Transcript 0:00 When I grew up and I got, you know, a little more well off, I realized, oh, people with money aren't raised like that. They don't take care of each other. People with money believe in separation, in their castle. 0:12 And I don't believe in a castle. I believe in an open door. Hello, and welcome to Breakfast and Launch. I'm Taiwo, your host. 0:18 I want you to know that this is a space for thoughtful conversations with people who are building meaningful lives. So let's get into today's conversation, and thank you for being part of history. 0:28 Welcome to Breakfast and Launch, Al. Thank you for having me. It's, uh, it's a pleasure. I came across you on LinkedIn, and your profile really stood out. First, I think, because of, uh, your eyes were so bright. 0:43 I think you were wearing contacts in it, and it's like- Oh... you weren't? No, I naturally have- Oh... these all the time. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. 0:55 So like I was saying before we, we started recording, like Demonte sounds like a Quebec or something. So tell me, where are you from? How do you have- I'm-... such a rich look? 1:05 [chuckles] Yeah, I am the product, [chuckles] this is a horrible thing to say, but I'm the product of colonization. Um, from the Portuguese to the British to the French, everybody, um, I'm quite mixed. 1:18 So on my mother's side, uh, although she was an orphan, she was born in India, and her mother was Portuguese and East Indian, and her father was Scottish, from what we know. Wow. 1:29 And my father's side is multi-generation, um, British and Portuguese armies. Um, so when you see all my family together, we are the blackest of Black to the whitest of white. [laughs] Um- My gosh. Yeah. Wow. 1:44 So originally I had thought Demont was a French name, and- Mm-hmm... have come to find out that it's actually, uh, part of the Portuguese culture. 1:53 Um, and it was actually, uh, the name originally from my father's side was Bonifacio Demont. So- Wow. Yeah. Man, that's such a rich... Like I wouldn't even be sorry at all to say part of colonization. I think you're, 2:08 you're the essential human, a bit of everything. [laughs] Yeah. A bit of so many different things. Yeah, I think that's true. My whole life I used to say, "Wouldn't it be beautiful if the whole world was beige?" 2:18 [laughs] Wow. Because then you'd have no reason to have any dislike of anybody. Absolutely. Oh. Yeah. So growing up, you grew up in Canada, I guess. Where did you grow up? 2:29 Grew up in, in downtown Toronto in a neighborhood called Parkdale. Okay. So my parents were new immigrants from, they came from England to Toronto, and, um, that's actually a really good story. Um- Tell me... 2:45 uh, I'm a big fan of stories, just so you know. I come from a- That's what this-- Yeah. Go ahead... long family of storytelling. Okay. Lay it on us. So my mom, being the orphan in India, uh, had a dream. 2:57 She was very much a strong feminist, born in the, in 1932, um, and knew that she wanted to live in Canada at some point, specifically Toronto. 3:09 And she, uh, did a lot of hard work, and back then, when you were a young lady in India, you had a choice between raised in a convent to be a nun, get married and have babies, be a teacher or a nurse. 3:23 She chose to be a nurse. Hmm. 3:25 So she went to Delhi, and she was working as a nurse in Delhi, and there was a very important patient there who needed to get back to England and needed to hire a nurse to work on the ship with him to take care of him. 3:41 And my mom applied, and she hired, she got hired. Oh, really? So she went from India through Africa, through everywhere, all the way to England. He helped her get a job in Bristol, 3:51 um, and then he helped her move over to Toronto, and she wanted to be a Canadian citizen on the centennial, so 1967. Wow. 3:59 She got here in 1967, and she worked nights, and every morning she'd go to City Hall and pester people until she got her Canadian citizenship [chuckles] in 1967. Wow. Yeah. 4:10 She- There's something about powerful brown women- Hmm... that just can't be stopped. If they've got- Hmm... a beautiful goal in mind, it will happen. Hmm. Wow. There's no doubt about that. 4:24 So she has that f- And- Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. Sorry. I was just saying the, the funny story about my father, my father had a very tragic story, unfortunately, not funny. Oh. 4:32 He was born and raised in Burma, um, and, uh, part of the British colony, and he unfortunately had to leave when they had a civil war, and he saw a lot of death. His father was murdered, a lot of bad things. 