Tag: Inspiration

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Louise Johnson

.Reading time 5 minutes.

 

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“You have to stay authentic to what you really love, like when you were a kid, when you didn’t care what people thought…those weird quirky things…I think you should always hold onto those.”

For the sixth episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I had an insightful conversation with Louise Johnson, a Toronto-based writer and blogger.  I’ve known Louise since we were kids, as both of our families spend the summers in the beautiful cottage region of Norway Bay, Quebec. I’ve always been inspired by Louise’s love for her family, her way with words, her creativity, and her courage to put her thoughts into cyberspace.

Louise grew up in Oakville, Ontario, a suburb outside of Toronto. As a young girl, her  parents encouraged her to become  involved numerous activities, like dance and soccer. Louise believes her incredibly busy upbringing has helped her to learn how to balance her day job with her dreams of being a writer.

As a business student at the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, Louise spent her summers interning for Elizabeth Arden in New York. After graduating, she was offered a full-time job to work on the new Taylor Swift fragrance and starting making plans to relocate to New York City. However, two months before she was set to move, she was offered a position at Elizabeth Arden’s Geneva office and ended up moving to Switzerland for two years.

When she first moved to New York as an intern, Louise started the blog, Manhattan Maven, as a way of sharing her adventures abroad with her friends and family. She quickly realized her passion for writing and documenting, and the desire to pursue writing more seriously began to gnaw at her.

“It’s this invisible drive or voice inside of my head that I feel like I’ve always had. Sometimes it’s quieter than others, but it’s always there…and I just have to get it out.”

So, when she returned to New York after living in Switzerland, she assembled her writing portfolio and applied to grad school. Louise ended up getting into Harvard University’s Master’s of Journalism program and moved to Boston, where she fully committed herself  to the craft of writing.

Currently, Louise is living in Toronto and working full-time as an in-house writer for an advertising agency. This allows her to pay the bills, write creatively on the side, and live closer to her tight-knit family after six years of living abroad.

“I value my family so much…I am just in a constant state of ignorant bliss when I’m with them.”

On top of her day job, Louise is freelancing for several websites such as Normale Magazine, Glamping Hub, and the Boston Day Book. Although she currently loves Toronto’s energy and social scene, she dreams of one day moving to a little cabin in the woods to write a novel.

In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Louise discusses why she left her incredible life in New York to pursue her dreams of becoming a writer, her obsession with her family, and the importance of living authentically.

“It’s hard to put yourself out there and take judgement, but when you do, it’s so freeing. You just stop caring what other people think and you just do things that make you happy… It’s the best feeling.”

The Inspiring Women Series is a podcast dedicated to sharing the many stories of women who have inspired me in my life, or who have inspired others.

You can subscribe to the podcast series in the iTunes store or listen to Louise’s interview here:

 

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Debbie Jenkins

.Reading time 5 minutes.

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“My inspiration is in nature. It’s simplicity. It’s complexity. It’s beauty.”

For the fifth episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I chatted with Debbie Jenkins, an amazing woman who I had the pleasure of meeting while teaching in Pond Inlet, Nunavut. Debbie worked for 7 years in the Canadian Arctic as a caribou biologist, and is currently completing her PhD at Trent University.

Debbie grew up in North Bay, Ontario. She attributes her current passion for biological conservation to her active, outdoorsy childhood, a life-long gift from her amazing parents.  

From an early age, she developed a deep connection with nature, and this relationship is at the core of everything that she does. An avid adventurer, Debbie takes every opportunity to get outside, whether that is through traveling, hiking, skiing, paddling, camping, or simply spending time alone on the land.

“At the core of who I am is this connection I have with nature.” 

After completing her undergraduate degree at Laurentian University in Environmental Science, Debbie worked for Science North and then the Department of the Environment in Sudbury for several years. Eventually, her love of learning and commitment to nature pulled her to quit her job to follow her dreams of becoming a biologist and she began a Master’s Degree in Biology at Trent University.

During her Master’s, Debbie worked with elk that had been reintroduced in Ontario, and white-tailed deer, and developed a research interest in large ungulates. After graduating, she left the security and comfort of her work in Ontario, and moved to the Arctic where she lived and worked for 7 years.

“I always wanted to work in the Arctic. I always felt this passion for large, wild spaces and I couldn’t imagine a wilder space than the Arctic.” 

As a wildlife research biologist in Pond Inlet, Nunavut, Debbie conducted population surveys of caribou and muskoxen, collaring projects, and community-based monitoring. She traveled all over the High Arctic and completed research projects in some of the most remote regions, many of which had not been monitored for 40 years. 

