[Music]
curiosity compassion courage community
these are the building blocks of
creating social impact from soup
kitchens to lifting people out of
poverty social impact is really just a
series of people working together to
create change it can happen in living
rooms in classrooms in community halls
at City Hall social impact is a force
for good
everywhere and it’s not just the
activists the do-gooders the tree
huggers the raging grannies everyone can
be a change maker now change starts with
curiosity and you have to be curious
about who you are where you come from
and how the experiences in your life
shaped the way you see the world now I
was born in Hong Kong and we moved to
Canada when I was 2 years old my parents
instilled in me values such as hard work
responsibility and accountability as
traditional Asian parents high marks in
school was a top priority and also like
many Asian parents feeding your child
food was a symbol of giving them good
health in nourishment and they fed me
quite well
[Laughter]
I don’t need to tell you who I was in
that picture this is a picture of me and
three of my cousins were all the same
age different sizes now my curiosity
about myself was also influenced by the
experience that I had as a child
and teachers played a large part in that
in grade two I decided for whatever
reason to audition for the school choir
I could not sing but I auditioned
anyways and this is like American Idol
for seven year olds I got there and I
sang twinkle twinkle little star the
next day the music teacher posted a
piece of paper on the music room door
with all the names of the kids that made
the choir and all of us ran excitedly
and I was right in the middle of it and
I scanned that list of names and I
scanned it again and a third time and my
name was not on that list
virtually every other kid’s name was on
that list and I remember thinking to
myself I’m never ever going to take a
risk ever again fortunately I had
teachers that encouraged other things in
me they encouraged me to be a leader to
organize events to help other students
that need a support and it was those
teachers that gave me the confidence to
focus on my strengths and not my
weaknesses they were the ones that
helped me shape this identity where it
really became about what I was able to
do and not what I was unable to do and I
think it really takes your identity to
form to a point where you know yourself
and then you can focus on helping other
people so it was into high school and
university where I really start to
explore and understand compassion
through volunteering I was interested in
curious about other people and how I
could help now caring and compassion are
part of human nature but I think it also
needs some nurturing recently I have a 3
year old son Gavin and he was goofing
around
at the top of the staircase that led to
our basement and they’re about 20 stairs
he can anticipate what’s gonna happen in
this story he fell down the stairs and
my six-year-old daughter Maddy was
eating dinner at the dinner table
completely apathetic to her brother’s
pain my wife and I ran down and tended
to him and thankfully he was okay so
then we turned our attention to our
daughter and my wife took this as an
opportunity to have a teaching moment
and after the lesson on empathy Maddy
wrote a letter together it’s one of
those times as a parent that you’re
quite proud of what transpires now but
there’s bad news compassion and empathy
have taken a backseat to the pursuit of
wealth in the marketplace compassion is
often seen as an exercise in charity and
there’s nothing wrong with that per se
but when you equate giving back often
more often than not that becomes an
afterthought so we live in this world
where we have certain false assumptions
that we believe that there’s this
invisible hand coordinating all of us
selfish beings and the philosopher Adam
Smith who wrote wealth of nations well
he also wrote another book called Theory
of Moral Sentiments and in that book he
describes human behavior quite
differently than this invisible hand
concept he describes us deriving our
happiness when we see others being happy
yet we still live in this economic model
that casts humanity as primarily selfish
where compassion and empathy are
relegated as an afterthought this needs
to change there are studies that show
empathy does exist
that you can generate empathy between
two people and you can generate empathy
between perfect strangers as well
studies have shown that women are more
empathic than men that testosterone is
correlated to higher levels of
competitive behavior and lower levels of
collaboration so it’s not surprising
that we have walked down this path where
we see environmental destruction and
increasing inequalities in society now
the solution in my view is actually
quite simple it’s not about let’s go
colonize Mars or wait for a major
technical or technological breakthrough
we just have to look within and look
deep into our history for example
indigenous culture believes that all
humans are connected to a common system
are connected to mother earth compassion
is a core value of humanity but we just
need to express it and when it gets
challenged when opposing or misaligned
forces challenge us well that’s when we
need courage I went to University of
Alberta and I had some amazing
professors well when I was there but I
also had some professors that didn’t
believe that social impact in business
necessarily related to each other and
this became increasingly uncomfortable
for me because that conflicted with my
personal values and so this doesn’t
really make sense in retrospect but I
decided to take more school to stay in
school and I committed to doing a PhD my
intention was to explore that space of
integrating sustainability concepts in
our business teaching so I did this PhD
and partway through I was trying to
balance this life of staying involved in
the community but also focusing on
academics so I wasn’t the most
productive PhD student so one day our
PhD coordinator calls me into his office
and
remember it so viscerally it was cold it
was in the winter it has blistering
winds snow was flying it was dark it was
just me and him Friday like 4 o’clock
