I had this grandiose idea that on my
50th birthday I was gonna have a big
celebration with friends and family and
we were gonna have a couple of cocktails
and I thought he was kidding who we’re
gonna have lots of cocktails I found out
that my birthday landed in the middle of
a three day event that I was speaking at
and it was out of town and I’m like
bummer what do we do but the event was
amazing
people saying happy birthday and I had a
lot of people come up to me that night
and say hey we’re gonna take you out for
dinner and celebrate your birthday and I
thought awesome I get my cocktails after
a haul but at the end of the day I’m
looking around the room and watching as
people are getting ready to go out and
no one is inviting me here I’m thinking
I’m in a room full of people yet I feel
alone and invisible and it wasn’t just
that it was my birthday and I had no one
to celebrate with it was how it made me
feel unworthy have you ever been in a
room full of people yet felt so
completely alone being in a room full of
people is not community unless you feel
a connection in the age of the internet
Facebook live Instagram snapchat all of
that we are more connected now than we
have ever been yet more people than ever
feel isolated and alone so how can we be
so connected yet feels so isolated well
according to the World Health
Organization 1 million people will end
their life this year that’s one person
every 40 seconds for every person that
is successful another 10 are
unsuccessful in taking their own life so
what do we do well one might argue that
true community is needed for someone to
feel and live a happy and a fulfilled
life despite this false online community
masking our lack of it so I took a look
at my own life and my need for community
and I saw some of the difficulties that
I had in finding it so we’re going to go
on a journey and fall
to fit the timeline so that we can
discover how important it is to find a
group in a community the honors who we
are our beliefs and our interests it is
an innate need and desire for community
and it begins at Birth families forced
some is that instant connection and
community that they feel a sense of
belonging to and a sense of identity and
then there’s families like mine I felt
like the odd duck in my family and when
you don’t feel like you fit into the one
group that you’re supposed to it feels
really isolating we’re all searching for
some form of family as a foundation in
which to build our identity and our
self-esteem on and family really is
where it starts now the notion of family
is different than it was like 50 years
ago we have higher divorce rates
mobility between communities and we have
families living all over the world now
we have we are a cellphone generation of
mobile offices our kids have all these
crazy extracurricular activities and
basically dinner now is in the back of
the car often and dinner really is that
fast-food place your favorite fast-food
place
households today have computers and TVs
in virtually every room in the house
we’re downloading our own shows watching
the by ourselves and we’re self
isolating and this is a fun aunt
phenomenon called
the digital divide so how do we instill
that sense of family community when
friends and family we’re all over the
place well a couple things number one we
need to put family on the calendar and
make it an absolute priority it needs to
be just as important as those sports
events and as those business meetings
our kids need to have a sense of deep
rooted family gatherings they need to
have positive male and female role model
face-to-face so that they can develop a
sense of connection a self of a sense of
self acceptance and self identity so
that they can take that out into the
real world when they have to communicate
with people outside of their families so
what this does is it sets them up for
the school generations and into the
adult years of their
life so elementary school such a great
time for me I was dumped on my bike
pedal my little heart out I couldn’t
wait to get to school and we would play
baseball basketball soccer and my most
favorite game dodgeball it was a game
that required no skill and I was really
super good at it but I found my people I
found my community I had a sense of
belonging to and it was really amazing
and I know that for me it might have
been a unique experience because a lot
of people have told me that they didn’t
have the same experience but this is
such a pivotal time and in a kid’s life
because we’re learning how to connect
and relate to people outside of those
that have to love us our families so
what do you do when someone you know is
the black sheep or the or the odd duck
in grade school
well bullying is really prevalent in
school and often starts in kindergarten
there’s a study done by the ABC News in
2016
that’s over 30,000 kids in the u.s. stay
home from school every day because
they’re afraid to be bullied there’s a
story of a little boy a ten-year-old boy
named Xander from Fredericton New
Brunswick and he was relentlessly
bullied in grade school
his mom tried everything to stop it
within the school system and nothing
worked so she went outside found a u.s.
