[Applause]
last year I was in Ottawa for a
conference on women and minorities in
politics and just like any other
conference there were panelists speakers
and workshops
but there was one workshop in particular
that really dropped
caught my attention it was called how to
network so a couple friends and I were
like we don’t know how to network let’s
go figure this out so we decided to go
to it and everything was fine at first
we were chatting with people getting to
know them getting into discussion groups
but then one of the women leading the
workshops said something that shocked me
she said that networking is about
collecting people and that the more
people that you collect the more
successful you’ll be and it was in this
moment that I realized that networking
is when she said this it sound
like she was telling me that all the
relationships in my life had to serve
some sort of purpose and if I ever
wanted to make it in politics I have to
use my friends for their power and on
some level she was right some people do
meet a new person and within five
minutes land their dream job or they
have friends in high places that are
able to get them interviews but for the
average person the idea of networking is
super stressful because you’re pressured
to go and find these influential people
and get them to give you a job without
even knowing you it forces us to engage
in superficial small talk that we all
like to say that we hate but then still
do it anyways and it doesn’t allow us to
have those unique and weird
conversations that we love it doesn’t
allow us to have challenging
conversations that make us uncomfortable
and when it comes down to it networking
doesn’t allow us to be vulnerable with
the people that we meet and this is
where a major problem in our politics
comes from in our political world we’ve
become so depersonalized that we’re
constantly trying to take the humanity
and lived experiences out of our
professional
interactions when we think about our
co-workers for example we don’t really
see them as human beings we’re like I
don’t want to know what you do in your
free time but why why do we run to these
safe conversations about the weather why
do we do this it’s just really shocking
to me and to give an example just a few
weeks ago I was an event at an event and
I met this guy and we started talking
and we realized that we had a lot in
common in terms of music you know and
our political views and we were just
having a real genuine conversation
between two people who loved to spend
their free time at obscure music venues
that nobody knows about but then he
asked me this question he said so where
do you work and I immediately put aside
every passionate thing I was about to
tell him about my love for music and
Edmonton and everything that had to do
with my identity and I just told him
what the mundane things that I do in my
everyday work life now imagine if we had
stayed on the topic of music if we had
put ourselves out there and decided that
we were going to be real like that with
each other it would have been awkward
and hilarious but most importantly it
would have been authentic but neither of
us did this and it’s because society
teaches us to compartmentalize to put up
walls and to hide our feelings and I
think that networking culture teaches us
all this it tells us that there’s a
script but why should there be life
doesn’t have a script things just happen
you get a job or an opportunity or
someone passes away it just kind of
happens you don’t have much control over
that if you really think about it so why
when we think about politics do we think
about this cold unforgiving calculated
place where we have to think about every
single conversation that we’re gonna
have with somebody before we even meet
them cutting this emotion out of our
politics is giving us emotionless
leaders that don’t understand the
everyday struggle of a human being
and as a woman in politics of as a woman
of color in politics it’s been
incredibly difficult because there’s
always this pressure on you to be this
inauthentic politician at that same
event that I met the musician that I
realized that I was one of five people
of color in a room of about 200 people
and in that moment I realized that
networking is also inherently privileged
that the same people in those positions
of power always get together and hang
out and get to know each other even more
instead of inviting other people into
those spaces for us marginalized folks
and for people outside of academia we
have to try 10 times harder just to get
invited into those spaces and when we do
become insiders we’re told to stay
silent on issues like race and identity
and our lived experiences and what we’ve
gone through so it’s worth considering
that when the space is where connections
are being made aren’t diverse we can’t
expect positions of power to be filled
by diverse people so a simple solution
that I would suggest that we can do in
our everyday lives is to engage in
mentorship now this is this doesn’t mean
completely cut off making connections
and just kind of mentoring like one
person it means changes the way that you
that you network when you meet somebody
for the first time and you think that
they genuinely have something to offer
to the world commit your time to them
