Nuanced. - 45. Matthew Hawkins: Around Chilliwack, Photographer, Podcast Host & Community Leader

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Matthew A. Hawkins is a father, videographer, photographer, podcast host, content creator for Around Chilliwack, founder of Hawkins Media and Board Member for the CEPCO Creative Commission.   As the founder and chief operator of Hawkins Media and its subsidiary, FilmAds.ca, his goal is to use his passion for art—particularly film—and the creative process as a whole to produce works of both personal and professional value. While pursuing that passion, he has learned how to not only create work that excels both aesthetically and substantively, but to effectively market it as well. Matthew is also on the Board of Directors for Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation (CEPCO) Creative Commission.Send us a textSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

Thank you for being willing to come on today. I think that it's so valuable to just be able to start the conversation honestly. Would you mind giving listeners a brief introduction of yourself? Yeah, for sure. My name's Matthew Hawkins. I run around Chilliwack and also film ads. So I do advertising with independently owned movie theaters in B.C. and Alberta. And my main business is Hawkins Media that I run everything.

under, so. Right. And how did that come about for you? Because I think we are so lucky to have individuals like yourself who are willing to understand the importance of story. And that's sort of what this podcast is about. It's about sharing people's story and slowing things down a minute and saying like, okay, tell me about yourself and tell me about how you've gotten here and what brought you here and where is your passion coming from. So can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in film? Ah, that's, that seems like a really long. answer to give you. Well, we've got a couple hours. So I talked about getting into film pretty much my whole life through high school, through college, just really had a passion for film,

independent film. And I had a, I didn't know it at the time, but I had a big passion for entrepreneurship. And so when I got through college, got into a job, wasn't happy at all, wasn't enjoying my career. And so what I ended up doing was someone showed me how to make something in Windows Movie Maker. And I saw how simple it was. And we had a Canon Power Shot camera, which at the time, you could only film 30 seconds of video. And then you had to stop and start again. So he couldn't like make these long video clips. And so I just started messing around in Windows Movie Maker and realized how much loved it. And next thing you know, I'm just making these stupid videos, just having fun, making

videos of my kids and realizing how much I'm enjoying it, started making DVDs. So I used to be a youth pastor and I'd make these DVDs for our youth ministry and they'd buy them at the end of the year. And we always had like these little premieres that we do at youth group on Friday nights and had had a lot of fun doing that. And I got approached by someone to basically join his business. Quit my job as a youth pastor and join up with him. It was an investment into a business. So with money that I didn't really have. And so taking a loan from the bank and just really put myself out there. And just started making videos, started learning how to find stories. started learning, started basically taking what I learned in college, which was the biggest thing

that I got out of Bible college was the ability to learn. Everything else kind of fell to the wayside, but just knowing how to research and look things up and discover my own opinion and then try and tell those stories of the things that I'm learning. That's what the biggest thing I got out of college, and so I step into this business and start having to make videos about different organizations, different businesses, and trying to tell their story. All the while, Donald Miller was a big author of mine that I loved, and he has a whole network system that he's built off of a book about basically storytelling, that we all have his story to tell. There's a hero. There's a villain. And I tell my kids this all the time that

nothing good in life comes without some conflict. That a good story has conflict. If like, you know, Frodo and Lord of the Rings, like if he doesn't have all of that conflict to face to bring the ring to Mordor, it's not a very good story. Like if Frodo just walks straight to Mordor and throws the ring in, it's a pretty boring story. But you throw in the villain and you throw in all these different aspects and the hurdles and challenges, it becomes a very interesting story that you buy into, that you're cheering for this hero. And so learning from Donald Miller,

a million miles in a thousand years was a book I read on the bus when I'd go to work and changed my life. What is that book about? Basically, Donald Miller wrote a book called Blue Like Jazz and started getting interest from the Christian community, but also from Hollywood. They wanted to turn this book into a movie. And so he writes in the book about what that process was like.

And the process of having to turn this book that wasn't really meant for film at all, but turning it into a story that they could tell in film and how much he was learning about story and the importance of story and your life, my life, everyone's life. And so it's, I was looking at where I was at that point in my life and realizing how unhappy I was and that I wanted to change my story. Why, why were you unhappy? Because I think that for so many, they're working at save-on foods or they're working at a job they don't love. And it's,

it's tough to take that leap. I know people who are great artists who don't want to take the risk, who don't want to invest perhaps in themselves. And so where did that kind of come from for you? So I went to Bible College straight out of high school. I got married very young and then went into being a youth pastor, started this job with a company and ran that for a couple of years with no experience, no real guidance either. And then basically wasn't making any money. We were so stretched.

We were stretched so thin that I ended up taking a job back at a church, worked at that church for a little while, went full time there for a year, and then ended up jumping back into business for myself. But while I was in the church, I was still running a business on the side. I was still trying to get this theater advertising going. It was when I, the first business that I jumped into, that's when I met Karen Bondar here in Chiluac. She was running Cottonwood theaters. Her dad had passed away and they needed help to run the theater. And so Karen stepped in, this biologist, Karen's an incredible woman. And I pitched to her this idea of advertising before the movies here at Cottonwood.

And that's where I got started with film ads. And so I started there and I was doing it on the side. And a manager, Sean Greak, who I owe a lot to, Anytime he's in town, I try and tell him, like, make sure you let me know you're in Chilawak because I want to buy you a beer or dinner or whatever. Because he found out about what I was doing here in Chilawak. And he was a manager in Saminar and had me come up to Samanarm. They have five screens up there, asked me about how we could get it all set up. And from there, Sean got me connected with countless theater owners across BC.

And so what I was doing was when I was working in the church at that time, was I'd work Sunday to Thursday. Thursday afternoon, I'd hop in the car, and I'd drive up to Salmon Arm, I'd drive up to Revelstoke, Golden, down to trail, and home. And so I'd do like this big circle. And so I'd leave Thursday afternoon, and I'd be back Saturday evening so I could get set up for church at up in promontory and work Sunday to Thursday and do it all over again. And still running this theater business in the evenings when I got home. And so it was, I was doing the church stuff and running this thing on the side, trying to get this thing to build up and be enough. And then my daughter was born. And the day before she was born, actually, I gave my

resignation, not knowing that she was going to be born the next day. And once she was born, I stepped into parental leave and kept visiting theaters. I kept trying to build the roster. I wasn't making any money. And just trying to get enough movie theaters into my roster of theaters that I could represent. I reached out to Cineplex Media on Twitter, of all things. That was when Twitter was starting to really hit its peak and ended up getting one way or another, the vice president of Cineplex Media calls me out of nowhere. And because I was talking with one of the guys that just did their media for them. I wasn't even talking to the VP on Twitter. And I was stepping out of the shower. I still remember it. I had my towel on. I'm in my

bedroom and I'm talking to the vice president of Sineplex Media about working together. So as soon as I got that phone call, I stepped full time into into business for myself, which was 11 plus years ago now, which feels like, feels like longer. What was that like to have that first conversation with Karen and feel like perhaps maybe you're in kind of similar circumstances? You both are working on something, facing challenges in it, and then this opportunity comes up. What was it like to kind of get started and have the door sort of open? So with Karen, it was she had her doctorate in biology. and she was a younger mom at that time.

I think when I met her, she only had two kids. And so she was stepping into the business, not because she wanted to, but because she had to. She was helping out her family, helping her mom out specifically. And started making these ads. They were terrible looking back now. I'm like, how did we pull that off? It was awful.

But that's how it works. So you got to get yourself out there. you got to push yourself to at least try and fail. And so we started doing that. And then Karen approached me one time and just said, what do you think? Like, can we make some ads to go on before that are like biology based? Like, can I do something?

And so one of the first videos that we did was actually, Karen wanted to promote Sharon Gates when she was running for mayor. And so we did this like stupid dancing video of Karen. And it was a riot. People loved it. It was just really goofy. And Sharon's like basically standing in the middle of the frame and Karen's dancing all around.

And, and then Karen kind of got the taste for video. And so she wanted to start making these biology videos. And Karen and I ended up like just, I don't know how many we made. That woman's incredible on camera, by the way. Yeah. She'd have like a two or three page script, completely memorized. And she, I'd throw on the camera and she'd just go.

and incredible to watch her do it and pull it off. And so we made a video, a short about the toads up on Ryder Lake, the migrating toads. And made this short about it. And I think she submitted it. I don't know if it was her eye, but to this national film festival, which was through Discovery Channel. And we ended up winning and getting a flight out to Toronto and being a part of this. met Robert Bateman and just really cool experience to be a part of. But that launched Karen into all the crazy things that she's done, books and TV shows

that she's traveled the world and what she's discovered, I think Beatles was like, it's crazy to see how her career has progressed where her and I just kind of started with this crazy idea that she had and um so anyways karen ended up finding her passion through all of that and then for me um i'm working in a church and just really unhappy with it seeing a lot seeing a dark side to church that a lot of people don't see and uh just i was really disappointed and uh depressed and just wanted to change my story and so the theater stuff started picking up and uh it just launched me into a whole bunch of other stuff. The theater stuff was really just a like a springboard into doing more video and more art and creation. That's amazing because she has really gotten

comfortable in front of video cameras. She's gotten comfortable sharing her story and getting people excited. What did that mean to you to kind of watch her flourish? Like it's not, it's partly because of you and like not to take any credit away from what she's done. but to be involved in that process. What did that mean to you to see her flourish and reach perhaps her full potential as a consequence of your guys' interaction? So we were really good friends for a while, and then, you know, life happens. She was going through a lot of personal stuff, and things got more difficult.

And we just kind of parted ways. There wasn't any ill, there wasn't anything negative between us. It just, you know, just happened in life. But I would still see her online and all the stuff she was doing. And it's been incredible. Like, you know, she goes on these cruise ships where she's doing lectures. And I've seen her here in Chilliwack at different venues where she's speaking, amazing public speaker.

So to like know her back in the days when she's like booking films and filling popcorn bags and talking to me about what she wish she was doing with her degree and then seeing where she is now. I'm really happy that I got to be a part of that journey with her, a part of her story. And so it was really cool to just, and even still, like I, you know, I still see her online and stuff she's up to. And it's pretty incredible to know where she started and where she got to and just how much work and that I got to be a little part of that.

That's amazing. Now, let's talk about your work because you talk about how those first few, like, you've improved since then. And I think that that's, that's so valuable for people to keep in mind that when you start, it's not going to be everything that you want it to be. And you're going to look back. I look it back at my first episode compared to now. It looks completely different. Yeah.

I'm constantly trying to learn and improve. It's about taking that first step. What was that first video like? And what did you kind of learn from going and traveling and connecting with different business owners? What was your mentality when you were doing all of that? Wow. That's a lot to that question. well a couple things there my first videos were awful um you but you have to start somewhere like

and uh the biggest thing is just to start like if you don't start you're you're never going to go anywhere it's uh you know it's that that first step out the door it's um you don't know where it's going to lead but you if you can get excited about that first step and not be so worried about what the outcome is going to be, but just at least make an attempt. That's the biggest thing. I find that so many people are afraid to take that first step. They get comfortable where they are. Even if they're not happy, they're still comfortable there. I think a lot of people have found comfort in being unhappy. And so if you can just like take that step and just kind of push yourself, that's the biggest thing there. Dissect that a little bit more.

I agree with you, people get happy, get comfortable with their, their unhappiness. Can you, can you tell us a little bit more of your thoughts on that? It's, people get so just wrapped up in their day to day that, and they think about something that they want in the future. They think of something else that they want. And like, for me, I've talked with so many people when I tell them what I do with theater advertising and people have said, oh, I've thought about doing that. Well, the thing is, like, you might have thought about doing that. Like, I don't, I don't claim that I was the first person to think about it. But I was the first person to step forward and make an attempt at it. And, you know, I failed. I can't tell you how many times I fail,

but you get back up again and you keep going. So, you know, you take that first step out the door. You might trip on the doorway on the way out. But if you keep going, you just, you don't know what's going to be out there. And so for me, it was, you know, making those first videos, uh, those first pre-shows at Cottonwood, they were like five minutes long and they would loop like five or six times before every movie. So people saw the same content. Like it was, it was ridiculous. Um, I felt feel bad for those people that had to watch it back then. Um, but not even the like the pre-shows, but like some of my first videos were, they were just goofy and really bad. Um, I actually made a, a short to pitch a movie script to Lionsgate Studios. I don't even want to mention the name of it

because it was so bad. It was just so bad, but I took a shot at it and I went for it. I didn't even have a finished script and I sat in the president's office at Lionsgate Studios in North Vancouver, sat and talked with him for like 45 minutes. The guy was kind as can be. The fact that I have unfinished script and he's taking time to talk with me, which again, that was all set up through Twitter. Some of the connections I made through Twitter back in the day was, it's pretty crazy. But yeah, sat with him and talked with him. And his thing was like, do the work. Like, just keep putting yourself out there, you know, join the film festivals, go attend film festivals, see what's out there, see what's popular, and just keep putting the work in. And so I pulled

away from doing that like in terms of like my own personal art and storytelling and really applied it to to business basically made a career and a full full time job for myself like this job never existed before and I made it for myself and it was just really by doing that just putting myself out there and trying again and again and again because eventually you should succeed like you do it enough times you'll get better at it statistically speaking it's hard not to improve over time. Yeah. Yeah.