Debbie is currently completing her PhD at Trent University and is using the data she collected from her time in Nunavut to inform her research. With many caribou populations declining, not only in the Arctic, but across Canada and globally, Debbie’s work is important for gathering information on the status, distribution and structure of caribou and muskoxen populations, as well as the potential impact of climate change on these iconic Arctic species. She hopes that she will be able to use the knowledge she gains from doing her PhD to communicate scientific research in a way that is meaningful and “palatable to people in the Arctic and to people around the globe.”

In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Debbie talks about her loves of nature, her partner, her family, and her dog, her passion for protecting the earth’s biological diversity, and her personal challenge to do new things even when she’s afraid.  

“I quit two jobs to go back to school. I left a really comfortable job in Ontario to go up to the Arctic, and it’s not to say I was this brave person heading out, because I was scared to death when I did some of those things. But I did [them] afraid. You know when you think you can’t do it, when you can’t get past the fear, just do it afraid.”

The Inspiring Women Series is a podcast dedicated to sharing the many stories of women who have inspired me in my life, or who have inspired others.

You can subscribe to the podcast series in the iTunes store or listen to Debbie’s interview here:

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Josefina Bittar

.Reading time 4 minutes.

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“I think sometimes you just have to let some things go so that you can find better things.”

For the fourth episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I had a lovely conversation with Josefina Bittar, a Paraguayan woman who currently holds a Fulbright Scholarship to study a Master’s Degree in Linguistics at the University of New Mexico in the United States.

After graduating from high school in Paraguay, Josefina studied Language Arts at the University of Asuncion. During her undergrad, at the age of 19, Josefina became pregnant and got married. Unfortunately, her marriage didn’t work out and she got divorced shortly after.

Instead of dropping out of school to deal with the emotional pain of her divorce and the challenges of raising her son as a single mother and full-time student, Josefina found the strength to continue her studies.

“School made me happy. If I didn’t have school, it would have been much more difficult.”

Her close-knit extended family was an amazing support for her during this difficult time. In addition, Josefina found hope through learning the stories of other women who had also gone through a similar experience. Josefina feels that her divorce has taught her important lessons that can be applied to both her personal and professional lives.

“You can try to convince yourself that this is the person or this is the place or this is the job and you don’t realize that you might be missing out…that there might be something better for you out there.”

Following university, Josefina worked for two years as a school teacher at the American School of Paraguay in Asuncion. While she excelled as a teacher, she felt pulled to continue her education. When she was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship, she moved to the United States with her 6-year-old son and her new husband.

In the future, Josefina hopes to work as a linguist in Paraguay, and possibly pursue a PhD so she can research the country’s use of Spanish and Guaraní, an indigenous language spoken by 90% of the population.

There has been very little research done in linguistics in Paraguay, so Josefina hopes to advance knowledge in this field. (Guaraní is the only indigenous language of the Americas whose speakers include a large proportion of non-indigenous people. Elsewhere, the indigenous languages have been largely replaced by European colonial languages such as Spanish, French or English).

In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Josefina talks about her research goals, love, self-acceptance, and the many different roles that women can have in society.

“I’ve learned that I can be the way I want to be, and as long as I’m a good person…that’s okay…”

The Inspiring Women Series is a podcast dedicated to sharing the many stories of women who have inspired me in my life, or who have inspired others.

You can subscribe to the podcast series in the iTunes store or listen to Josefina’s interview here:

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Rose LaBrèche

.Reading time 5 minutes.
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27-year-old Rose LaBrèche has been named as Canada’s only official for Rugby Sevens at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

“When I started refereeing I never thought I would get to this point…or even when I started playing. You never think that what you are doing is going to take you down this amazing road of challenges but awesome occurrences in your life.”

For the third episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I had a conversation with Rose LaBrèche, a former rugby teammate of mine at Queen’s University, who has been named as Canada’s only official for the début of Rugby Sevens at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. At 27-years old, Rose feels honoured to be part of the Games so early in her refereeing career, an event she describes as being much bigger than herself, and much bigger than rugby.

“It’s the pinnacle of sport. It’s what everybody strives for.”

Rose started refereeing as a result of the encouragement of her coaches, particularly Beth Barz, at Queen’s University. After a series of concussions kept her off the pitch as a player, Rose began by refereeing high school and junior club rugby, and eventually progressed to both men’s and women’s matches at the top level.

Rose was initially attracted to the analytical and reflective nature of officiating, and loves how refereeing has enabled her to stay in the sport, despite her injuries.

“I am absolutely enthralled…and have this love affair with rugby.” 

