The Paikin Podcast - Rocco Rossi: Finding Solitude and Walking the Camino de Santiago

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Rocco Rossi has had an eclectic career. He ran for mayor of Toronto in 2010 and for Queen’s Park in the 2011 Ontario election. He has headed up the Heart and Stroke Foundation and Prostate Cancer Canada, and is currently president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. He has also walked the Camino de Santiago in Europe multiple times. He talks with Steve about why he makes the trek, what it offers him, the solitude he finds, walking it with his son, and the novel he wrote based on those adventures. They also discuss his run against Rob Ford for mayor of Toronto and flipping over to the Progressive Conservatives in the 2011 Ontario election. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast   Follow The Paikin Podcast:   YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcast SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7 X: x.com/ThePaikinPod INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcast BLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social   Email us at: [e-mail]   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Many of you, I suspect, will remember the name Rocco Rossi. He's had quite an eclectic career. Everything from heading up the Heart and Stroke Foundation to prostate Cancer Canada to the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. And he tried his hand at politics too, running for Mayor of Toronto in 2010 and for Queens Park in the 2011 Ontario election. But here's something about Rocco, I suspect you don't know. He has walked the Camino de Santiago in Europe many times. Many, many times. Now he has written a novel based on those adventures.

Rocco Rossi one-on-one, coming up next on the Paken podcast. We are delighted to welcome to the Paken podcast, Rocco Rossi, whose new book is called Finding Grace, a Camino de Santiago story. And Rocco, it is a delight to see you again. How are you today, my friend? Always a pleasure, Steve. Thanks for the opportunity. I think we need to start by talking a bit about the Camino itself,

because I suspect there's a bunch of people watching this who may not know about it. So let's start there. Where is it? Well, the Camino is actually throughout Europe, because in the Middle Ages, when people started to walk to Santiago de Campostela, a town in northwestern Spain, where the remains of St. James the greater apostle of Christ is said to be buried. And so people would start from wherever they lived. And so there are an infinite number of paths. through Europe that get funneled because of rivers and mountains and so on into a few major routes that travel, but that come from every corner of Europe to Santiago. Now, I gather if you want the certificate that says, I, in fact, successfully walked the

Camino, you've got to do at least 100 kilometers. But in total, if you wanted to go for as long as you possibly could on the Camino, how long is it? Well, there are 80,000 kilometers of trails, and I have had the great blessing of walking 23 variations since 2002, over 14,000 kilometers of those 80,000. The longest trip I've done close to 1,400 kilometers over 50 days, and the shortest would be about 150 over a week. 50 days of just... walking. That is correct. Rocko, do you typically do this alone or do you do it with someone else? Typically, I've done it alone, but you rarely end up alone. You meet people along the way,

not because you walk side by side for the entire day. It's virtually impossible. If you're walking 20, 25, 30 kilometers a day in order to go step by step with someone, someone's going faster than they want to or slower than they want to. And that really takes away from the whole purpose. But every night you end up in a series of towns that will have a monastery, a church basement, a hostel where pilgrims gather to stay. And that's a wonderful part of the whole pilgrimage experience is sharing the day's adventures with people literally from around the world. What is the largest number of pairs of shoes you have gone through on your tracks? I typically have two with me. I have a pair of sandals to give my feet a rest and then very good,

strong-sold shoes that have lasted me in all cases the full Camino. Is it possible to do the Camino, I mean, any kind of distance on the Camino, without your feet feeling horrible when it's done, all blistered up and bleeding and whatever else? Well, there is an incredible reason why. when you read the Bible or many early texts, they always talk about the washing of feet. And that is when your major mode of transportation are your feet, you do everything you can to take care of them.

And a lot of people do end up with blisters. But if you keep your feet dry, if you change your socks during the day, if you have well worn in shoes, there's no necessity to have. to have blisters, but if your feet get wet, that is the ultimate enemy of the feet. When you're walking the Camino, how much of a faux pa is it, or is it allowed to be on an iPhone? Look, everyone has their own Camino. If you're spending way too much time on that, then I think

you're defeating the purpose because the gift of the pilgrimage process, and it's in virtually every culture around the world, has a version of. it, this happens to be one of the most famous, is really to give you the time and space to have an internal dialogue, whether it's with yourself or your version of the deity, that quiet is a necessary component. And so, for instance, I take my phone, but it's, I take it as a camera. My family knows it's on for just one hour a day, and during that hour, they can, they can reach me, but the rest of the time, it's off because I want to be in the moment. I get that.

