and they're coming in the wood woodwork and they're offering you all these great zero percent like four oh read the fine print right um so maybe you have a couple of credit cards and that you're you're learning that you're

paying the minimum payment but you're not getting ahead with a minimum payment you're not paying it down. It's kind of the never, never plan. Maybe you have a car loan to or another thing that attracts people are those furniture loans like, yeah. Easy home. Exactly, yeah. And yeah, no payments until and then all of a sudden you're hit with this payment. And anyway, so then you're just feeling like that's cash flow is when all of your paycheck comes in and then, oh, the credit card's taking this and that loan's taking that. And it's just like, what do I have left? And I'm also supposed to save? How does this work? Right. And you're not getting ahead. and it just it feels like this weight on you and so for people who get to that point

where they're like like help like I don't know where my money is going or I don't have enough to to feel like I'm living comfortably or I don't have enough to for my goals of going to school or for my goals to purchase a new car come in figure it out so what a consolidation loan technically does would be paying out your debts and consolidating it to one payment because it's a like death by a thousand cuts sometimes where you have pay, and if they're different interest rates, right? So if you can pay up debt that has 19% with a loan that's only 7%, financially that makes sense, right? That's basic math. It doesn't matter, I failed calculus. I know that that math works. And so the idea is kind of twofold. You're paying down potentially higher

interest rate debt at a lower interest rate. And you're also typically freeing up a little bit cash flow so that they can have some breathing room or maybe we're using a little bit of that freed capital or cash to pay down the loan faster. So again, a credit guard is revolving and that's why we call it like the never never planned. If you just keep on putting money towards, you don't have that end in sight. And sometimes it even says legally they actually had to add this to the statement where it will tell you if you're paid the minimum payment, you will pay this down in 21 years kind of thing, right? So yeah, look at that if you want to be depressive. So with a loan, it's an X amount, like, this is the interest rate, and it's

going to be paid off. If you keep on making this X amount of payments, it'll be paid off in three years, or it'll be paid off in four years. So there's that late at the end of the tunnel. This is a plan. So long as you, you know, don't kind of fall back into potentially some of those pitfalls, like this is your plan. And this is like how you're getting get out of it kind of thing, right? So this is a really important question I want to ask because I know that for a certain subsection of the population, we treat people as if, and maybe there's a better way to phrase this, who are some of the people who need these consolidation loans? Because I think we have a bad habit of thinking one subsection of the population are the ones with all the money problems. And the

people on promontory or the people on Chilliwack Mountain don't have those problems because they're financial experts, because they've got this big, beautiful car. And I think that that's an error we often make is that we treat the person with the crazy Jaguar as if they've got all of their finances figured out and the person driving the old Nissan Ultima 2002 is the crazy person who's got all the problems so can you tell us just broadly it's just that it's broad like they're i mean i've been out of out of the game for a few years right so but uh you're you're totally right there it's it's all ages it really does cross a lot of different demographics. Yeah, having a fancy car or boat,

I mean, from my standpoint, because of the job that I've had, it's funny because, yeah, you're right. Most people would be like, oh, they've got it all figured out. They must be very wealthy. And from my point of view, I'm always like, I wonder, like, are those paid off? Or are they paying loans? And, like, I've seen where, you know,

maybe it's an illness or you just lose a job. And all of a sudden, that life is, like, you can't afford it anymore. Um, so, yeah, whereas the person, like, I drive a 2008 Mazda that is like pretty rickety right now, um, so not saying that my life was great and I'm super wealthy because I drive a crappy car. That's not necessarily the case either, but definitely there are people who live more, um, I guess moderately or like frugally and financially, like, yeah, you might think, oh, they, they,

they don't know about finance. It's like, oh, they do. And like they, you know, like their lifestyle. is different, right? So no, you can't judge a book by its cover by any means. And, but I do think that unfortunately, people who, there's like the cycle of poverty as well, where maybe they had less means to educate themselves about finance. I also, it's like that kind of like, if you have enough, there's, what, charge back fees at banks. So you didn't have enough money and something bounced and then the bank charges you a fee and it just feels like adding insult to injury like

I didn't have money and now you're charged me more money because I didn't have money like it's yeah and I get it and I understand why they do it to a degree but often um like it's not funny like that often there's those kinds of things where yeah the people who need it need help the most are actually getting penalized can we talk about a little bit about money mart and those types of businesses because those are heartbreaking I think that they shouldn't even exist. I think that they are purely predatory and I think something so vultuous

should not exist in our communities because they do go after the most vulnerable. They're not going after the people on promontory or the people in Chilliwock Mountain. They're looking for the people who are already trying to survive with small amounts of money each month. Yeah. I'm not sure.

I think Vancey still does it, but they actually created a product that was to try to help, I mean, I guess one way to say it's steal business from them, but to basically offer an alternative. to people who are going to money marts and stuff like that. It was called a fair and fast loan because those were kind of the barriers that people,

when you go to get an official loan, yeah, we're going to pull your credit. It's going to take time. We need your income verification. And they're like, yeah, no, I need this money now because I have to pay rent or I have to buy groceries. And, you know, those were limitations that were on us. So I just love being part of an organization that listens and looks and is like, okay, well, this is how we can fill the need. Are the interest rates higher than a regular loan? Yep, it is, but it's not the predatory rates that, like you're saying.

They can be like 200, 300, 400%, right? Uh-huh, yeah. For like a few weeks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and then you're not getting ahead. You're getting behind. And again, it's quick and easy. So if you're already feeling maybe embarrassed, it's like, okay, well, Lisa, just go in

and out and like I don't have to, you know, do anything. Whereas, oh, I don't want to see Nina and have to sit down and talk to her. And admit all of those things. and show them all these things. But often push comes to shove at the very end. And they're like, they can't get ahead. And then they do come. They finally do have to come.

And it's like, oh, I wish you came to me from the beginning because it would have been easier, but that's fine. And, you know, come at least at some point, right? But yeah, exactly. Like there's so many different things that lead up to what can put someone in that position, right? And I can go back to their families. access to wealth, you know, family helping them, bailing them out kind of thing,

access to, again, that's kind of, we can segue into the mortgage thing, is because a lot of people are able to access equity from their home to help, that's an easy consolidation loan. If you can use a huge asset to offset it. Before we get there, I want to ask about small, like, car purchases or car leases and what your thoughts are on those, because I think I've taken a little bit of flack. for saying, I don't support them almost ever, because I think that they put people who might have a $20 an hour job, and then they're like, oh, like, I can get this car for $300 a month or $250 a month. But now you have this contract with this institution, and now you have this long-term commitment. So it makes it more difficult if you want to switch jobs, if you want to focus more on university, if you want to start your new, you're an entrepreneur, and you want to start a new thing. Like, I can just see so many... potential negatives down almost any path that you want to go down with a big car loan that to me I can almost never see unless you have a big stockpile of cash and you could pay it out at any time

and you're just choosing not to and it's a low interest rate that's like the only time I can see it but I see almost all of my friends with cars that have loans on them and jobs that really don't support that type of financial decision yet their parents support them they sign the contract with them and it just feels like there's multiple generations that don't understand the long-term risks because the argument that I've heard against me is, what's a safe vehicle? I don't have to stress about getting stuck on the side of the road. And all I think is, well, how much is BCAA a year? It's like, what, 100 bucks to guarantee that somebody's going to be there on the side of the road with you to help you out? Exactly. And I mean, in my role at the financial institution, you can't impose

your beliefs on on someone but there are definitely people who I would like have considered consider friends of where I'm having a pretty real candid conversation where I'm like why like what are you and it's like this entitlement potentially or um I need this reward I deserve this that kind of thing um but it's also yeah about seeing like the long term so there's only times where people why I was just like why is that your goal and it it might be an ego thing it might be a lifestyle thing and again you're trying not to pose judgment on that but from a financial standpoint it's like does that actually make sense and I think a good example would be I would see a lot of young typically guys who were going to Alberta working on

the oil rigs and as soon as they came back it was like okay you could just almost have like the checklist right like they got the big track and all their toys and and then yeah oh no you're like you something's changed in your life and now all of a sudden you know this is not as as as comfortable comfortable making those payments and stuff like that and you have to reevaluate, right? So sometimes you can give people your advice and show them like that alternative way of thinking of things, but sometimes it's not going to really sink in until they have to experience like making a choice, right? Of, hmm, I can't afford this anymore, you know.

And that's a touchy subject telling someone like what to do with their money or maybe not their money, but I mean, they're not spending their money on buying the vehicle because they're getting a loan, but they're using their money to pay the loan down, right? There's also the whole asset thing of like, when you buy a brand new vehicle, like as soon as it leaves it a lot, like the value of it, it goes down or it decreases typically, right? So again, it's about education. So I definitely would have those conversations with people in a non-judgmental way. I've just been like, this is, like, these are some of the things. And because there are pros and constant leasing as well, like, especially if you're an entrepreneur, people lease vehicles,

write off that sort of thing, or if you're using it for marketing. And again, I don't pretend to be an expert in all those things. But, yeah, there's, it's, I think you use the word, like kind of being in control of your finances and, yeah, and being, you'll be more, I guess, able to adapt or be agile in a world that is ever changing. So, like, yeah, like, you're, you might have that job now, but you might not have it down the road. or something might change or you have a baby. Like there's different priorities change. But yeah, or if you lose your job,

now that vehicle's become more of a burden or that payment has become more of a burden, right? Especially if there's like a financial crash or something like that. So can you quickly just describe how an individual might experience that? Because I think the big pitfall for a lot of people is they treat the 2008 crash or recessions in general as if that doesn't apply to them. because they have a normal job.

They're not a part of the stock market. They're not a part of these big investment organizations. So how does that impact me, the regular everyday individual? And I think that we do a terrible job of educating people on what a recession looks like. What did the 2008 recession mean? Who was responsible for that? I feel like we don't do a great job of delivering that information to the common individual who's just going about their day.

I always think that the best way to educate is, through stories, right? And luckily, like, I feel like I'm old enough now that I actually have stories of my own, or cautionary tales, as I like to call them. Or if you don't, like, you use someone else's as well, like with permission or, you know, don't use their name kind of thing. But so I actually bought an apartment. I was still living at home with my parents and I bought an apartment. I think it was 22. I had just started working at Van City and had some money saved up and I wanted to be a landlord. I thought that would be a a good idea. And I bought in 2006, end of 2007, maybe. And interest rates were like almost

6%. And so that was, again, I didn't know what was good or bad. My parents back in the day had double-digit mortgage rates before, right? So, like, that was great. No. And so, yeah, the market basically crashed in 2008. And I was like, what? I thought, like, oh, that real estate you can't lose. It always just goes up, right? Like, very naive. I ended up holding on to that, like, investment. It was more of a lesson than an investment.

It was, yeah, learning kind of like, while I was going to school, I was learning that piece. But in real life, I was learning lots of things through being a landlord and real estate owner, I guess. And, you know, different, like, words of wisdom. Like, you only lose? when you sell, like in mutual funds, even are your stocks, like when it's down, you're like,

oh, I want to sell, like, I've stopped this, like, ride, I want off. But if you sell, like, that's when you're actually realizing the loss, right? So if you can hold on to it and ride the proverbial waves over time, and again, there's different reasons by people invest. But, so I tell people

that, like, no interest rates change. And, like, just because, like, what you know to be true, especially if you're younger, that's like no hit on younger people. which is like you've had less experience, hypothetically, of time to experience those, like, different interest rates. You've only, if you're only looking at the short snippet of time of, like, what the stock market was doing. Yeah, so just knowing that it has impacted people, and it maybe doesn't impact people all the same way, though, either, right?

