Nigel Orfei shares his lessons from over 20+ years of working in customer support and success-focused roles. The keys are to care about the customer experience and build trust with your words and actions while always supporting your team through hands-on leadership.

What does giving back mean to you? Is it solely financial in your mind? Do you have a specific motivation that pushes you to help others? How do you look at those going through difficult situations? Join us for a conversation with Marcel LeBrun about all these topics.

Marcel is a returning guest of ours who joins Dave and Emily to discuss the idea of Philanthropy and the steps available to all of us to be leaders in our communities to help others. The discussion moves around the topics of positive business culture and giving back financially, and we hear all about the work Marcel has done with 12 Neighbours.

We’re happy to have a guest with whom we’ve had a long-time friendship but who finds himself in our hot seat for the first time, Mark Leger. In his role as Editor at Huddle and Director of News Content at Acadia Broadcasting, Mark has been telling the stories of business and leadership in Atlantic Canada for years. 

We hear about Mark’s love of running, including how he follows Emily through her runs and his passion for not shying away from tough topics and taking the business spotlight to the main street level. We even get some insight into the interviews that Mark has completed over the years that have left him feeling inspired. 

It's easy for us to see how Johanne McInnis has been a leading force for change and improvement in multiple communities over the years. During our chat, she shared with Emily and Dave her life story and her views on helping young mothers and women achieve more than being a statistic. We hear what motivated her to make a difference and the welcomed cultural shift happening in younger generations. 

Three years from our first time speaking with Emily Rodger and we put Dave’s now co-host into the hot seat this week to reflect on her journey over the last few years and entering into the coaching world. Dave and Emily talk about her view around de-mystifying coaching, and her holistic approach to coaching, which Emily has found lately has many parallels to being a pacer for ultra marathons. This athletic connection that runs throughout Emily’s life and the leadership skills she’s gained through coaching has led her to create a non-profit, On The Rise, to help young to learn about themselves and develop leadership skillsets. 

We also hear about Emily’s upcoming CBC documentary working with Hemmings House, which will be airing soon as a follow-up to the successful short film Cadence.

Emily introduces Dave to a friend who always makes her smile, and we quickly learn why. With her upbeat and vibrant energy, Stefanie Loukes shares her experiences building a business, Rabbittown Beverage, during the pandemic. As a new entrepreneur, she uses creativity to engage with people and talks about her experiences in national pitch competitions leading up to Dragon’s Den. We also hear about the core values Stefanie has built her business around, including having no judgement towards others and creating an accepting space that gives everyone the support they need. 

In a powerful episode that starts with a tribute to our dear friend, Bruce McLeod, we tackle the issue of emotional well-being head-on. Dr Bill Howatt joins us to share how he wants to help people have no regret in life and start living well. 

Over the last two years, many people have undergone career changes, most unexpectedly. Like any life changes, these have challenged some to go outside their comfort zones. But how do we measure that comfort zone idea, and what does it mean to be brave to expand past it? Our returning guest Marilyn Barefoot joins us to talk about her career changes and the experience of building her new podcast, Breaking Brave. 

Being human isn't easy. We get overwhelmed with emotions, caught up in overthinking and sometimes react a little too much. Why is it difficult to be who we are? What is it about us that makes it challenging just to be us? If you've wondered why we do what we do, think how we think, and feel what we feel, you need to listen to our conversation with Ted Cadsby. 

What emotion would you feel if someone told you you had to be in court tomorrow to solve a dispute? For most of us outside the legal profession, having to be a part of the justice system can be daunting. But today’s guest, Ron Veale, joins us to share how there’s another way, Alternative Dispute Resolution. 

 

You may recognize the last name of our guest, who, beyond his accomplishments in politics, the law and being Chief Justice on the Supreme Court of Yukon until his recent retirement, also raised our host, Dave Veale. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Dave’s Dad, is on the podcast! Ron shares some great judicial insights with us and a few family tales. Ron also discusses with Emily, who experienced the personal injury side of the law first hand, areas that could be improved and other methods available. 

