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Anthony Lacavera - THE WIND MATTERS

In this episode of Chatter That Matters hear why Anthony Lacavera never felt comfortable putting his career in someone else's hands, how and why he is obsessed with offering his customers value, and what he believes is key to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

It's an incredible success story that began with Anthony taking out a $25,000 small business loan from RBC and parlaying it with his intellectual and emotional capital into a billion-dollar enterprise.

Georgia Balinksky returns to the show to discuss why ideas matter and how to turn dreams into reality.

Reasons to Listen:

This episode offers much if you are starting a career, or looking to make a career move, and for all who have entrepreneurial ambitions.

It's also a wonderful true story of a small business owner who fought  Goliaths, on his and the consumers' terms.

Enjoy.

Tony

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Dr. Alika LaFontaine - HEALTH MATTERS

We all know that our health matters most, and our health care is in a crisis. Lineups have become multi-year waits, millions do not have access to family doctors, we have a massive talent shortage, and those in the system are burning out or leaving it altogether.

What can be done? As you soon learn, there is a path forward, providing you, as both a patient and a voter, are willing to be part of the solution.

Dr. Alika Lafontaine is a recognized expert on health systems and health policy, an award-winning physician and the first Indigenous doctor to become the president of the Canadian Medical Association and listed in Medical Post's 50 Most Powerful Doctors. 

The following excerpt is part of Dr. Alika Lafontaine's inaugural speech to the CMA. 'Our health system is collapsing, wait lists have transformed into multi-year queues, and community and hospital-based access are so unstable in parts of our country that closures have become commonplace. The sustainability of the family physician has never been at greater risk than it is today; around us is the steady call for destruction and ever-most cost-cutting and dismantling of our publically funded system in favour of privately driven replacement. Canadian physicians are fighting a growing tide of fear, dissatisfaction, and anger from the patients we've dedicated our lives to serving.

If you feel hopeless right now, you're not alone.'

  In this episode Dr. Alika Lafontaine offers no magic wand solution but he does offer insightful thoughts on why we must lean on each other, tap into the deep knowledge that we have of our problems, and what we all need to do to reshape our system by putting the patient first.

  Dale Sturges returns to Chatter that Matters to talk about why having Indigenous voices at the highest tables is integral to Truth and Reconcilation and even more so, to creating a better Canada.

  Powerful and positive look your health going forward.  Enjoy!  Tony

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Israel Diaz - TIME MATTERS

How do you value your time? To unlock 28 hours more a week, would you wake up at 4 am every day to nourish your mind and body? What if this ritual enabled you to be one of the most respected in the country at your craft? 

Israel Diaz is someone I have admired from afar, and after this interview, I hold his thinking close to my heart. He is a true renaissance man that searches for answers by synthesizing science, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, and curiosity.  

He is the youngest of five kids, introverted, a chess champion by age eight, and has an insatiable lifetime thirst to drink all the stimuli around him. This interview is not for Israel; it's for you. Israel talks about how you get the attention you need to lead, coach, mentor, collaborate, create, or earn the promotion you deserve.

Israel believes that we ask for the attention of the people that matter to us - family, friends, customers, employees, and investors; we ask for their social consciousness, the greatest gift they can offer. 

To earn this gift, Israel shares several powerful and actional insights and lessons, including the universal truths, that lead to identifying purpose, passion, pursuits and potential for both you and your endeavours.

If you are a parent or someone in your teens, pay special attention to Israel's not-for-profit initiative - Inside Out, that he is creating with Erica Ehm, a previous guest on my program. 

Georgia Balinksy, a brilliant and upcoming strategist, returns to Chatter that Matters to offer her perspective on time and how to ensure it is well spent. We also talk about Israel's belief that there are no business needs, just human needs.

Enjoy, and if you can, please share, rate and review. Tony

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Paolo Tiramani - HOUSING MATTERS

If you thought a mattress delivered in a box was excellent, how about a one-bedroom house with nine-and-a-half-foot ceilings, complete with a fridge, stove, washer and dryer?  What if your home in a box could ship on a standard flatbed, be assembled on-site in a few hours, and add your bed and sofa, and you are ready to live in it?  Did I mention the price tag of $50,000?

Paolo Tiramani is an inventor and a billionaire.  Paolo held many patents and was one of the first to add wheels to suitcases and create a moveable workbench.  In this episode, we talk about his new venture Boxabl, a venture he is doing with his son, and why they believe they will change the lives of billions of people worldwide for the better.

Humanity and Planet Earth face many challenges, but I am optimistic that we can solve many by unleashing innovation that shatters the barriers of our minds and challenges the status quo.

Carrie Freestone, an Economist at RBC, rounds out the program by talking about the housing boom that will need to happen in Canada to meet the needs of the immigrants moving here and the rise in single-household homes.