So I'd use that as a cautionary tale that, you know, some people buy and then all of a sudden like, yeah, the market jumped up and they have all this equity and they think they're the smartest person in the world because they did this and it's like, okay, but it's not always like that. And I think it's interesting because my parents are kind of different. My dad was very like planning for the future and being like being somewhat frugal, not doom and gloom, but just kind of like, you know, level-headed, I guess. whereas my mom's very generous and maybe kind of a little bit like if it was for him maybe would be a little bit less as planned and like you know more just like if you got money you like spend it and like share it with your friends and just you know keep on living but like whereas my dad's like plan for a rainy day and you know that sort of thing and so I try to take both of those things because you can't just like there's no point of just being so frugal that you're not experiencing any joy in life but it's I I think it's a balance. It's finding the balance that works for you and listening to people of different ages, of different backgrounds, because they're all going to have different experiences and their perceptions might be different, right? Yeah. One thing I'm really worried about right now is hyperinflation, because we're getting a lot of hints that that's either coming or that

we might be a little bit more exposed than other countries. And my concern is that we're talking about it, perhaps, in ivory towers, in financial institutions, but the people that this really impact is First Nations communities, people already in poverty, who are already on a fixed income, those are the people who impact, if hyperinflation occurs, those are the people who are going to be impacted the worst. And I don't know if you've heard, but I always hear stories of the average Canadian is like, they couldn't get together $200 in like two weeks if they needed to pay off an extra bill or something like that. And so to me, we're getting a lot of indications that we might have over the next 10 years some real financial hardships. And I don't think that that's A,

being talked about enough, but B, being shared with the people who need to be preparing the most for something like that to occur. Yeah. No, I think that's, I mean, that's very really. To assume that everyone experiences the same is definitely not true at all. Can you tell us about leasehold land and how Van City is working with them because I know I can share a little bit of information on how Alpine is involved in that work. So, yeah. So basically, a lot of the times when you live on reserve,

there is like all the homes are like owned by the band and people acquire homes different ways. I mean, growing up in Chililowac, I know it'd be like, you know, you drive through the reserve and it was like, oh, like they don't take care of. their properties or they, I don't know. And it's just like, it's different. It's different than when you have a mortgage and you're able to be like, oh, my roof's leaking. I need to like, like, most people, I mean, don't just have like, say 10 grand to like buy a new roof, but

they're able to access it because they own the home and they have access to the equity. And it's pretty cut and dry to do that when you go into a bank. It's like, here's my deed. Okay, you don't actually do that. But you pull like the line, like the title and stuff like that, right? and they know like lenders know how to do that when you love in the reserve and you don't like you know everyone knows that's your home but like you go to the bank they're like well can you prove that it's your home like do you have like you know the title and and that sort of thing and it's like well no and you know how does that work um so kind of what was happening like my background would be there's lots of development like chilewax surrounded by well ALR at this point

and a lot of reserve, like leased land, everything else is being developed and scooped up. And so it's a huge opportunity. And so we were seeing community members who were getting CPs. So that's like certificate of possession on their land. And this is all, sorry, I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, because a lot of communities are getting land code. So they're taking back control of their communities on their land and they're creating their own rules. Exactly. Yeah, thank you for clarifying.

So land code is enabling them to make more of these rules and helping their community members. So we were seeing, yes, a community member had this plot of land and then they were developing because again there's a huge need for it, right? Supply and demand. And so they would develop and then they were selling these townhomes and that sort of thing and they were making themselves

and their family some money and that's, there's nothing wrong with that. this would become leased land, right? It's still on reserve, but most of these homes are being sold to non-indigenous people who need a house. They're coming out from the city, then we would need Chilohac. So similar to, like, cult is like there's leased land,

but that's like crown land or whatever. So I was like, that's great. Not all FIs can lend on lease land. They have to have approved the head lease. So, for instance... FI financial institutions. Yes, sorry, jargon. So, for instance, like, Van City, there's a lot of land up at cultists that we're not, we don't mortgage off.

It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the property. We just haven't gone through the steps to have our legal department approved the head lease. Like, a lot of the cultists, like, it's like 100-year lease, that sort of thing, right? Suwali, right? No, not even indigenous lands. Like, just there's, like, yeah, crown lands around the lake itself that, I mean, it is Swali land, but, you know, it's, yeah, but it's not designated reserve land. lands for legal purposes, so owned by non-Indigenous people. So, yeah, the crown would be like the head lease, basically, like it's, or I'm not sure exactly

what the head lease is, but this isn't like non-Indigenous. But I'm just using it as an example. So we don't mortgage there, but maybe TD does, or maybe Envision does. So sometimes you have to shop around that way when you're looking for a mortgage. I've had people at the 11th hour say, I was moving from Surrey to Chilliwack, and then all of a sudden they said that that wasn't an approved development and it was it just happened to be what we we're calling locatilis land so this is when first nations person who had the CP owned the land and then basically built a like a subdivision kind of thing and they were selling each unit so yeah so they're like help us and so advanced he's like oh okay yeah that was an approved um development so we can mortgage on that and that that's great. What I was seeing, and like obviously other people were seeing, was that, okay, so why are we just quickly able to provide a mortgage to a non-indigenous person on technically indigenous land? But when an indigenous person wants to get a mortgage, it's all like, okay, how do we do this? This is confusing. And there was barriers and barriers and barriers, right? And I mean, there was there was the desire to do it, but there was just barriers. And we couldn't figure out why there were barriers. Like, this is basically the same land.

And if you break it down, it's basically you're lending to someone who's not indigenous or you're lending to someone who is indigenous. And that obviously looks like a glaring, like, that's an issue. So what they found was that it's about seizing assets, potentially like recourse, about mitigating risk. And so this is why we actually sat down. We went to Stalo. They have like a lands title office.

A couple other financial institutions were there. And it was just like a good, again, like collaborative approach to like the problem solving. And I felt like I got to be in the middle of it because I could, I know some of the pain points that as like an indigenous person when they're like, like they want to immediately like, oh, we can't seize assets. Okay, like that's the first thing you're thinking about when you look at me when I come into the bank is, oh, we can't like, like there's PPSA personal property security agreement. And that's like what something you would put on, a lender would put on a vehicle for instance, like a piece of property. kind of like a mortgage, but for a vehicle. And in the Indian Act, which, again, a lot of prescientious people would rather not be part of,

it would say, like, you can't go and seize that asset on reserve lands. So then as a financial institution, we're like, well, that's risky then, because we have no recourse. And it's nothing personal. They're just, like, that's kind of your job, is mitigating risk, making sure the deal makes sense. You're giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars. You want to make sure that you have a strong agreement.

So, I mean, I can see the standpoint, but then there's a way communicate that without being offensive, right? And being like, this is what we're thinking about. Then there was just a legality of it of like, of like, well, it's not in our typical conventional lands title office in Victoria or whatever, right? It's held by a small lands department from the band, basically, or in the community. And so we're kind of wrapping their head around that. And that this is still legitimate, just because it's a little bit different, doesn't mean it's less

real. And then I think the biggest one was the valuation of the land. As soon as they were like, well, no, you can't sell it. So say it was you, Aaron, you had the CP and you wanted to build a house and like to do that. But like say you want to sell it afterwards, like, well, you can't just sell it to anyone, right? And like just not knowing what the rules were. Again, it's just like, it's not easy. They have to figure out how to navigate that. Who would be able to like live in that house afterwards if you would decide to move and want to sell. So again, it's like that free market, like if you were buying a house on promontory, you can sell that house on the free market and they know that a comparable house down the road sold for X amount and that's how

they value the property. With this, it's a unique property and they weren't sure how to value it. So just to save to like kind of like pad it to make sure that it was less risky as per, like they would say, they would just make it lower value, right? Like it's like if you're budgeting for yourself. You want to overestimate your expenses and underestimate your income so that if, like, because if you're, you know, then you're happy. There's a happy accident at the end, right? So kind of that same. But there's a point so I'm like, I can see how they're trying to mitigate risk and how they're trying to offset some of like they're not knowing. But I also on the other hand see how that is not equal, not fair and borderline offensive. So it was kind of navigating that.

The other benefit, not just because it's the right thing to do and it makes sense, is that a lot of the capital that is being used to fix up these homes or to build them are coming from the band and that money could be used for like other like programs, infrastructure, like all this other stuff. So that's why I was pretty passionate about helping them make that more accessible, right? so that they can use those funds for other things, right? And giving people that power of ownership, right, and control of their own property. And also it meant that people were able to move back to their communities. So very often, so what it was was basically, we called it like an A to A lease or they called a self-lease.

So basically you own the CP, like the certificate of possession, and then you're leasing the land to yourself. that's basically as simple as it was and so all we have to do is approve the head lease and then we would approve the mortgage like we would anyone else just was an income verification, credits all still applicable

and for the most part it was progressive mortgages like building mortgages so people would get the land and maybe the land was gifted so that's already like awesome they might have a grant to help offset some of the costs and then from there like it's still not everyone can

afford to do a build a home like it's quite expensive so often the people who are applying for this maybe lived off reserve and owned their own home elsewhere so they were pulling out equity already there but again there's there's there for people who already are in a house so they don't have to build but they want to access that that equity to fix it up maybe build an addition go on vacation like whatever like it's it's theirs to use how they want kind of thing I think that that's so important Because through my role as a court worker, I got to see one of the, like, there's this complexity of the word systemic racism because people try and point to, I think the Indian Act is a really good example of systemic racism because it does judge a whole group of people based on their ethnicity and not on anything else. But another way to look at it within the court system, because when that article came out about me, there were a few people I saw in different threads being like, they're treated just the same as everybody. else. And I think that it's like I can offer tangible examples of how it's not. And one of them is that if you're a Caucasian person and your parents own their home, they use part of the ownership of their home as a surety to say, we're so confident that we're going to make sure that we're going to make sure that we're going to make sure that we're going to make sure that he does that. And we're going to take that responsibility. The difference for indigenous people is for the longest time.

they don't own their property and they don't have assets that they can say I'm a surety and tied in with that is maybe their parents have court issues maybe their grandparents have court issues so there's not that supportive person to take on that responsibility

which is kind of how the native court worker role came about because it was recognizing that there's this huge difference in how Caucasian people get treated because of ownership of property in comparison to indigenous people who don't own their property and so making this accessible you being involved in this like to most people listening right now they might be like, oh, that's kind of interesting, but I don't know much about it.

Boring. Yeah. And people get that reaction, but it's important to understand the ramifications long term over the next 25 years of you helping build this relationship with Van City and Leashold property because it has far reaching effects in our courts, in our community, in our ability to develop the community that go far beyond just, oh, now I own this a little bit of property or I have a lease on my property now. It actually has really important implications for our ability to change the overrepresentation of indigenous people in the court system or in the prison system for addressing poverty, for addressing so many other issues that I don't think get talked about enough in tying in with this because I'm sure Van City wasn't thinking about any of these other ramifications that will come from supporting this initiative. They were just viewing a smaller aspect of the issues they see within their organization that they wanted to address. But it has broader, really important implications. And when I saw your involvement with that and talking to Chanel, it was like, that's another thing that, again, role models aren't just what you can see on the surface level. It's this in-depth understanding of, like, the impact of what you did will make on all communities.

And if Van City can apply that across BC and then if other credit unions across Canada can take that similar lead, it's going to have a huge, hopefully, impact on so many other areas that people don't expect. Yeah. And so I want to appreciate you for that. And can you tell us about being at Van City and starting Luna Float and what that whole process was like to bring that idea about and what that process was like? Yeah. So, and then we talked about this a little bit before. Not today. But it kind of goes into a little bit, like a couple years before I actually left, oops, sorry, and placed my mic, before I left Van City.

And that was, like, your song, the song. And it all makes sense, I swear. But having some stress-induced illnesses, like, I like working, I like working at Van City. I currently work there. I left on really good terms. I basically, I say that by the end of, like, my account manager, I was what they call a B-BAM, a branch business account manager.