assist me down and says Leo I think you
should quit the program and it’s one of
those moments where you feel like every
fiber of your body is being tested how
do you respond to this challenge so I
took some time it was probably just a
few seconds but it felt like minutes and
I responded I said no thanks very
Canadian way of responding no thanks
you know I I am committed to the things
that I believe in and I truly believe
that I want to make a difference in this
world I’m gonna stay involved in the
things that I believe in in the
community but I also want to be able to
accomplish some of this through my work
in as an academic through my teaching
and my research so we kind of agreed to
disagree but he didn’t force me out I
luckily survived and I finished my PhD I
mean the story would be very different
if I didn’t finish and it would be a
really flat story so thankfully I
finished and you know I look back at
that time with a lot of pride that I was
able to stand up for some of the beliefs
that I had that if I didn’t know myself
well enough I don’t think I would have
had the courage to stand up at that
challenge point now he asked me he told
me this during our meeting he said
serving the community while serving or
studying business will not make you
successful and that has stuck with me so
much it’s not because my career now is
all in spite of the thing that he said
but when certain people say things to
you it drives a certain type of behavior
and certain type of response and I share
this with my students all the time to
really be the determiner of your own
success and not let other people
determine how you see success
so when you bring people together into a
community and you’re all working for
this common goal to better the lives of
people in this world it is probably the
most powerful experience you’re going to
have you can’t do it alone you have to
work with others and so let me just
demonstrate quickly a simple test to
show the value of collaboration or I
guess the opposite of that in this test
all you need to do is look at the first
three lines of this passage and count
the number of times you see the letter F
for most people you’ll see more than at
least one how many people here see two
F’s how many people see three FS how
many people see four X so the majority
of people saw three EPs let me show you
where those FS are most of you saw this
one most of you saw this one and then
here are
the third and the fourth together now
doing it by yourself the majority were
unsuccessful but if you were able to
collaborate if you could just help each
other you would have avoided this the
syndrome where you repeat the same
strategies so in a community we need to
come together I’m going to leave with
this thought that we want you to promise
yourself to be a change maker express
that to the public
the cozy Johnson a 12 year old he passed
away in with his 12 year old he was a
South African child activist born with
hiv/aids
he said do all you can with what you
have and the time you have in the place
you are because change starts from
within thank you
[Applause]
curiosity compassion courage community
these are the building blocks of
creating social impact from soup
kitchens to lifting people out of
poverty social impact is really just a
series of people working together to
create change it can happen in living
rooms in classrooms in community halls
at City Hall social impact is a force
for good
everywhere and it’s not just the
activists the do-gooders the tree
huggers the raging grannies everyone can
be a change maker now change starts with
curiosity and you have to be curious
about who you are where you come from
and how the experiences in your life
shaped the way you see the world now I
was born in Hong Kong and we moved to
Canada when I was 2 years old my parents
instilled in me values such as hard work
responsibility and accountability as
traditional Asian parents high marks in
school was a top priority and also like
many Asian parents feeding your child
food was a symbol of giving them good
health in nourishment and they fed me
quite well
[Laughter]
I don’t need to tell you who I was in
that picture this is a picture of me and
three of my cousins were all the same
age different sizes now my curiosity
about myself was also influenced by the
experience that I had as a child
and teachers played a large part in that
in grade two I decided for whatever
reason to audition for the school choir
I could not sing but I auditioned
anyways and this is like American Idol
for seven year olds I got there and I
sang twinkle twinkle little star the
next day the music teacher posted a
piece of paper on the music room door
with all the names of the kids that made
the choir and all of us ran excitedly
and I was right in the middle of it and
I scanned that list of names and I
scanned it again and a third time and my
name was not on that list
virtually every other kid’s name was on
that list and I remember thinking to
myself I’m never ever going to take a
risk ever again fortunately I had
teachers that encouraged other things in
me they encouraged me to be a leader to
organize events to help other students
that need a support and it was those
teachers that gave me the confidence to
focus on my strengths and not my
weaknesses they were the ones that
helped me shape this identity where it
really became about what I was able to
do and not what I was unable to do and I
think it really takes your identity to
form to a point where you know yourself
and then you can focus on helping other
people so it was into high school and
university where I really start to
explore and understand compassion
through volunteering I was interested in
curious about other people and how I
could help now caring and compassion are
part of human nature but I think it also
needs some nurturing recently I have a 3
year old son Gavin and he was goofing
around
at the top of the staircase that led to
our basement and they’re about 20 stairs
he can anticipate what’s gonna happen in
this story he fell down the stairs and
my six-year-old daughter Maddy was
eating dinner at the dinner table
completely apathetic to her brother’s
pain my wife and I ran down and tended
to him and thankfully he was okay so