You will find many fantastic lessons for entrepreneurs, small business owners, inventors, families who work together, and believers in humanity.

Enjoy! 

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Carey Nieuwhof - COMMUNITY MATTERS

Carey Nieuwhof left his law career to become the founding pastor of Connexus Church, one of the most influential churches in North America. Carey shares his reasons why, how he almost burned out pursuing his passion, and why community matters more than ever in these turbulent times. 

Today, Carey Nieowhof is an author, much sought-after conference speaker, podcaster, and thought leader.

This episode contains some great takeaways and inspiration for anyone looking to make positive changes in their life and career.

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David Kincaid - BRANDING MATTERS

David Kincaid is a branding and entrepreneurial guru, founder of Level5 Strategy, and the former Chief Marketing Officer at Corus Entertainment and Labatt. David shares his incredible story that includes drumming his way through University while offering you insights, ideas and strategies on what it takes to build brands, including your own, that stand the test of time.

And what does Pamela Anderson have to do with all this? You will have to listen to find out. 

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Jeanne Beker - FASHION MATTERS

"In this episode, Jeanne Beker - media mogul, fashion icon, business powerhouse, and stylish host of the legendary show "Fashion Television" - shares how she built the life she wanted from the ground up and why passion and pursuit are dreamer’s greatest asset."  A child of Holocaust survivors who let Jeanne boldly go to find her dream. Jeanne also talks about how she is using her Breast Cancer diagnosis and her platform to raise awareness as to why early detection is the best cure.

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Steve Tappin - AWARENESS MATTERS

Leadership Secrets with Steve Tappin. Your leadership skills are almost as important as your work ethic. Learn how to be a better leader and get more out of life with Steve Tappin, an expert on leadership, mindfulness, and human behaviour.

As parents, friends, mentors and coaches, we are all leaders in life, and many are leaders in their careers. My question to you is this. Do you work to be a better leader? Steve Tappin is a leadership coach to CEOs, entrepreneurs, political figures and cultural icons. He is the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Unity and co-author of The Awareness Code and The Secrets of CEOs. Steve hosted the BBC World television series CEO Guru and was a LinkedIn global influencer. Steve’s goal is to help create an incredible world through transforming leadership and what he has to say in this episode of Chatter that Matters has the potential also to change how you lead your life as a parent, partner, friend, and throughout your life and career.

Steve believes that leaders are made, not born and that the foundations for leadership begin with your upbringing. Steve shares the lessons he learned from his Mother, the heart of his family, who said he could do anything, and his Dad, a maverick entrepreneur who valued relationships above all. His athletic ability led him to sports and taught him to never settle for second best and that the best coaches have strong emotional intelligence and work in fellowship with the sport. A mentor taught him some invaluable lessons in critical thinking. 

In his twenties, Steve Tappin interviewed CEOs and learned that each meeting was a learning opportunity, not just a selling opportunity. By his mid-thirties, his insatiable appetite for life took him all over the world, fuelled by an addiction to work, coffee, and a complete lack of respect for nutrition and exercise that led him to hit a wall when he had a stroke.

This wake-up call let him reprioritize his life and team up with Wayne Linton, a trained psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience. Together they write the Awareness Code, a ground-breaking guide to help you increase your human awareness. Steve shares how the Awareness Code can work for you to transform yourself to become an incredible leader and to create a fellowship where everyone is working together.

Steve also talks about BIG, the beyond incredible group. To date, they have invited ten people to come together to help them reach the highest level of awareness and help them prepare to lead, unite society, and solve some of our biggest problems. They plan to grow BIG to 100 future leaders. 

I was also interested in the decades he has spent working in China. Steve shares why leaders there are so different. They are exceptional entrepreneurs; they think far beyond annual or even five-year plans and collaborate and work together to better society and their business, and each other.

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LONG SHOTS MATTER to Rev. Dr. Gordon Postill

We have all faced forks in the road, and navigating them isn't always obvious or easy. What can compound this difficulty is if the path you are currently on is littered by alcohol and drugs that once gave you a false sense of courage but are now consuming your shot at life.

As a young man, Gordon Postill stepped on a train to attend a prestigious University. Three years later, broke and disillusioned, he stepped on a train to head to the nickel mines in Northern Ontario, where he hoped to hide, but his substance abuse tracked along with him.

He reached a point where he questioned if his life was worth living. And then, he had a calling that changed his life and put him on a path where he earned a Masters and Doctorate in Ministry. Rev. Dr. Gordon Postill took the pain and experiences of his earlier life on a new course where he helped thousands of people living in hospices. Many decades later, he had a new calling: to help his beloved wife Robin, whose mind surrendered to Alzheimer's. Rev. Dr. Postill wrote a book about his this time titled Called! A Longshot's Story. 

An honest and at times raw interview that proves that destiny, or at the very least a new path in life, can happen if you match purpose with intent.