But what if, I mean, you've done the Camino so many times. I'm assuming somewhere along the way, something of consequence has happened back home and people have needed to get a hold of you. What do they do? Well, they get me in that one hour slot that I have set up for the day. And if they don't get you then, such is life, eh? They leave me a message and I will phone them back in that hour. You mentioned a second ago that there is a religiosity about walking the commino for many people

because, of course, there are so many churches along the way. And I wonder if the sort of formal religious aspect of walking the commino is a big part of your experience on it. The spiritual part is a huge part. Whether you're a religious, agnostic, or an atheist, I would argue that it's impossible to walk in the footsteps that millions of people, have walked over a millennium and have cried and laughed and prayed and bled and in some cases died and not feel this incredible sense of a communal spirit, of a spirit of humanity. It's a powerful part of the experience, but it's not a necessary part. I've walked with people that are across the full spectrum of belief in God or not or in humanity

and have managed to derive great benefit from the Camino. I suspect there are people either watching or listening to this right now who are thinking to themselves, okay, I get why he would want to do the Camino once, maybe even twice, three times, four, okay, maybe even five times. But how many times have you done it all together? So 23 and counting, thus first. far since 2002. And look at my response to that question and goodness knows I've had it many times in my life is, you know, if you have a good friend, do you only ever visit them once? Or if you love chocolate

cake or pizza, are you going to limit yourself to one slice for the rest of your life? Of course not. If you find something that brings you joy, that brings you energy, that restores you, that centers you, the real question is, why aren't you doing it more often? And I often relate it to the announcement at the beginning of every flight. In case of decompression, masks will fall from the ceiling. Make sure you put it on yourself before you try to help anybody else. And at least once a year since 2002, the exception of the years of COVID, when I probably needed it the most, that has been my oxygen mask. That has been my time of re-centering, of rebooting, my body, my spirit, my soul. You are married. You have an adult child.

Has either one of the two of them ever said to you, darling or dad, don't you think you've had enough of this? No, and in fact, my son has come with me 10 years ago when he got his first job in London, England, we went over to England to set him up in an apartment and then went to Spain and walked for 19 days together. And look it, it was technically a graduation gift from me to him, but really it was a gift to myself. because to spend 19 days with your adult son walking, talking, sharing a bottle of wine at the end of the evening is an incredible gift that I will treasure for the rest of my life. And they see what it does for me, both my wife Ronnie and DJ my son, see what it does for me, see how I am when I return. And they're my biggest boosters for doing it again and again.

What happened on the Camino when you and DJ were walking at hour after hour after hour for 19 straight days? And I can see the beauty in that as a father-son experience. But you must have got on each other's nerves a couple of times then. How did you handle those moments? Well, you know, he did find a particularly attractive Swedish pilgrim and spent some time. I ended up with a lot of bills at the end of the night. I didn't always see him. But look, Steve, one of the great gifts of that trip was on the third day,

and it was a miserable day from a weather standpoint. It had been raining the whole day, and we were up to our shins in mud, or as my son, DJ was saying, we were embracing the suck of the day. And there we were side by side. And at a certain point in the walk, where we were both exhausted and still kilometers away from the town we were going to stay at, He said, you know, Dad, you know I love you. You know, I'd never lie to you. But sometimes when I'm talking about stuff, I watch your face and I feel you judging me. And so I changed the subject.

And Steve, it was a very powerful moment. And while we had had great conversations and I've been close to my son his entire life, our relationship became far deeper after that because one of the things we're taught from a very young age is when you want to be taken seriously and when you want the person that you're talking to to feel that you're taking them seriously, you look them directly in the eye and you maintain that contact. And that's right when there is no power imbalance, when there is a conversation of peers. When there is that imbalance, a parent and a child, 90% of communication is nonverbal. And so he was watching that.