Do you consider yourself to be intelligent? Many of us would humbly agree that we are and be able to list the skillsets where we show off those smarts. But, how emotionally intelligent are you? Do you know how to start to measure that? Do you know how you’ve built your resilience over your life? It begins with self-awareness, and someone who helps us be self-aware is our guest, Marilyn Orr.

Marilyn combines her Master’s in Counselling and all of her different Coaching certifications and years of experience to wear different hats to help her clients build their emotional intelligence, resilience and ability to become self-aware. 

Do you consider yourself a leader? Leadership is not just about one cookie-cutter ideal. Traits and characteristics support different leadership styles, and we aren’t always aware we have. While you may be comparing yourself to someone whose been placed in a leadership role, questioning why you can’t be more like them, others may be looking at your innate abilities and appreciating how you help them grow. 

 

We welcome a colleague and coachee of Emily’s, Phil Jewell, to join her and Dave, talking about different leadership styles and how his path through being an officer in the British Army brought out his leadership skills. This conversation helps to highlight how there are different leadership journeys, and it’s more about finding the right one for you. Phil shares what he is bringing to his clients as a coach and some concepts he feels will help others create impact. 

What is your definition of a “successful” business? Did the words “Scale”, “Revenue”, or “Growth” enter into that? Ask yourself, is someone who creates impact and achieves their goals less successful because they are a small business or resist “scaling” to be a size they don’t want? Dave Veale and Emily Rodger talk with our guest Madeleine Shaw to understand how an entrepreneur can focus on "The Greater Good".

Madeleine is a serial social entrepreneur whose projects focus on creating good versus just profit. From being an early leader in the reusable menstrual products space to now as an author of the book “The Greater Good”, her work helps others see that their goals, perspective or needs are not something that should be overlooked. 

Think about the last conversation you had. Were you fully listening to what the other person was saying, or were you on your phone, thinking about what you had to do next and just not fully engaged with what the other person was saying? A long-time friend of Dave’s and fellow Wallace McCain Institute alum joined him and Emily to have a conversation about listening. Outside of being a successful and accomplished entrepreneur, Crystal Trevors shared her journey of hearing loss to highlight how active listening needs to be a conscious choice you make. If you choose not to listen actively, the impact on your ability to communicate and for the other person to feel heard will suffer. 

Crystal is starting down a life coaching path to help others find joy in their lives, both professionally and personally. And with so much of being joyful in life often tied to how much we feel heard, seen, and understood, it makes total sense to want to work with a coach who deeply understands the role of listening. 

Have you recently realized that there needs to be more in life than what you are currently experiencing? The last two years has been a shift in work-life balance. Whether it's working from home, seeing an increase in stress or dealing with loss in challenging circumstances, it has people looking to find a bigger purpose. In this conversation, we welcome Bruce McLeod, a returning guest, a long-time colleague of Dave Veale's and the Executive Coach to our guest co-host Emily Rodger. It is a group of coaches talking about what they've seen happen in their industry in the last two years, but it's also a group of people having an enlightening discussion about what being a coach brings to their lives, how people are shifting to find more purpose and how digital connections are driving all of these interactions. 

How much thought every day do you put into making sure what you do in business and life is done with compassion for others? Think about that for a moment. What does compassion mean to you? Our returning guest musician, speaker, writer and storyteller Dave Carroll joins us to talk about how he works with the concept of Compassionate Design. Dave shares insights from his newest album, "Until One Day", and his new children's book, "Tom The Tomato Plant".

We all face challenges that can change everything for us in a single moment. To deal with those challenges, sometimes we push ourselves through without stopping, so it looks like we’re doing just fine. But, most times, when we do this, we’re not fine. And we don’t always look back to acknowledge what we have been through, work through the trauma and celebrate our successes. Our returning guest, Emily Rodger, shares how she hopes reflecting on her own experiences in a new Hemmings House short film documentary will help others begin to process challenging experiences in their lives. 

Does the idea of public speaking leave you feeling like you’d rather run in the opposite direction? Do you have to become a “Corporate” version of yourself to feel comfortable delivering a presentation? There’s leadership power that can come from sharing your knowledge in an authentic, unique to you delivery style. Our guests Elissa Bernstein and Steven Lecky work with clients to help find and improve their confidence, individuality, and voice that can only be theirs.