give them the tools to succeed and tell
them how you became successful and what
your struggles were give them real life
stories real experiences give them job
applications sit down with them and tell
them how to build their resume and how
you built your own resume it’s not a
secret you don’t have to compete and be
like I’m not gonna show you my resume
because it’s my resume that doesn’t
really make any sense
or better yet when you are somebody
who’s looking for connections seek out
people who are willing to be mentors and
this doesn’t mean you have to go up to a
politician like an MLA or an MP or
something and be like tell me how you
became
so popular or how you got to this
position instead look to your
communities look to people in your
school or your workplaces who are
willing to give you actual advice and
who are willing to give you a real human
so as we become leaders in our everyday
lives I encourage you to seek out better
politics is becoming so detached and
competitive that our politicians start
to seem like robots they don’t even seem
like real people and we see this every
day on the news when we see an elected
official get up on the stage and try to
push their own agenda instead of
actually listen to people’s pains and
their stories or even in universities
when student politicians tell us about
reconciliation and equity but when it
comes down to it aren’t willing to give
up the candidates mantle for a
marginalized person to run in for that
position so it’s time for us to put
aside posters and stop organizing mixers
and instead look into ourselves
and think about how we’re actually
interacting with people on an everyday
level so if when we do this and we shift
away from networking it allows us to
kind of just let things happen and not
force things and not put something out
there that we think is right rather than
what we know is right for us in politics
especially we get so caught up in
following this linear path where we have
to run for student body president and
then run for council and become the
premier and then become the prime
minister or the president that we lose
sight of why we’re even in politics in
the first place we’re not here to
collect people we’re here to understand
people we’re not here to break each
other down we’re here to lift each other
up one of my favorite Harry Potter
quotes puts it perfectly in saying that
those best suited to power are the ones
who never sought it in the first place
and for my own spin on this maybe it’s
worth considering that the people who
don’t seek to collect people are the
ones most worthy of our time and of our
votes thank you [Applause]
last year I was in Ottawa for a
conference on women and minorities in
politics and just like any other
conference there were panelists speakers
and workshops
but there was one workshop in particular
that really dropped
caught my attention it was called how to
network so a couple friends and I were
like we don’t know how to network let’s
go figure this out so we decided to go
to it and everything was fine at first
we were chatting with people getting to
know them getting into discussion groups
but then one of the women leading the
workshops said something that shocked me
she said that networking is about
collecting people and that the more
people that you collect the more
successful you’ll be and it was in this
moment that I realized that networking
is when she said this it sound
like she was telling me that all the
relationships in my life had to serve
some sort of purpose and if I ever
wanted to make it in politics I have to
use my friends for their power and on
some level she was right some people do
meet a new person and within five
minutes land their dream job or they
have friends in high places that are
able to get them interviews but for the
average person the idea of networking is
super stressful because you’re pressured
to go and find these influential people
and get them to give you a job without
even knowing you it forces us to engage
in superficial small talk that we all
like to say that we hate but then still
do it anyways and it doesn’t allow us to
have those unique and weird
conversations that we love it doesn’t
allow us to have challenging
conversations that make us uncomfortable
and when it comes down to it networking
doesn’t allow us to be vulnerable with
the people that we meet and this is
where a major problem in our politics
comes from in our political world we’ve
become so depersonalized that we’re
constantly trying to take the humanity
and lived experiences out of our
professional
interactions when we think about our
co-workers for example we don’t really
see them as human beings we’re like I
don’t want to know what you do in your
free time but why why do we run to these
safe conversations about the weather why
do we do this it’s just really shocking
to me and to give an example just a few
weeks ago I was an event at an event and
I met this guy and we started talking
and we realized that we had a lot in
common in terms of music you know and
our political views and we were just
having a real genuine conversation
between two people who loved to spend
their free time at obscure music venues
that nobody knows about but then he
asked me this question he said so where
do you work and I immediately put aside