Interesting. So what was that like? What pulled you to continue this? Because you could have said, I've done this a few times. I can take this in a different direction. Did you enjoy sharing small businesses' stories through this medium? Because it's a really unique way of sharing a business's story. And when I think of the businesses that I like, one of their biggest challenges is managing everything.

And they've got so much on the go that it's tough to imagine doing a little, little video, even if it's a minute long, two minutes long, to have to hire someone, bring someone in and try and figure out what do you want it to look like? So how did you approach that and what did you enjoy about it? So I was doing the film ads advertising and I was starting to promote all of these local businesses in the different communities. I, Karen sold the theater and I was no longer working with the new owner here in Chilwank. So I wasn't even doing any work locally anymore. The closest movie theater I was working with was Saman Arm. and then working with like terraces and golden trail grand forks like all these other towns that

are hours away um but i was helping promote local businesses on the pre shows and uh really enjoying it and i went up to quinnell to do some cold calling and i met amy quarry and amy was uh amy is an inspiring person for me um i still follower i still have such a huge appreciation for her And she was running this thing called, or starting it up called Small Town Love. And what it was was a book where she would do professional photos, a brief write-up and it had to be a locally owned business. It couldn't be like a chain. It had to be something that was specific to Quinnell. And then at the back of the book was coupons for all these different businesses.

And so she gave me a couple of those books. And I would just sit there in my office thumbing through it all the time, wondering how I could take something like that. apply it to here in Chilliwack. Because I was supporting all the local businesses here in Chilliwack. I loved what we had going on downtown at the time. Like everyone gets all excited about what's happening downtown right now. And it's fantastic. Don't get me wrong. It's it's amazing to see. But 10 years ago, people weren't getting excited about downtown Chilliwack. People just had most people had negative things to say about it. Whereas I loved it. I love going down to decades. I know you and decades have a connection.

And so I love going to visit the button box and Mill Street's changed so much over the years. And then the bookman, of course. And so I was doing, I was just hanging out doing all these things. Like I take my kids down there for a walk on Saturdays and wanted to do something here in Chilliwack and kept trying to figure it out. And one of the first things that I did was I reached out to Amber Price. at the bookman. And one of my first, like, local business videos that I did was with David Short, the bookman, and sat down with him and just shot it for free. I told Amber, I'd like to come and just tell the bookman story. And so that was one of the first videos I did probably. It's got to be

about 10 years ago now. That one went viral, right? No, that one didn't go viral. The first, and I don't like the V word. But the first. The first video that I did that went viral was actually the ultimate Canucks fan that's on my YouTube page, it was just a Canucks contest that they were doing when YouTube was brand new. It's crazy to think that YouTube is only like less than a decade old. It seems like it's always been there. But the Canucks hired this marketing company to create a fan contest. And so what they were doing was getting fans to upload fan footage,

fan stories to YouTube and created this contest. And so I saw it and was like, ah, I'll do that. And it was when I was with the first business that I was a part of that failed. And I just did it as a side project. And so I created that I watched the

departed the night before and then created this short the next day where I'm talking with like a really bad Boston accent and talking about how much I love the Canucks. And like you have this whole rivalry with the Canucks and the Bruins back in the And so it was like ridiculous to think like this Boston speaking fan, uh, is a Canucks fan.

And so I made this short, um, and ended up, it ended up getting really popular. Uh, CTV news came out to, to interview me about it. I ended up getting a tour of Rogers Arena, GM place back in the day. Um, I didn't win. I'm still bitter that I didn't win the contest. I was told, I was told in the elevator by the marketing director, you're a shoe in to win this. And then I won nothing. And they felt so bad that they ended up signing a getting a Canucks signed hat sent out to me and a couple other things.

And that was the first video I did that was viral, which was a lot of fun. But the first bookman video that was viral was all about them books, which was the Megan Trainor. Megan Trader parody. And we filmed it in the bookman after hours. I remember it was a really hot summer night. and we just, I watched Megan Trainer way too much, like watch that music video way too much because we're trying to match like all the pastel colors that were in it and sort of the style of the video and it was totally ridiculous but so much fun and that video just like it went

crazy online. Why don't you like the word viral? Like what are your thoughts on that? It's just, I don't know. It's like even like the whole trending thing too. Like it's just I'm just I, for me, like even when I showed up here today, you want to take my photo. I don't necessarily like the limelight. I enjoy being behind the scenes. I enjoy being behind the camera. I don't have a problem stepping up in front and talking with people. I actually enjoy public speaking.

But for the most part, I like to be able to be behind the scenes and kind of the pulling the puppet strings instead of being the puppet. So the idea of viral is just... I'd rather be the quiet creator in the background that made it, but you don't necessarily need to know that I was the one that did it. Right. I think that's something that so many great people kind of have that. And like I worry about their stories not being shared.

Like that reminds me of like how Tim McElpine is, these people who are okay with not having the spotlight on them. And I think that it's really important to recognize people like yourself and people like Tim because those are the stories that are so easily forgotten and we watch the videos and we have the memories, but we forget who brought that to life, who were the people behind the scenes building everything up to make that possible. What has that experience been like for you? Tim McAlpine. Tim McAlpine is like a business, he's a business mentor for me, good friend who been there through a lot of stuff with me. And so yeah, like he's a prime

of someone that's just like the guy's genius and a quiet genius and I love being in meetings with him because when he talks everybody listens and he's usually got something poignant and interesting and and just very relevant to say and so watching being able to watch him and and for myself kind of grow up in business um to uh yeah it's I don't know. I think part of its personality, too. Tim's very much an introvert. People have a hard time believing that I'm an introvert just because I do put myself out. I do put myself out there a bit, but I find being around people draining. And so I think that's part of why my, with my personality is why I enjoy being behind the scenes on stuff. I like to make

stuff happen, but it doesn't necessarily mean that I have to be the limelight of it. Like so for around Chilliwack, I've, I debated a lot. whether I'm going to put my face on it, put my name on it. Can you tell us the background of Around Chilawak? How did that come about and then tell people what it is? Yeah, so Around Chilowak is a boutique website for local businesses, for where to shop, where to eat, and things to do in Chiluac. But what it started out as was around town in Chilowac,

which I was on the Creative Commission, which used to be the Film Commission here in Chiluac. And I was meeting all sorts of interesting people, even just like on my, you know, going out for lunch and just getting to know people and getting connected through Tim. Tim's very well connected in this community. And so I was just meeting all these interesting people. And I was doing a podcast already with another failed business called Fishing Guys. And so we're doing this fishing podcast once a month, maybe twice a month at times. and I got into that because I was listening to Kevin Smith a lot.

I was watching Comic Bookmen on A, was it A&E? I can't remember. But I started watching Comic Book Man, which is about Kevin Smith's store over in New Jersey. And loved it and saw that they were getting their own podcast started. And Kevin Smith has like this network of podcast, Smodcast, I think is what he calls it. And so I was listening to a lot of Kevin Smith and just loving this idea of running a podcast. And so I was starting up this fishing guys thing, I thought it'd be a lot of fun to podcast just our fishing stories, just have different guests on. And it got really popular.

We had people in Nashville and Chicago, Vancouver Island, Toronto, like all sorts of people leaving comments and emails and listening to us. And so it was a lot of fun because we were just literally, we were just drinking beer and talking fishing. And that was coming to an end and I didn't want to stop podcasting. So I was meeting all these interesting people and I thought it. What if I make an Around Town and Chiluac podcast? I don't even remember how I came up with the Aroundtown name. And so bought the domain aroundchiluac.ca. Launched the podcast.

I put all, I basically recorded and held on to all the podcasts until I think I had eight for the first season. And once I had all eight, I just started releasing them one week after the other. I might have even released a bunch at the beginning. And did that for the first season. And Tim and I started talking about it more and more and because I was working for Tim at the time. He was running his young and free credit union program, finance program.

And he had all these spokesters that were working all across North America. And he needed someone to do some video coaching and mentoring for them. And so he hired me to help with that. So Tim and I would always, and it was always a joke with us like, you have a minute. And it was never a minute between the two of us. up being 15 an hour like and now it's always like if i stop in there that co-work um it's it's a whole tour of the whole building because he's going to show me like how he's like completely revamped it for the upteens time so um so i got to spend a lot of time with him talking about business and

what i was trying to start and uh he was he was the he was the guy i have to give him full credit for this to just drop the town part and call it around chiloac and so started with the podcast and um you interviewing people like Jason Lum and John Martin and Trevor McDonald and Sarah Sovereign and just some really key people in our community and just getting them to tell their story what they were doing and how they got there kind of similar to what you're doing. And from there on that podcast, I would always ask people, where's your favorite place to go for lunch? And then I started looking around online, trying to find something that was just a good guy. for a Chilliwack and not really finding a lot. You know, you'd find stuff from like Expedia.

It's like, well, I don't want Expedia to tell me where to eat my own community. And so, it was St. Patrick's Day from Corkies. I used to, Corkies I used to joke around was my second office because I'd show up there at like 1130, get a pint of beer and some lunch and I sit there with my laptop in the booth. It was always the same booth too. If somebody else was sitting there is always disappointing, but yeah, I'd sit there and I'd work on a round Chilliwack. And so I launched it from Corkies on St. Patrick's Day. It'll be four years this March. Yeah, just hit publish on the website and put it out there.

And so basically just going from podcast to just a simple question to we're going to have a full website to, okay, now how can I make money from this? because majority what I do for around Chiloac is not paid. It comes from passion for our community and my love for Chiluac. Right. Can you tell us just a bit about your, I'm always interested to know people's approach with podcasts. I'm like a student of the game. Like I'm interested in how did you go about choosing guests?

What was your process for developing questions? Because a lot of this was just kind of in my head trying to figure it out, hoping for the best. So how did you go through that process? Uh, wing in a prayer. Yeah, it's, uh, when I started, I would, I would write down questions, um, similar to like what not quite as, as extensive as you. Um, my, my goal when I started the podcasting, just because I had already been doing it with fishing guys, um, my goal with starting the podcasting for around Shilowak was just keep it around

45, 50 minutes. And that's, that was my goal to get to that, that mark. I wanted to it so it was like long enough that you go for a walk on the better trail or you're mowing your lawn just there that right amount of time are you doing like a commute out to abbotsford or langley um you could just listen to it quick and short um not overly in depth that wasn't trying to get like into the nitty gritty of stuff more like just trying to highlight people that i was interviewing so that was my my goal for for the podcast um and then so yeah i started with like the whole like researching people and doing questions and having it all prep beforehand. And then as I got more and more comfortable with it, um, and my love for craft beer, it just really became let's sit down

for a beer and you and I are going to have a conversation. We're just going to, and people are going to listen in. And, um, and it's, it just kind of developed my skills in terms of talking with people and asking questions and really listening to them and then trying to pull out a little bit more information from them. I learned that I had a skill set that I didn't even know I had. Yeah, I think that that's so valuable because I find myself doing that as well when I'm talking to people. There's immediate follow-up questions that come into my mind and it's given me a more, a deeper appreciation for people, their stories, and for actually listening with like an intent rather than I don't know like trading back and forth frustrations like oh how's your day

going oh like I have this going on and then you're like oh yeah well you think you got something bad I got this going on and like having those kind of I don't know negative conversations or or very short-sighted conversations actually taking the time to go like this is an interesting person let's slow down and hear something more and learn and hopefully others can learn and benefit and I think of people who don't have good family lives who don't have like a loving community who don't want the best for them. They don't get positive conversations. They don't get to see what it's like for two genuine people to discuss things

and to just be able to be involved in that and see what a healthy conversation looks like where your family member isn't yelling at you or judging you or getting mad at you for not doing the dishes or something where you can actually just feel valued and be a part of that I think is so encouraging for other people. So how did you go about developing those conversations? How did you choose your guest? Was it just staples in Chilliwack or did you have something in mind of like, I really want to understand how they got here or I want to understand how they started this

business or what was it for you? Well, there's two things there that I want to talk about. The first, I think having been in the church for so long and listening to people and sitting next to people in the hospital and then going through difficult things with my ex-wife and I. Um, like, uh, when our third daughter was born, um, we had some complications before she was born. And nobody from the church came to, to visit us in the hospital. Nobody came to visit us at the house. And that really, that, that was a tipping point for me. Um, but just, like, just seeing the, the human side of people and, uh, just seeing how, how much we all

long for connection, especially like through this whole, um, just, um, just, learning how important the people in your life are and how you're taking care of them. So at that time in my church, I think I learned how to listen to people. A youth pastor that I interned under, he always had this way that he would say, he would ask you how you're doing. And, you know, typical, you'd be like, oh, I'm fine, good, whatever. And then he'd look at you and be like, no, like, how are you doing? And it was that second one where you're like, oh, damn it.