And so I was working with entrepreneurs and small businesses. I was dating my now husband, who is very entrepreneurial. And it's just so nice to be around these passionate people. And it was inspiring. And I was like, I have this business degree. And I teach business plan writing. And I'm telling people a lot of things. But what do I actually know?

Like, maybe I should put my money where my mouth is. And there was that desire for the autonomy and just to see, like, why the heck not? Like, life is short. like let's try it and i wanted to go out and um do something and own my own business and that sort of thing and so i left an city on good terms and did that what i wanted to back pedal with was like i didn't actually know luna float it wasn't which i just i wanted to own a business i wanted to um try to create something but i wasn't sure what and then a good friend of mine was like well what about float therapy like you're very passionate about that maybe tie that in and i was like

oh my gosh, you're so smart. Like, that's a great idea. And while I liked Van City, there was also, customer service, like I was saying, you see people in different parts of their life. And for me, I think maybe I didn't, like I was taking a lot of that on, a lot of people's stress and emotions,

and if they were stressed out about money, I was stressed for them. And I was just, so a little part of that was being taken on. I had stuff going on. in my personal life and that wasn't really good fan like that sort of thing and um i didn't really have the tools to process stress like you just kind of get over it you just push through um and i didn't i thought stress was just like oh you're stressed out because of you're studying for a test like i didn't understand the biological and psychological elements of that that like it increases your cortisol

and and you know i'm young but we still didn't really talk about mental health back back in school and, you know, in my family really like that. And so I didn't know the signs of burnout and that sort of thing until it manifested physically. So I was playing roller derby. I also started a roller derby league back in the day. And it was awesome. And I've always been pretty athletic. I like playing soccer and different sports. And roller derby, I wasn't good at at first because I didn't really know how to skate, but I learned and it became, you know, one of my my passions. I had to stop just because it was too much involvement. It was also a not-for-profit association and I was on the board of that. And let's face it, it was lots of bumps and bruises. I had

some injuries. I was like, okay, I want my body to work still. So I had to say goodbye to that. But that was like kind of a way to de-stress, I thought, right? Like, you know, your adrenaline's pumping. You're kind of like you're in the zone. So you're forgetting everything. But it wasn't, you know, calming. It wasn't resting. It wasn't restorative. I also did kickboxing. So again, you can see the theme here. I was like punching my stress away. And it didn't, like, it helped avoid some of my problems, but it didn't really help me address them. So I'm trying to think of, it does seem so like a distant memory now, which is kind of nice. But I was young, like mid-20s. and I just felt sick and like I didn't know what and I had been prone to like pneumonia bronchitis back when I was younger and I remember coming in and I was having heart like palpitations and I had those issues as a kid before but it was never really diagnosed like I was on those ECGs and and I knew I was like I must have pneumonia too like I just feel like crap and I went to my doctor it's not my doctor anymore because he basically he always had his hands like over the past

out of prescription paper. And back then, he was like, okay, we can talk about either your lungs or your heart, but we can't do both. You can't bring two problems at me at the same time, right? And I'm like, I don't know, like, maybe they're related. So I was like, okay, let's just deal with my pneumonia. We'll deal with all the other stuff later. So he's like, yeah, yeah, here's your prescription for your antibiotics and stuff, which obviously I needed. And I started feeling better, and then I finally had enough energy to go back. And I was like, okay, and what about this heart thing. Like, I'm a healthy young woman. I'm playing sports. And, like, I can be playing roller derby, which is quite, um, you need a lot of energy, like strength. But then all of a sudden

I'll just be like gas bringing up the laundry up the stairs and like sweating almost and just like, and um, he did some tests and he basically, um, my heart was racing too high and pounding out of my chest. And I was like, yeah, it doesn't feel very good and makes me feel like really nervous. And so he's like, well, we'll put you on medication to lower your heart rate. I was like, that seems kind of weird. And I'm like, but also it pauses and then goes low. He's like, oh, right. We'll put a pacemaker in you. And I was like, really? I'm like, I don't know how I feel about that. That's a very invasive procedure. And you need to upgrade that like equipment. Like I think every 10 years or something. Yeah. And I was like 24, 25. And I was like, I think I'm going to have

to think about that, right? So I actually went to another doctor and she, I can't remember what came first because I ended up having Rubella pneumonia. So Rubella's German measles. I had shingles, which like normally is in like older people. And yeah, that actually, the shingles incident, I have to say, like I was at Van City working and all of a sudden half of my body started getting them. And I had like this like itch on my back in between my shoulder blades. And I didn't know what it was. And then all of a sudden like half my, it's like coming up. And I'm like trying to like finish my work. And like all of a sudden it gets to my face. And I'm like, I think I think I better go to the emergency. Actually, I went to my chiropractor and he's like, I'm not

touching you. He's like, I think like you could be having not a stroke, but it was something like serious. So I went to the doc, a bunch of emergency and they hooked me up right away. And of course, they're like, oh, you have an regular heartbeat. I'm like, yeah, I know. It's allegedly been nine, but like, um, what's wrong? They, they even really knew. They, they basically sent me, they said I wasn't having a stroke, which was good. Um, so then I went back to my doctor. And she, again, she's, she was amazing. She's like, do you have a rash? I'm like, I don't think so. I'm like, oh, I have like this itch on my back. Sure enough, that it was shingles. And shingles affects your nervous system. And that's why like our nerve networks are very, um, like they mirrored

image, right? So that's why it was like a perfect line down my body and it was just affecting the side. So I shingles. I went on medication for that. But she basically diagnosed me with a general anxiety disorder, pepper in some C. PTSD and stuff like that. I had been going through counseling, which I'm a huge supporter of. I think people should definitely seek counseling. But finally, it was just like, it just manifested physically. My brain had been telling me to slow down and that I needed to do these things, but I didn't stop and listen until it physically was tangible like I can show someone oh see I am this is like how I have been feeling inside like mentally but like it took for it to like manifest into physical symptoms that I can almost like prove to

people what was that like because Rebecca had basically the same thing with her stomach problems and her back problems was trying to cope and people kind of just expect you to turn that off at a certain point in time like you're having dinner and nobody wants to be hearing about your health problems when you're in the middle of dinner and yet you're an agonized discomfort or feeling something and it seems like we as a society seem to struggle with giving that space to people to be like hey it's just dinner let's have what's going on let's hear what's going on yeah that's way more important than talking about what my week was last week so what was that like to have this constant feeling of not being comfortable in your body and feeling like your body and

you were not on the same page and not being able to share that with people in the easy way yeah i mean it's it's yeah like it was more like being poked and prodded with like all of these different tests um and yeah people just kind of looking at you like well you're young like it's probably not that bad and like really the term gas light gets thrown around a lot but it was definitely like something that kind of happened but i feel like more myself like i'm like i gaslit myself because you just question yourself like is it really as bad as i think it is like because you kind of like see how other people react to it and you're like, well, they don't seem like it's a big deal. So maybe I'm overreacting. And yeah, and I mean, still, like, once it was physical, it wasn't a huge wake-up call

because then it was like, okay, well, now we'll just fix the physical. So now that it's manifested physically, we fix the physical, and then I'll be fixed, right? But yeah, and so I actually ended up taking about, I think, a month, maybe not even a month off of work. First, like, stress related um and that was like you know you hear people who are like oh don't let them put you on that medication because that's gonna fix you like i don't know like like that's gonna throw you off or like don't let them medicate you like that was actually some advice people gave me so it was kind of bizarre or um yeah just people thinking like you just needed a break like yeah well what's wrong with needing a break too right um but yeah i realized that even in this day and

it was still a taboo conversation. Like, what is mental health? What is stress, anxiety, depression? Like, what is that actually? Oh, you just feel depressed. Or you just... Just go for a walk. Yeah.

Yeah. So I actually said that, like, that, when I took time off, it still was after my health. I pushed through. I pushed through. I pushed through. And then finally, I say my brain broke because I... And that's when, like, the more of the depression and stuff set in. I feel like there's a lot of things at play.

I feel like I got to a place where I was safe. and to let to break down in a way right and so I had like fought fought fought fought and then it was safe to break down it wasn't pleasant wasn't pretty but then you rebuild right so then I found floating so I was like maybe I should not be doing roller derby and kickboxing like maybe I should try this like meditation yoga thing out or I don't know like anything just try something different because like Western medicines work and I believe like we need to be on medication like you definitely should and I was medicated for a long time and I found something that fit for me I've since been off of it but it's something that I'm you know even just being a new mom like

being aware that it might be something that I need to it's a resource I can use if I need to right a tool yeah exactly um and it was just like so much easier and like they're like because yeah your highs are high your lows or lows some people like oh it'll make you a zombie and it's like okay maybe I need to be a zombie for a little bit but it didn't it actually just evened me out and made things a little bit easier to get through. But anyway, so I found, I went, my first float was in Gastown, Vancouver, and I was, you're kind of typical person, I guess, where I was like, I don't know if I can just sit there, you know, I had some demons, I had some stuff that I had kind of avoided, and I was like,

I don't want to be thinking about stuff in there, like my brain's going to be too busy. I had a lot of reservations about going in at first, but I was also excited and wanted to try something new. And I went with one of my good friends. And sure enough, as soon as I went in, my brain was just like going, like just about nothing, just monkey brain, right? You're just like thoughts and you just like focus on certain things. And I couldn't really relax. Then you kind of think about the environment. Oh, this is unique. Oh, I'm like in this dark space and like, where's the door again? And you're just thinking about everything. And you're avoiding. You're avoiding stuff. I felt like my brain was a messy file folder and like these files were getting pulled.

and it was like, hey, here's a song, here's a memory, and it was almost, it wasn't relaxing at first. It was kind of, like, exhausting. But then there was a point in time where it just slowed down, then stopped. And I guess this is, like, kind of flow state or meditation where you're not fully asleep, but you're not fully awake. And all of some time just goes so fast. And I was, like, it was just the first time I really felt that calm and, like, shut off, took a break, like, whatever you want to call it. And so when I got out, I was in the shower, and it just was like, oh, this is, like, I need this again. And I couldn't really explain what it was, but I felt lighter and I felt like work had been done.

And then I started thinking, like, reading up more about it and it can lower your cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and like just how stress manifests in the body. Magnesium. Yeah, yeah, magnesium, exactly. Yeah, it's Epsonsol, like 1100 pounds of Epsons salt. And, yeah, magnesium can affect your heart rate. you sleep. So it means a vicious cycle when you're stressed and then you're not sleeping good and you need sleep to obviously reset. And that's what it feels like a reset. They also call it like womb inception. Like you're, it's very like you feel like you're being comforted. You're just very safe in there. So I slept amazing that

night. And then there's this positive like where you want to keep on moving in this positive healing direction. Right. So yeah, I just explored more. I found out there was a lot of studies with it and the effects of PTSD and anxiety. So a lot of people who have PTSD are put on, like, Ativan or Larazovan, and it affects your, like, the fight or flight response in your brain, which is constantly heightened. And so, again, if you need to be on medication, that's great, but sometimes it's expensive. Sometimes it's not attainable, and people self-medicate. And so I found floating as, like, an alternative or even just, like, to help subsidize it in a way. So yeah, it was just like that pause when the world feels like it's spinning too fast and you want off, just pause, hit the pause button and you kind of piece out for a bit.