4:46 And then got to India, were in a colony there, and, um, met his first wife, who unfortunately, they were only 21, she passed away during childbirth. Oh. 4:58 So unfortunately, all that tragedy made my dad a bit of a wayfarer of a man. He was an addict. He had a lot of issues. Um, and jump forward to London. My mom's in London. 5:14 She's supposed to go on a blind date with this gentleman, who was actually my dad's brother, my Uncle Bobby. My Uncle Bobby was very well off, had car dealerships, had his act together. 5:25 Unfortunately, Uncle Bobby was sick. Oh, really? So he sent my dad instead. Now, my dad, better looking- [laughs]... a fantastic dancer. He was a party boy. 5:35 [laughs] Fantastic dancer, dressed to the nines, you know, like that whole Fred Astaire type vibe. Uh, went on a date, one date, and my mom was smitten. She moved to Toronto. 5:46 They wrote to each other and called each other for a year, and then he proposed over the phone and came over. Wow. And only then did my mom find out what a job it was to be married to my father. [laughs] Oh my gosh. 6:00 Yeah. That's so funny. And they were- Oh... in their 40s already, so they had me at 45 and 47. Okay. My brother went 11 months before me Uh, so they had a lot-- My mom had a lot on her plate. 6:13 She was the epitome of a strong woman. No judgment. 6:18 She believed, I am not a super religious person, but I believe what my mom taught me to walk in the steps of Jesus or whoever the best example of a human being is to you. And so she didn't judge my father. 6:31 She didn't allow us to judge my father. 6:33 We had to be supportive and, um, understand that not everybody has the blessings that we did, even though our, we were poor and life was really rough for us, um, we still had more than others. 6:45 So that-- I mean, my entire childhood, I was taught to live the way I live now. Wow. Yeah. That's so, so beautiful. How was, how was, uh-- How did their marriage end up being? How did it go eventually? 6:59 When I moved away from home in my early 20s, I was traveling and going all over the place, so I told my dad... My dad and I were very close. 7:05 Both of them have passed now, but I was a daddy's girl, and I said, "Mom cannot handle you on her own, so you need to cut it now." And so he did. Wow. 7:16 They were already in their 70s or late 60s, early 70s, and so he stopped drinking, he stopped doing any other drugs he was doing, and they became best friends. They used to go for walks together and hold hands, and- Wow. 7:31 Yeah, I think he realized my mom was probably the only person he'd ever met that really believed in unconditional. Ooh. When, when you say unconditional, you mean unconditional love? Love. 7:43 I love how you said that as though it's, like, a common thing that I'm supposed to know, like unconditional. Unconditional. [laughs] I know, I-- Well, you know what? 7:50 As I get older, I'm in my 50s now, and as I get older- Mm-hmm... I've realized the more and more people I meet, um, they didn't have the same experience that I did. They h- might have had all the things, 8:03 but not all of the wisdom and love and, um, interest that my parents put into me. Wow. And it really is a, a blessing. 8:16 Like, I often tell my children now, 'cause I have three stepsons and a son, and a daughter, and then two other young ladies that were struggling a bit, so they, I asked them to come live with us. 8:25 And I tell them all the time, "It's hard to teach children who have everything not to be entitled." Mm-hmm. 8:34 Because they want for nothing, but they never ask for anything either, because they kind of have picked up that that's not the vibe around here. We're not here to, you know, your education, yes, 8:45 um, but food, yes, but you have to contribute. You have to be a part of things. Mm-hmm. Wow. So yeah, no, it is shocking how many people haven't had that experience. 8:53 And all my parents raised everybody in our neighborhood. 8:55 They were called Papa Ralph and Mama Mary, and to this day, when I see people, I'm still friends with people I had baths with when I was a child, and they call my mom and dad, Mom and Dad. Aw. 9:07 Yo, th-that is so beautiful. I'm, I'm, I'm wondering now, I was gonna ask you if you are religious, because of some of the language on your profile when you lead with love, lead with kindness. Mm-hmm. 9:19 I am a Christian, so, um, so you're not personally, but you grew up around ethos? Yeah, I grew up, uh, going to Catholic school, Catholic church my whole life. Mm-hmm. 9:29 Uh, I would say my dad and I were really interesting in the sense that in Catholic school, you have to learn world religion. Catholics are not the best recruiters. 