I don't want to talk about it right now. And he's like, no, we're going to sit down. We're going to talk about it. So I think that's where I started to learn how to see past those surface answers and go, no, no, no, no. We're going to dig a little deeper here. And so I started applying that in the podcast, like just because it was a conversation. I wanted to get to know the real person. I didn't want to get to know your social media side.

Everybody has these perfect pictures on Instagram. I'm guilty of it, too. You post these pictures and you. look like your life is all together and everything's peachy keen, but deep down, there's something under there that people aren't dealing with. I think more and more people are realizing that. And so sitting down for these podcasts with people, it was a conversation to kind of dig a little deeper and get to know the real person. In terms of picking people, it was kind of just pulling names from a hat. Some people I was meeting because I was just starting

to work with John Martin. He was our MLA at the time. And so I was doing some video work with John just on contract basis. And thanks to him, it kind of forced me out into the community a bit more. I was on the Creative Commission. So that was forcing me out to meet more people and build a bigger network. And so I just kind of started to knock on people's doors that I thought, hey, this person might be good to have on the podcast. You know, people like Tim McAlpine, has been on there. Ron Laser. John Martin was on there. Just, and I should mention when I first started the podcast, those first eight episodes,

Ron was a supporter. He was a, he'd advertise on the website. And Tim McAlpine advertised as well with his co-work, Chilliwack. And you'll still see them on the website now because they're, they've always been big fans and big supporters. So I have huge appreciation for those two guys. that's amazing um can you tell us what it was like to be a pastor and to be there for people during those moments because again i think that those are the moments where we we kind of we brush over them

and um for you to be there during those circumstances and it sounds like not not be supported yourself in tough times what was that like for you what was the learning curve through those moments oh there you go just really digging into the heavy stuff So I went Bible college right out of high school, did that for five years, is four and a half, really, because I took a semester off, and then I changed schools in the final year. So if you're going for your bachelor's in anything, don't change schools in the final year. It's a real pain in the butt. And then I was involved in church for, I think, 11, 12 years. when I first became a youth pastor here in Chilliwack, my first year, a gentleman was on his deathbed here at Chiluac Hospital.

I still remember that, and he asked for me specifically, didn't have any connection with him, hadn't really spent any time, I knew who he was, but he asked me to show up at the hospital. And so a couple days before he passed, and he knew he was going to pass. The hospital told him, like, it's just a matter of. time and sat with them for a couple of hours that's a that's an interesting interesting way when you're what i was 23 24 maybe and you're sitting with a man who is reflecting back on his life and he wants to take time that he doesn't really have much left of and he wants to invest it in yeah wow and So moving forward, it sounds like you were going through some sort of complication with your family and with one of your children.

Yeah, that wasn't until I was 30. Yeah, so that was years later. So just a young youth pastor, just, you know, green. And so you're sitting there with a man that's reflecting on his life. Like that's, that was probably the first moment in church where I started seeing. the human side, like put away all the church politics, put away the, you know, the so-called importance of Sunday morning. And let's focus on life and living and appreciating what you have and what you want to do. Like it was a, it's a moment you just don't forget. So.

Yeah. And I think it's something that I don't know why it feels like we struggle with. Like, I don't know if it's like our own fear of not being here, but like we forget that. We like, we treat people in the grocery store or in lineups like they like they're not going to pass away one day like they don't have a story like they don't have hardships that they don't have some sort of value and I think we're really lucky that our society is based on the idea that everybody has value um I think that sometimes we forget that that is a Christian idea to start with that that's where it kind of emerged for our legal system that there's something that there's something that we can all bring to the table and when people don't when they can't we all miss

out and i don't like people often talk about like racism or or judgmental based on prejudice but you have to remember that for those people that are having that small mindset of like i'm going to judge you based on the color of your skin it's like i don't i don't care about those people i feel bad for those people because if you can't see that everybody can come to the table and bring value, if you can't see that, you're missing out. Like, I'm not at a disadvantage. You're at a disadvantage. And I think sometimes we get, we're scared that we're going down a path and, oh, no, what

if there's more people who have racist mindsets? We have more short-sighted people. That's not, that's not something I need to worry about. Because I want everybody to reach their full potential because I benefit. And you can look at it selfishly. You can think, at least for indigenous communities, if we have more indigenous people, starting restaurants, but you get to try more banic, you get to try more wild salmon, you get to try more candied salmon, you get to try our culture, our food. And wouldn't that

be great for you to be able to experience that? That's not taking away from anybody else. And so, like, I think that it's important that we just slow down sometimes and we appreciate that even if it's the person working at Save On Foods that you think, oh, like, this person's a little rude. It's like, maybe that person's having, like, they're taking care of their family members. You don't know the crap they're dealing with outside of what you see that they're carrying, that they're still getting out of bed, showing up to work, and doing the best they can. And I think so often we want to judge, well, I didn't get the best service. And it's like, right, but maybe it was a huge accomplishment for that person to stay sober that day, to stay on their path, whatever it is.

And maybe that was them conquering one demon, but they couldn't conquer them all. And so just having that, I don't know, humility to understand that we're all. going to be on that bed one day. It was interesting when the pandemic first hit and we went into lockdown. People had like an appreciation for those workers, right? Especially at the grocery store. There are some people that definitely, I think that people that are like a small mindset like you were talking about, for the most part, I don't think those people will ever change. Like I think it's just so built into them, whether it's environment or, uh, family, education, whatever it is, I just don't think they'll necessarily change.

That doesn't mean that we just have to give up on them, but it's just accept that fact and still be loving and caring towards everybody. But when that pandemic hit, there was an appreciation for those people that were working, you know, the frontline workers, as we called them. And I really wish that that would have stuck around more because people were like, you know what, we don't know what this virus is going to do. We don't know how it affects people. We don't know how it spread necessarily at that time.

And these people are still showing up at the grocery store. And I remember even myself, like, stopping and just saying, thank you. Like, you know, I've got kids to feed. I've got to put food on the table still. I don't necessarily want to go out to the grocery store and pick stuff up. But those people are there working eight hours a day dealing with a really big unknown at that time. and people were showing appreciation to what they were doing. And I'm just highlighting grocery stores, but like even restaurants and gas stations,

like these, what people might look down on as menial jobs, they became crucial all of a sudden. And I really wish that I would stuck around where people would, you know, appreciate the, that you don't know their story. You don't know, like you said, what's going on in the background, but they're showing up to work. because somebody has to. Yeah, I also think of when we were all jingling something at, I think it was what, seven o'clock? Seven o'clock, yeah, pots and pans and, yeah.

And you just, you think of like where we are right now. And there is a frustration about mandates and whatever side you land on, you have to remember that for a large majority of people, they were stopping at that 7 p.m. and jingling something out of appreciation. And so I think as much as we might want to point out the frustrations we have with whatever population you're concerned about that we like the same people who could have been jingling those things at seven o'clock could be the same people who are driving down a road frustrating you the next day and so to remember that people are dynamic that it's not one

population is pure good and one population is pure evil it's that we're we're both we're that's the idea behind the idea of ying and yang we're we're both with inside us our community is both good and bad uh we're all imperfect we all have frustrations that we want to let out. We feel misunderstood or not heard. And I just want people to remember that if you have a population that's angry or frustrated and they're voicing that, that it's important for us not to perhaps look down at them, that it's important to put ourselves in their shoes and say, okay, what if that were me and what if I was frustrated about this? And would I want people looking down on me in those circumstances when I'm voicing something that you may or may not

agree with. But there's a potential there that the same people who are angering you are the same people that you were jingling something with six months two years ago. And it feels like we have sometimes like such short-term memory that we forget that we did all come together as a community during that time. And for sure, people have made mistakes along the way. But the hope that we can do better, that we're going to fall down, we're all going to make mistakes and that we can all apologize, right or wrongs, and try and move forward in a better direction, is, you know, something I think we need to hold more dear we need that needs to be like the cornerstone of our community is that people in our community are gonna make

mistakes and we can sort that out apologize and hopefully move together in a better direction as a community but to look at other people as different as wrong as small-minded as as as time to get rid of those group of people we miss out on the value they can bring maybe their expertise isn't in politics. Maybe their expertise isn't in the issue that you hold near and dear to you. Just appreciating people and that, again, they're all going to be on that bed one day and they're going to want to feel love and care and support and they want to feel understood. Nobody wants to leave a legacy of hate behind when they're laying on that bed. Sure, maybe that one day

in the grocery store, they're comfortable with getting mad at you or yelling at you or being inappropriate. But at the end of the day, you being able to see those people and recognize that maybe that person was mean to someone 10 years ago, but that's not who they are in that moment and they're probably scared and they just want to have that connection. And I think it's just valuable that you were willing to share that. Yeah. My philosophy, my take on religion and it's changed so much over the years, but really coming down to just being a good human, like don't have ulterior motives, don't have this idea that, if I'm if I'm good here I'm going to get something better later like that's not how

karma works that's not you you know if you're if you're doing it because it's out of selfish reasons then it's not probably not a good thing to be doing in the first place like do it because you it's just a genuinely good thing to do so that's kind of where I've fallen over the last few years and like don't get me wrong I'm like I've I've been an asshole, like, countless times. There's times where I look back at it and I regret it big time. Things that I've said are done. But unless you're willing to learn from it, accept it, and move on and be better next time.

That's the biggest thing is, you know, be a good human. It's really what it's come down to for me is just treat people the way you want to be treated. And, you know, you don't know everyone's story. So be good to people because it's a, it's the right thing to do. It's a good thing to do. Absolutely. Can you tell us a little bit more about your journey? Because I'm on a bit of a journey, I guess, myself. I'm, I was raised as a Roman Catholic by my non-biological grandmother. And I've become interested in seeing the relationship or the overlap between indigenous history and culture and our belief systems and the overlap between Christianity. And so one of the ones that I like to talk about is, Indigenous people and Sonny McKelsey talks about salmon ceremonies. And we have this tradition of taking the first salmon of the season, putting a little piece into a ketchup container,

and making sure as many people in the community can have access to it as possible. And we take all the bones, we put it into a basket, and we take those bones, and we return it to the river, and we give thanks for the salmon, and we say a prayer. To me, that's similar to grace for Christians and Catholic. of saying thanks before your meals. And when I think of what's kind of taking place with the vegan community, I'm not sure, the vegetarian community,

when they say I can't be okay with killing something in order for me to live. I sympathize with that perspective, and it's more I'm fine with people choosing that route. But I think of how other traditions have tried to deal with that challenge, that guilt that you feel of killing something for you to live. And so I think that there's things to learn. from these belief systems or these values, regardless of whether or not you believe

there was an actual person who actually existed, who we can document, was walking around 2,000 years ago. That seems perhaps besides the point. And you mentioned earlier that when your child was in the hospital, that was kind of your perhaps ending with... I call it my tipping point. Yeah, it sounds like organized religion, like being in a building and having that relationship

with one church or something like that. Can you tell us about what your decision was in terms of how you wanted to move forward when people weren't there for you? Just talking about salmon there, like one of the things, like I was big into fishing. I still love fishing. I just don't do it as much anymore. But you just look at the life cycle of a salmon, right? Especially like you look at pink salmon or chum salmon, you know, in the good days, just how many there are that they...