So I really, really liked it, but then it's kind of a buzzkill after you have to drive all the way back from Vancouver to Chilliwack. I kind of undoes some of the work there. But it definitely was the beginning of me kind of exploring alternative ways to manage stress and anxiety. and so yeah fast forward again back to like when I wanted to start my own business

my friend's like what about float therapy and I was like wow like this is an opportunity A selfish I could bring floating right into my backyard

but also it's something I want to share because I believe in it and I feel like it could help a lot of people and the more like there was a lot of work I did through counseling

where I used to have a lot of barriers up and you're hardened and I feel like we've touched on that That's a good theme to kind of reoccur's, like, when we're talking about entrepreneurs kind of being hardened, you're offering them a service, and they're kind of like, yeah, sure, if you want to. Because I'm now a softer person, I'm very proud of that I've, it takes more courage to be soft, and sometimes that leads to being gullible, and yeah, sometimes, yeah, I get into these things. I'm like, oh, they want to help me. And then it's like, oh, there it is at the end. It's the pitch or the catch, if you will.

but you know I rather just be me and be optimistic and open-minded and if there's a catch then we it's not a waste of time versus going back and just being hardened because then you miss opportunities of collaboration right so and so basically I don't even know where I was going with that but I guess what was this starting the business process like for you because you understand the process of starting a business you've seen businesses come through Van City time and time again what they require what information they need to provide to you to get the loan for it. What was that process like? So that's definitely like, again, like, why do we like go and do these things and how do they affect our path? Like in a way, it all did kind of lead to this. Like all of my, my background and experiences, good and bad, schooling, work, life all kind of came to this realization. So it started out more as a passion, whereas like immediately it was like from brain, oh, I want to start a business into heart. Oh, this is a business I want to start and I want to spread the floating to the world and it just immediately went to heart, but went back to brain and I was

like, okay, what do we do? We do the business plan. So I started writing up the business plan and we talked about like I couldn't really plan for viability, right? So to test viability, you start a business plan and I think the business plan can be a dynamic document that helps you throughout your journey. But it's also, I realize, do as I say, not as I do. I started writing the business plan, and it was hard to find information because we would be the first and only float center in Chilawak. And the closest one at the time was in Langley. There's not a lot. Like, there's, you know, yeah, there's just not a lot of resources.

Although the resources that we had were pretty cool because they were very collaborative. They just want more people floating, too. So I found out a lot of people who went float centers are more probably heart-driven than financially motivated, per se. but I did it. So I started the business plan and I started looking for space I need to find numbers. How much is build out going to cost?

How much is going to cost to lease a space? I need tangible numbers. And Chilliwock's a small town and the more I talked about it, the more I guess word kind of spread. And to the point where people were like, oh, I have there's a float center opening

and I was like, what? But then I found out that it was me. And I was like, oh, okay. And it sounds kind of corny, but I always say that like Luna float, like I think sometimes ideas already exist, like the potential of them already exist, and they're kind of like floating around in the air. And this one like floated down. And I just simply got to facilitate the process.

So, thank you. So I live in Garrison. And I was walking my dog with my partner. And again, this was as much as a business as it was more of like a rebirth, different kind of like thing for me. right? So I wanted to integrate work-life balance. This is like an opportunity to kind of create something for myself too. So I was like, it wouldn't be amazing if I could walk to work, right? And lo and behold, all of a sudden, these buildings are coming up, like right down on Tama Highway. And coming soon. And then the second development was like, okay, maybe that one. Like this one's too soon, but I think this would be, the whistle would fit in our timeline potentially. And that was pretty much, yeah, as far as like the business side of things go, we

needed financing. So, oh, back to the apartment that I had for 10 years that was potentially a crap investment if you look at like a short span. But I held on and I long term and then, you know, it wasn't, it was not a success story in terms of, oh, I made so much money. I barely got back what I put into it 10 years ago. It's not a great investment. But I learned so much and it built confidence and it educated me. And then when the time came, I was able to utilize that money. So it's kind of like I stashed it away somewhere. So I used a little bit of that. But yeah, basically the business plan, there's different reasons why you'd write a business plan. In this case, we needed financing. So I was writing it to the audience of lenders,

which obviously I know how to speak to lenders because I am one. So I feel like that was a huge asset for me. How long is a business plan? How many pages? It depends. I mean, it could be 20 pages. It can be pretty short. It depends on who your audience is. Um, if you're going for lending, sometimes they have templates, so it's always good to have that, um, investors, but you can even have like a working document for yourself and go back and look at it. But this is where I have to say, like, I'd love to say that I wrote this amazing business plan and I loved it and I was 100% happy with it and that's why we are where we are today. But I mean, I really was just got to the point where heart beat brain and I was like, I didn't care what the number to say this is happening. right so because it was frustrating to you finding the numbers not knowing but just and i'm not recommending this by any means but yeah the numbers became so not part of it anymore it was more

of providing the service to the community was the purpose and just believing and trusting that this made sense and that um because it was going to be good for the community that it would work out yeah yeah so i mean sometimes i think i mean that's the beauty about one Right? Sometimes it's just passion and, you know, you have to like rein them in a bit. That's why I think they are role models is because for the most part it is this, I see a need. The banks might not see a need. The financial institutions, it might not make logical sense. I see the need. I see the benefit. And I'm going to go with that because your story reminds me of bills in that he was like trying to get a loan, trying to get support, trying to get understanding. And he saw this, nobody's doing local meat. Well, 15 years later, now it's everybody wants local meat and that's the most reasonable logical thing to want and everybody's on that fad. But 15 years ago, he was fighting an uphill battle trying to raise awareness of the benefits that this could bring.

And I mean, financial head on, yes, obviously, like, it's good to have numbers and be able to be confident and present these things. But numbers aren't going to help you sleep at night. Well, I mean, they might. But they're not going to keep you going. Like, that's not going to be your Y sustainably. Your Y has to be more of that purpose piece. So I think it's balanced ultimately. And I mean, there's things I would have done differently.

But yeah, like we're learning and we've added services since then. And we're only, this October is going to be four years. So we're still a very new business. We're still growing. We're still learning. Yeah. Can you tell us about how you got some of the equipment? Because I think that that also shows how you set yourself apart,

how you were looking for the best, most. cost-effective, but also the most local ways to go about doing things. Again, timing was, oh, track and fly. Timing was amazing. VanCity is all about supporting local. Like, local makes sense just for, like, carbon footprint-wise, like when you're shipping stuff. And I also have, like, a financial background, not necessarily a plumbing and electrical background.

And I knew that being a float center owner would pull out a lot of different skills that I I would need to learn, or I always would say, like, if you're not good at it, if you don't like it, pay someone or bring those people on as team members. You can't do everything or else you're going to burn out, right? So I'm definitely a big advocate of trying to prevent burnout for entrepreneurs as well, because you do try to just take it on and do everything. So I was like, it'd be nice to have someone on the team who is local, who could help, you know, us a little bit more. It was easy. I found pro-float. They were living in Agassi, and they were manufacturing float cabins in Chilowac.

like what are the odds right and so they actually aren't in business anymore they're beautiful passionate people and again it's that balance of passion but also having that financial side of things too right and i feel like that's the you have to it's a balance and if you go too far on one end then sometimes it's not sustainable right you burn out or money runs out or whatever it might be right so it's navigating that balance and that's i'm morcing that out loud to remind myself. But yeah, they chose to close their business after, I think about five or six years. So we, again, just lucked out getting in that window. We got four of their float tanks. They came and installed it. And we went with them because they're the only Canadian float tank

manufacturers. And they were the only ones. I don't think anyone's making them in Canada right now. So opportunity for someone. And they also, I liked the style of them. So float tanks, like we use the term float tanks or float pods or float pools or float cabins and some are open i've actually just recently seen someone who converted their pro float cabins into like an open concept basically just taking the roof off and you're just like floating in a room like a pool in a room which is really cool something i might look into um then there's pods that kind of like clamshells i was in a tank which they're very like old like they're like the original like floating is actually back from like 1950s a neuroscientist invented them and yeah it was a very like old sci-fi kind of looking thing

and you open a hatch and can't go in I loved it I mean it was great but there are people who float for so many different reasons and I felt like there I wanted to keep as many I want to make it as accessible for the most majority of people right so I felt like some of the feedback I had heard was a mobility right people are coming in for aches pains chronic pain arthritis, fibromyalgia, all sorts of things. And like, we want them to be able to get in and out of the tank easily and safely. The other is, well, people having PTSD or even just being claustrophobic or anxious, a bigger, more spacious tank is going to be more inviting.

So check those boxes as well. That's amazing. And what has some of the response been? Before we get to the responses, what is, what did you try and make the environment? Because I've been there, and I think that the environment is, so important because it's this whole other vibe that you're not in it doesn't feel like a business it doesn't feel like you're trying to sell something like it's not there's not a big sign that says all of your pricing on it there's it's not stressing that aspect of it it seems like

that part is very laid back and then the environment you've created I think goes hand in hand with the float tanks yeah thank you and that yeah that was intentional and then it's an environment. It doesn't feel like a business. So part of, yeah, research and development was I got to float a lot of different places and actually our contractor had already floated before too. And so it was really nice to be partnered with them. Again, he has this invested interest because he's getting a float center built and he's getting to build it. And so we're seeing what we like and what we don't like at other centers and, you know, taking what we do and admitting what we don't. um it's awesome because floating was getting more popular this is a beautiful but like dragonfly

i'm just amazed um they're getting more popular which is great um so with that is the owner's kind of personality comes through and so almost like tattoo i use the tattoo shops as an example um maybe back back in the day i say um they were a little more rough around the edges where you know you're thinking like i wouldn't take my grandma to this tattoo shop i don't know right it's just like yeah rough around the edges whereas now you can go to a tattoo shop that like all different kinds like there's just different energies and vibes and you can pick which one is best for you kind of thing right um so how that relates to floating i guess is there's some where it's a very like their background is in energy work spiritual metaphysical even kind of saying and you go in and it

smells like petuli and you know and that's like totally fine and it's and that floating for them is like the deep dive into meditation and um that sort of thing and um yeah you just definitely get that hippie vibe and some people who don't identify with that are just going to be like oh this isn't for me and i wouldn't want that and like not saying that the other centers like should only do what i do like i think like it's because so many center owners this is an extension of them that it makes sense and they're kind of that's who they're attracting and that's fine or maybe i'm completely wrong, who knows. And then there were ones that were

like kind of clinical. Like I floated in one that felt like I was like Steve Jobs like created this. It was like an apple product. It was just like white and yeah it was fine. It was just kind of sterile and it's not again not that it was bad. Floated a lot of float houses. What I liked about there is that we kind of adopted was just like simple concrete

polished concrete floor. Yeah, just simple was more the best, the best kind of thing. Growing up in Chilawak, I also feel like there was this feeling that like, oh, it's a spa, it's a health spa. And like, sure, it's a place that you can rest, treat yourself, self-care, hashtag self-care, whatever. But I also saw it as like the clinical side of things, you know, the therapeutic side of things, but not making it feel therapeutic and clinical. So I just, I knew that there was, again, this is part goes back to the business plan. If you're trying to figure your demographic, and as a lender, you don't want someone to say, everyone's my demographic. You want to try to really pinpoint that.

But at the same time, my heart's like, I don't want to turn anyone away. Like, this can be for anyone. We've had as young as, like, six years old, and we've had as old as, I think I had someone who was like 90-some odd, float. Like, age isn't really getting the way. People float for so many different reasons. So it's like, I usually try to think of it more as that. And even that's hard because I float for many different reasons, like, and each float's different for me. It might be more of a physical float, or I just fall asleep and I needed to.

You get the float you need, not the float you want all the time, whereas other times it's a very more of like a spiritual feeling, meditative, helps me sleep. I know I need to float when I'm starting to get cranky, snarky, that sort of thing. So it helps me with my stress and anxiety, but it also like has physical benefits too, right? So, but that being said, people might be attracted and come to us for a specific reason and then find it on their own that it helps them with other things. So they might come because they've been in a motor vehicle accident. They heard it was good for their back and neck pain or maybe the trauma associated with that accident. People who come in who have, yeah, like I said, chronic pain or they're doing it for meditation,

they're doing it for athletic recovery. A lot of athletes actually have them, which has been kind of cool. a lot of like, again, twofold, helps them, their mental gym, like helps their mental game. Steph Curry, basketball, he did a commercial with a float tank, which was super cool. It was about how he uses it to get his mind in the game and also to decompress after a game. You know, when he feels like maybe he missed that basket and now he's that weight on him. But it also is good for the athletic piece, like the muscle recovery. So anyways, I mean, there's lots of different benefits.