then we turned our attention to our
daughter and my wife took this as an
opportunity to have a teaching moment
and after the lesson on empathy Maddy
wrote a letter together it’s one of
those times as a parent that you’re
quite proud of what transpires now but
there’s bad news compassion and empathy
have taken a backseat to the pursuit of
wealth in the marketplace compassion is
often seen as an exercise in charity and
there’s nothing wrong with that per se
but when you equate giving back often
more often than not that becomes an
afterthought so we live in this world
where we have certain false assumptions
that we believe that there’s this
invisible hand coordinating all of us
selfish beings and the philosopher Adam
Smith who wrote wealth of nations well
he also wrote another book called Theory
of Moral Sentiments and in that book he
describes human behavior quite
differently than this invisible hand
concept he describes us deriving our
happiness when we see others being happy
yet we still live in this economic model
that casts humanity as primarily selfish
where compassion and empathy are
relegated as an afterthought this needs
to change there are studies that show
empathy does exist
that you can generate empathy between
two people and you can generate empathy
between perfect strangers as well
studies have shown that women are more
empathic than men that testosterone is
correlated to higher levels of
competitive behavior and lower levels of
collaboration so it’s not surprising
that we have walked down this path where
we see environmental destruction and
increasing inequalities in society now
the solution in my view is actually
quite simple it’s not about let’s go
colonize Mars or wait for a major
technical or technological breakthrough
we just have to look within and look
deep into our history for example
indigenous culture believes that all
humans are connected to a common system
are connected to mother earth compassion
is a core value of humanity but we just
need to express it and when it gets
challenged when opposing or misaligned
forces challenge us well that’s when we
need courage I went to University of
Alberta and I had some amazing
professors well when I was there but I
also had some professors that didn’t
believe that social impact in business
necessarily related to each other and
this became increasingly uncomfortable
for me because that conflicted with my
personal values and so this doesn’t
really make sense in retrospect but I
decided to take more school to stay in
school and I committed to doing a PhD my
intention was to explore that space of
integrating sustainability concepts in
our business teaching so I did this PhD
and partway through I was trying to
balance this life of staying involved in
the community but also focusing on
academics so I wasn’t the most
productive PhD student so one day our
PhD coordinator calls me into his office
and
remember it so viscerally it was cold it
was in the winter it has blistering
winds snow was flying it was dark it was
just me and him Friday like 4 o’clock
assist me down and says Leo I think you
should quit the program and it’s one of
those moments where you feel like every
fiber of your body is being tested how
do you respond to this challenge so I
took some time it was probably just a
few seconds but it felt like minutes and
I responded I said no thanks very
Canadian way of responding no thanks
you know I I am committed to the things
that I believe in and I truly believe
that I want to make a difference in this
world I’m gonna stay involved in the
things that I believe in in the
community but I also want to be able to
accomplish some of this through my work
in as an academic through my teaching
and my research so we kind of agreed to
disagree but he didn’t force me out I
luckily survived and I finished my PhD I
mean the story would be very different
if I didn’t finish and it would be a
really flat story so thankfully I
finished and you know I look back at
that time with a lot of pride that I was
able to stand up for some of the beliefs
that I had that if I didn’t know myself
well enough I don’t think I would have
had the courage to stand up at that
challenge point now he asked me he told
me this during our meeting he said
serving the community while serving or
studying business will not make you
successful and that has stuck with me so
much it’s not because my career now is
all in spite of the thing that he said
but when certain people say things to
you it drives a certain type of behavior
and certain type of response and I share
this with my students all the time to
really be the determiner of your own
success and not let other people
determine how you see success
so when you bring people together into a
community and you’re all working for
this common goal to better the lives of
people in this world it is probably the
most powerful experience you’re going to
have you can’t do it alone you have to
work with others and so let me just
demonstrate quickly a simple test to
show the value of collaboration or I
guess the opposite of that in this test
all you need to do is look at the first
three lines of this passage and count
the number of times you see the letter F
for most people you’ll see more than at
least one how many people here see two
F’s how many people see three FS how
many people see four X so the majority
of people saw three EPs let me show you
where those FS are most of you saw this
one most of you saw this one and then
here are
the third and the fourth together now
doing it by yourself the majority were
unsuccessful but if you were able to
collaborate if you could just help each
other you would have avoided this the
syndrome where you repeat the same
strategies so in a community we need to
come together I’m going to leave with
this thought that we want you to promise
yourself to be a change maker express
that to the public
the cozy Johnson a 12 year old he passed
away in with his 12 year old he was a
South African child activist born with
hiv/aids
he said do all you can with what you
have and the time you have in the place
you are because change starts from
within thank you
[Applause]
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