You know, they're born in the river, they go out to the ocean, they get bigger, they turn around, they come back to the same spot that they spawned and die. And it's all the carcasses, the bones, the flesh from just how good that is for the river system. The whole ecosystem of the river is dependent on those salmon, going out to the ocean, getting healthy, getting bigger, coming back, and then feeding back into the system. It's this life cycle. And so watching that is, you know, it's the, it's the same thing like when you're talking about like vegans and vegetarians too like

if that's what you want to do I don't care for myself I love barbecue I love making a big platter of meat and like it's that's that's my thing like it's okay um but like for them like you know there's still a life cycle that um you know planting a garden and watching it grow and learning how to regrow what you just drew from it and And there's still a life cycle involved there. It's not like the plant just shows up out of nowhere. Like those seeds were developed from somewhere. Those flowers, like those trees, like it's, it didn't just show up.

There's a life cycle involved there. So just having that appreciation for just life in general, I guess. I don't know. We're getting way too deep for me right. No, but I think you're right. I talked to Andrew Victor about this and he's a pastor at the Chiloch Native Pentecostal Church. And he talked about how it's so easy. for people to see the beauty in the river, in the mountains, in the ecosystems, seeing an eagle,

seeing a bear, and then you look at a person and you go, oh, that person is just a loser. Like, there's no, they're no good. Right. And it's like, why is there this drop-off between how you appreciate the environment and bears and wildlife? And then you look at people and you go, I'm done with all these people and I'm just going to go move up in the middle of nowhere and I'm done with that. And it's like, I think that's important that we remember that we're all,

part of the ecosystem yeah no totally uh and our life is what 80 to 100 years maybe now right like so you look at the grand scale of things it's it's minuscule right like so uh if you can accept the fact that you're going to be that you're born and you're going to be dead like those are two guarantees on life i guess uh i don't know um but that uh yeah that that that that fateful day will come for all of us and if you can accept that fact and then live your life to make it the most, you know, it's, it's key. Yeah. So what was that tipping point for you if I can just keep pulling it?

So you don't, yeah, I don't know if you're picking up, but I'm trying to like hide away from this right now. I don't talk about my faith journey a whole lot. There's a few friends that I have spoken to about with, and I'm comfortable talking about it here. Don't get me wrong, but it's something that I've shied away from talking about just because it wasn't the easiest time. And it wasn't the easiest to, uh, to walk through and to learn and, um, that, uh, you know, there's a lot of hurts and just, uh, just a lot of disappointment that came out of it. So, um, that tipping point was just, um, I already wasn't overly happy working back in

the church again. That's not where I wanted to be. And so when that happened with my daughter, um, there's already conflict happening at the, in my job. It wasn't a good, uh, good work environment. Um, my, my former boss, well, I had two bosses and my one former boss who oversaw me the most, um, ended up being, uh, he ended up facing four charges for child pornography. And so he was someone that had no respect for when I worked for him. I didn't have a choice to, but to work for him. And, uh, and I always thought that something would have happened with him. I thought something like he just, he just, I didn't get a good vibe from him. from the moment I started working for him. And so that was always interesting, having heard everything that happened with them. And so it was a series of events over a decade, four different churches that I was a part of,

just a lot of similar experiences across four different churches, three different denominations. and just seeing just this side of church that I didn't like and not seeing it line up with what they were trying to teach through scripture and just I never fit I didn't grow up in the church I didn't start attending church till I was 18 and even then I just I was always kind of the outcast I just I never you know I swore too much I like to drink beer. I just wasn't, I didn't fit in with what they expected for not just a church attendee, but a church leader. You know, getting reprimanded for things that were completely ridiculous

back in the day when I think about it. Seeing senior pastors doing things that they shouldn't have been doing that they'd sit there and tell me not to do, but then they'd go on and do it themselves. So it was just a series of events. And then when my daughter, when my daughter, we had that issue. And it was on Easter weekend of all weekends, too, which is a big Christian weekend. And that was the point where I was like, okay, enough is enough. Yeah. And so started making basically an exit strategy to really get out of there.

And so when I left, I would try and go back to church. ended up having some major anxiety attacks while sitting in church just like handshaking, couldn't move, trouble breathing, heart rate was just all over the place. So I just stopped going to the main service on Sunday mornings and I'd hang out with my daughter in Sunday school. So I'd be hanging out with these like two year olds who like if you if you just want the pure joy and excitement for life, just hang out with some two year olds. they you know they there's no prejudice there's no preconceived ideas of who you should be and how

you should act like you know a boy that likes trains is going to just show you that he likes trains that's all it is right there's you know you know he's not going to have a story about well when i was a kid and my grandma used to take me on the train and blah blah blah no he just loves trains for the sake of loving trains right yeah so hanging out with these two year olds was always a blast you know singing at the top of their lungs not caring how they sound drawing a picture for you that, you know, if you want to like compare it to some other professional artists, it sucks. But that kid is super proud of that drawing. And they should be because they just made it themselves. Like they, you know, so I probably learned more from hanging out with those two-year-olds

than I would have sitting in the Sunday service. And so after doing that for a little while and not really being able to be a part of the church community, and I didn't want to be a part of the church community, I just walked away. Like I had enough. I just couldn't handle. Not just the hypocrisy, but just the attitudes and some of the people that I was meeting, they'd say one thing on Saturday and do a different thing on Sunday, and I just had enough. It was just too much. And so it was actually when I started playing hockey for a beer league team. I was playing here at Prospera. And just starting, I was playing with the volunteer firefighters, a couple full-time firefighters.

If you want to see, like, what a man's actually like, throw some hockey gear on them and go play hockey with them. And you'll see what kind of person they really are. If they're a genuine person that cares about people, it'll show. And if they're a jerk, that'll show really quickly, too. Just mend being competitive with one another, you'll discover. really quickly. And so I started meeting some guys that were just some really, it would be fun to play against them. It would be a challenge. You know,

he'd say all sorts of things to each other, but in the spirit of competition, but also like, like you'd still care about them. And actually that's when I met Tyler Olson. So Tyler and I would play against each other and him and I were friends on Twitter. And that's kind of the only way we really knew each other and the firefighters team was ending and they couldn't get enough guys back for the next season and i got talking with tyler on twitter for it and he's like well i didn't come join the team he was playing on which was the shockers and so i came and played with the shockers and uh that's when i met darren mcdonald who works at ufee and uh i met dusty who is now up in in West Colonna, started to hang out with Tyler more.

And the four of us just ended up spending a lot of time together and walking through some really heavy stuff together. And that's like, that's kind of like my brotherhood, especially Dusty and Darren. For whatever reason, I drew really close with those two. And I love Tyler. Like him and I harass each other all the time. But for whatever reason, we just haven't bonded as closely. But that doesn't mean.

mean, I don't hang out with him. He's bugging him to go golfing tomorrow or Saturday. So, and you're going to have him on here for a podcast. So I, you know, Tyler's one of the smartest people I know. I'm incredibly smart and probably the best journalist that I've, I've ever met. Not that I've met a lot, but Tyler's fantastic. But for whatever reason, I just got closer with Dusty and Darren. And that's when, you know, started looking at things like my own mental health, my own happiness in life, really digging into. some of the heavy stuff that the guys, for the most part, don't talk about with one another. I've been in counseling now for, I think, three years.

And it's surprising how few men are willing to, like, dig into the stuff that's really hard to talk about because there's this culture among men where it's like, you know, you have to be strong, you know, you got to be this macho man and do all the things and fix the stuff and everyone has to be dependent on you and you can't be dependent on anybody else. Whereas when I started hanging out with these guys and because of specifically because of Darren McDonald, I started making friends with other men and just ended up, I've got a great group of guys that are around me now that have really helped me through some really tough times, which I'm sure you're going to start asking me about.

But because of that, too, really started changing my perspective on faith and Christianity and just to the point now where, like, I'm of the belief that we have one life, that when the lights go out, the lights go out, and that this concept of, that you have to do good here so that you get something better when you're dead, have a really hard time. accepting that, that, you know, you have to save all these people so you can have a bigger mansion in heaven. That seems really counterintuitive. It doesn't seem like a good thing to do. You're not necessarily doing it because you want to. You're doing it because you're going to get something better. And so through all this, through a lot of conversations, through a lot of nights of beer and whiskey, we've had some really deep conversations. And so a lot of that has cause me to just have a lot of self-reflection on what I believe and where I've come from, what I've learned, and just changing, and life experience too, and changing that, you know,

make the most of what you have here and now, and don't sit there pining for tomorrow, thinking that that's going to be better if you're not willing to put in the work today. Like you be here, be present. Yeah, I think that that is something that I don't know if it's a misreading of or just a misteaching, but people forget that you can have hell on earth. It doesn't need to be like Dante's Inferno, which is a description of the idea that hell is a fiery place. When I'm a Jordan Peterson fan, I've got his 12 rules up behind me, and when he talks about what's taking place in places like, I believe it's China, where they're They would take people, put them in a freezer, have them hold their arms up, and then until they were freezing, and then take them outside and pour boiling hot water on their arms until their arms started to disintegrate off with their body. That's hell.

when you talk about Indian residential schools and Charles Joseph who is a survivor and he talks about how these institutions would take the children pile their dead bodies into this area and then they would make the children light the match so they wouldn't have to take responsibility for it. That's hell on earth

and I don't think you can dispute I don't think you need an external point in time to be able to realize that what's gone on in history, whether it's in Nazi Germany, whether it's Indian residential schools, whether it's Maoist China. These are examples of real hell. When you talk about Yanomi Park and what she describes of what was taking place in North Korea of people having to sell body parts to survive, this is hell. And I believe that that is one path civilization can take and I believe that there's another path civilization can take where we all bring the best of ourselves.

and whether or not there's an afterlife or before life is really irrelevant to exactly what you said. We can make hell here and we can make an amazing place here where everybody is able to reach their full potential. My mother has fetal alcohol syndrome disorder. Her mother drank alcohol with her in the womb. I'm really lucky that our society found value for my mom. She can't work a regular job. She's struggled having dishwasher positions. Her value is that she was a loving, loving mother, that she wanted the best for me, that every step of the way she said, ask a better question, you can do this, you can be everything that I couldn't be, you can do the things I couldn't.

The fact that we have a social assistance system in our country that allowed her to survive, even though she couldn't work, that valued her despite the fact that she had limitations. A hundred years ago, we would do horrible things to these individuals. We would put them into institutions and abuse them and assault them for not being normal. And I think that we're at a time where, to me, I just feel lucky that our society valued my mom because I wouldn't be here today if they didn't. And we wouldn't have survived poverty if there weren't these resources. And so just thinking about how other countries in other periods of time would have treated someone with a disability throughout history.

I just feel lucky that we're in this time period because she, she's lived her life mostly without prejudice, despite having limitations that other people don't face. And so I just, I feel grateful to be here today. And I feel grateful that our society is structured in such a way that allowed her to exist and to be free because you look at some of the policies we had with people with disabilities in the past. They didn't value people with disabilities. And we're starting to realize that people with autism have real genuine things to share with us. One of my favorite most interesting people is Eric Weinstein. And he has autism. but he's a brilliant mathematician, and we're realizing that these disabilities, they

may perhaps make you different, but they don't make you less than. And I think that that's an important differentiation. I feel like we're starting to make, and so I'm grateful that we're here today and able to share the best of ourselves. But I won't ask too many personal questions. I'm just interested to know, it sounds like your child also made like a big difference in that moment as well. Can you tell us about when they didn't show up for your family? It seems like that was like that's it. That's the tipping point. No, it wasn't that wasn't like I call it the

tipping point, but it wasn't like I just shut the door. It was a slow process. Sorry, I just meant that can you tell us about your family and the value that you, it sounds like you've had throughout, I listened to your interview with Nancy Goodyer and you talk about how proud you are that your son's making a YouTube channel. Can you tell us about like, what your family means to you because it sounds like that's where you found soulless. That's where you found a lot of meaning. Yeah, like my kids mean the world to me. I've got three kids, 16, 14, and 11 are their ages, two boys and a girl.