children’s advocacy group called
defenders of children and here’s what
they did they reached out to all the
bikers in New Brunswick
they went to Xander’s home picked him up
escorted him to school so hopefully his
cool factor went up and the bullying
flatlined we need to band together
including the bikers of our community so
that our children feel like they have a
voice that they’re that they’re heard
and that they feel safe because if we
don’t the consequences are just way too
severe they are a higher risk for
depression suicide anxiety disorders and
perhaps you know violent behaviors and
that can take them into their teenage
and Beyond years then it becomes a major
societal problem and this needs to stop
so what this does banding together for
our kids and having being a voice for
them
is making them that sense of stability
so that when they go to that next level
which is the teenage years those can be
some really tough years teenagers I had
the privilege of reliving my teenage
drama not once but twice in the eyes of
my daughter so besides I want to thank
them but I just want to say oMG I’m so
glad that that’s over with everything is
hyper elevated because of hormones right
they’ve got the push and pull of wanting
to belong yet wanting their independence
and we’re told to be you be unique and
all we’re trying to do is fit in with
the right crowd and be the same and act
the same way my god we even wear the
same thing when I was in high school we
used to wear the color full of cotton
Ginny track pants the Lacoste shirt
collar popped up if any of you remember
that
but the girls nowadays they wear the
Lululemon black yoga pants over and over
and I say to my kids can we jig it up
please let’s it’s not a uniform you can
wear something else but it’s such an and
a fragile time for our kids because they
are they’re clinging to that safety net
of not being excluded because these
cliques are forming and it’s a scary
thing to not be part of that that was
the same in my high school years you
know I tried to fit in and I just
challenged the black sheep in me and we
need to take a look at our teams and say
hmmm how can we help our teams have a
voice because it’s really hard to be the
you that you want to be and be the way
that you feel you have to be in order to
be accepted and a lot of people fake it
and then we throw in social media to the
mix right social media is a tool for
connection in high school it can be a
used a tool is used for disconnection to
shame and to shun and I call it a
digital weapon cyberbullying and that
really absolutely needs to stop so we
need to give our teenagers a boost up
and here a couple of ways you can do
that number one our teenagers need to be
heard so we need to listen without
judgment and without distraction some of
us are helicopter parents
we’re doing everything for our kids but
we need to be teaching them coping and
life strategies so we need to do less
but we need to be more there’s a lot of
communities that are accessible in sorry
there’s a lot of programs that are
accessible in the community and we need
to show our teens what they are they’re
community health nurse the guidance
counselor family doctor help lines
walk-in clinics they’re all there for
our teens because they don’t always want
to come to us we just need to show them
how to have a voice and ask powerfully
for what it is that they need and then
finally we need to break down the
digital divide at home you’re gonna get
resistance and you know they’re probably
gonna swear under their breath but you
know what they’re doing it anyways so
you just might as well get used to it
this sets up our teenagers for the adult
years of when they’re gonna have to
learn how to communicate outside of
their phone or their screen now the
generation between when kids graduate
high school and they have families where
their friends have families is the
easiest time for community you’ve got
friends co-workers colleagues and then
kids even if they’re not your own are an
amazing injector into community all
right just ask cocky parents there is
nothing like a tight game in in a
tournament freezing your butt off in the
middle of winter to have that strong
bond of community and then when kids
hopefully move out and we start to wind
down our careers community takes on a
whole new meaning I like to call these
the transition years now for some this
is what they look like but for me this
is what they looked like as a single
parent of two teenage daughters
navigating them through the teenage
years I felt it alone is deepen as I
focus on their needs and their desires
and I neglected my own and I had what I
call a spiritual breakdown it was on
this human journey of self-discovery
that I was asking myself the questions
Who am I and who will I become and when
I turned 50 which was such a pivotal
point you know let’s the halfway mark or
the downward slope it’s such a good
opportunity to check in and say am I
where I want to be am i living the life
that I want and I don’t have
all the time in the world and this was
amazing for me to do that check-in
because I had a rediscovery and a
rebirth of a person on a mission to find
community that would honor my mind body
and my soul as adults we need the same
amount of support just like our kids do
when we’re on that process of
self-discovery because we’re looking in
the rearview mirror and commiserating
over could haves
and should haves and then we call it a
midlife crisis and we look like this guy
you know we’re trying to figure our
stuff out but it’s just a time when
we’re just trying to figure out who we
are what we want and who wants the same
thing this is stuff you’re crucial time
for us because we need to set up
ourselves and a solid foundation in
community as we set sail onto the golden
years now I’m hoping my golden years
look like this but for so many people
they may not because community
diminishes as we get older with the
death of loved ones reduced mobility and
community is needed the most when I was