And by walking side by side, by being exhausted, the masks we wear, the barriers we put up between ourselves just went away. And he got to speak into the air in front of him and got to tell me a truth that he'd not been able to share up to that moment. And that is something, you know, that I would encourage all parents to have that kind of opportunity. A buddy of mine says, yeah, Rocco, I get that through long distance car rides. I don't want to walk in 30 kilometers. But, you know, my son, my daughter is sitting next to me in the car and they're able to speak into the air.

And we have conversations that we're not able to have when we're looking at each other face to face. Rocco, when he shared that truth, as you described it, how did you react? Well, initially, I was surprised because I thought, you know, of course I thought I'd never be judgmental. But then I took it and saw it for the gift that it was, that he was giving me an opportunity to think about, you know, how we communicate and how deep we could take our relationship to. And so for me, that was just a, that was just a blessing. And I ended up with a despite embracing the suck with quite a spring in my step getting into town that day. And I'm not ashamed to say that perhaps two bottles of wine were drunk that night between us.

There you go. Because I've known you as long as I have, I know what kind of a career you've had. And I can say you are a hard driving guy. I mean, you go hard, whether it's in the political sector or the business sector or the charitable. sector. I wonder how long it typically takes you once you have left North America behind and you're over in Europe during the Camino. How long does it actually take you to mentally leave all of the Michigas, which is a technical term, as you know, all of that behind you in North America and really embrace the moment? Yeah, it's a great question. It obviously varies depending on how deep the

Michigan's pile is at any given time. But it's usually a couple of days. And, you know, to your point, yes, I really only know one speed. It's to go all out. And that includes as a pilgrim is really embracing that moment and doing, you know, what wise people have been saying since Socrates, that the unexamined life is not worth living. And the Camino gives me that opportunity to examine. And I embrace that and will often be reflecting on a given theme and in a given day in order to put myself into that meditative state that comes from long distance walking. Now, you mentioned your son DJ has gone with you. Has your wife Ronnie ever gone with you? No. Her idea of a great Camino is gardening up in Muscoca. And so she's delighted to go up there whenever I

whenever I had to to Spain and, you know, that's just my thing. But DJ looks forward to doing it again. And, you know, God willing, I have grandchildren someday. I would love to be able to go on it with them. Can you imagine that three generations of Rosses on the Camino? I mean, you'd be kind of like the Gordy Howe or the Camino. Wouldn't that be cool? It would be fantastic.

And look, I've seen it. I've seen every combination over the years and every age group people often feel limited or say, well, you know, I'm 75, I'm 80. I've walked with people in their late 80s wearing full packs. And what they'll say is, look, I walk shorter distances each day's. I listen to my body. I will rest more often. You be in motion to stay in motion.

and I see the benefits, you know, from a health standpoint, from a stress standpoint, et cetera. And there are so many variations of the Camino that you can find ones that meet kind of your physical profile. There's some that are far flatter. The Portuguese coastal route has become incredibly popular over the last five years. And you're walking on the beach, you're walking on boardwalk, you're not doing much in the way of hills, and that's been part of its success and popularity. But just to give you a sense, when I first walked the Camino in 2002, fewer than 60,000 people walked the minimum of 100 kilometers. Last year, almost 600,000 walked the minimum of 100 kilometers. And about 90% of that was done

on the French way, made famous in the U.S. with the Martin Sheen film The World. way or the Portuguese way. And, you know, I have been basically eschewing those pods to look for the more remote versions where I can, you know, re-instill the spirit that I felt in my early Camino's. And again, another question about protocol here. Are you allowed to have earbuds in while you're doing the Camino? Absolutely. No one, you know, and some people listen to music. I think that you know, again, denies you the gift of hearing bird song and hearing the wind go through fields of wheat or the rushing of water and particularly magical forests, but to each his own. And we'll be back right after this. You've done something very interesting here, which is to say

you have all of these year after year after year experiences on the Camino, and it would make sense at some point to write a book about all that. But the book you have written, and which I have read and which, as you know, I told you I thought was fantastic. You really put the, you put the reader there, and the title, Finding Grace, as people will not be surprised to hear, has multiple meanings to it, but you've written a novel. You have not done a kind of a travel log or here's what I learned, et cetera, et cetera, in a kind of typical linear way. Why the novel approach?