Like when they came into this world, just completely changed everything for me. And so raising them hasn't been the easiest, obviously. Just being a father, it's never easy. but um it's uh they're they bring a lot of joy and happiness in my life um so like my middle guy keon he's uh i've never pushed video stuff on them i've never i've told them like if they want gear there's gear just sitting there more than more than what they would get at like their school for their film class and stuff right like um and i've told them like if you want it it's there And so my oldest, he's been involved with a number of video projects that he's done through film class at Chilliwack Senior.

And then he actually helped me with the 48-hour film festival for the Chilliwack Independent Film Festival. So we did a 48-hour film submission, and he was basically my shadow for that whole 48 hours, even when the Saturday night. So we started Friday night at 7. And we're done shooting by Saturday afternoon. And then I was editing Saturday afternoon or Saturday evening. And he sat there while I was cursing at my computer because I couldn't get this 360 footage to work and just couldn't find any sort of help for it. And so he sat through all of that frustration and, you know, the goods and bads. And then he helped.

He's an incredibly talented musician too. Both boys are actually my daughter's starting to get into piano. and she's doing really well with that. So just, I'm not musically inclined. So seeing my kids get into music has been pretty cool. And then just hearing some of the stuff they play. Like Keon, my middle guy, he, he's a part of a band at Imagine High. So he's part of that school this year for the first year.

You know, got the auditorium just going a couple of times where he's doing guitar solos. And if you know Keon, he is a quiet kid, he wears. hair across his half his face almost all the time. He's got long hair. He's shy, not overly opinionated about stuff. Doesn't talk a whole lot. So then you see him on center stage in an auditorium getting kids like super excited about his guitar solo. That's a pretty cool moment to see as a parent. And you know, thanks to this pandemic, you don't get to go and attend stuff like that. So you have to see it online, which isn't the same, but just hearing the audience reaction and stuff when he's doing that in school is cool.

And then Keon also runs his own YouTube channel where he does all gaming videos. And you kind of see his personality really come out in that. But I think for me, that's probably the most exciting part to watch is just hearing this kid voice, just his voice on these videos and, you know, the level of humor that he has and just his creativity that he's like where he's coming up with these ideas and what he's doing to make it happen it's it's fun to watch because i never told him hey you have to do this this is what you have to do um you know like he tried out jujitsu for a year and it wasn't his thing and uh played minor um he was in baseball both keifer and him were uh kind of lost interest

a little bit with that and so just seeing him find something that he's really excited about with music and video is it's it's always fun as a parent when your kids find something that they're passionate about and so yeah kian does that and um i think you're gonna share the link for his youtube channel which would be cool because i always try and like promote his youtube channel like i did youtube uh i say i did youtube full time for like at least a year um like i went through the whole youtube video academy i signed up for this uh YouTube coaching. I can't remember what it's called now,

but it was like video coaching for YouTube to basically try and build an income from it. Ran it for just over a year where I was producing a YouTube video a week, trying to find my voice with it, just trying out a whole bunch of different things with it. And I think I ended up making like $150 for way too much work. I loved it. I learned a lot about it. and so him seeing that I think kind of turned them off a little bit but you know I did that

I did that for a year and I think I ended up with like just over 100 subscribers and 150 and so he's like at 3 30 or more now like so seeing seeing him succeed at something that I didn't succeed at is even better because it's just like this kid's found something genuine and and and I an audience that wants to see what he's doing. So that's pretty cool to see that he's doing better at it than I was. So, yeah, I don't even know where I'm going with that except to just brag about my kids. No, I think that that's so important because I think, and I've mentioned this before, I think we get lost in, what do you do, what's your career, what do you bring into the table?

And we forget that, like, the best place to be as a parent. I don't know why we, I feel like we struggle with that sometimes, that that's, that's okay. And I think that creating that space and slowing down and saying, like, what do you enjoy about being a father? What do you gain from that? What meaning does that make for you is important because, at least within the legal community that I have to see and the way they approach things, their kids are the last things on their priority list. And to me, it's like, well, then you've got your priorities wrong. because that's the next generation. Those people are you in the future.

When you have children, you're passing on the good, the bad, you're trying to make them better than you were. You're trying to give them the tools. And I think just slowing down and just saying, tell us about what you hope your kids become and saying for you to say, I don't want them to feel obligated to go into film, is again, you're trying to leave all the doors open to them.

Reach your greatest potential, whatever you define that as. and sometimes we struggle with wanting our kids to be who we weren't or build on our legacy or you see like sometimes people who are police officers, their children become police officers and then their children become police officers. And that's not against that culture, but when it's just kind of perpetuated and you don't know why you're doing it and you don't have parents who just want you to reach your full potential, whatever that is, I think it's important to create that space and for people to just want the best for their kids and I think just allowing you to share that is so your children will

be able to listen to this one day and feel like my dad just wanted me to be the best and that's that's what everybody wants that's what I again I feel like some of our listeners they don't have good parents they don't have parents like yourself who say I'm going to get out of your way and I'm just going to support you wherever you want to take this and that's sometimes that's missing and I think that I'm just grateful when individuals like yourself are willing to share about your family because that's so important and it's such a big piece of your your life pie that so many want to skip over and get to the what are you doing with this or what are you doing with that or what are you doing with this show or how are you developing this and it's like what about your

family and i don't know if you heard but like when i was interview when i was preparing for my interview with brian minter um that was one of the things brian mentioned with his interview with tim is um i feel like people don't want to hear about my family um like you're here you're going to ask me about like my gardening. You're going to ask me about my business. But my wife has really been like a cornerstone of our business. And it feels like whenever I talk about it, they're ready for the next question. And when I heard that, I was like, that's, that's wild to me because family is the corner. What's that whole thing that we were talking about, the story behind what you see? Yeah. Right. People don't know that story. Yeah. And just opening that door. And so in my mind,

I was like, let's talk about your family, Brian. Like, we've got nowhere to be. And I don't have like a script of like we have to go over these 10 things or it's not a good interview to me it's like tell me about what you're passionate about and he's passionate about his family and creating that space I got a lot of great reviews from people saying like I had no idea about this about Brian or that about Brian and it's like he's done how many interviews but how many of those interviews are geared towards the same right the story behind the man instead of what he does right exactly so can you tell us about your journey with with sharing stories and your understanding of messaging because I like that you brought up Lord of the Rings. For me,

it's Harry Potter. Yeah, again, right? Like the story of Harry Potter, it's not good unless there's conflict. Yeah. Right? If there's that, if there isn't that battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort, right, there's no, there's no good storytelling. It's just a kid that went to a wizarding school. But there's some sort of inclination people have to belittle these stories, to say people who like, whether it's J.K. Rowling, whether it's J.R. Tolkien, to, like, brush their stories off as if they're just fictional nonsense stories. And it's like, well, they didn't actually happen, but the message is super inspiring. So what are your thoughts on these movies and the message that they're trying to tell people? Like, pop culture stuff is huge for me. I have my aunt to thank Aunt Colleen.

When I was a kid, and she probably is the one that really instilled my passion for film, too. She was the one that introduced me to stuff like Back to the Future and Superman and Star Wars and Indiana Jones, like the things that I love. I actually just got a tattoo. It's the Gooney Skull. So it's like those things are like, they're really important to me. They've been foundational and me becoming who I am. so like those stories are so important like not just that they're good stories but

like you look at things like Fan Expo and Comic-Con and you look at you look at what that creates is that it inspires that next generation to come up with new stories to come up with something that hasn't been told yet yeah it's probably going to be inspired by something else. There's nothing new under the sun, but it's going to be a new take. It's going to be a new angle, a new point of view. And those stories are just like, like the amount of life lessons that you can pull from them are huge. Like I'm sitting here telling you about like taking that first step and, you know, just making an attempt. And all I picture is Bilbo Baggins running out of the shire going, I'm going on an adventure. Like that's what I hear and see in my head all the time

is this, you know, frail little hobbit that's scared to, like, you know, even cast a shadow outside his doorway and then all of a sudden he's running out of the shire saying he's going on an adventure. Like, that's what I picture. And, like, if those stories don't exist, I'm not, I'm not finding inspiration there. I'm not finding something to propel me into doing something new. and so yeah like even for my kids just um it was so crucial for me like teaching them about star wars and i was so mad when my kids started going to school and they found out about

episode one two and three of star wars it's just like i wanted them to wait till they're way older and just appreciate four five and six and i was so mad when uh some some little kid told them about phantom menace and it's just like you wrecked it for me but uh like those those things have become important in my kids lives now um and not only that now they've like uh like introducing the kids to music like my ex-wife was huge into like playing music for them um and that propelled them into finding their own their own music that they're passionate about um especially like Kiefer, my oldest, he, he's listening to stuff that came out when I was his age that I never even knew existed. Like neutral milk hotel, I didn't even know what that was. I didn't know

that was a band. And now, you know, I'm somewhat familiar with it. And because of him, because he found something that passionate about that, you know, and that comes from just, you know, this whole love for pop culture and music and yeah so it's exciting to see that next generation find something that they get excited about because of these stories either through music film books whatever yeah i think of uh my circumstance and it was uh it was Toby mcguire spider man that was um i just have to call it like a role model i guess because um when push came to shove in that there's a scene where uh he doesn't uh stop the thief he doesn't stop the perpetrator and then his uncle dies as a consequence of that, of his inaction.

And then at the downtown subway, close to Chilliwack Secondary School, there was a person who entered who decided they were going to rob the store, and there was nothing else I could do other than chase the person down the road. And then they got into a car, and I chased the car, and I was on the phone with 911. And the police officer jokingly after I had chased them was like, you probably shouldn't do that. And it's like, right, but I was taught from this show. Yeah.

There's no other option. It was just meant for entertainment. Yeah. That's what people would say. It was only for entertainment. And I don't agree with their conclusion. I think that this is how you live a meaningful life. And you can say that it's only a couple hundred dollars.

But to me, it was this is my community. This person, and later I found out through having to go to court for it, that this person had done this to multiple different subways. And this had become common. And nobody else had kind of stood up. And so at the end of the day, are you the person who stands up and tries to prevent these things in your community or aren't you? And today I feel like I do the same thing. I believe in standing up for your community. I believe in putting yourself in that circumstance.

And people can say that's not logical, but life isn't just logic. It's about trying to be your best self. And that was me being my best self. And I get frustrated and I don't know how to communicate it well when I hear people belittle Harry Potter or like Lord of the Rings and say, these are just shows. and not to be taken with any meaning behind them. And it's like, but this is what, for so many, this is, they're closer to these shows than they are with their family. Yeah. They've watched this show more than they've heard positive encouragement from their family members.

So we can't be so quick to say that this is silly shows. Don't pay too much attention to them. Listen to your parents because I didn't have a father. And so these shows were filling some sort of gap within me that were educating me in some way and teaching me how to be a good person. And the fact that the characters paid such a consequence when they didn't act was a huge lesson to me of the consequences of an action. And what's your responsibility as a community member?

And I feel like I'm grateful when individuals like yourself talk about the inspiration from those because it reminds us of the importance of these shows. And I just, I don't know. For me, I feel like a lot of people underestimate the impact of these stories. Yeah, like we could talk about like movies, especially. um you know like i tell people when we really get into like the nerd talk is uh like in force awakens when um you know spoiler alert if you haven't seen it not really but when kilo ren um kills hon solo and chui lets out that cry from the and he could have shot him he could have very but he

missed and uh just the way that j j abram showed that like that it was a deliberate miss and i tell people all the time, like, it's not so much that, like, Chui was, like, he was mad at Kylo, Ben for killing Han. It was, Chewy would have grown up with Ben, Kylo Ren. He would have grown, like, he would have been there because he was always Han Solo's right hand man. Yeah. So Ben is born to Han and Leah, and Chewy would have been, he would have, he probably was in the delivery room, right? Like, and he would have grown up. He would have, he would have seen this kid, you know, becoming a Jedi and going to be with Luke Skywalker at the Jedi Academy,

the Jedi Temple. And so he would have watched that whole process. And then for him to watch this kid that he loved and cared for, like he would have, he probably would have been even tighter with that kid than he was with Han Solo. He would have, like, it would have been like his own kid.