Amy Deacon, the Founder and CEO of Toronto Wellness Counselling, returns to the show to talk about why so many wonderful caregivers helping people with their addiction have found themselves on this path because, at one time, they were addicts. 

To learn more about Rev. Dr. Gordon Postill and to purchase his book: https://www.gordonpostill.com

To learn more about Amy Deacon and Toronto Wellness Counselling: https://www.torontowellnesscounselling.com/about-amy

To connect with me:  https://www.chatterthatmatters.ca

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BRIDGES MATTER to Sammer Haq

  Sammer Haq is a bridge builder. When 9/11 occurred, Sammer Haq was a child. Overnight many painted all Muslims as terrorists. Sammer chose to counter this ignorance by being a role model for showing her religion's beauty and all it stands for. She wanted the world to know that Islam is a religion that empowers women that focuses on peace, excellence and giving back. As an individual, she excelled at school and showed that wearing a Hijab did not impact her athletic ability.  

Sammer grew up in an underserved and underrepresented community yet saw beauty in its diversity, creativity, and ingenuity regarding how people survived. Sammer saw Math as the only Bridge to future STEM-related jobs, so she started to tutor her classmates. In a short period, a handful of students grew into a packed classroom, and three years ago, Sammer turned tutoring into a not-for-profit called Bridge TO. Bridge TO provides free tutoring, mental health workshops, outreach support, mentorship, and exclusive career-related events, to help youth to reach their full potential.

Sammer Haq is a unique and uplifting story of how individuals can do much to build bridges that correct the wrong while celebrating positivity and possibility.

Linda Tulk joins at the end of the show. I had her on when I heard she celebrated fifty years at RBC. Linda's beautiful words of wisdom on her life and finding a career that matters are words for all.

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QUIET MATTERS to Susan Cain

" A powerful episode, with meaningful and actionable takeaways on life, love and leadership."

I have always been fascinated by our heads, heart and hands and how we think, feel and behave. I begin the episode with a personal story of how I cried during a plane trip and what motivated my emotions. I then invite Susan Cain to join me this week to share her life story and to talk about her two NY TIMES best-selling books, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking, named the #1 best book by Fast Company, and her latest Bittersweet, How Sorrow and Longing can make us whole.

Over 40 million people have watched Susan Cain's Ted Talks, and Linked In has named her their 6th top influencer worldwide. 

With her bestselling phenomenon, Quiet, Susan Cain talks about why it is essential to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight.

Did you know that introverted people often deliver better results than extroverted ones? That the most spectacularly creative people tend to be introverts? That the most innovative thinking happens alone and not in teams? Yet when it comes to introverts—who make up a third to a half of the population—leaders and cultural biases often ask introverts to act like extroverts. 

With Bittersweet, Susan Cain explores why we experience sorrow and longing and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and authenticity. Susan shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don't acknowledge our heartache, we can inflict it on others.

Neil McLaughlin, Group Head of Personal and Corporate Banking, joins the show to talk about leadership and why it is paramount to have diversity within your organization, foster debate and ensure everyone has a voice.

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OPPORTUNITY MATTERS to James Mullinger

Many are examining their lives and livelihood and making significant changes based on what they feel matters most. With this in mind, I looked forward to interviewing my guest this week, James Mullinger, who, with his wife, had it all. They lived in London, England, and both had successful careers. More importantly, they had a wonderful marriage, a child with one on their way, and James' side hustle, doing stand-up comedy, was quickly moving from a dream to a reality. In England, he went from open mike gigs at B venues to the one to watch and see. James' career turbocharged when he started working with people like Jerry Seinfeld, Anne Hathaway, Matthew McConaughey, and many more. 

Yet, the Mullingers gave it all up to move to New Brunswick, Canada. They put life balance and their relationship above all, but that decision came without job prospects. In addition, New Brunswick is far away as you can get from the centre of comedy, and even those available went dark when the pandemic hit. 

Their story is about how they found a way to have it all. The Mullingers have found happiness and balance while creating opportunities. James has also navigated one of the most challenging gauntlets, making a living as a standing comic by taking Canada and the world by storm.

Their journey is so magical that it motivated James to write his memoir - Brit Happens - Living The Canadian Dream and to rave reviews.

Greg Sloan joins the show to provide some great insights on how RBC values more than payroll statements to help individuals and small business owners get to where they need and want to go. One of the key areas they look for is transferable skills, and one of the areas they feel they can the most value is providing ideas to help their clients start or grow a business network.

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IDEAS MATTER to Sarah Stein Greenberg

I wish I had a magic wand and could cast a spell so that everyone listens to what Sarah Stein Greenberg offers in this interview. There is so much packed into forty minutes that I encourage you to listen with pen and paper. You will be a better parent, friend, innovator, marketer, problem solver, entrepreneur and leader for it.  