38 years old I went back to school for
gerontology and I worked with seniors in
their homes and I discovered that I was
side of their health-related problems
the biggest issues that they had were
feelings of isolation and loneliness
often I was the only person that a
senior would see or speak to in any
given week so can you imagine seeing or
speaking to only one person in a week we
are a culture that used to honor the old
and the wise studies now show that here
in Canada that the suicide rate for
Canadians over the age of 70 are six
times higher than the national rate
the suicide rate highest category for
men is over the age of 80 and I’m like
what seriously and here’s why because
the seniors are living or they grew up
in a slower time right and they’re
trying to keep up in this fast-paced
world that we’ve created their community
centered around their home their church
their clubs and they’re trying to figure
out how to live in this fast-paced world
and many don’t have the skills so we
need to teach them how to have this
so what do we do with their seniors well
we tell our teams to get off the
internet we need to tell our seniors to
get on the internet and become social
media savvy there’s a program in Brazil
from the siene language schools called
speakers exchange where Brazilian
children video chat with seniors who
live in retirement homes in the u.s. so
the kids learn English and the seniors
well they have a sense of community a
sense of value that gets someone to
speak to and most importantly they get
to share their stories there’s another
program in the Netherlands where college
kids live rent-free in retirement homes
so in exchange for free rent they
interact with the seniors on a daily
basis they teach them social media and
the internet and they’re also just there
as companions so when seniors are in
community they thrive and so we need to
do what we do for our kids and we need
to band together as a community for our
seniors so to wrap up we are virtually
never more than a click away from anyone
around the world yet so many people feel
isolated and without a sense of
community and this needs to stop we
don’t need to go back to the 50s but we
do need to encourage or push ourselves
our friends our families to seek out a
community that honors who we are a
couple of weeks ago I was going to a
networking event and in a short drive
from Mississauga to Toronto I started to
talk myself out of going I was getting
anxious and I’m feeling all you know
what if I get rejected and with nobody
likes me and then I’m thinking it’s way
easier just to stay at home but I forced
myself I went and I had a great time and
met a lot of amazing people I felt
empowered and connected and I wouldn’t
if I had chickened out and stayed home
and that’s the power of community there
are so many messed up things going on in
this world and if you’re like me you may
think that some of them aren’t as
fixable having experienced and
researched the power of community I can
safely say that the answer is simple and
it’s at our fingertips we just need to
reach out and make an effort so
community it
make you live longer give you a sense of
value a sense of self it makes you
healthy healthier mentally and
physically and the world just looks a
little bit brighter and a little bit
more beautiful so community is the
simple solution for some of the complex
problems we face in this world today
thank you for listening
[Applause]
50th birthday I was gonna have a big
celebration with friends and family and
we were gonna have a couple of cocktails
and I thought he was kidding who we’re
gonna have lots of cocktails I found out
that my birthday landed in the middle of
a three day event that I was speaking at
and it was out of town and I’m like
bummer what do we do but the event was
amazing
people saying happy birthday and I had a
lot of people come up to me that night
and say hey we’re gonna take you out for
dinner and celebrate your birthday and I
thought awesome I get my cocktails after
a haul but at the end of the day I’m
looking around the room and watching as
people are getting ready to go out and
no one is inviting me here I’m thinking
I’m in a room full of people yet I feel
alone and invisible and it wasn’t just
that it was my birthday and I had no one
to celebrate with it was how it made me
feel unworthy have you ever been in a
room full of people yet felt so
completely alone being in a room full of
people is not community unless you feel
a connection in the age of the internet
Facebook live Instagram snapchat all of
that we are more connected now than we
have ever been yet more people than ever
feel isolated and alone so how can we be
so connected yet feels so isolated well
according to the World Health
Organization 1 million people will end
their life this year that’s one person
every 40 seconds for every person that
is successful another 10 are
unsuccessful in taking their own life so
what do we do well one might argue that
true community is needed for someone to
feel and live a happy and a fulfilled
life despite this false online community
masking our lack of it so I took a look
at my own life and my need for community
and I saw some of the difficulties that
I had in finding it so we’re going to go
on a journey and fall
to fit the timeline so that we can
discover how important it is to find a
group in a community the honors who we
are our beliefs and our interests it is
an innate need and desire for community
and it begins at Birth families forced
some is that instant connection and
community that they feel a sense of
belonging to and a sense of identity and
then there’s families like mine I felt
like the odd duck in my family and when
you don’t feel like you fit into the one
group that you’re supposed to it feels
really isolating we’re all searching for
some form of family as a foundation in
which to build our identity and our
self-esteem on and family really is
where it starts now the notion of family
is different than it was like 50 years
ago we have higher divorce rates