And I just wanted to make sure everyone felt like it could be, that this could be for them. And we had typically like older men come in and they're like, this is a spa. I send my old lady to, which who uses that term? But yeah, so this is what they were saying. And it was like, I want them to feel like it's for them too. Like, why wouldn't it be? So I didn't want it to feel overtly spa-ish, overtly feminine, just neutral. And kind of like anyone could feel that.

they belong there. So I'm glad I achieve that hopefully. And, I mean, actually, our membership and our clients, I mean, our indicate that we do. Like, every day is different. Some days that we have all, like, all morning, it's like, oh, just all men or, you know, and, or we'll have someone floating who's, yeah, like a young, like 20-year-old man. And we have, like, a 70-year-old woman floating across, like, the hall. And that's awesome.

I love that. And then they can connect even to that, oh, like, hey, you float. Like, you just kind of like, someone else floats, you're like, yeah. You get it. I get it. That's awesome. What is some of the feedback been from some of the people who are regular users? What is their response been?

It was funny. We actually just celebrated someone's hundreds float. Wow. She is a nurse. And I see a lot of people, like first responders, nurses, paramedics, firefighters, like RCMP, like people coming in to decompress. Like people, caregivers, people who, they give some, much of themselves to their work, moms, right? And they're replenishing themselves or fill in their

cap kind of thing, right? And it was funny because I got to know when I was working there more and sometimes floats are more like introspective or you're like, you just want to like keep that quiet. And so you just, you're just kind of nod and they like leave, they float away. Or other times people like want to talk. They're just like, whoa, I just had this thing and I want to share it. And you're like, I'm here for it. Tell me everything. And so again, you really connect with these people. And so I wanted to be there. Actually, I had to bring my baby.

So I just like, I just wanted to like congratulate her and thank her. Like I am so grateful, like you have spent a hundred, well, a hundred times 90, like 900 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Is that right? Math? I don't know. Anyways, the flowed to 90 minutes and she did that a hundred times at our space.

And she laughed. She's like, oh, what are you doing here? Oh, oh, your baby's so cute. And I was like, I'm here because like, and I gave her a little gift or whatever. but I wanted that personal touch because I was just like thank you like you know he's like why are you thanking me like I get the benefit out of floating like I'm not doing you a favor and I was like I had to laugh I was like I guess but you know that's the collaboration yeah neither of you are looking selfishly at it yeah and yeah it's just taking the time and I feel

there's so many reasons to not make the time and I get into this pitfalls myself like I own the business I live seven minutes away and there's still times when I get in my my own way of like not making the appointment so even just making the appointment setting time aside to do something that you know is restorative that's going to help you long term is like that's the first step right um so yeah i mean one of my favorite stories um was a member who uh i say member because like they're like we have monthly memberships and then people who just come in and buy packages and that's fine too um whatever works for people but he actually won a three pack and he was ex-R-CMP, and he was kind of one of those guys who was like, what is this? What? Like, no, like, is this a spa?

I don't go to spa. I'm a tough man. And I was like, okay, like, it's not. It's this. And, like, again, I'm not knowing anything on his background. Like, these are, like, all of the, like, laundry list of why someone might float, right? And I always usually use my own example. And he's like, I guess I'll try it. But he, and he was, like, as much as I might make him seem kind of rude, he wasn't. He just like this kind of grizzly, grizzly bear guy. And so he came for his first float and he hated it. He got out early and he was like, that was stupid. Like you're just sitting there doing nothing and like, and you can tell he was like kind of like wound up, right? And I was like, well, you know, like often very people, like people are very busy and like just taking that time to pause is usually much appreciated.

But it's also a practice. Like you don't just get it. Like I, then I should have shared my experience. Yeah, my first time wasn't, like, I didn't love it the first 30 minutes. It was work that had to be done. So it's kind of hard where it's like, yeah, the customer isn't always, right? Like, you're educating them, you're listening, you're sharing, like, holding space with them. You're not imposing, but you're just kind of like giving them general guidelines that, hey, that's normal to feel that way. But also, what if you tried to stay it a little bit longer? What would that look like if you didn't push through that?

but yeah he's like I wish there was a clock in there knowing which time like what time it was I'm like maybe it's you know the illusion of control and maybe the lesson is that you're you need to learn to not you know feel like you have to have that control and he's like well I'll see you tomorrow whatever right and so he books another appointment because he has three so I have to yeah give him accolades for doing that so he came for a second time he stayed in like double a time but not the full time and he came out and he was like yeah I don't know like I don't get it like you just He's like, I don't, he's like, it's just boring. Like, people pay you to do this? Like, he was kind of like, but he was more like just jabs. Like, he's kind of joking, right? But anyway, he's opening up. And he's like, well, you know, he's like, I think I might have fallen asleep for a bit. And he's like, and I woke up in the dark and I didn't actually feel like, he's like,

normally that's a trigger for me. And I was like, oh, okay. So then he starts, like, his walls are starting to come down. And he's like, yeah, he's like, I only sleep like three hours a night, maybe max. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. Like, that's not great. I'm like, come here just to sleep. Like it's safe to fall asleep. You're not going to sink. You're not going to roll over.

And he's like, yeah, he's like, well, I have one more. I guess I'll give it another chance or whatever. And then his, yeah, his wife used to pick him up. So I happened to be there when he came in for his third float. And he, I think he seemed the whole time. I got out a little bit early. But he like, and he came out. And he just was like, yeah, like I get it. And he's like, it was hard. And he's like, it was hard. And he's like, I still like struggle. He's like, but I feel safe there. And I feel like, yeah, like safe. And then he just starts sharing a little. lot of stuff. And then he actually realized, like the light bulb went on that part of this group that he belongs to, that were helping men with PTSD, had mentioned floating. He just didn't make the association that this is what they were talking about. And so he's like, yeah, so he felt kind of proud. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm doing that. And so he ended up signing up for a membership,

and he floated with us twice a month, like on the same night every, you know, because he needed that kind of consistency. But I just love that because it's not about like forcing someone into like seeing it our way and like you everyone has to love floating like that's definitely not it maybe it's not for everyone I think it could be for anyone but um they're not giving up the being a little bit brave to just kind of face this guy and be like kind of laugh with him about his little remarks and but helping him explore that and so it's nice to have that opportunity to talk we don't always get to and we're not counselors we're not therapists like we definitely don't do that but it's it's a self-guided kind of experience right yeah just to that

counseling point, I think that we wouldn't need so much counseling if we had stronger connections and if we were able to be more real with our friends and family in so many ways. I've just watched peers of mine not feel like I know they're not opening up to anyone ever. And so yeah, you need counseling because you're not talking about all of the things you're going through and I know you're going through plenty. And so I just feel like I even think obviously with people who do have strong family supports, they may need counseling. But I think that the reason so many more people need it right now is because these all of our interactions feel so staged that like I go into the subway save on whatever the store is they say hey how are you I say good

fine they say how's your day going I say good they say good like we leave it's verbotic that's that becomes so much of our life that I think that we see that a lot and for me I used to get stuck in my head and I say like gas lit myself where I'd be like is that what I think well and then I would rationalize it or I would like down like talk down to it like oh no no, or this is the excuse, or this is probably why. And so it would just stay up there. And that's, I think the biggest thing for me that counseling did was, like, she would ask all these thoughtful questions, but I think you're amazing at really pulling

out those thoughtful questions and getting a good response. So she'd ask a question, and I'd just be like, like, in my head I'd have an answer, but then I'd analyze the answer before I say it. And just that it's a safe place. And, like, if you say something, like, we can then explore it. It doesn't just, like, you don't say something. And now it's this, like, static that is you. who you are. Exactly. And so

just that permission, that freedom to speak freely, to think freely and let it out, it was invaluable. And then floating, I think, is like, yeah, you're not really speaking out loud, but you can process things. And it gives you time, like, to pause, because we're so inundated with, like,

stuff and, like, and then you avoid things by scrolling Facebook or, and while you're watching, not watching a show on TV and, like, and you go to bed and, um, you don't sleep good because your brain's still probably trying to process things that you've been avoiding when you wake up and then you just like plug back into everything and yeah so floating for me

is just that time to pause and then see if there's anything that needs to be addressed right that was definitely my experience because I'm a person I was doing when I first went floating I was doing law school two and a half hours into uBC two and a half hours back every day five days a week just exhausted by the end of the day frustrated by having to wait there for so much time and being able to understand and learn about it first I think did me a huge benefit because I would have been like that guy who I'm very much dismissive before I'm and then I learn about it afterwards and for that experience I was like you know what I'm going to learn about it first Rebecca was a little bit hesitant she's like I don't want to be

locked in a box you want to lock me in a box and I was like I don't want to lock you in a box I want you to have something that helps you relax and so we did the research we looked at your website. We watched the videos. We learned about it first. And they were like, don't judge it until you've done three times. And I was like, okay, I'm going to lock that into my head because my first time is my first time. And so it's likely that I'm going to want to get out soon. It's likely that I'm going to have all these thoughts. There's a great headspace Netflix show that talks about meditation. And so we were watching that. And watching that was kind of like, oh, this is tough. Like, just with my own thoughts. And so going

into it, knowing that first and feeling like, this isn't going to be the time. But this is, this first time isn't going to work for me. Like I just, I know myself, it's not going to work. It worked. Because I had already owned that I'm going to, oh, there's a thought. Oh, there's another thought. Oh, there's another thought. Okay. How many more? And I forget who's had. It might have been the headspace Netflix documentary that was like, just instead of getting frustrated with new thoughts coming and just ask what the next one's going to be and eventually you'll run out of them. Yeah. And so I did that and then I ended up relaxing and my first flow experience was very positive. but if you go into it thinking first time's going to be knocking out of the park and I'm going to be the Zen master.

It's like probably go into it with the other mindset. Can you tell us about the other aspects of Luna float? What are Neurospa and the sauna? Right. So we brought in the Neurospa next. I realized like while floating is like my passion, there was extra space that we weren't utilizing. And I wanted to bring in more like modalities, more services. And I had tried this neurospa chair in Vancouver at a different float center.

I think it's called Pure Rest or Pure Float. And it was cool. It was just, I didn't know much about it, but it was also manufactured, patented and manufactured in Montreal. So it was basically just super relaxing and helped prepare me for a float, but it also can be standalone. So I felt like it complemented our services because floating typically 90 minutes, you can get out early if you want. like that between the one hour and one and a half hours, like I rather people have the time and potentially not need it, then we turn the music on and they're like, oh, like,

that's probably a good business tactic, like leaves them wanting more, but like, no, I want them to get the full experience, go deep and that sort of thing. So 90 minutes can be a barrier for people. So I wanted a service that would be less time, so people could still treat themselves, still get some of that self-care, or it can help extend or prolong their flow. The Neurospa uses lights, music, and acoustic vibrations, like in the synergy kind of way. And it's neat because it's, like, very physical, but also mental and emotional.

Like, it kind of touches on everything. So there's different settings that, to me, seem very similar. But the after effects are just slightly different. One is more relaxing, really good for before float or before bedtime. The other one's more energizing. Great way to start your day, right? you're just like you feel kind of tingly and like energized but like not how you would after coffee like not jittery energized but not jittery an instant mood booster like i tell people like try not to smile in there

because it's just like you just can't it's so you're lying in this zero gravity chair and you put on a headset and then this like um kind of like roof comes over top and on the roof is a painting and it i was like this is kind of weird like it's a hand-painted scene of like basically like the aurora borealis and, like, mountains. And it's not much to look at. You're just kind of like, okay. But then once you turn it on, so from your lower lumbar, the vibrations start,

and it goes through, like, your body. Like, you eventually start feeling it going through your fingertips and your toes, and I've had people tell me that their sore neck felt better and that they slept better afterwards. But, yeah, then there's lights projecting on the screen. So the picture of the painting actually looks like it's kind of moving. So, yeah, definitely a strobe effect.