9:37 [laughs] They're known for saying, "Go and find it, and if this is not where you wanna be, don't be here." Hmm. And I-- Every year, I took a different religion, and I'd come home, and I'd say, "Dad, I wanna be Jewish." 9:48 My dad was not religious. Yeah. And he'd say, "Why do you wanna be Jewish?" And I'd say, "Because they're not misogynistic, and there's all this spirituality to it that I really like." And my dad said, "Okay." 9:58 Well, he worked for the city, so he said, "Let's go to the city library and look at the history." Wow. Well, what do I find out? There's misogyny. Mm-hmm. There's a lot of things that women aren't allowed to do. 10:07 So I said, "Okay, forget that." [laughs] The next year, I took Buddhism, came home and said, "Dad, I wanna be Buddhist." And he said, "Why do you wanna be Buddhist?" 10:14 And I said, "Because there's no violence, and it's all-encompassing, and it believes in nature." My d- and there, like, no violence. It's beautiful. And my dad said, "Okay, let's go research." 10:26 So we went and researched, and then he said, "Just so you know, I was born and raised in Burma, and during the Civil War when I was a child, the monks were violent. They had to be. They were fighting for rights." 10:38 So there is no religion on this planet who's never had to be violent. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then he said to me, "Why don't you just create Allyism?" [laughs] And I said, "You know what? If I could, I would." Wow. 10:53 And he said, "L. Ron Hubbard did it with, with Scientology." Yeah. Yeah. "So who knows? Maybe you could do something. It could be feminist." Both my parents were activists and feminists. 11:04 Uh, we went to every apartheid rally growing up in Toronto. Like, my parents were very hardcore about taking care of people. Wow. And, uh, I, I thought about it for many years, and most people in my close 11:18 friendship family group all practice Allyism in their own way. [laughs] Uh, most of the people I know- Wow... are Christian, because my daughter goes to- Mm-hmm... Christian. 11:25 My daughter was born, we joke around, this is a horrible thing to say again, we joke around. She was born a Jesus freak, we call her. [laughs] Because we never raised her with religion. Mm-hmm. 11:35 But since she was tiny, she would pray. Ooh. And she would pray like my mother. Wow. My mother had passed away just a year and a half before she was born. So we always said, "Oh, this is my mom coming through her." Wow. 11:48 And she is in this, she's in a Christian academy here in BC, and she has her village, and that's where Lead With Love and Kindness actually spawned. Comes from. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Like I w- So from your daughter? Yeah. 12:01 Or from... Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'Cause I was a single mom, and, uh, I watched all these young ladies that are a part of our circle. Mm-hmm. And I thought, you know, nobody teaches anybody, and women specifically, about leading. 12:14 And how to be a, a leader that is- Mm-hmm... leading with love and kindness, not aggressive- Yeah... not angry- Yeah... not trying to prove anything. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I've never had to. 12:23 I've always just been me and gotten through life really well. And so- Wow... 12:29 we started it, m- me being the oldest, to my daughter being the youngest, and her friends, and any woman in between, and we would just get together once a month, and we'd have a potluck. 12:38 We'd, you know, tell the kids, I'd tell my daughter, "Go ask Gloria," who's 18, "what she thinks of that." And so sh- Gloria would say the same thing I would say, but it's not coming from her mom, 12:51 so it's a little bit easier to digest if it's coming from an 18-year-old that you think is cool. Wow. Right? That was such a smart way to go about raising your, your daughter, right? Yeah. Yeah. 13:01 Where do you, where did you get that from? Um, you know what? I think I got it from my mom and all of her... My mom, my dad used to call them, uh, what did he call them? The, the loafers, the women that all got together. 13:13 They'd all go to church, they'd all go to tea, and they, like, they were, there was no gossip. We were not allowed to say bad words about people. We were not allowed to bring hate. Like, if I came in the door- Mm-hmm... 13:23 and said, "Oh, today at school, Ashley did this," my mom would say, "Stop. Go out the door, close it behind you. Think about how you were involved, and then come in and tell me the real story." 