mobility between communities and we have
families living all over the world now
we have we are a cellphone generation of
mobile offices our kids have all these
crazy extracurricular activities and
basically dinner now is in the back of
the car often and dinner really is that
fast-food place your favorite fast-food
place
households today have computers and TVs
in virtually every room in the house
we’re downloading our own shows watching
the by ourselves and we’re self
isolating and this is a fun aunt
phenomenon called
the digital divide so how do we instill
that sense of family community when
friends and family we’re all over the
place well a couple things number one we
need to put family on the calendar and
make it an absolute priority it needs to
be just as important as those sports
events and as those business meetings
our kids need to have a sense of deep
rooted family gatherings they need to
have positive male and female role model
face-to-face so that they can develop a
sense of connection a self of a sense of
self acceptance and self identity so
that they can take that out into the
real world when they have to communicate
with people outside of their families so
what this does is it sets them up for
the school generations and into the
adult years of their
life so elementary school such a great
time for me I was dumped on my bike
pedal my little heart out I couldn’t
wait to get to school and we would play
baseball basketball soccer and my most
favorite game dodgeball it was a game
that required no skill and I was really
super good at it but I found my people I
found my community I had a sense of
belonging to and it was really amazing
and I know that for me it might have
been a unique experience because a lot
of people have told me that they didn’t
have the same experience but this is
such a pivotal time and in a kid’s life
because we’re learning how to connect
and relate to people outside of those
that have to love us our families so
what do you do when someone you know is
the black sheep or the or the odd duck
in grade school
well bullying is really prevalent in
school and often starts in kindergarten
there’s a study done by the ABC News in
2016
that’s over 30,000 kids in the u.s. stay
home from school every day because
they’re afraid to be bullied there’s a
story of a little boy a ten-year-old boy
named Xander from Fredericton New
Brunswick and he was relentlessly
bullied in grade school
his mom tried everything to stop it
within the school system and nothing
worked so she went outside found a u.s.
children’s advocacy group called
defenders of children and here’s what
they did they reached out to all the
bikers in New Brunswick
they went to Xander’s home picked him up
escorted him to school so hopefully his
cool factor went up and the bullying
flatlined we need to band together
including the bikers of our community so
that our children feel like they have a
voice that they’re that they’re heard
and that they feel safe because if we
don’t the consequences are just way too
severe they are a higher risk for
depression suicide anxiety disorders and
perhaps you know violent behaviors and
that can take them into their teenage
and Beyond years then it becomes a major
societal problem and this needs to stop
so what this does banding together for
our kids and having being a voice for
them
is making them that sense of stability
so that when they go to that next level
which is the teenage years those can be
some really tough years teenagers I had
the privilege of reliving my teenage
drama not once but twice in the eyes of
my daughter so besides I want to thank
them but I just want to say oMG I’m so
glad that that’s over with everything is
hyper elevated because of hormones right
they’ve got the push and pull of wanting
to belong yet wanting their independence
and we’re told to be you be unique and
all we’re trying to do is fit in with
the right crowd and be the same and act
the same way my god we even wear the
same thing when I was in high school we
used to wear the color full of cotton
Ginny track pants the Lacoste shirt
collar popped up if any of you remember
that
but the girls nowadays they wear the
Lululemon black yoga pants over and over
and I say to my kids can we jig it up
please let’s it’s not a uniform you can
wear something else but it’s such an and
a fragile time for our kids because they
are they’re clinging to that safety net
of not being excluded because these
cliques are forming and it’s a scary
thing to not be part of that that was
the same in my high school years you
know I tried to fit in and I just
challenged the black sheep in me and we
need to take a look at our teams and say
hmmm how can we help our teams have a
voice because it’s really hard to be the
you that you want to be and be the way
that you feel you have to be in order to
be accepted and a lot of people fake it
and then we throw in social media to the
mix right social media is a tool for
connection in high school it can be a
used a tool is used for disconnection to
shame and to shun and I call it a
digital weapon cyberbullying and that
really absolutely needs to stop so we
need to give our teenagers a boost up
and here a couple of ways you can do
that number one our teenagers need to be
heard so we need to listen without
judgment and without distraction some of
us are helicopter parents
we’re doing everything for our kids but
we need to be teaching them coping and
life strategies so we need to do less
but we need to be more there’s a lot of
communities that are accessible in sorry
there’s a lot of programs that are
accessible in the community and we need
to show our teens what they are they’re
community health nurse the guidance
counselor family doctor help lines
walk-in clinics they’re all there for
our teens because they don’t always want
to come to us we just need to show them
how to have a voice and ask powerfully
for what it is that they need and then
finally we need to break down the
digital divide at home you’re gonna get