The essence is that we must all become better, faster and more efficient at approaching and solving problems in our lives, careers, communities and on our planet. The essential question is whether we are willing and capable of learning a new way to learn.

Sarah thinks and knows so. She is the Executive Director of the Stanford Universities d.school. Sarah leads a community of designers, faculty, and other innovative thinkers. She has also written a masterful book titled Creative Acts for Curious People...how to think, create and lead in unconventional ways. 

This episode is for you, no matter who you are or what you do.

As a bonus and tying in with the theme, I invite Georgia Balinksy, the Senior Director of Brand Strategy for RBC back to the show. She talks about why Ideas matter and their new branding platform, Ideas Happen Here.

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LEADERSHIP MATTERS to Dr. Karyn Gordon

I read The Three Chairs a book that focuses on how great leaders drive communication, performance and engagement.  I wasn't the only one as it is Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Amazon bestseller.  Dr. Karyn Gordon brings so much to this show in terms of what it takes to be a positive influence, contributor and leader, in any situation of your life or career

I have known Dr. Karyn Gordon, for over twenty years. I told her back then that she had the potential to be Canada's Oprah and I wasn't wrong. Dr. Gordon is the CEO and co-founder of DK Leadership, a global leadership coaching company that has helped more than 500,000 people-including Fortune 500 executives, family businesses, and entrepreneurs. She has a Doctorate in Marriage and Family with additional certifications in leadership, EQ, wellness, and career direction. A media personality, she has appeared on Good Morning America, Cityline, Forbes and The New York Times, and Cityline. 

Georgia Balinksky, the Senior Director for Brand Strategy for RBC joins the show to talk about their campaign 'Ideas happen Here' and how and why ideas are the driving force behind positive change. 

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CANADA MATTERS to Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer

Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer is from an unfathomably wealthy European family. After a successful career in the family business, he has the means and experience to live anywhere, and do anything. Jean-Louis chose our country and in this special Canada Day edition, we learn why and why he decided to invest millions of dollars in reminding us why.

Jean-Louis has created Little Canada, Our Home and Miniature Land at Yonge and Dundas in Toronto. I met him there, and I can say it was one of the most exciting attractions I have visited. You have to see it to believe it. The imagination, creativity, and attention to detail are unlike anything I have seen. And when you leave, you are reminded about how wonderful, diverse and unique Canada is.

As Brenninkmeijer's 90-year-old father said when he came to Canada for the first time, he said, "Here, the world is still okay."

Some great takeaways:

How an iconic family business moves from one generation to the next.

How a model train set and valuable time with his Dad led him to Little Canada.

What makes Canada so unique.

Happy Canada Day.  Let's chat soon.

Tony

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TRUTH MATTERS to Phil Fontaine

To honour National Indigenous Peoples Day, I invite Phil Fontaine to join me on Chatter that Matters. Phil is an advocate for human rights and a survivor of residential school abuse. To bring about positive change, Phil served three terms as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, the first being when he was only 28.

Phil Fontaine had dedicated his life to the advancement of First Nations and Aboriginal People. Phil believes that the key is not more handouts but to create a First Nation Economy where culture is preserved, purposeful jobs are abundant, self-determination is essential, and the best education is available.

Phil talks about how he came to terms with the inner rage and alcohol that possessed his youth and why he chose a path in life where truth matters most.

I also invite two of my previous guests, Sandi Boucher and Jennifer Menard-Shand. They both consider Phil a trailblazer for their respective communities to each ask a question and his answers alone are worth the listen.

Dale Sturgess, National Managing Director, Indigenous Financial Services Group at RBC, shares his views on Phil Fontaine and his contributions to our country.

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THE ROAD MATTERS to Ed Hajim

I love stories involving the 'hero's journey, someone who goes on an adventure, is victorious regardless of circumstance or crisis, finds mentors or believers along their way and becomes changed or transformed in the process. When the story is true, it roars through my spirit and lifts my belief in the power of the human being. This story, I promise, will do the same for you.

At age three, Ed Hajim is kidnapped by his father, driven from St. Louis to Los Angeles, and told that his mother is dead. His father soon abandons him to seek employment—mostly in vain—leaving his son behind in a string of foster homes and orphanages. Ed's life weaves into a pattern of neglect and desertion that continues for his entire childhood, forever leaving its mark. From one home to another, the lonely boy learns the value of self-reliance and perseverance despite his financial deprivation and the trauma of being an orphan. What does Ed do with his life? He embarks upon a hero's journey of epic consideration. It must be heard to be appreciated, believed and applauded.

Society cannot afford to leave our young behind. Mark Beckles, Vice President of Social Impact and Innovation for RBC, joins me at the show's end to talk about Future Launch and what they are doing to help youth find and pursue their path in life.

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