Four Teachings That Can Change Your Life
Throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate to learn teachings that guide how I try to live, lead, and treat others. Many of these teachings came from my family—especially my kokum (grandmother) and the Elders in my community. One day my kokum emphasized something that stayed with me. She talked about the importance of living a […]
From an Apartment Dream to a Movement
In 2011, I jumped two feet into a dream. I didn’t know what would happen next. All I knew was that I believed in an idea—and I was willing to work for it. What started in a small apartment slowly grew into something bigger than I ever imagined. The First Steps Our first “office” was […]
The Day I Pressed Enter
There are moments in life that don’t seem important at the time—but later you realize they changed everything. For me, one of those moments happened in a hospital room. My newborn son was lying in his mother’s arms. And I was sitting on the edge of the window ledge with a laptop on my knees. […]
The Weekend That Expanded My World
Sometimes the moments that change your life don’t look dramatic at the time. They look like a simple invitation. One day, my friend Johan’s mom said to me, “Why don’t you come spend the weekend with us?” I thought, sure. After school on Friday I would jump on Johan’s bus and ride it to his […]
My Future Was Built on THIS
When I was in Grade 3, my mom managed to do something that felt like a major breakthrough for our family. She found us a small two-bedroom house. It wasn’t far from where my kokum lived, and it wasn’t big by any means. But to us, it was stability. It was a step forward. Inside […]
The Sacrifice That Built My Foundation
By the time I reached Grade 3, my mom had managed to do something that felt like a huge step forward for our family. She found us a small two-bedroom house not far from where my kokum lived. It wasn’t big, and it certainly wasn’t fancy, but for us it represented stability after a […]
The Day Everything Changed
There’s a story I often share that happened long before I understood what leadership or resilience even meant. It’s a story from my childhood. And in many ways, it’s the reason I’m standing in rooms like this today. Because statistically speaking, I shouldn’t be here. There were many moments in my life where things could […]
From Selling T-Shirts Out of My Backpack to Building a Purpose-Driven Brand
In 2011, my life was changing quickly. Around that time, I met the woman who would become my wife. Soon after, we welcomed our first child, our son Keanu. What I didn’t realize then was that this chapter of my life—one filled with uncertainty and financial hardship—would eventually lead to the creation of one of […]
The Gift That Changed My Future
By the time I reached Grade 3, life had begun to shift for my family. My mom had managed to get us into a small two-bedroom house. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t big. But after everything we had been through—shelters, uncertainty, sleeping on floors—it felt like a new beginning. When we moved in, my mom […]
The Teachings From My Kokum That Shaped My Life
After my mom made the difficult decision to leave the life we were living, we didn’t immediately find stability. We moved from place to place—women’s shelters, interval houses, and temporary spaces in cities like Saskatoon and Prince Albert. My mother had taken us out of an unhealthy environment, but she had nowhere permanent to go […]