Well, Steve, there are a lot of journals and memoirs out there. and many good ones. And I didn't want to just do another one of those because my goal really is to create a space in which people can see themselves walking as opposed to just reading a story of Rocco walking, the Camino. And I find with fiction that you have more latitude

to explore and to suggest and really get in under. people's skin in a more powerful way than a direct memoir. But I'm betting pretty much everything that happens in your book is real, and you have seen and or experienced somewhere along the way. Maybe not everything, but a lot of it. Is that fair to say? Yeah, well, particularly the stuff I made up, to quote that Newfoundland commercial.

Yeah, the people are all characters or amalgams of characters that I've met, the emotions, the descriptions, the places, you know, the feeling of having your feet washed by monks in a particularly intimate and fantastic hostile along the way in San Nicolas. And even, you know, the tragedy that underscores the search of the protagonist. going through the pilgrimage, you know, is based on tragedies that I've lived through or had friends lived through and that we all face in our life. And there are clearly autobiographical elements, but I want them to be broad enough, generic enough, that people can see themselves there, that for those of us who spent a lifetime climbing the corporate ladder and getting to the top,

only to realize that maybe the ladder is leaning up against the wrong building and having people have that conversation and seeing themselves through the characters in the book. How much keeping in touch with people you have met on the Camino do you do throughout the rest of the year? It's huge. I mean, there's a very powerful concept of the Camino family, Camino brothers and sisters. And it's real. So I've done 23. I have 50, 55 people that I keep up with on a regular basis that if they're in Canada, they stay with me. If I'm visiting in Spain, as I will be in July, you know, three couples have invited me to their homes in three different towns. And it's, It's wonderful. And people say, well, you know, Rocco, how is it possible? You're with people for a few days, maybe a few weeks. You know, how can you call them your brother, your sister? And it's that in our day-to-day lives, when we encounter our friends, think about how much deep time we actually spend with them, even if we see them once a month or once a week. And you go through the small talk in the beginnings of the conversation, get those things out of the way and have a meal. And maybe. maybe get to some deep stuff at some point during the conversation. On the Camino, you go straight to the deep stuff from the beginning.

I mean, the beauty of the opportunity of pilgrimage is a little bit like what Michelangelo said to astonished people when they saw the David and they said, you know, Maestro, how is it possible that you fashion this incredible beauty out of a block of stone? And his response was, I see David from the beginning and I simply chip away that which is not David. And David reveals himself. Similarly, we all have authentic selves that we bury in all kinds of stuff and gets buried by the day-to-day life. And that gets stripped away. And you can have conversations that go to a depth and allow you to see the other person in such a way that, yes, this is my brother.

this is my sister. That's all quite true, but I suspect most people are content to lead a life at a more surface level because it can be intensely wonderful, but also intensely difficult, to live a life with that much depth in it. How, do you recall maybe how old you were when you first realized that wasn't going to be enough for me? I need very deep interpersonal relations with people who share my values and this quest being a huge part of my values. When did that happen for you? Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, look, I grew up in a massive Italian family.

I have four younger sisters. I grew up in a home where we were constantly sponsoring aunts, uncles, cousins of my parents. And so there would be multiple generations and multiple people. and the notion that that that that were connected is something that came to me honestly and early. But but then the sort of deeper search was really, you know, starting to read more about philosophy, reading authors like, you know, Herman Hess and Dostoevsky in high school, and then looking at philosophy and, university, spending time in a Zen monastery, studying with a reform rabbi, studying with elders in the

Baha'i faith, and really seeing that, you know, we've been given this great gift of life, the price of that, if you will, or the responsibility of that is to always be asking yourself, are you fulfilling your highest best use? Are you connecting and making a difference so that when you leave this mortal coil, the world is just that little bit better for your presence. Do you remember what year you did your first Camino? I did my first Camino in 2002. I was, you know, 40 years old. And I was there in a sense of necessity.