Chewy seeing the kid kill Han. like I think like that's heartbreaking. Yeah. And so you watch these stories and yeah, people say it's just entertainment. It's just stupid pop culture, whatever they, if they're,

if they're saying something negative about it. Um, good, good writers, good storytellers will draw from real life experience, right? They'll take something in, um,

you might not see it on the surface level, but if you go one step underneath it and understand the story. And J.J. Abrams did a TED talk about that, how like, uh, he talked about jaws and how most people see it. It's just this story about a shark that's like devouring people on a beach. But if you

look at, then what the story is really about is about a father who started a new job in a new community. And he shows the scene of like the father and kid just sitting at the dinner table and just how that's what the movie's really about is this man trying to make an improvement not only in the community and in his job, but with his family. And so that's what the story of Jaws is really about and just that was so eye-opening for me when I heard J.J. talk about like, you know, the story behind the story. Yeah, but that has overlap, right, with the story of Abraham in terms of Abraham. I think he was the one who started like his journey late in life and then he was like 40 years old or 60 years old or something. Then he goes on

this adventure. And the first thing he experiences on his adventure is like, I think it was like famine. He's in a desert. Like things are not going well. the second you start your life adventure later in life. And I think that when I think of the Avengers, you see there's parallels between the idea of Tony Stark and Captain America in terms of Kane and Abel. And there's these subtle undertones of Tony is a person who lives for himself. He's got more of those cane attributes in the beginning of the movie.

He's focused on his life, his money, his fame, his attitude towards things, where it seems like... Well, there's that line with him in Captain America where Captain Nassam, like, you know, when it comes down to it, like, are you the one to throw yourself on the barbed wire? Like, are you willing to take the sacrifice? And Captain, you know, like if you watch Captain America, when he's that little tiny, scrawny guy

before he actually gets all souped up, he was the one that threw himself on the grenade. Correct. Right? So it's that, it's totally that. Like, what perfect life lessons is just there? Like, and I'm not a fan of like the Marvel movies, but they, really? Well, I'm tired of them.

Okay. It's just, it's become such a machine that, um, it's, and it's regurgitating itself too much that there isn't enough new storytelling from it. Um, that's the biggest thing for me. Right. But it's the fact that there's this pop culture movie, um, that draws, It's a, it's good storytelling because it's drawing from real life lessons. Yeah, because you think of how endgame ends and what is Tony Stark do?

He's the person who ends up dying for everything. It takes the final blow. Exactly. That changes everything and brings peace to everybody. And you, like, if you start from the first movie and you see his journey through, the torment of knowledge, I think is also valuable for people. because I don't think people realize how tough it is to become self-aware, to realize who you are. Like my partner, Rebecca, she's gotten, her parents say they support her education,

and then they make comments like, stop being a textbook. Stop bringing that around. And I don't think people realize that there are legitimate, discouraging attitudes that you can bring to people. When you say you want the best for them, who are you when it really comes down to it? and people don't really reflect on those things. But I think that education is one of those differentiators that,

not necessarily formal, but when you start to become aware of who you are, where you want to go, what you want to be, there's those people who kind of want you to stay the same. They want you to, oh yeah, that probably won't work out.

You probably just want to come back work for me, right? Or you want to come back and join Save on or wherever you are. And they want you to be who you always were. And that journey of leaving the Hobbit hole or going out and going into the wizarding, world, that story is kind of eternal in that you leave. And some people don't want to come with you. They don't believe in your vision. They don't believe in your story. They don't believe you're going to make it. They believe it's a huge mistake. You're wasting your time. When I was starting

this podcast, it was important to me not to tell anyone because, and it happened exactly how I predicted. People were like, do you really have time for that, though? You have law school. You shouldn't be focusing on this. This is not how you should be spending your time. Three hours. People aren't going to listen to that. They're not going to care. what are people going to say for three hours? All of these comments of like be more realistic. Do it how I would do it. And it's like you're not doing it.

Yeah. Which is what I was talking about earlier, right? People tell you their thoughts on it, but they're not willing to take that chance. They're not willing to put in the time, the effort and dream too, right? Like you've obviously sat and thought about this podcast, right? You've thought about what you want from it. You've thought about where it could go. And a lot of people aren't even willing to do.

like and not even just their negative comments towards you or someone else that's trying to start something new. They're probably saying those things to themselves as well, which is really sad at the end of the day, is that they might have an idea of like, oh, what if I start this business? And then they, that voice that they've expressed to you, like, and you know what it's like just for yourself. That voice is probably even louder in their own head saying, this is ridiculous. No one will, no one will support this. Why? Like, you're stupid. Why would you think like and that for me is I just I can't go there like it's so detrimental for your own mental health and well-being that it's sad really at the end of the day so for

you like it's it's exciting that you found something that you love and you're going after it so congratulations to you for like not listening to those voices and listening to the one that you had in your head like no this is what I want to do this is what I want to dream and yeah yeah I feel like all the best ideas come from people who are just They get a vision, and they chase it despite the naysayers. One of the things I've personally run into a fair bit is people, I don't know, insulting themselves to me. Like, I'm like, I think you'd be like a great guest to have on.

And I've had people say, I don't know what I would say for two hours or three hours. I could probably do 30 minutes, maybe. I've had people say, I'm not a role model. Don't, I'm a flawed, I'm not perfect. And it's like, I never thought that you were perfect. I think you set a good example in this way or that way. or I think you have something to share where other people can learn from. I imagine you run into that occasionally with other people when you're coming in and you say,

I have this vision for how we're going to do this video. Can you tell us about how you got passionate about this or something? I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I don't know anything. I'm just, I just work here. I'm just trying to make it happen the best I can. Have you run into that with people where they don't believe in themselves as much as perhaps you believe in what they're doing? um there isn't really anything that comes to mind like and i i know a fair number of like

local business owners here in chilewack um there's some of the most passionate people i know and and some of the most positive like tyler beverage over at major league too um really knowledgeable guy um but just just very optimistic um brit uh who owns blossom floral design. Even like on her like really bad days, still like a passion for her business, like just loves it. So I think I think the people that have been in small business for themselves, they've gone through enough of the bad days to know that it's worth it. And like even for myself, like I sat through 14 months of movie theaters being closed. My main business being closed for 14 months, zero income from it for 14 months and still having the belief

that that's what I needed to do and that's what I needed to wait for. And it's still not where it used to be. It's still going to take some time. Like we finally had mandates lifted what last Friday for so that we can go to 100% capacity in movie theaters. And it's still going to take time for audiences to feel comfortable to come back. So it's going to take some time. So it's going to take some time still, but I'm still of the belief that movie theaters is one of the key businesses that exist. And I get all the time, like, why are you investing in movie theaters because people just have these giant theater systems at home and, like, you can just watch it at home and better sound and more comfortable and, you know, the snacks don't cost $50.

And the thing is with that is people want a shared experience. And that's what you get in the movie theater. Like, like I said, I, you know, I've got my my opinions of Marvel, but we saw all the Avenger movies on opening night. Recently, my daughter really wanted to see the last Spider-Man, no way home. And her and I went opening night. Batman's coming out. I've got tickets for opening night. There's something about like these movies that you love and are passionate about to be able to share them with other people in a room where you're all laughing and crying and taking in the whole experience together. So for me, I don't see, I don't even see COVID being a detriment to the movie theater

industry because if that was a case, they'd stop releasing movies into the movie theater altogether, but they're not. Even through COVID, they're like, we're going to wait to release James Bond. We're going to wait to release Quiet Place 2 because they wanted it in the movie theater first because there's something about that shared experience um so yeah um getting back to that that negative voice um the the people i know in town are some of the most resilient resilient people that even through all of these COVID restrictions and things that they've had to go through um they haven't sat there going woe is me like my life is over why why isn't this more fair um they get up in the morning

and they dust themselves off and they say well like we're just going to tackle this next problem and we're just going to see what we can do now. They're probably some of the most encouraging people. And I'm talking about people that I don't even necessarily get along with at times, but they're positive people. They put the best foot forward and chase after what their dreams and goals are. And I think that's a common theme through most business owners that have started the business themselves is that you don't have time to sit there and go, woe is me. Because if you did, you could just, you crumble, I think. Yeah, I definitely agree with you about the movie theaters, is that some, it's not, there's

something missing from the experience when it's just, every movie is just at home. And like, my partner and I have kind of noticed that over, because we would have been in one of those groups of like, yeah, the movie industry is probably dying and movie theater is probably going to disappear one day. And now we're starting to sit here and kind of go, that doesn't seem like to be the case because there's something about other people being scared in a scary movie that makes you more scared in that moment. And again, you're in a movie theater and a professional establishment. You turn on the lights. It's not the same experience. But when you're sitting there and somebody else kind of gives a scream or is startled, that gets you a little

bit whole like now I'm a little bit more the experience is intensified and it's the same with other types of movies when you get invested in the character when there's a sad scene and you can hear other people having emotions towards that scene it gives you the space to feel that and some of my favorite memories of movies is when there was a funny scene and everybody else laughed but when you're watching it at home and it's just you and you don't laugh then it's not as funny of a scene or it's almost corny or it's missing something that I imagine the directors, the creators, they had a vision for it and they said, this is the moment where we're going to make them laugh. This is the moment where a little bit of that stress is going to go away, a little bit of that anxiety of what's

going to happen next kind of calms you down. And if you're just sitting there waiting for the movie to happen to you, kind of like a robot, you're missing some of the energy from the movie, the experience that the creator may have had for you. And as I learned, more about the film industry and video, there are intentions that go into the mindset of at this point, we want them to laugh. At this point, we want them to feel sad. At this moment, we want them to feel something. And as a consumer, you kind of go, oh, that was funny. Oh, that was sad. Oh, that was, like, you don't realize that this is all by design, that what you're experiencing is created by someone else. And great comedians are really good at being able to

take you on a journey and kind of hit and have punches where you laugh really hard or where you get really angry and you're like, oh, I can't believe he just said that. And then he decompresses or she decompresses you in a way where you're like, oh, now that makes it. Now I'm okay with that. And they're learning how to communicate with you in a way that you're along for the ride. And I think we perhaps lose appreciation for the medium when we start to think that we're the experts, when we're the critics, because you're experiencing something and you don't know what to expect and you can maybe predict to the end of the movie. But that doesn't mean that the movie is now stupid because you can predict the end. It's the experience. It's the wave of

emotions you're going to feel throughout that is really a journey. I'm interested to know how you approach that with creating ads, with creating stories, with trying to create emotions through all of your work. What is that like? I wouldn't say I try and create emotion through advertising. A lot of it's just, especially with movie theater stuff, has been just kind of. You want people to care, though, don't you? You want people to invest and say, like, this is worth supporting. And so that is a form of the best advertising.

It's one of the things with my job with the movie theater stuff is it's not the most exciting. It's actually, it gets kind of boring. And just because it's, you know, it's the same thing. like if you have a regular job that you've been doing for 10 years, you see the ins and outs of it and you know how it all works. So movie theater advertising the best way to impact people with it is just brand recognition. Call out to like a call to action doesn't work well in movie theater ads. You you want people familiar with your brand to easily find you, whether online phone number, address, you like you just, you're just trying to put your brand out

there for people to see regularly. That's the best way to advertise with movie theaters. With what I'm doing with around Chilliwack, though, that's where I can start kind of keying in on some of those things that you were talking about. You know, like doing a video with Magnolia Clothing Boutique on Yale across from District 1881, just getting her to kind of tell her story about why it's important to shop local, why it's important to support a store like hers. then you can start getting into like the you know why she why she started it why she's passionate about it um like lian's she loves her store she loves the people that work for she loves the people that come in and buy clothing from her that's why she gets up and goes

and finds new clothing lines and why she shows up at the store and cares so much about it um someone like Megan who owns the local space who I'm finally meeting up with today I've harassed her about meeting up for a beer for a while and so we can do that later today um like she you I had her she was one of my I think she was the last podcast that I did actually last podcast episode uh last year and she um super passionate about her job and if you follow her online like just super down to earth too um she uh you know she's just an inspiring person that she had a passion for something and started chasing it and like you look at the rabbit hole she's gone down he has three stores now a warehouse and probably way in over her head and she'll tell you that but she's going for it um

so it's meeting these people because of around chiloac and um being able to kind of tell their stories either through the podcast or through videos photos is kind of where most of around chiloac is where i do content creation for clients or just regular content on there for myself photos is i i try and capture people in their like real raw moment um and so it is advertising, but it's, I don't know, it's, it's like I'm, it's like I'm creating a diary of small business in Chilawark and building this, this library for people to be able to look, this is where we were and this is where we are now. And so there, there is emotion in that. Like, it's probably my own emotion too, my own passion and love for this community. But,

Yeah, it's around Chilowax where I get to, like, kind of tell more of those stories. The theater advertising is just, it's become just, you know, kind of a paycheck. Whereas around Chilohax is a passion. Right. Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit more about working with these people? You, this is like, you show strong emotion towards being able to see people in their element. And I think that that's the part.

where I think of like Bill at the town butcher and people don't want to shop there unless he's there because there's something special about the passion, the dedication that he's brought to that business that gives it a life of its own, that gives it the story. It's not just another place to buy meat. If it was, it'd be safe on foods.