You can have your eyes open or close. I like to compare things to nature because I feel there's so many elements in nature that are medicine, obviously. And I mean, this is maybe not necessarily nature, but you're in a car driving or you're the passenger. And like the sun's passing through the trees. So, I mean, this can also be the sun passing through trees that are swaying and stuff. And you have that, it's almost like hypnotic. Like you're just like your eyes are trying to get heavy and you're just like that rhythmic. kind of feeling and that's exactly how how I feel right and it just yeah feels good so that was

something it's unique it's something quicker for people and that's basically that like there's it's not the same as float therapy where there's a lot of research being done that it's like a patent in technology that combines different things like chromotherapy and vibration like music therapy and that sort of thing right kind of like which is not my forte for example And then infrared sauna came at popular demand. People just, it was listening to the people. They, you know, nowadays, like, people are living in apartments and sometimes, or they just don't have the space. Like, we're kind of forward to just have a sauna.

So what I liked about the infrared sauna is that, like, if you think about culturally, like, sauna is sweating, like, transcend a lot of different cultures, right? like, I guess I'm First Nations, I also have, like, I'm part Irish, I have some Scandinavian roots and, like, you think about, like, yeah, like the steam rooms and the saunas, or even, like, Japanese culture. There's so many cultures that this is, like, part of, yeah, in Sweat Lodge is, like, obviously, that it was like, okay, not, like, it just makes sense, but it's, like, obviously, when you see that many cultures have, like, a similar modality that, that there's obviously got to be something to it, right? And so I like that, yeah, just for like the cathartic feeling of it, aches and pains. It's, again, 30 minutes. And there's something about sweating that's just releasing, right? Yeah, because it gets rid of the heavy metals in your body.

Yeah, there's heat shock. Yeah, people use it for so many different reasons. Yeah, we had someone who had Lyme disease that was like prescribed, like recommended it. Yeah, again, athletes. Yeah, people's chronic pain. like there's different like blood pressure issues and yeah and how did the name come about Luna float because it sounds peaceful just to say it oh yeah I'm glad so I wanted something I mean again don't know if this is a good business strategy but I wanted something that made people think

well what is that like that's curious like I'm curious some places are called like you know serenity float or and I feel like well obviously I want people to feel sereney I don't want to impose too much of like a description on my business because I want it to be open to their own interpretation, right? So Luna float to me just like obviously float because that's our main service at the time, the only service we had. I felt like there was a lot of different overlaps. So Luna is Latin for moon. I always liked the moon. I liked nighttime because it's quieter.

Typically, it's peaceful, people. It's just more of a calm. Um, you can like just look at the moon and feel kind of calm, I guess. Um, also there's the, um, the tie in that me personally, I was going through different phases and often that is comparable to moon's phases that like, you're still the moon. Like the moon is the moon, no matter what phase they're in. And that I'm still me, regardless of what phase I'm currently in, um, and just embracing that kind of like metamorphosis and that other people, I'm inviting them to do that as well. And then lastly, I'm kind of a nerd and I just thought like the moon

affects the tides. We are kind of like that water, nature element that, I mean, we call it water, but it's really like 1100 pounds of Epsom salts, magnesium sulfates, saturates of much more like the Dead Sea where it's that super mineral rich solution. But salt water nonetheless, right? So I was like, okay, it's like the tides and I don't know. It just seemed like it, again, And part of, like, the process, it just clicked, and it just made sense to me. Well, let's wrap up you mentioned before the song, and we said we were going to get back to that. So I think you were referring to the song, Lucky Me by Big Sean with the May Museum Deficiencies. Yeah.

Yeah, that was just like, well, I kind of touched on that with, um, do you remember, do you know the lyrics off? The song? Of course. Okay. Well, do you want to tell them the lyrics? I don't remember that aspect. Oh, no, no, no worries. I think I took a picture of it.

I, like, screenshot it. or maybe it's in our chat history, but basically, can I look at it up on my phone? Absolutely. Okay, because I feel like this wasn't cool when I met Aaron, how we connected. Yeah, because Big Sean has, he was having heart palpitations and the doctors were saying something similar. They wanted to do surgery on him. And then he was speaking with his mother who convinced him to try magnesium because in Western, civilization, many of us have magnesium deficiencies.

Okay, so this is a screenshot. I can't even see when you sent it to me, but like last year probably. Or no. Yeah. So I don't know how the tune goes, but, so this was part of like when I was saying that I was sick and that it manifested like physically, even though it was really lowly, a lot of stress and anxiety. And again, no doctor wants to actually do the dig, or not my original doctor, I didn't want

do the digging. He just wanted to prescribe me pills and put a pacemaker in me. and he didn't even, like, we didn't even go into, like, yeah, what was happening in my personal life. We didn't talk about that. No, exactly. And, yeah, and so, like, my other doctor, like, yeah, we, so she found, like, the mental health piece of it way, like, right away, she was like, I can tell, you are struggling and, like, that's okay, like, we can fix that. And, like, it was more of a holistic approach, right? And then, so anyway, so I'll read it out, but it says, man, lucky me, I was diagnosed with a heart disease at 19, could barely

stand on my feet. Doctors said they had to cut it open, put a pacemaker on it to put it back on beat. So my mama took me to a holistic doctor and they prescribed me magnesium for two weeks. Went back to the regular doctors and they said, huh, damn, looks like we don't need to proceed. And he sent that to me and I was like, because I told them my story and he was like, um, that's this song. And I'm like, no, I didn't steal it, I swear. No, and I think that's an amazing aspect where music meets reality. And a lot of people, I think for a long time, time looked at vitamins and supplements with kind of this eye roll like oh you think that you're going to live forever and we really neglected because I think that that's a part of self-care

just like floating should be and making sure you have all the supplements you need I take magnesium every single night because I take way too much caffeine even though I know it's not good for me I still am up on coffee caffeine pills I still do all of that because I like if I'm doing an interview I want to be sharp I don't want to risk I didn't get a great sleep like I know I need to be sharp for it. So making sure I have the magnesium night got rid of my restless leg syndrome that I had forever and would drive Rebecca crazy because we'd be watching a movie

and my feet would just be moving back and forth on the bed like I'm walking down the road. Yeah. Because I couldn't stay still and hearing lyrics like that like on that same no on his last album was the Bigger Than Me song where he talks about being like realizing he made so much money and things are bigger than him.

Those are the types of songs I try and show people because I think rap gets a really really, really bad name from some artists that everybody knows but those types of songs well I was just like wow like that's me and like I think that's why stories are so important because you can see yourself in that and it just makes it better and I think it's like you don't want to make assumptions like um like for me I found floating really helped me and I actually my doctor told me I could slowly come off of my antidepressants and slowly I forgot to refill my prescription and so I ended up just stopping them cold turkey

and I was like, I'm fine, so it should be okay. It was horrible. And by like half, like, I don't know, a few days into it, I was having brain zaps, and it was like just really bad. And I was like, well, maybe I should just go back on them. But I wasn't sure how far I had come, like, past it. So I floated, and it was so humbling because I was like, this was my story. I have anxiety.

But then being medicated, I actually didn't have a lot of the symptoms. And so I felt better. So I'm like, well, is floating really doing anything? And then one night was, like, saved me from, like, It was just like a bad place, but I got through it and I didn't have to go back on medication. I always just try to have those open conversations because I'm like, I'm, well, I'm saying floating can help. I'm not trying to say like, oh, down with pharmaceuticals. Like, I feel like there's so, there's a time and a place and people feel like, again, about my space, my environment being welcoming is that people make assumptions and like they might think, oh, this person's going to try to heal me with crystals and essential oils.

And it's like, okay, like, hey, we do have essential oils and crystals at Luna float. but like some things need medicine like we need antibiotics to get rid of infections and we need you know other pills that potentially help us but there's also so much else that we can learn it's not one or the other it's like another tool right it's having those tools in your toolbox and yeah collaborative and kind of like combining them right so I never want to say like oh it's going to replace chiropractic because it helps your back like no it can be both it's like it works together. Absolutely. And I think that that gives credibility to what you're doing because then, because I know a lot of people who are like, well, I took this and if you take it, you're just

going to be just like me and you're going to be cured as well. And then you go, I'm not you though. And you don't know what I eat and you don't know what I do in a day. And so how can I trust you when you're already saying things that I'm not a hundred percent confident being able to say this is just another tool because I'm really big into like I'm up 7 a.m. till 7 p.m. working on stuff trying to edit a podcast, work on law stuff, work on NCCABC stuff, always trying to make the most out of my day. Because to me, right now, from like 25 to 35 are my grinding years. Like, I need to establish myself. I need to work hard. I need to get all of that organized. But that doesn't need to be independent from the well-being of my body and making sure that my body's up to the task.

And so it's how can I tie all the other stuff in to make sure that I'm well, making sure I go for runs, go to the gym, make sure that I relax and find ways to decompress, allows me to go back to those things with a clearer mind than I would have. And I think my generation is really into self-optimization and really trying to make sure that we have all the tools to be successful. And I think that that's likely the best way to go about it because a lot of people say, like, you're your own doctor. When you go into the doctor, you have to advocate for yourself.

And they actually advise that you bring someone with you when you see the doctor because you're going to downplay the problems. You're going to kind of, oh, yeah, my life. kind of hurt sometimes while your partner knows that you're in constant agony all the time and you're just trying to be polite and not come across the time. It was literally me when I was giving birth to our child. I was having contractions and I kept in like messaging, texting. My midwife like, hey, think it's happening. And she was like, because my texts were so lighthearted and she was like, probably not. And then he's like, call her. You're like crying. And then like,

as soon as it's passed, I was like, oh, that's fine. And it called her. But same thing. thing on the phone, customer service voice, and then, oh, contraction. And I, anyways, you know, and he's like, no. And so, yeah, it was funny. But you're right. Yeah, because I watched Rebecca struggle with that. We would go in to the hospital and she would be like, yeah, like, I have some, and it's like, they're not going to take care. They're not going to prioritize you. They're not going to pay attention to you. They're going to put you on the bottom of the priority list. If we continue to approach it in this way. And so I was like, just be honest. And then all of a sudden, and she starts physically showing the pain she's in.

And then, lo and behold, everyone starts paying attention and go, okay, we need to get you in here. We need to check out what's going on. And it's like, I think that people really, like, we keep being told that we live in a narcissistic society. And I have trouble believing that because I see people in constant agony. I've seen people in different workplaces who are like, I've always had a bad back. And it's like, why, have you tried to fix it? Like, that's awful.

Like, how are you living? And so being able to offer tools like this that are accessible, not intimidating. And just the first experience can open so many doors to people because I think floating is a way into meditation for people like a gateway because it's 90 minutes and you paid for it. And for people like it or not, people think that things would be better if they're free, but we actually value things less if we give it away for free. That's a huge lesson for me. Yeah. And so I think it's important that people have to pay for it and that they have to commit 90 minutes to it because then there's less excuses where if you're just like sitting on the ground, I'm going to meditate now.

It's like, oh, I need to just quickly check my bank account. Oh, I just need to quickly clean the room and then I'll meditate. Oh, and then I'll make dinner and then I'll relax. And then it never gets private. That's it. That's our secret. That's like really it is like that. Like you set the intention, but then those are the tools in place that keep you accountable, right? And it's funny because like floating can be used as like people called biohacking, right?