I had been, you know, a senior executive and a global beer company. and my boss of the time and mentor and I went to Belgium to present to the board. And big successful meeting and celebrations as only beer executives can celebrate. And he and I were to have breakfast the next day in the hotel. He didn't come down. He hadn't checked out. And I had them open the room. And he had died in his sleep of a massive coronary, age 44, two boys in school with my son.

and my world spiraled into a very bad place that I found difficult to get out of. And so I did, ended up doing what I always do, which is double down on work, and buried myself into a restructuring project of a software, public software company, and, you know, 18 months taking it from near bankruptcy to profitability and selling it, And I was coming home from the closing dinner. Big check in my pocket offers to do more. And I'm in the subway in Toronto. And I see an ad for Labat Blue and Labat Interbrew had been the company I was involved with.

And I just broke down. And I started crying like a baby uncontrollably in the subway car. And the next stop, everybody in the car got up and left because here's this six foot four, 250-pound guy having a psychotic episode. But beside me was a copy of the Toronto Star. And it was open to the pages of a story by journalist Rob Crew who'd just come back from the Camino to Santiago. I'd never heard of it before. I had worked at the Star in an earlier incarnation kind of knew Rob. So I gave him a call, took him out to lunch and a week later I was on a plane to Pamplona. And that one I walked a thousand kilometers and it gave me the time and space to get done

what I wanted to do for which I am eternally grateful. You know, that origin story is just, I mean, the odds on that happening are so infinitesimal. do you believe that it was sort of meant to be that this was kismith that you ended up on this Camino? Yeah, I'm a big believer that there are no coincidences. And certainly, yeah, I feel a guiding presence in my life. Now, you know, it was a quarter century ago that you first started doing the Camino, and that is, of course, pre-Twitter.

That's pre-instagram. I don't know if it's pre-Facebook, but it's got to be pretty close to. I guess what I'm saying here is that the kind of digital lives we lead today, that was not the case when you first started on all this. So I wonder whether it's even more imperative in your life to be doing the Camino still today, and as you told us earlier,

you plan to do it for as long as your health holds up, given how much more digitally invasive our lives are today. Yeah, I mean, we're really, atomized. And the notion of privacy and silence is a fabulous song that begins, be still and know that I am God. And I think Nietzsche got it wrong. I don't think God is dead, but I think silence is under severe attack and has been for quite some time. And so how do we stop that to give ourselves the moment of reflection? that allows us to hold on to our humanity and to think about are these things that really make a difference to me?

Is this what I really want to be doing? You've been very good about sharing your personal feelings during the course of this interview, but I'm now going to invite you to be even more so because there are some wonder, yeah, uh-oh is right. There are some wonderful lessons learned when you read this book, the characters in this book really undergo some quite life-altering experiences. And I want to read a quote here reflecting the experience of one of them. It says, you are not defined by your worst moment.

You are defined by what you do next. And I want to know how autobiographical that saying is for Rocco Rossi. Absolutely. I seek every day to find a way to to get better, to make more of a difference, to, you know, it was, it was very difficult for me. And the first Camino was a huge help in both forgiving myself for things and forgiving slights that I had felt from others over the years. I, you know, I love the Jewish Yom Kippur tradition of, you know, essentially greeting people with the request that they forgive you for any

slights that you may, or damage you may have done to them over the course of the year. That's something that I think we need to start with ourselves on. And so that's very much where that quote comes from. So let's go a little deeper here. Can you give me an example of a so-called worst moment in your life that you ultimately refused to allow to define you and what you did next to ensure that it did not define you. In the sort of heyday of my time in the beer company, I was very much caught up in a philosophy that could kind of be distilled into a bumper sticker that said, he who dies

with the most toys wins. I had been very successful in school. I'd won scholarship. to great schools, you know, constantly getting great marks. And I converted from that into, in the business world, how to get more titles, how to buy a bigger house, fancier car, more things on top of things needed a bigger house to put all of the things that I'd bought. And really after the death of my mentor of Don Kitchen, really redoing and rethinking and spending most of the time post that, committed to running the Heart and Stroke Foundation, prostate cancer Canada, working at the Chamber of Commerce. And I've found it incredibly rewarding. So, you know, one one key full circle moment, if you will, happened at heart and stroke that I went to, in large part, in honor of my friend who