There's something special about what these people bring to life in their business. And you get that kind of inside look and you get to develop the story, and it's something that I'm passionate about. I don't get to interview enough small business owners for my own enjoyment because I think we're so lucky when people find something like Bill did with saying like, well, we don't have any, like we've got no local meat,

like why we have meat here, why aren't we selling it here? And then to say, okay, that's the problem. And then what, 12 years later, still working to make sure that that's protected. And then I don't know if people put it together, but like, again, during the floods here in the Fraser Valley, we were disconnected. But what wasn't disconnected? These small businesses that had strategies,

local distributors that they were able to pull from to make sure that we weren't out of food. Cobb's bread was another one where they were trying to source their ingredients from different places so they could keep running in comparison to other bigger box places that were like, well, Toronto is shut down so we can't help you, sorry, good luck.

Well, there's like small businesses that were getting products shipped via fishing boat up the Fraser River. That's crazy. They're doing everything they could to be able to provide their service for the community.

And so you go to the big box stores, they're not necessarily going to do that. Highway shut down, no trucks can get in or out. Well, their stuff's way too big to load it up on a boat and ship it up the Fraser River.

So these small businesses were doing what they could to make sure that everyone was getting what they needed. So, yeah, but like Bill, Bill's a fantastic human. I know. When I was a youth pastor, Bill was in our youth ministry. And I sat with Bill through with Bill through some tough stuff. And Bill's just, I just love that man. Like he, and yeah, town butcher and Bill Turnbull are synonymous. Like, it's people go there because they might have like a dozen steaks that are cut up in the cooler, but they want Bill to personally cut a stake up for them. There's just, I've, I've had him do it. There's something special about it. So. And even like,

Brit at Blossom. People go in there to see Britt to ask her to make a bouquet for them. And she's got other girls that are working in there that are equally as talented. But there's something special about having Brit make your bouquet for you.

Even for me, happy hour at Major League's. There's something that I always enjoy having Tyler pour my beer for me. And before the pandemic hit, it was all, always customary for me to to walk in for happy hours, usually Friday at 3 o'clock.

Tyler would be working and just shake his hand. First thing I did, just shake his hand because I said to him, like, there's something special about sitting at the bar, and I always sit at the bar at Major League's, it's just having shake the hand of the bartender that's pouring you drinks for the afternoon or the evening, right? And so there's something special about, you don't get that at big box stores, big box restaurants, these small businesses where people are providing services and products to us locally, there's something special about those individuals that do stuff like that. Like, you know,

you go into the bookman and you get the bookman to find, give you a recommendation. There's something special about that. Like, it's almost like a local celebrity sort of thing, right? Go to buttonbox and have Jeannie help you find a new dress or candle. Like it's, there's all these different people all around Chilliwack that just make this community really special. What do you get out? Like, does it, do they inspire you? Where do you, where do you hope to take this long term? Do you hope to continue to grow this? I know the podcast has been on hiatus for a little while. Yeah. Like, what, what do you enjoy most about around Chilliwack? And where do you hope to take it? I love doing the podcast. I really do. There's just been too many hurdles in the last

year in a bit. I think my favorite podcast I did was with the doctors from Chilawak Hospital when we're like in the midst of this pandemic and just talking with them. That was one of my favorite ones that I've done. Just some really hard stories to listen to that you don't know what's going on and to hear it from people that are literally on the front line. And so I, the podcast has been huge. My, the biggest thing for me, like, um, like even today I brought my camera with me here. Like I do, I'm already picturing what I want shot for you sitting there. Um, but I love getting behind my camera and taking photos. Um, just to, I don't know, just it's, maybe it's selfish that I want people to see Chilliwack the way that I see it. Um, that they get to see it

through my lens. And I think there's something special about taking photos. And I never was a, I never, I still don't really classify myself as a photographer. Um, video is where I got into using cameras a lot. And then, um, when I, the first, uh, DSLR that I used was, uh, I borrowed my buddy Jeff Heath's. If you want a fantastic videographer, photographer, Jeff Heath is fantastic. He lives on the island but he travels um i borrowed jeff's uh ds lr the canon 5d mark one it would have been the first one and uh fell in love with shooting with with dslars and um and so now that's all i shoot video with people always when i show up to a shoot and i've got my dslars people are like are we taking photos i thought we're doing video and it's like you know these like surprising that people still

don't know they do video but um So the fact that I had this camera in my hand and I wasn't really taking photos with them. But launching around Chiloac, I realized that it was so much more work. And I knew it would be, but he was kind of best foot forward. There's so much work to put out video content on a daily basis that it was a lot quicker from you to be able to, you know, in a day, I'll hit three, four, five, six businesses, take photos at each spot so that I can bank all these photos. And I can create a ton of content in a short amount of time. And as long as the photos were dynamic and interesting, people were drawn to them. And so it forced me to become a better photographer.

And so I think the podcast is one thing that I really love about around Chilliwack, but just, yeah, that selfish reason to kind of showcase Chiloac through my lens. Like there's something personal about putting your eye up, behind a camera, not looking at the viewfinder, but you're looking directly through that lens. There's something very personal about that, um, that I get to share online and, you know, people don't know that. I know they don't know that. Uh, they don't see it the way I do that there's something like right against my face and I'm trying to show you something that I'm focusing on, something that I enjoy that I love. Um, and then I put it online and people just go,

oh, it's a cool photo, double tap it and keep scrolling. But for me, there's, you know, there's some heart in that. So taking those photos and sharing them online, I guess that's the biggest thing about around Chilohic. I think that we're so lucky when people like yourself are willing to do that because it's, as I said before, it's so tough for small business owners to find the time. And then there's something tough about self-promotion. There's something tough about selling yourself, selling like, hey, come shop at my store, come eat my food, come get an experience for me that I think so many who are entrepreneurs, they want to. to give you the experience, but they don't want to have to convince you. They want you to

be there, to enjoy their products regardless of whether or not they force you to come in or they convince you to come in. They want you to try it. And so when someone like yourself is willing to say, this is what I see in the business. It's a third party. So it's like it's more personable. It's more believable because you're saying and when it's that third party, it's not a sales pitch as much, I guess. Right. So there's something about that that allows it to be more honest that comes through, I guess, differently for other people. And so I don't think that it's a bad thing that you have that lens. I think that we're lucky you're willing to share your lens with other people because through starting this, I've really realized the risk,

the long nights, the stress that small business owners go through, just to continue doing something that isn't making them rich to begin with. And I think about that more and more, the willingness to share something with people, despite the fact that it's not making you a millionaire, that it's not, that it's paying the bills maybe, but that you're doing it for another reason, like Bill started the town butcher for another reason other than this is what's going to make him a millionaire and this is what's going to put him on Forbes or something. He did it because he wanted to make the community a better place. And when you think of, like, sharing the knowledge through the bookman and what Amber Price is doing is she's raising awareness of the value of reading.

and through different avenues, not just saying, pick up a book. She's doing it through different ways where people can hear it and take it in from a different perspective and find their way into reading in a new way and bringing people downtown, like that people are willing to, like the mural festival, I don't think it's making anybody rich, but it's bringing people to the community and it's a new lens where artists or people who are interested in art

from Promontory are more convinced to travel downtown now as a consequence and that benefit for the small business owners beyond just herself is vast and far reaching the cultural elements and benefits that we get from learning about local artists and what they're the work they're putting in I think it connects us in a way that um COVID has really tried to challenge and her willingness to continue that um and adapt it and um the work that the creative commission has done with the Pichucha events of just giving Chilliwack people a voice is something I've really grown to admire, appreciate, and see from a new lens where growing up, I don't know if you experienced this, there was a sense of like, I want to get out of Chilawak.

I've got to get out of here. I got to go somewhere else. I didn't grow up in Chilowack. So I, uh, did you have that perhaps with your community at all? Like, I got to get out of this. I kind of moved around as a kid. So I didn't have, I wasn't in one place for an overly long amount of time. Okay.

So once, once I did move to Chilowac 20 plus years ago, um, it was like. Like, this is, this is home. This is, this is, you know, at that time, I was realizing I, I'm going to set roots here. What was it about Chilawak, perhaps, that stood out to you? I think it was just the, the small part of it. Like, it's obviously bigger now, and it's just going to get bigger as time goes by. But, you know, that the downtown core, that it's big enough that you can get lost, but small enough that, people can find you. That, you know, if you want to hide out for a weekend, you can. Or if you

want to go somewhere where people know you, it's not that hard. So I think that was the draw is that it's, yeah, just small but not too small. Right. How do you go about choosing the businesses that you highlight? Because you talked a bit about this with Nancy, that sometimes they're not ready for you to show up or perhaps you're you're scoping out the new spot to see if it would be a good feature how do you go about that process uh winging a prayer most of what i do in life i guess um so i have a client list so i have clients that i create content for on a regular basis places like shem shem mountain golf course um major leagues blossom floral design magnolia um i have other clients that are just like month by month they don't always need stuff um you know if

done a number of work for the Chilliwack Chamber, work for the bookman. And then, like, there's people that aren't on the client list where I just, the places that I go or places that I want to check out, sometimes there are recommendations from my daughter. So her and I'll go for lunch or dinner somewhere together and take some photos. So it's, it's kind of just me, just checking out Chiloac and just being curious and not just curious, but just very attentive of what's going on. Like Chiluac kebab, when, before they moved into their spot on Yale Road, just north of the train overpass, just north of McDonald's, little Tritorias was there, little Italian eatery. Love going there. And they were there, I think they were there before I was running around

Chilliwark. They made this stuff called crack bread, um, which was just like deep fried dough and salt. Like it was just, but it was so good. Um, so it was disappointing when they closed up. Um, and then nothing was there for a while and then Chiluac Kabab opened up. And I remember driving by going like, kind of disappointed because I really missed the old restaurant, but then like popping in there and I popped in there a couple times. Uh, just this, uh, amazing, um, I can try to remember where they're from now. Syria? Yes.

And so family run restaurant, like the last time I was there a couple weeks ago, he was cooking over charcoal outside, smelled amazing. And just the look of it, it's just, I don't know. I don't like North American culture where we're like, we're okay with like kitchens that are in the back room where we don't see people cooking for us. I want to see what people are doing. I want to see what they're actively involved with cooking.

the food that I'm about to eat. I did a trip to Africa a number of years ago and people were grossed out that we're like, we're sitting outside at these picnic tables and right next to us, they're butchering and prepping the chickens that we're about to eat and cooking over like oil drums with like charcoal and wood. I'm like, why are you grossed out about it? They're just like, well, it's just, you know, you have to see all of that. But you know exactly where it came from you know everything that they did to that meal for you because it's happening right there um whereas that you know it's i won't mention any places but like you know you go to your favorite restaurant and you place an order and all of a sudden the food appears you never saw

what they did they could have just pulled it out of the microwave for all you know um i don't know there's something about uh being able to showcase that place like chiluac kebab um or i'm drawing blanks now, Pabla, India cuisine. Fantastic. And the service that you get when you go in there, like, I think that whole thing that we're talking about earlier, how people get stuck where they are, even if they're unhappy, applies to like, you know, going out for meals or shopping is, well, I'm going to go to this big box store because that's where I always get my clothes. instead of like going to a small business and you know yeah you might pay a little bit more but your quality is going to be better and your customer service is going to be through the roof

so um you know get out of that mentality that this is you're doing this because that's what you always did and go try something new try something and you might find that you really like that a lot more and so i just kind of take that approach that i have for my own life um i take that approach to around Chiloac in terms of like going out to find new content. And there's times where I, you know, I'll get stuck and I'm, I'll share some of the same content over and over, but like I'm human. I make mistakes. I, you know, I get stuck too. Um, but then you just got to keep moving. You got to keep going forward. Yeah, I find that that's something that my partner and I have struggled with and we're trying to get out of it, which is, uh, a routine and, uh,

getting used to ordering from the same five places and not. I think what our struggle is, is we don't know, like I've wanted to try chilies for a while now. I have no idea what I would try from there. And I look. Number 11 on the lunch menu. Number 11.