This past September, Rose was named to the international panel of officials for World Rugby. Since then she has officiated “World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series” stops in Dubai, Sao Paulo, and in Langford, BC, as well as Six Nations games.

In order to make split-second calls during the fast-paced action of sevens play: a 14-minute game involving constant sprinting,  Rose has to maintain an incredible level of physical fitness. Rose has been described as one of the “fittest and fastest female referees out there,” which she attributes to her disciplined running regime and CrossFit workouts.

“It’s really tough once you’ve made an eighty meter break or something on the field and then you get to the next breakdown and you have to make a 50/50 decision….In order to make it easier for yourself you have to train by putting yourself under that sort of stress.”

Rose currently works for the Federal Government in Ottawa and has set high standards for herself in her “daytime” career. After graduating from Queen’s with a Bachelor of Science Honours Degree in Environmental Science and a minor in French, Rose worked for two years in Toronto at the Immigration and Refugee Board. Next, a short internship in Brussels, Belgium inspired her to complete a Master’s Degree at the University of Ottawa in International Affairs and Environmental Sustainability. Rose feels that what she has learned through refereeing has positively impacted her confidence and assertiveness in the workplace.

In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Rose talks about how overcoming her struggles with self-confidence has helped her to gain the respect of top-players and coaches in the international arena, as well as become better in all aspects of her life.

“When you have failure in your life you always second-guess yourself and you always doubt yourself. It’s about being able to come back from that minor failure, or even major failure to overcome your fears…

I have messed up. I have made bad calls on the international stage that have been on TV and that so many thousands of people have been watching and it’s kind of like, ‘How could I have done that? How do I ever come back from this?’ 

It’s all about looking within yourself and knowing that this is a temporary feeling and that you’ll get over it and time moves on, and you’ll get out of this in a better spot than when you came in.”

The Inspiring Women Series is a podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of the many women who have inspired me in my life. You can subscribe to the Inspiring Women Series podcast in the iTunes Store and can listen to my conversation with Rose below.

 

Witnessing Magic in the Amazon Rainforest

.Reading time 5 minutes.
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Peacock Fly in Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, Ecuador.

A few years ago, I took my first trip to Disney World during a spring break vacation to Florida. To be honest, I was kind of dreading the experience. I thought that I’d be turned off by all the crowds, commercialism, and unrealistically proportioned princesses.

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Becoming a wizard in the Magic Kingdom.

But since the friend I was traveling with was excited to visit the recently opened Harry Potter World, I decided to give it a chance.

As predicted, I did find some of the ways that the park commodifies happiness a little soul-crushing. Surprisingly, though, underneath all of the make-up and costumes, amusement park rides, princesses, castles, light shows and souvenir shops, I was witnessing a hint of magic–something unbelievable but that existed nonetheless.

Stripped down, I could see that Walt Disney World is an example of the extraordinary power of the human imagination and what can be accomplished when dreams are put into action.

Oddly, I sensed a similar presence of magic on a trip to the Amazon last week.

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The Amazon is so wild and beautiful that it is hard to believe that it really exists. But it does.

I know that Walt Disney World is NOTHING like the wild of the Amazon Rainforest, but both left me feeling like I was witnessing the impossible. They inspired a sense of wonder, left me questioning reality, and stretched my imagination of what I believed could exist in real life.

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I visited the Amazon in Ecuador’s Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, home to an abundance of flora and fauna and several indigenous communities.

Unlike Disney World, however, the magic of the jungle is that it is not imagined, but a living, breathing ecosystem. It exposes the darkest side of nature, but also its brightest colours.

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A baby anaconda hides amidst the bushes. The average length of adult male anacondas is 2.7m, with the longest on record being almost 9m.
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Caimans, which tend to be 2.5-4m long, are well camouflaged in the dark, murky waters of the Amazon River.

The Amazon River is the largest river on earth, making up one-fifth of the earth’s freshwater. It’s been referred to as the “lung of the world” because of its massive power to have vital gases exchanged between the forest and the atmosphere. The rainforest stretches through nine countries:  Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, and is the most bio-diverse region on the planet.

In the Amazon, there are anacondas that prey upon caimans, birds, and even jaguars from blackwater lagoons, trees that are over 5000 years old, termites that inspire engineering projects, birds that mate for life (take that, Ashley Madison!), and butterflies that re-define the colour wheel.

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Squirrel Monkeys search for food in the Amazon’s canopy areas.
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A sloth slowly makes its way along a tree branch.
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Stinky Turkeys are one of over 580 species of birds in the Amazon.
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The Wooly Monkey is one of over 10 species of monkeys in Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve.