died from cardiac arrest. And very late in my tenure at heart and stroke, I received a call from a woman who said, Mr. Rossi, you don't know me, but three days ago, our father went to an event at Copts Coliseum in your hometown of Hamilton. And he collapsed on the steps from cardiac arrest. And the first responders told us that he would have been dead by the time they got there, but for the fact that there was a defibrillator on the wall and the staff had been trained in CPR. And the folks at COPS said that that defibrillator and that training had been provided by the Heart and Stroke Foundation. And when we called the Heart and Stroke, they said this had been your personal project to ensure that these things get into. to public spaces and become as prevalent as fire extinguishers to protect buildings.

Let's put defibrillators to protect the people in the buildings. And I just want you to know that we're celebrating Christmas with our dad instead of going to his wake. And his name is Dawn, which is the name of my mentor at Labat. And yeah. There are no coincidences, eh, Ronald? Yeah. It's an amazing thing how the ripples go out and have an impact.

Let me ask you a bit about your time in politics because you did run during the municipal election in Toronto against Rob Ford, which was a very noteworthy election. Any regrets about doing that all these years later? Not a one. Steve, I got the opportunity to go to every corner of the city. I mean, obviously, I would have preferred to have won. I felt I had something to offer, but I have no regrets about it. I learned so much about the city, about my neighbors. And, you know, it introduced me to people who have become lifelong friends,

have been associates and, you know, donors to the various charities I've supported since then. And so absolutely, absolutely no regrets. The following year, you decided to try again and you ran in the provincial election for the Progressive Conservative Party, even though you had been a lifelong liberal. And I wonder if there are any regrets today about that. Look, I've been a lifelong, like many Ontarians, red Tory or blue liberal. And at times when I feel the liberal party has gone too far to the left for what I think is sustainable and appropriate, I will shift towards the progressive conservative side. And if the conservatives as my first encounter with politics actually was Dennis Timberl back in Don Mills when I was still in elementary school. And my grade four teacher, Andrew Mellis, ran against Dennis.

And Dennis was, I think, a fair to say. I read Tory and Bill Davis's government. Yeah. And just a spectacular guy is to this day and has always supported me in whatever I've done. And I remember, you know, he said after a meeting and I asked a question and, you know, here's this 12-year-old, 13-year-old asking questions at a political meeting. He said, you know, if your teacher doesn't win, would you consider coming over to our young PC's group and our executive and Don Mills? I mean, he was going to crush, and he crushed fellas.

This was the big blue machine at the height of its powers. And so I went there, and it was interesting. I went to an executive meeting where some of the adults started to speak about those people. And I may have just been a kid, but I understood those people were me, were people that had vowels at the end of their names that maybe ate different foods and thought about things in slightly different ways. And it made me hugely uncomfortable. And Dennis saw this. And he pulled me aside. And he said, look at Rocco, I'm really sorry about that.

That's not the Progressive Conservative Party I believe in that I want to build. Unfortunately, there are elements of that still today. and he then introduced me to David Cullenette, who was running for the federal liberals in the adjacent riding in York East. And that was the beginnings of my time in liberal politics. And so it's really been when the social issues go crazy to one side, I don't feel comfortable on that side. And that makes me gravitate more to the liberals. and when, you know, the economics are silly from my standpoint, I go the other way. No, I get you.

We live in a particularly tribal time, however. Although, you know, come to think of it, you know, you're not the first guy to change parties. I think a guy named Winston Churchill once did it. I think a guy named Bob Ray once did it. Well, Churchill actually said anybody can rot. It takes real skill to reroute because he changed twice. He did. That's exactly right.

My recollection, though, of when you did it was that, You came in for a kind of criticism that most floor crossers or most party changers don't come in for. And I don't know. Did you lose a lot of friends when you did that? I lost acquaintances. I didn't lose friends because my friends who knew me are still my friends. And so, you know, from that standpoint, again, I don't regret it. And I believe, particularly in a world that south of the border has become even more polarized, you know, the reality is that there'd be no reason to have elections if people didn't change their minds between party.