I will actually remember that because that is our biggest struggle is we tried young foe. And we were like, what do we get? And so we want to try. Especially with a faux menu. It's so big. There's so many options.

110 different options and those moments of like, we'd love to try it, but we don't want to spend $50 and not enjoy it. And so we want those, like I would say that Indian food is good because you can always get the butter chicken. And you can get one butter chicken and then you can try something a little more out there. Right. You have a safe thing and then, yeah. And take a risk on the other.

And that's the challenge when I think of Chili's is like, I don't have a safe thing. And I think that that's the struggle we've run into in trying different. places is the hesitation of, well, what if we don't like it? And then we have two meals and now we don't want to eat any of it. But that's the experience with life, though. You just got to go out there, right? You got to try. Like, I think my biggest regrets in my own life is just not taking the chance, not making the step that I needed to. It wasn't, I don't, I don't think I can think of anything where I have a regret for actually trying, right? like, yeah, I might not have liked it, but I don't regret that I tried it.

Yeah. So. Yeah, I don't disagree. It's just those are the moments where I think we get stuck and then we go, well, we'll just have what we always have or we'll go to our staple food because that's what we're used to. And then that's where those new experiences we miss out on and we miss out on, I think, as well with the challenge that I hope skip the dishes and DoorDash try and overcome is there's no story. There's no pull to this business or the other. It's all convenience. Yeah.

And during these periods, I think to a certain extent, you can expect people are going to order more online because eating out is still more of a challenge than it should be or that it could be. And so you're going to have more people ordering online. But having that story of this is why, this is like a brief bio of why you should eat at this place. And having each place do something like that, I think would drum up more interest to try new things, to get people more. or they're toe in the water in terms of trying new things. And I think that that's what you give people the opportunity to is to consider opportunities or ideas that they might not have previously, that they kind of get stuck in the shell.

But when someone like yourself from Chilliwak says, hey, I tried this and I didn't die and everything was okay, and you can too, it opens that door because we all get stuck in our ruts of our favorite places, our normal places, our traditional foods, and then we miss out on those new growing opportunities. Yeah. And for me, like I get asked all the time like about like I don't make reviews on around Chilliwack. It's not a review website. I'm not showing up and saying this was great. This was great. This was terrible. Like I everything's positive on around Chilawak. That was that was one of the main goals when I first started it. So there's places that I've gone to that I haven't enjoyed. And I've gone with the intent to take photos and do a post for. them but the experience for whatever reason wasn't good um i haven't i just don't post those yeah um so the stuff that you see where i'm saying like i enjoy these things i genuinely enjoy them i'm

not just saying it for the sake of of views or likes or whatever like i you're getting the cream of the crop in terms of what it what's good in chiloac so um if there happens to be anything in there that people are interested about around chilewark like it's i i i've enjoyed it so interesting is that ever tough for you because i find i've invited certain people on and they've said no for one reason or the other and they don't see themselves as a good candidate or something like that and i kind of go i wish you saw what i saw like i wish and so is that ever tough where you're like i i had maybe a vision of what this was going to be and then it wasn't that and you're kind of like oh man like i wish i wish it was exactly what i wanted it to be uh that's deep

question um yeah like i think uh like expectation is usually like it's a number one killer for most things um yeah there's only been maybe a couple places that i've looked at that are like hope for something more yeah and it wasn't very it wasn't what i want it yeah um yeah we could there's a rabbit hole there but i'm going to stay away from it uh but it's uh Yeah, it's, there hasn't been, for the most part, like I'd say 90% of the places I've gone to in Chilliwack end up getting shown on around Chilawak. Like the majority of the places I go to will, we'll get shown on around Chiluac because they're, they're good.

And I think it comes back to that whole small business owner thing. Small business owners want to succeed. And they're not going to succeed by having a faulty product or service. They're not going to succeed. Their goal isn't to like open their doors and go, we're going to half ass it today. Like they won't succeed in business with that. And then every small business owner knows that. And if they don't, they're not going to be in business for very long.

And so maybe that's where that 10% is, is those small business owners that don't kind of just expect people to show up for them. Again, expectation. And so, yeah, there's only been, you know, a few places that I can think of where I've had an expectation that they'd be something more. But for the most part, I just try and show up and hope for the best. Is it ever tough to have it limited to Chilliwack? Is it ever, like, frustrating where you're like, I just had this really good experience and all this person would be perfect and they're in Langley? I've looked at expanding, like, around Chilliwack, if that's what you're talking about. We did start around Abbotsford, my buddy Jeff, who I mentioned earlier, Jeff ran it for a little while,

but it just, it was too much on his plate for him to, and then now he's moved from Abbotsford over to the island. I'd still like to have somebody that lives in Abbotsford that could run around Abbotsford for me. I feel like there's, that's my next step with this around sort of, brand that I've created. Like we have the website, we have the Facebook and Instagram channels, like the logo, the branding thing. Everything's there for around Abbotsford.

And then I'm there as like a contact mentor sort of position to be able to, you know, I have to put some work into that. I've reached out to a few people and it hasn't been successful, but it's something that I'd like to do, like branching out to around Abbotsford. I might as well put it out there too. I'm looking at expanding to around Colona. So I've been starting to make some headway into that. And, you know, Colonna and Chiluac were just listed as two of the fastest growing cities in Canada.

So just kind of chasing after that a little bit with this idea that. Colon is different too because it's such a summertime. But there's still, you know, a lot of people. that stay there year-round. Yeah, so there's room for expansion. There's room, like, the time that I've been spending in Kelowna lately. And I, like, it's who I am. I don't mind the big box stores.

They're not my favorite. But there's just something for me that I really enjoy showing up at a small business and supporting them, seeing what they're doing. And just because there's character in it, there's something interesting. And so it's been fun to be in these different communities and seeing how they're doing it there and just their take on things. So, yeah, there's plans for expansion for sure. That's good because I'm having man farms on in a couple of days here. And that's probably been the hardest part for me is when you really start digging, trying to figure out things about local businesses, what's going on, what's the great place in other communities outside of your own, you realize how sparse.

I guess I find the information. Like there's a little bit here and there's a little bit there, but there isn't like a good, there's again, there's Expedia that doesn't give you the back. They're telling you what people have rated up. And there's too much strategy in businesses like Expedia of, oh, I'll give you this card and just fill me out on Expedia and then I get a voted up. And then it's not necessarily the best places. It's the most voted up places.

There's a difference between the two. And so having those local people able to highlight local places, I find myself struggling when I go to when I want to have someone on maybe from Langley or or from Abbotsford and trying to find those businesses that are like the bookmans of the community that maybe you don't know about unless you follow them on Instagram or unless you're connected to people who know about and how important that is to the community. If you don't know about that, you don't know to have those people on and how amazing. And it's almost impossible to ask someone, what do you recommend in your community?

And is that person a leader or a role model in some way for them to be able to, they're like, well, I like going to like this restaurant and it's like they don't know the way you know the people behind the business that make it run. And so many businesses don't highlight themselves when they're talking about come shop in my local business. They don't say, well, I'm Brian Minter and you have to shop here. Like sometimes they do, but not always. And so finding out the background of the person and maybe what they went through to start the business is is always that challenge, that journey to figure out how did this business start? Why did they start? Where did they come from? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's around Chiluax turned into more than what I originally set it out to be. It's so it's, thank you. I don't know what to tell you, but it's, yeah, it's cool to be able to tell other people's stories. Yeah, we're incredibly lucky to have individuals like yourself willing to do that.

And I'm grateful to hear that you're looking to expand this because I think that the message, the message of hope for other entrepreneurs, the way you open, those doors for others, we're lucky. You're also involved in the film festival, if I'm not mistaken, and you've helped that. Yeah, Taras. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah. So Taras is the guy behind the Chilliwack Independent Film Festival. They just had their fifth year, I think it was. And two years ago, Taras approached me about getting involved. He knew about me through the Creative Commission. And I was running around Chilliwack, and he just thought, maybe we could do something together. And he knew that I was into film.

He knew that I wanted to, I have some shorts that I've wanted to do. And so he harassed me two years ago to get involved with the 48-hour film festival, and I didn't join reluctantly. And then last year during the pandemic, they did the film festival entirely online. So there was no 48-hour film festival part to it. And then this year, I think in August, him and I sat down over beer, a fellow craft beer and fissionado. I don't know to say that. But we talked about around Chiluac getting involved.

And then he harassed me again to submit something to the 48 hour. And so I promised him that I do it. And I promised him because I wanted to get my, I wanted both my boys involved with it. It ended up only just being the oldest, but I think next time both boys will jump in now that they've kind of gotten an idea about it. So, yeah, it's just started with two years ago around Chilac. We sponsored the event. We sponsored a block. So they call them blocks where they have a number of different films that play in a block.

You know, short films or medium-sized films. And then, so we sponsored a block and then we sponsored, did an award sponsorship where we gave an award two years ago. Last year, it was minimal that I was involved with it just because of the pandemic and being completely online. But this year, Tarras got me more involved. And I told him, Mike, I love what's, I love the whole vibe about the film festival. It's fantastic. I want to be more involved. So I did like a little promo video with him.

and then it's a Q&A at the festival itself. And then we were around Chilliwack was sponsors of a block. And so next year plans are to get more involved. Taras is one of the most passionate guys for independent film that I've ever met. Not only that, he's a talented filmmaker too. He's just a genuine person that, I think more people need to meet and support, especially get out next year and support. Like, there's no reason why that film festival next year shouldn't be completely sold out.

It is so much fun. It's so well done. The curation that goes into selecting what's shown at the film festival, people have no idea. Like, hundreds of submissions, like maybe over a thousand, where every one of those submissions gets watched and then gets selected. and then goes through this whole process of like, are we going to have this one or this one and why? So everything is just curated in such a meticulous way. And that all comes because of taras wanting a really good quality film festival.

So I think more people need to know about it. And I just want to get more involved with it because I love it personally. And I want other people to have the same experience. That's fantastic, Matthew. I'm so grateful that you were willing to take this. time, be so vulnerable and share your journey through sharing your passion and sharing not only your passion but other people's passion. And I think that I couldn't agree with you more that I think we need to build up a sense of honesty, a sense of vulnerability. It's what I've done

the best I can to try and share, to get men, women to share their emotion, to be honest about the ups and downs and to have leaders in the community share their vulnerability. our ability, share their emotion, I think it sets a really good example. And people like yourself, people like Brian Minter being willing to share their emotions to their business, to their community, I think that it brings us together. And it sets the example. And that's what I've done my best to do, is to highlight individuals like yourself, because I know you shared some of what you were going through online. And I can see how difficult that can be. Social media is not always a forgiving place. So to be honest of what you were going through, I felt like we were lucky that someone

like you was willing to share that, to be honest and vulnerable. And the response you got was incredibly positive. But we're lucky when people choose to do that because it's not the easy thing to do. The easy thing to do is to post the positive things and leave it at that. And when individuals like yourself go out of your way to learn about other people's businesses and hear their story, we're lucky when people do that because, again, you're sharing your lens. What you're seeing. And I think that that brings us closer together as a community. I think it removes some of the divisiveness we can see. And it reminds us of the beauty of each person and the beauty of people sharing what they're good at with our community. So I really just, I truly appreciate you being

willing to share your time and your stories with us today. Well, thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. Can you tell us how people can connect with you on social media and online? I like for the Chilliwack listeners just around Chilliwack if you can follow and like that on Facebook and Instagram, facebook.com slash aroundchillowack and Instagram.com slash aroundchillowack. Aroundchillowack.com is the main website where you can get all the info on where to eat, where to shop and things to do in Chilwack. And then myself, like I have my own like Facebook and Instagram that I, you know, if you want to follow me, most of my.

stuff on Instagram is food-based, me making something on the barbecue or drinking some sort of beer. But, you know, my businesses are, that's where I want more people to be interested and invested. And my own personal stuff is, you know, it is what it is. Right. And your child's YouTube channel. His channel name is Monkey Man's Very Funny Jungle.

Go subscribe. Hopefully you can link to that and people can go subscribe to that. Yes, go subscribe, hit the bell icon so you can be notified of new releases. And he's funny. Like, he's not doing just straight up, like, tutorial videos. He's actually funny on there. So it's pretty fun to listen to him. That's awesome.

Well, thank you so much. No problem. Thanks, Sarah.