resistance and you know they’re probably
gonna swear under their breath but you
know what they’re doing it anyways so
you just might as well get used to it
this sets up our teenagers for the adult
years of when they’re gonna have to
learn how to communicate outside of
their phone or their screen now the
generation between when kids graduate
high school and they have families where
their friends have families is the
easiest time for community you’ve got
friends co-workers colleagues and then
kids even if they’re not your own are an
amazing injector into community all
right just ask cocky parents there is
nothing like a tight game in in a
tournament freezing your butt off in the
middle of winter to have that strong
bond of community and then when kids
hopefully move out and we start to wind
down our careers community takes on a
whole new meaning I like to call these
the transition years now for some this
is what they look like but for me this
is what they looked like as a single
parent of two teenage daughters
navigating them through the teenage
years I felt it alone is deepen as I
focus on their needs and their desires
and I neglected my own and I had what I
call a spiritual breakdown it was on
this human journey of self-discovery
that I was asking myself the questions
Who am I and who will I become and when
I turned 50 which was such a pivotal
point you know let’s the halfway mark or
the downward slope it’s such a good
opportunity to check in and say am I
where I want to be am i living the life
that I want and I don’t have
all the time in the world and this was
amazing for me to do that check-in
because I had a rediscovery and a
rebirth of a person on a mission to find
community that would honor my mind body
and my soul as adults we need the same
amount of support just like our kids do
when we’re on that process of
self-discovery because we’re looking in
the rearview mirror and commiserating
over could haves
and should haves and then we call it a
midlife crisis and we look like this guy
you know we’re trying to figure our
stuff out but it’s just a time when
we’re just trying to figure out who we
are what we want and who wants the same
thing this is stuff you’re crucial time
for us because we need to set up
ourselves and a solid foundation in
community as we set sail onto the golden
years now I’m hoping my golden years
look like this but for so many people
they may not because community
diminishes as we get older with the
death of loved ones reduced mobility and
community is needed the most when I was
38 years old I went back to school for
gerontology and I worked with seniors in
their homes and I discovered that I was
side of their health-related problems
the biggest issues that they had were
feelings of isolation and loneliness
often I was the only person that a
senior would see or speak to in any
given week so can you imagine seeing or
speaking to only one person in a week we
are a culture that used to honor the old
and the wise studies now show that here
in Canada that the suicide rate for
Canadians over the age of 70 are six
times higher than the national rate
the suicide rate highest category for
men is over the age of 80 and I’m like
what seriously and here’s why because
the seniors are living or they grew up
in a slower time right and they’re
trying to keep up in this fast-paced
world that we’ve created their community
centered around their home their church
their clubs and they’re trying to figure
out how to live in this fast-paced world
and many don’t have the skills so we
need to teach them how to have this
so what do we do with their seniors well
we tell our teams to get off the
internet we need to tell our seniors to
get on the internet and become social
media savvy there’s a program in Brazil
from the siene language schools called
speakers exchange where Brazilian
children video chat with seniors who
live in retirement homes in the u.s. so
the kids learn English and the seniors
well they have a sense of community a
sense of value that gets someone to
speak to and most importantly they get
to share their stories there’s another
program in the Netherlands where college
kids live rent-free in retirement homes
so in exchange for free rent they
interact with the seniors on a daily
basis they teach them social media and
the internet and they’re also just there
as companions so when seniors are in
community they thrive and so we need to
do what we do for our kids and we need
to band together as a community for our
seniors so to wrap up we are virtually
never more than a click away from anyone
around the world yet so many people feel
isolated and without a sense of
community and this needs to stop we
don’t need to go back to the 50s but we
do need to encourage or push ourselves
our friends our families to seek out a
community that honors who we are a
couple of weeks ago I was going to a
networking event and in a short drive
from Mississauga to Toronto I started to
talk myself out of going I was getting
anxious and I’m feeling all you know
what if I get rejected and with nobody
likes me and then I’m thinking it’s way
easier just to stay at home but I forced
myself I went and I had a great time and
met a lot of amazing people I felt
empowered and connected and I wouldn’t
if I had chickened out and stayed home
and that’s the power of community there
are so many messed up things going on in
this world and if you’re like me you may
think that some of them aren’t as
fixable having experienced and
researched the power of community I can
safely say that the answer is simple and
it’s at our fingertips we just need to
reach out and make an effort so
community it
make you live longer give you a sense of
value a sense of self it makes you
healthy healthier mentally and
physically and the world just looks a
little bit brighter and a little bit
more beautiful so community is the
simple solution for some of the complex
problems we face in this world today
thank you for listening
[Applause]
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