13:35 And with Zed, my daughter, I said I want her to have that same experience. Every-- Like, I was raised in the '70s and '80s, where everybody was watching me. Mm-hmm. 13:43 I couldn't go to the store without somebody saying, "Oh, you're Mary's daughter." [chuckles] And by the time I got home, my mom would say, "So you were at the store." [laughs] Yeah. 13:51 And so I wanted the same experience for her. And- Wow... she has really had it, too. The two girls that live with us have known her since she was a baby. Wow. And yeah, I just, yeah, I believe in a village. 14:05 Yo, Allison, I feel like you're hitting on something that is so resonant with me, and I think it's so important. First off, it seems that you were raised with really good values. Very. Like, 14:17 across, regardless of culture or religion, it sounds like these are some really good values. Was your mom a Christian herself? She was Catholic. Catholic, okay. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. 14:28 She was raised in a Catholic orphanage, which was not good back then, right? Like- Mm-hmm... I was surprised she was still Catholic. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. What-- And you said she was a, like a, um, a strong feminist? Very. 14:41 W- I, I'm getting the vibe that she wasn't the type of feminist we see these days, aggressive. So let me ask you then, from your experience of female leadership and what, what are the types of feminism? 14:56 Is there a bad kind? Is there a good kind? How do we sort? Hmm. That's a really great question. So I was raised with old school feminism, original. 15:07 My mom was a suffragette, which means as a woman, you fight for everything a woman might want. Hmm. So that means the vote. That means going to work. That means being a stay-at-home mom. 15:19 That means having 20 children or no children. Uh, it means that you just believe a woman should have the right to choose what she wants like a man does. Now, I struggle nowadays, because I am older, and 15:35 I don't believe that feminism exists in conjunction with all of the beating up we do of women. Women hurting other women by saying she's too skinny. She had Botox. She is a stay-at-home mom when she should be working. 15:53 She's working too hard. What about her kids? People need to mind their own business and support each other. Women are the hardest on each other. Hmm. And I don't believe in being hard on anybody. I mean, that's a lie. 16:06 [laughs] I believe in being hard on the people that deserve for me to be hard on them. Mm-hmm. And those are bad people in my, in my books. Mm-hmm. Everybody else, it's encouragement. I think that, 16:18 uh, the world, the way the world is now, my counselor and I talk about this all the time. Uh, it's really hard because gone are the values of a little bit of like, "Buck up, little soldier. Tough it out. Be strong." 16:31 The world isn't gonna cave to you. You gotta, you gotta earn your place here. You gotta earn respect. You gotta do those things. It's an expectation now, which I struggle with. Mm-hmm. 16:41 I, I believe-- And I, and I mean, going into healthcare, I believe that is a really big problem in healthcare, 16:48 because there is, from the healthcare side of it to the patient side of it, the entitlement of things is really, really difficult. 16:56 As somebody who's traveled the world, I often have had to say to physicians, admin staff, and patients, "If you understood how hard the rest of the world has it, you would take a breath, and you would do your best." 17:10 It's not to say our system is perfect, and I would make lots of changes in it, but it's not-- There, there, there's no reason to be angry. 17:20 Pain causes anger, so part of the, again, going into my career, lead with love and kindness, my Reiki practice is about grief. 17:27 And people think grief is just death, but grief is you're in a lot of pain, and your surgery's not gonna happen for another two years. You're grieving the life you've lived so far. You want it back. 17:38 You don't know how to deal. Um, I think that, I think there's a lot to be said about how the world is no longer preparing people for those feelings. The world is preparing people to... 17:52 My niece and I talk about this 'cause she's of the next generation, and everything is, "I have to have my boundaries." And I said, "Are those boundaries, or is that shutting down conflict?" You can't shut down conflict. 18:06 You need to be in conflict. Conflict makes you grow. I'm not saying let somebody hit you. But I am saying if somebody disagrees with you, you have to be able to listen to that 18:17 And then you have to be able to speak back to it. Uh-huh. I actually was part of a, a, a, p- well, I wasn't part of. 18:24 I was a person that was really making people angry, because in BC here, in Vancouver, one of the leaders of the KKK was supposed to come and speak at UBC, and everybody was against it except for me. 18:39 I was raised in an environment with p-pa-parents of multiple backgrounds where they didn't know their enemy. They didn't know what people were saying. 