If everyone had to stay exactly where they were at a given point in time for the rest of their lives, we would cease to have a democracy. And that is something I will not tolerate. Now, by the standards of most mayors of Mississauga, you are still just a young punk when it comes to your age. So I wonder if you've ever thought about putting your hand back in the blender someday and running again. As you well know, there are many ways to serve, and I'm happy doing it in such a way. Polarization doesn't bother me so much. What bothers me is the impact and that some people have taken it upon themselves that, then family is fair game, that people's personal homes are fair game. If it was just you're in the

arena, you're in the debate, it's me, it's not me against the Almighty, it's me against the alternative, I'll take that fight on all the time. But you start having impact on family, and it's really not something that I'm super comfortable right now. And I find that I've been able to contribute in many ways to different individuals who, you know, continue to have the courage to put their names on a sign, and I'm happy to support. I've been very careful so far about not asking any questions about the book that would require spoiling any of the nice plot developments that take place in it. But having said that, I would like to leave off with a question about lessons learned from the book. And, you know, I picked a lesson earlier that I, that particularly spoke

to me, I wonder if there's another one you'd like to leave us with that you think is particularly germane. Yeah, well, I'll tell you one story that's in the book that's based, in fact, on an encounter that I had. And so in the book, they're walking along and they come across a flock of sheep and a beautiful border collie that's controlling the sheep's migration. And there's a shepherd with a series of whistles that controls the border collie. So they get to talking. And clearly the shepherd is incredibly happy in the life that he's living. And so they ask, what is it about being a shepherd that you like?

Haven't you ever wanted to be in a big city and have a big job and all kinds of things? And he said, yeah, I went for a while to the big city. But I came back because this is what I love. love and say, well, why? And he says, well, what I do has purpose. I help to feed and clothe people with my profession. That makes me happy. I'm not a wealthy man, but the milk, cheese, wool, and meat that I sell more than meets my needs, I've never wanted for anything. I don't have a boss. I haven't been sick a day in my life. And 365 days of the year, I get to work in the most beautiful countryside in the world.

Who wouldn't want to be me? And as they leave, he smiles conspiratorially and in a low voice says, but do me a favor. Don't tell anyone. I don't want it to get crowded out here. And there's a tremendous amount of wisdom in that Shepard statement. You bet. there was a story in the book that reminding me of a conversation I once had with somebody who, as you describe it, thought that the key to a happy life was having the most toys before

you died. And somewhere in the midst of the conversation, I had the chutzpah to say to the other person, you know, I think I have something that you actually don't have. And he sort of said, what would that be? And I said, I have enough. And I think he sort of was taken aback. Great line. Well, yeah, and the Pilgrim's life is a constant reminder of that. I mean, think about it. You, you know, walk for days with a backpack that has all your earthly requirements to get to your destination. And in fact, if you've got too much on your back, that's what's going to contribute to bad knees and problems with your feet. So every night is a discussion of what's necessary for my backpack. And how do I get rid of the unnecessary

things, it reminds you of how little you actually need to be inexpressibly happy and joyous. You know, I encourage it for anyone who is looking to sort through some things and who among us isn't to consider a commina. Well, let me just do a little housekeeping before we sign off here. And that is to say, we always like to encourage people to throw off a few bucks. our way just to help keep the lights on. This program will always be free, but there are some people who, out of the kindness of their hearts, have decided to support us. You can do that at patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast, and you'll find web-exclusive videos there. We answer all the

emails there. You can pitch show ideas, guest ideas, and it's turned into a nice little place for people to exchange ideas. All of the shows we do on this show are archived at stevehaken.com. I am happy to remind people that the book is called Finding Grace, a Camino de Santiago story, and it has brought Rocco Rossi to the Pagan podcast today. Rocco, you use the word joyous many times in that conversation, and I would say this was a joyous, oh, 45 minutes or so that I got to spend with you today. So thank you for that. Likewise, Buen Camino in La Vida and Amazon.ca, I look forward to people's thoughts and reviews.

and if you want to get into a conversation, Rocco Rossi.com. Perfect. I'm very light of your co-conocenzuela, seor. Unpacete also for me. Excellent.

Pace and Amore. Peace and love, everybody. Until next time.