every passionate thing I was about to
tell him about my love for music and
Edmonton and everything that had to do
with my identity and I just told him
what the mundane things that I do in my
everyday work life now imagine if we had
stayed on the topic of music if we had
put ourselves out there and decided that
we were going to be real like that with
each other it would have been awkward
and hilarious but most importantly it
would have been authentic but neither of
us did this and it’s because society
teaches us to compartmentalize to put up
walls and to hide our feelings and I
think that networking culture teaches us
all this it tells us that there’s a
script but why should there be life
doesn’t have a script things just happen
you get a job or an opportunity or
someone passes away it just kind of
happens you don’t have much control over
that if you really think about it so why
when we think about politics do we think
about this cold unforgiving calculated
place where we have to think about every
single conversation that we’re gonna
have with somebody before we even meet
them cutting this emotion out of our
politics is giving us emotionless
leaders that don’t understand the
everyday struggle of a human being
and as a woman in politics of as a woman
of color in politics it’s been
incredibly difficult because there’s
always this pressure on you to be this
inauthentic politician at that same
event that I met the musician that I
realized that I was one of five people
of color in a room of about 200 people
and in that moment I realized that
networking is also inherently privileged
that the same people in those positions
of power always get together and hang
out and get to know each other even more
instead of inviting other people into
those spaces for us marginalized folks
and for people outside of academia we
have to try 10 times harder just to get
invited into those spaces and when we do
become insiders we’re told to stay
silent on issues like race and identity
and our lived experiences and what we’ve
gone through so it’s worth considering
that when the space is where connections
are being made aren’t diverse we can’t
expect positions of power to be filled
by diverse people so a simple solution
that I would suggest that we can do in
our everyday lives is to engage in
mentorship now this is this doesn’t mean
completely cut off making connections
and just kind of mentoring like one
person it means changes the way that you
that you network when you meet somebody
for the first time and you think that
they genuinely have something to offer
to the world commit your time to them
give them the tools to succeed and tell
them how you became successful and what
your struggles were give them real life
stories real experiences give them job
applications sit down with them and tell
them how to build their resume and how
you built your own resume it’s not a
secret you don’t have to compete and be
like I’m not gonna show you my resume
because it’s my resume that doesn’t
really make any sense
or better yet when you are somebody
who’s looking for connections seek out
people who are willing to be mentors and
this doesn’t mean you have to go up to a
politician like an MLA or an MP or
something and be like tell me how you
became
so popular or how you got to this
position instead look to your
communities look to people in your
school or your workplaces who are
willing to give you actual advice and
who are willing to give you a real human
so as we become leaders in our everyday
lives I encourage you to seek out better
politics is becoming so detached and
competitive that our politicians start
to seem like robots they don’t even seem
like real people and we see this every
day on the news when we see an elected
official get up on the stage and try to
push their own agenda instead of
actually listen to people’s pains and
their stories or even in universities
when student politicians tell us about
reconciliation and equity but when it
comes down to it aren’t willing to give
up the candidates mantle for a
marginalized person to run in for that
position so it’s time for us to put
aside posters and stop organizing mixers
and instead look into ourselves
and think about how we’re actually
interacting with people on an everyday
level so if when we do this and we shift
away from networking it allows us to
kind of just let things happen and not
force things and not put something out
there that we think is right rather than
what we know is right for us in politics
especially we get so caught up in
following this linear path where we have
to run for student body president and
then run for council and become the
premier and then become the prime
minister or the president that we lose
sight of why we’re even in politics in
the first place we’re not here to
collect people we’re here to understand
people we’re not here to break each
other down we’re here to lift each other
up one of my favorite Harry Potter
quotes puts it perfectly in saying that
those best suited to power are the ones
who never sought it in the first place
and for my own spin on this maybe it’s
worth considering that the people who
don’t seek to collect people are the
ones most worthy of our time and of our
votes thank you [Applause]
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