And it's still 90 minutes. Like 90 minutes in biohacking terms is still pretty long. But if you think about what that actually means, and that 90 minutes, you're actually, like, this isn't, like, proven, but, like, people will say anecdotally that it's, like, if you fall asleep for one hour, it's, like, four hours, just because of that, like, if you're trying to put that much, like, rest, relaxation, meditation, like, it's, it's condensed. And so people don't want to make that time because they don't have the time, and they're a busy entrepreneur. It's, like, if you make the time, like, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're creative, and just to, like, not keep on grinding. and actually just pausing and taking 90 whole minutes to just sit there and like you don't even know what like you can come up with your next greatest idea you can have a breakthrough like you just you don't know and it's such a unique experience and I encourage people to do it like obviously like yeah you're not locked in a box like you can have the door open it's yeah it's just such a interesting tool that people have and yet we're on our own worst enemies right like we get in our own way Yeah, absolutely. Can you tell us about your family and about what it was like to have a child, what it was like for all of these things to kind of come together around the same time, Luna Floats taking off, like all of these things are going on around you. What was it like to become a mother and to move this next chapter of your life? And can you also tell us how you met your husband and what that was like? Sure. So I guess it's funny because the Van City is like, obviously I guess a pretty big part of my life. I actually met him through Van City. I opened when it was business accounts. Not that I date my clients, but that's technically the first time I met him, which is somewhat significant because Chilliwak, you think you almost know everyone. Like back in my day, there was only two high schools, Chiluac Rastardis. I played sports. My parents grew up here. I kind of knew everyone in my age group. It felt like my friend group.

went to UFB. So actually I went to UFB with one of his friends, who was his business partner. And anyways, so it was all these, like, connections. We could have met each other 10 times over throughout our childhood, and we never did. So, yeah, no, I met him in that instance, which was interesting. But it wasn't about a year and a half later. We never bumped into each other for like a whole year and a half. And, yeah, then we did.

It was, we're like, hey, like the stars aligned, I guess. and we were just like, we're not dating, we're not doing those things, but let's go for coffee, let's just, like, have a, like, let's chat, whatever. And, yeah, our non-date date, and it basically never ended. We wouldn't stop talking. It was just that instant connection with someone. Yeah, it was really cool. So, and that was, yeah, I guess about six years ago, I had planned a trip to Europe by myself,

and I wanted to see if you wanted to come. Like, I think I did that on my 30th birthday, and then. I was going to do it on my 31st. Like, I bought the ticket. And he's like, no, go on your own. I talked to him about, yeah, some of my struggles I was having. And, you know, kind of that warning label, like, this is what you're signing up for. And he was very supportive.

And when I came back from Europe, it wasn't a super long trip, like three weeks or something. We ended up moving in with each other. We actually ended up living. Like, I lived in a carriage home in Garrison. And after I sold my house from downtown Chilawak, we lived a minute away from each other. Like, it was easier to walk than it was to drive. So that was bizarre. Made for an easy move in.

So, yeah, I moved in with him. And pretty shortly after, we had incorporated Luna float. And then we opened Luna float, yeah, October 2017. He proposed to me November 2017, like a month later. It was funny because, like, there's obviously some stresses when you open up a business, right? And this was like my first baby, besides my dog, she was my first baby, I guess. And so I'm like, oh, like I just, you know, I'm stressed. I want to make sure it works, fear, failure, all those emotions, right, are just above the surface or just below the surface, I guess.

And so apparently, he had the ring, you wanted to propose, he wanted to maybe do it. But then I was just too, like, on edge. And he was like, oh, I'm not too sure. Like, I don't, I want her to be in a good mood. Like, I want it to be perfect or whatever. And so, yeah, then after the excitement, again, being a very anxious. anxious person. Like he knows not to surprise me. One time I didn't, I had the water running, and I didn't hear him come home. And I was brushing my teeth and he scared me. I like threw my

toothbrush at him. It was like crying. And he was like, he knows not to not to surprise me. So he was like, I'm not a surprise her, but I don't want to terrify her. So yeah, I mean, it was, it was nice. He had planned a nice evening in November, like went for dinner and stuff like that. And we were like going to stay out in the city. And I didn't really expect anything because I, I thought it was just like, oh, we're just celebrating our, like, a month that, hey, we opened a business a month ago. Like, now we finally kind of, things are settling down. So it was very smart because I didn't suspect it. So, yeah, he proposed.

And then we got married the following year, September 2018. We went to Vegas right after for like a little quick kind of honeymoon because still relatively new business. It was hard to be away for very long. lesson to learn is like delegation on my part it's hard to delegate right um and then we actually went our big thing we went on an italian or we went on a like cruise around italy um yeah um we went to rome and then we basically ended up in um venice and we went to like the mouthy coast i don't know how people do this but every time people start telling me about their travels they like rush through it oh he's elaborate well yeah i mean we just we did a cruise one of

of my friends had used that cruise line a lot. And so originally I started planning, okay, let's, we're going to travel and kind of like I had backpacked, backpacked Europe. I say backpacked Europe, but like I was 30 years old. I was like, okay, I have enough financial means to like stay in hostels that were nice and like have a private room. So like, and I was only going for a few weeks. It wasn't like I had to have my dollar stretch over a year or something, right? So I say a backpack, but it was pretty, pretty nice boutique, like hostels I was staying at. And I did Amsterdam and Paris, basically. I was going to go to Germany, and I never made it because I just liked where I was.

So I was going to kind of apply that same mentality. And I changed plans on the fly. I booked hotels on the fly. So we were going to kind of do that. And we both were just like, we want to, like, we probably aren't going to have an opportunity to do this for a very long time. So, like, we want to make it count. We want to see a bunch of things. We don't want to be overly inundated with plans, figuring out how to get vehicles.

And so we're like, the cruise seems like an easy way to see a lot. of places, get a little taste of it, and then maybe when we have the time and the means we can go back to one place that we really like or whatever. That was the mentality. And I loved it. It was so great. It was like cruising so easy. But yeah, so we did Rome, the Amelphi Coast, massive lemons.

And I mean, we love, I love food. We love food. Wine. It was really good. We did like lots of different like kind of sightseeing and stuff like that. We went to the Mediterranean, or what was it, Sicily, we got super burnt on the beach. That wasn't fun. We went to Croatia, a port in Croatia, or like the Game of Thrones.

He never watched Game of Thrones, my partner. I haven't seen it either. Okay, well, you guys are in good company. But there's this place in Game of Thrones that's filmed there, so that was pretty cool. I mean, yeah, it was, it was really nice. he is a type of partner and this is like one of the things like just like you open a business like all these things that are potentially like stressful things and have a partner who like brings that calmness into the chaos um so traveling like we never had an issue like there's

no arguing it's just like pretty smooth like everything's an adventure and at the very end we had a couple of like mishaps that normally would just like make me stressed out but because you know I had him there, and he was almost the one, like I took a picture of him, because a bus basically in Venice stopped somewhere, like nowhere, on our way to the airport to get back home eventually. Yeah, the trip there was amazing, and the trip back, it was like wrought with some frustrating elements. So the bus stopped. We all got out, and they're speaking Italians, we were kind of confused, so we all got out, and then a bus pulls up and everyone's getting back in. They left us. The door's just, like, we weren't being assertive enough, and we just, like, the door's closed and they just drove off. Wow.

And we were the only two left behind, and we're like, um, what just happened? And I thought it was hilarious. And I took a picture of him because he's like, kind of got this, like, grump face. And I was like, I've never really seen him ruffled, right? And I was just like, this is hilarious. And normally I would be like, oh, my gosh, like, so shrews out with it. And I was like, this was fun. And it worked out. It all worked out.

We still caught our plane on time. our plane, actually had to make an emergency landing in Quebec because we ran out of gas because we were stuck on the tarmac for so long. We ended up having to stay in Toronto overnight because we missed our connecting flight. But guess what we did? We woke up in the morning. We had seven hours to kill. We went to a float center.

We went floating. We tried their sauna before we had the infrared sauna. So that was another thing that kind of like helps add to like, hey, we should get the sauna. Wow, that's pretty cool. you always look for the opportunity and something like it's stuck we missed our dog and missed her bed but you just you make the best out of these situations and yeah it was it was really cool but we would definitely go back um there's so many different things and i'm glad we did it because like then of course like with covid and everything yeah but that was in the spring well i guess of 2019 and then at the end of

2019 i found out and i was pregnant and we like planned it we talked about it And it happened a lot quicker than it was like, oh, okay, this is real. And so I was almost three months, kind of like the time people start sharing the news. And, you know, it's getting warmer. It's the beginning of March. And my hoodies are just starting to get a little tight. And I was like, okay, let's start telling people, right? Like I had to tell, you have to tell your family first or, you know, we wanted to.

My sister and her wife already knew. I spoke the beans pretty quickly with them but then all of a sudden it was like COVID and the pandemic and I felt like our news while amazing it just was kind of smaller all of a sudden and it just felt like kind of awkward and and then also the stresses of what does this mean for my business for our child and like our life

and yeah it was it was interesting and so yeah Luna float closed like mid-March to and we reopened June 1st so we were aren't affected too long and in those months I grew a baby like the majority right of that's being done and so it's kind of funny when we reopen and people are like whoa like I know like quarantine people put on some weight but I was like no no this is a baby as well and um it was nice it was nice to have that time like it was kind of intimidating because you don't have to just worry about yourself but you're worrying about your unborn child and so again my husband was doing most of the

getting groceries and that sort of thing um and but it was a nice time again like the illusion of control that we we have and just like i was trying to follow what's happening and how can i plan and how can i pivot everyone's like pivot pivot and i get it i get it but at the same time what about the pause why is it immediately pivot like we're going through some unprecedented time and you're immediately expected to just pivot that shit and like and it's like no like there's times to pause too, right? So I really just soaked that in, did the whole nesting thing, I guess. And it's funny, when I was pregnant, I actually found out when we did like the calculation or when we first went in that my due date was on my birthday. And for me, a lot of the times

in like significant moments of my life happen on or around my birthday. So as soon as that was the date, I'm like, oh, this is real. I know this is happening. And we ended up having him on the 20th, so three days after my birthday. Wow, that is amazing. And now we're planning his first birthday. Yeah. Which, like, yeah, he's 11 months old, and it's bizarre to even think that it's like, yeah, it's bizarre.

That is wild, because I remember meeting you around the time, I think you were just opening up Luna float again and we were learning about this new space. Yeah, probably, like, yeah, June or July. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it wasn't like, We had a lot of extra time on our hands and we're like, we should have a baby with all this time.

Like, we knew it would be challenging. And you just, you don't, you never know. You can't even really prepare parents for it because you'll tell them. It's like telling an entrepreneur that it's really hard work. Like they don't care. They're going to do it, right? And same thing. Oh, sleepless nights and it's hard.

And it's like, yeah, yeah, whatever. And maybe even being an entrepreneur might have prepared us a little bit for that. that just giving yourself to something bigger than you or something different and like definitely the sleepless nights that entrepreneurship planned us or prepared us for but again it's like you'll just figure it out you'll just learn you'll just figure it out right and so yeah I mean it was a lesson again in letting go the lesson I need to learn still is delegating more letting go of perfection and just yeah like just showing up I guess being like being kind to yourself for both of us like we're very like we'll stay up late and we'll be working like in the

office like a lot of people are like you guys are so busy you're so busy we have this awesome office where their desks like face each other and it's just like we both were like oh we haven't gone through like an email like would take us three days to respond to And maybe that's like normal for people, but like for us, we're like, oh my gosh, like we're three days behind. But it's not even a question. Like when you have your baby in front of you, like, what's the priority? Like you just, and so I feel like Olin, like our child, he has helped me really prioritized, like not prioritized, but be present. Because I find sometimes when you're an entrepreneur or even just, I mean, people who multitask, when you're multitasking, sometimes you're not multitasking as good.

you really think you are right there's a there's something to be said for focusing on one thing and doing it well versus trying to do all of the things and maybe that's actually not the most efficient um and like or you're talking to a friend but you're like i want to check my phone and it's in your head and you're not doing it but you're not fully here either and usually they can tell and so the same thing is like i would be taking care of my baby because he needs me but my head was like business, business, oh, these are all the other things I'm failing at right now. And that doesn't make me feel very good. And I'm sure, like, that comes out in a way, right, of frustrations. Like, you're frustrated because you're a baby and I'm frustrated because, like, I have all these other

things. And then just realizing that, okay, like, why are these other things even affecting you? Like, this is what's more important. Those things can wait. And, like, just, you're, like, juggling, but it just helped, I don't know, provide more grace than that transaction or that transition. Yeah, so he's really taught me to be present and to, like I never really realized I could shut those things off. I just always thought they were there, right? The chatter.