Due to its diversity, the extraordinary role it plays in regulating the earth’s climate, and the sense of wonder it inspires, the Amazon Rainforest is an example of the ways in which life can transcend what we believed to be possible. Unfortunately, looming threats of oil and gas extraction, deforestation, and other development projects threaten the future of the Amazon (along with many of the Earth’s wildest places).

Not only will this limit the diversity of life on the planet, it will also threaten our ability to imagine new possibilities for how to make the world a better place to live.  For me, it’s these glimpses of magic that make life interesting. They push us to dream bigger, live more fully, and expand our imaginations of what we can accomplish.

As Walt Disney said: “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Lovely Zaman Shima

.Reading time 4 minutes.

“Every woman should have the strength to know herself. Yes, you will face obstacles, but you have to turn that obstacle into energy… If you have belief about your strength…if you have support in your life…then nothing can stop you.”

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For the second episode of the Inspiring Women Series, I had a conversation with Lovely Zaman Shima, who I met while we were both in graduate school at the University of Ottawa. From the moment I met Lovely, I was immediately struck by her positive spirit, her confidence, and her determination.

Lovely was born in Bangladesh in 1979 and grew up in the capital of Dhaka, where she is currently living with her husband and her two children. After losing her parents at a young age, and being raised by her brothers, Lovely was able to find the strength to stay positive and work towards her dreams.

A turning point in her life was achieving 7th place out of 150,000 students in Bangladesh on her exam for the Secondary School Certificate (S.S.C.). Positioning so highly on this exam helped her to believe in herself and her own abilities. It also inspired her to dream BIG.

Thus, she enrolled in an undergraduate program at the University of Dhaka where she met her husband. They quickly fell in love and got married, and Lovely became pregnant with her daughter at the age of 21. Instead of seeing her pregnancy as a barrier to finishing her studies, Lovely “turned the obstacle into energy,” and completed the program during her pregnancy. Afterwards, she completed a Master’s Degree in International Relations at the University of Dhaka.

Following her schooling, Lovely joined the government service as Assistant Super of Police (ASP) in 2005- one of the most prestigious jobs in Bangladesh. As ASP, she worked with Bangladeshi women to help them overcome situations of oppression.

When her husband, a diplomat, was posted abroad, she traveled with him and her family, first to Malaysia, and then to Canada. While in Canada, with the encouragement of her husband, she started a second Master’s in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa. Shortly, she will begin a PhD, which she hopes will help her to represent Bangladesh in the international arena.

In this episode of the Inspiring Women Series, Lovely describes how every woman should have confidence in her own inner strength. Rather than perceiving obstacles as barriers to personal growth, Lovely views them as a source of energy which women can use to gain strength and push themselves to reach their goals.

I interviewed Lovely over Skype from Colombia while she was in Bangladesh, so the connection gets a little fuzzy at times, but it’s definitely worth a listen to learn from her wisdom and courage.

The Inspiring Women Series is a podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of the many women who have inspired me in my life. You can subscribe to the Inspiring Women podcast series in the iTunes Store.

Inspiring Women Series: A Conversation with Enid Keohane

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Happy International Women’s Day!

Today, as we celebrate the many amazing women around the world, I would like to share a conversation I recently had with my Grandma, Enid Keohane (“Nanny”).

It is the first episode in the Inspiring Women Series, a weekly podcast dedicated to sharing the stories of the many women who have inspired me in my life. You can subscribe to the podcast series in the iTunes Store.

 It is very special for me to be able to interview Nanny and celebrate her many important roles as a mother, a teacher, a friend, a grandmother, and a great-grandmother on International Women’s Day, as she is one of the women who has inspired me the most in my life.

Inspiring Women Series

Episode 1: Enid Keohane (“Nanny”)

“You can find the time if you really want to.”

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Enid Keohane, “Nanny,” had 8 children in 10 years and managed to balance her busy family life with her full-time job as a teacher. Photo: Melissa Kew Photography

Enid Keohane, known to me, and everyone else in the Keohane family as “Nanny” was born on July 12, 1929 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

As a young girl, she excelled at balancing many responsibilities from her role as the Head Girl of her high school to her part-time jobs as a model and employee at a department store, to her involvement in recreational activities like skating, skiing, and spending time with her family at the cottage in Norway Bay, Quebec.

This helped her a lot as an adult. Somehow she found the energy to juggle being the mother of eight children while working full-time as a high school business teacher.

“A lot of it depends on your attitude. I know women who have two or three children who would be moping around…they just forgot to enjoy themselves as they went along and count their blessings, and I can certainly do that.”

In this episode, Nanny opens up about how she found the energy to balance her busy personal and professional lives, and the importance of maintaining a positive attitude in everything that you do.