18:53 And I was like, "If there's anybody I wanna hear what they have to say, it's the leader of the KKK. I wanna know what he has to say about why we're less than." 19:05 And if I took it down a few levels, I've spent most of my life sitting with people who saw me as a problem or saw me as wrong. Um, and that doesn't matter what color they were or what nationality or what religion. 19:20 And I, my father would always say, "You don't get angry. You lead with knowledge." So growing up, I'm part Portuguese, and Portuguese people would say things to me in Portuguese not understanding that I spoke Portuguese. 19:32 And I would sit down and I'd say, "Oh, where are you from?" And they'd say wherever, one of the islands. And I'd say, "Oh, do you know that island is kind of like Australia? 19:42 Back in the day, the continent of Portugal decided your family, your heritage, were thieves, so they moved you to an island. My family's continental, so we weren't thieves." Continental, your family was continental? Yes. 19:56 What is, what is... I don't understand what that means. So Portugal, uh, is part of the continent of Europe. Yeah. And then part of it's the Azores, which is the islands. Okay. 20:08 And so the islands in Portugal were originally, one island was where the thieves were sent. Oh. One island is where they sent, you know, people that murdered people. 20:19 Um, so there's a long history there where I would have to take my time and explain it, and if they didn't like it, that's fine. But I wasn't gonna take it just sitting down either. Mm-hmm. And 20:35 I once had a patient who was a homeless man, and this is a beautiful story. Yes. Um, he was seen in emergency. He broke his ankle. Um, he left the hospital without being discharged. 20:51 Shows up again, the other ankle's broken. He comes into our office in his wheelchair and he's yelling obscenities, being very aggressive. And the ladies in the office all got nervous and started backing away. 21:04 And I was raised in a very bad neighborhood. Not much scares me. [chuckles] So I went around the counter and I said, "Okay, sir, you need me more than I need you. 21:15 So you need to think about how you're gonna talk to me right now, and if I don't like it, you're gonna leave. And if you make a bigger stink, I'm gonna make those ankles hurt." And he was like, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. 21:30 I need an appointment." So then I, I started talking to him. Now, this patient, who's an addict, has a big swastika on hi- tattooed on his forehead. 21:40 So the doctor that I worked with at the time, he was like my big brother. He's the first person I worked with when I moved to British Columbia. 21:47 He-- I said to him, "He's an addict, but we need to make him better, so we need to get him into rehab. Like, he's gonna die. He's gonna get an infection, he's gonna die." So we worked our hardest. We got him into rehab. 21:59 We got him all healed up. He came to see me, like, weekly to give me updates on how he was doing, and then he was clean. 22:07 It had been about a year and a half, and he said that he found out that his daughter lives in Calgary, and he was gonna drive over and visit her. And I said, "That's amazing. This is your chance, right? Change your life. 22:20 This is the-- Like, you only get a few opt-opportunities in life to do something amazing. Do something amazing." I said, "Do me a favor. Go get that swastika ta-tattoo off your forehead first." And he said, "Never." 22:30 And I said, "Why never?" And he said, "'Cause when I look in the mirror, I wanna remember how bad things can get, and I wanna be able to have a story to say this is wrong and have a visual of it." 22:44 And I was like, "Okay, fair enough." He drives out to go visit his daughter. I get a call a day later from his daughter. A semi-truck had hit him on the highway and he'd passed away. 23:01 Myself and my old boss, Kevin, were listed at hi- as his, um, emergency contacts. It was tr- so tragic. But at the same time, she felt some form of healing because she knew he was coming. 23:18 She knew he was gonna try. He had had a chance to change his life. And I honestly believe that sometimes it's at those points in life that you are taken, that it's your time to go. 23:30 'Cause I, I believe everything is written. We don't have a choice in it. 23:36 We have a choice on the path, but when it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, and you can make some really bad choices during that time, or you can make some really great choices. And he made some great choices. 