Yeah, like, and just like that, oh, these tasks are like waiting for me. They're just like, come on, like, finish your things because you got us to deal with. And I just thought that that's how, like, your brain worked and, like, that's just how it is. but it was affecting me. So I was like, then I don't want to if that affect my own child. So I just, I learned that you just push it away. And like, it's another form of meditation, right? And being in control of your mind.

And so it's a huge gift. And yeah. Yeah, I definitely agree with that mindset because I struggled with the chatter for a long time. And I've gotten better at just saying, okay, like, it's in my head. Let's write all the things down that I need to do. so I don't lose it because I'm bad for, oh, I forgot to do that. And then it's like, well, now I have to do it now or I'll forget to do it later. And so I write everything down.

And then Sundays are like my day where Rebecca and I do nothing. And like, it's a lot of work because I like I always like to try and accomplish something. And I'm just my personality. But I definitely understand that. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it was like to meet your husband and what things you admire about him and what it's been like to see him become a father? Sure. I mean, so I think the funniest part or the most interesting part is just that from the outside, we might have seen like very two different people. I mean, we are two different people, but when we were talking, it was just like the overlap and the connections and the finishing each other's sentences and just like, yes, yes, you get it, was amazing. And we just talked so, we talked on all of our dates so late into the night and he had to get up early and it was just like, we'd just talk, talk, talk, talk, talk.

But from the other side, he met me at the bank, which I probably looked more like this. But when I wasn't at the bank, I was playing roller derby, which we had like an ultra ego that I was Molly Mayhem. My number was 666. I had like blood coming down my face. I liked metal music. I went to metal concerts. And I mean, that's all great on its own.

But there was an element, too, that I was going through a lot of stuff and putting up a lot of like barriers and walls and being hard and like because I didn't want to be hurt and trying to like control the situation and so there was a lot of that kind of like I'm tough and like projection kind of out there that people wanted to believe that then cool I was happy with that and he saw right through it and was just like this is you and this is like how we like some of the values that we share and yeah whereas other people were like oh he seems like quiet and like reserved and like how do you guys work right and it's more like oh he works late he likes going to bed at a reasonable time whereas i was like avoiding things and like staying

up super late and like yeah probably doing things i probably shouldn't have been um but yeah so kind of met at a weird time from the outside it kind of might look like that we were opposites but we had a lot of similarities. A lot of similarities and just different routes in our life. Like I had kind of a typical like middle, upper middle class family. Like I was very fortunate for a lot of things. Like they encouraged me to go to post-secondary. I could live with them until I was like early 20s. They helped me save money that way. Just that real support system. And like yeah, university is not for everyone, but that's the path I chose. He didn't have that choice. He was very smart. He had opportunities to go to these universities. And basically, when he was getting

ready to graduate, his dad, who he was living with, was deciding to move. And he was like, you can come with me or not. And he was moving to a very small town, probably something that an 18-year-old boy did not want to move out of the town he's known for, like, the majority of his life to like some back east like small town. So he chose to stay and he had to get like multiple jobs and a big instant like adults, right? Like what does that mean? We both still feel like, we're adults? We have a baby? Like that's not real, but I don't think you ever feel that way. But anyways, he had to mature pretty quickly. And I just respect that out of like you can see that that's, you know, how he kind of grew. So he's a really strong like work ethic. And

And sometimes I have to, I think, remind him to, like, he is not boring by any stretch of the imagination, but he will tell me that I'm like, I bring the fun into him and I help through my own, like, learnings, like, and to, like, have fun and to just embrace the, like, absurdity of life sometimes and, like, quirks. Like, I've, and this is, again, like, having a child is kind of, like, never really thought of wanting to have kids when I was younger. but I appreciated their curiosity and just their point of view and like, oh, this little rock looks cool and like, just like, why not? Like, you're never too old to like appreciate like some cool rock or leaf on the ground. And so I'd point these things out to him and you just, you liked it. And yeah, it was like kind of a breath of fresh air. It's what he needed when you're hyper-focused on something, right? You need, it's like the yin-yang, you need the both sides of things, right?

so I think we compliment each other very well and I don't know there's so much insecurity and fear I think when you bring a child into this world like how are we going to be and you know yeah and he he again is like really awesome it's awesome to see him as a dad that calmness I had to have a emergency C-section when I first yeah like I so I was telling you that he was like you're hiding your pain from her. He was like, please come and check her out. So I had a, I went in the bathtub and I was like having contractions. And she came and checked and she was like, oh, yeah, no, you need to go to the hospital right now. So they're like, thanks to him. So I went. And as soon as we got there, like I had a home, I wanted to do the home water birth. And that was kind of taken off the table right away. And then I was okay with having it the Chilock Hospital. But I wanted to try to do it like the real way or whatever. I mean, like, whatever way it was. works, this is the real way. I didn't really want to have a C-section, but that, like, as soon as I

went in there, they were like, he's in distress, like, every time you're having a contraction, as soon as you hear that your baby's not doing a good time, like, yeah, you just want to get them out and make sure that, like, yeah. So I, like, had one tier, and then, because he had, oh, release and control, and, you know, there's that plan. And so you just, yeah, you, you adjust. And he's just, again, he's just having him there as, like, that calming presence. And we, it was an amazing staff. It was kind of adrenaline rush, had an amazing midwife, got them latched right away. And then because it was COVID, we weren't allowed like any visitors.

And I can't say like that I really minded that. We had our own private room for a couple days and amazing supportive nurses. Yeah. And so, yeah, just it's awesome to have someone who you just are excited to do life with, right? And, like, you don't really know what it's going to look like. Um, but yeah, he was very supportive. I mean, having to recover from a C-section, he had to do a lot, actually. Like, he, I didn't change a diaper for, like, I think, the first week or two. Um, so he was doing a lot of that. Um, he also maintained, he doesn't need as much sleep as I do. He'll agree to that. Um,

but yeah. And then I feel like early on before we had the baby, he was kind of like, he didn't even no like he wanted to touch my stomach and it's hard to have a connection because you're not feeling like them from the inside and he was like I don't know like maybe like we'll bond more when he's like a full functioning like human like an adult no no no he didn't say that but like more of like when they're like five or six and I'm like okay so what's what about until then right but like in his brain he just was like he like other people's babies are cute but like he doesn't know what to do with them like he just didn't feel that connection and he's like well I hope I'm like I'm sure he'll feel that connection with my own my own baby I'm like you'll be fine

I'm sure it'll work out who knows right I'll better work out and um yeah I think there's just like a natural inherent connection there and I feel like he's like blossomed into this rule more than he ever thought he would um there's so many positives of him like that again like compliment mine. Like ADHD, sometimes it's hard to multitask, um, do things on time. I was late for this interview. Um, so yeah, you're trying to like hit bedtimes, nap times. And like, I'm like, oopsie. Like, that's a half an hour ago, whereas he's more regimented and able to like maintain those like tight deadlines. So babies apparently thrive on consistency. So he's really good that and I've been back to Ben City now for about a month three days a week so I wake up he goes

does his work thing comes back I've had like an hour with Olin then he takes over and I get ready and go to work they come visit me on my lunch break but I mean like he he takes care of him three days a week and like of course like he can why not like it's his baby too but uh they it's cute they bond they have their little things now like he already has this like little personality he's like pointing and yeah it's just so awesome to to see that that's awesome can you tell us a little bit about what wayne does and what he's involved in yeah um i mean he was interesting when i first um met him i was like are you like a spy or something like what do you do because he worked like yeah we'd have these late night talking sessions and he's like i got to get up early and i'm like yeah

what do you do and he was working from home um working for IBM, which I was like, well, what does that mean, right? Like, IBM's massive. And so he actually worked at an Israeli tech startup company that was based out of someone's home. And it was more just like lead generation, like he was calling like banks typically and connecting them with salespeople for like security software and this sort of thing. And these companies were really like innovative and like enough so that IBM thought a worthy business to buy out. And so he yeah, was working for IBM at the time, but he did that for a few years. And they eventually were going to get him to commute out to Richmond. And he's like, I've worked from home for like five years.

Like, I don't need to go into an office to do this job. And so another Israeli tech company, like, word got around that he was really good. And so they asked him to join their company. He could work from home, obviously. He wasn't going to commute to Tel Aviv, Israel. And he took that contract and he worked there for a year. Didn't renew the contract. paused for a little bit. Then he worked for another one that actually flew him out to Israel. Yeah, but it was such a small startup company. And I mean, they're paying money to fly people out.

Like, maybe they weren't quite ready. And so that kind of fizzled out the company itself. And so there was like really not a lot of work for him to do. And so he decided to kind of switch up the game and do something else. But he's like, again, very entrepreneurial. Like, we couldn't see him, like, going, working at, like, a bank or anything like that, like, like, 9 to 5. Like, he needs to be in control of his own kind of stuff. So he, right now, over COVID, he actually got licensed for life insurance and mutual funds.

Unfortunately, he hasn't had a lot of time to really hone those skills. But, yeah, he did that. And then when I met him, he actually was opening. a business with one of his friends that he like hones it with and a gym's pizza and service and um so yeah he went from like working there that was one of his like three jobs at a high school he managed it for a little bit then he got injured and that's why he actually took the computer job and not at work and then they had the opportunity to buy it so they did and um yeah and so that's just yeah that's his life basically that's amazing because i think jim's pizza is like an institution

in Chilliwack. It's got that really community support behind it. Yeah, I remember working at Stream. That was like a big deal. You got like a, I think for $10, you got like a large four topping. Yeah. So, yeah, he's just, yeah, and again, really interesting that he worked there for so long. And then that's kind of what brought the opportunity.

You never know what kind of connections you're making or where your path is going to lead to. And yeah. Yeah, I think that you and him set an amazing engagement. example on how to work as a team, on how to approach adversity. And I think the financial literacy pieces, a part I hope people really take away from this is trying to connect to someone to help you on your path, no matter whether or not you need like a really developed plan or just some general tips and guidance on how to do better. Because I think that that's something so many people are lacking. And there's such shame with admitting that you don't know and knowing

what questions to ask about TFSA, RRSP, like it's so much a jargon that it really discourages people. And I think that you make floating, fitness, health, so much more accessible for people because these are complex topics and often with, I think, the wrong spokesperson behind it, often with places like banks, you've got people who are way too professional

and way too hard to connect with. Same with health and wellness and going and trying to get yourself some help, those often I find those people are a bit too pushy to the point where it discourages me because they perhaps oversell that all my ailments are going to be cured. Yeah. Or they try and sell me on another byproduct that doesn't interest me. And so I think that you do this amazing job of being like accessible to everyone wherever they're at. And I think that that's something I hope people really get out of this because I think it's really hard for people to let go of some of their own biases,

some of their own assumptions about how the world should be, could be, would be if they were in charge and your ability to just kind of say, where are you at and let's move from wherever position you are in the best way we can. So it's a huge example for all of our listeners. And I really appreciate you being willing to take the time. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. And I think we did over three hours. Jeebers, I figured we were. Thank you.