23:47 And that kept pushing me in healthcare, 'cause I was gonna leave. I'd been in healthcare my whole life and I was done. But I thought, "No, I need to help change people's lives." That's what we're here for, patient care. 23:59 Yo. I was saying that, oh, that is, that is remarkable. One thing that stood out to me in your narration of that story was how you, you showed him, like, tough love. Like, "Hey, you need me more than I need you." 24:15 [chuckles] Yeah. Yeah. I, I feel like- I'm a big fan of tough love Uh-huh. Yeah I w- what I really admire about it is you seem to wear it in a gracious way. Like- I hope so... not even a [laughs] You can ask my kids. 24:31 [laughs] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. They would know. Wow. But I think that was one of the best things that he needed to hear right then, 'cause he listened. Oh. He went, "Okay." Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. 24:43 And there was no judgment. Wow. I think that it's really easy- That's it. That's it. Yeah... for the average human being to see somebody who's hurting and make an assumption about them. Mm-hmm. Nobody chooses that life. 24:58 Having a father that I had, I know for a fact that I'm one really horrible thing away from making bad choices, right? Like, none of us can say, "That will never happen to me." 25:12 A lot of the kids that are on the street right now come from wealthy households, but there's something missing, and that thing that's missing for me always is soul. Like, my soul has to feel lit up. 25:25 My soul has to feel empowered. My soul has to feel like I'm giving back, and we've lost that, I think, in our world. 25:32 Like, when I go back to Toronto, I always feel great, because in Toronto, it still really is about the village. Come on. There's different neighborhoods. Yeah. Everybody's taking care of each other. 25:43 Uh, I grew up with lots of gangs around us, but everybody knew, stay away from Mama Mary's house. 25:47 If anybody went near Mama Mary's house, somebody was gonna get murdered, because she took care of them, they took care of her. 25:53 When I grew up and I got, you know, a little more well off, I realized, oh, people with money aren't raised like that. They don't take care of each other. People with money believe in separation, in their castle. Yeah. 26:07 Yeah. And I don't believe in a castle. I believe in an open door. Wow. And I, I just really struggled with this whole, this whole... 26:16 Uh, when I moved to BC, one of my good friends had said to me once, "Never show up at my house." I was like, "What do you mean never show up at your house?" She's like, "Always call and make plans first." 26:23 I was like, "Why?" She's like, "What if I'm doing laundry? What if I'm not dressed?" I said, "I'm not coming to do any..." 26:27 I said, "Me and my friends that I grew up with, if you're doing laundry, I'll just help you fold, and I'll make a cup of tea while we're doing it, and we'll do things together." But it just wasn't like that for me here. 26:37 Yeah. So it's taken a lot of work. I've been here since 2001, and it's taken a lot of work to find those like-minded people, and guess what? They're mostly all from somewhere else. Yeah. [laughs] Uh, okay. Yeah. 26:49 Let me, um, and okay. I'm from Nigeria. Yeah. I'm from Africa. I moved here seven years ago, 2019. Um, what you're saying is, it's sort of, it's a global phenomenon at this point, where it's like the more 27:06 well-to-do you are, the more exposed to the West you are, the more individualized you become. Mm-hmm. This is happening even in Nigeria, where 27:18 the wealthier families are like, "No, no, we don't go out and play with the other kids." Right. "No, no, we don't." And, um, I've been having this conversation with my wife recently about how we do need a village. 27:32 Mm-hmm. And that is very anti-North American culture. So to hear sh- someone who grew up in Toronto say, "It should be a village," right? Yeah. We, we live in an apartment building, and some days ago, some kids left 27:51 a d- a comic drawing at the doorstep with a little note saying, "Hey, we make comics if you want some." My fir- my instinct was to be annoyed, like, "What is this?" Yeah. 28:01 But then I caught it quickly, and I said, "We should live as a community." Yeah. I really- Be example. Yeah. Like, I should know these kids. We should be like, "Hey, good job." 28:15 But h- here, everyone is so kind of walled off. So I really love to hear this from someone who grew up here. Yeah. Somebody who, who understands, like, just like you said, "I, I don't need to call. I can just show up." 28:30 Yeah. We can just be flexible. Okay. H- what... And then y- you talked about how your, your family, your mom raised you guys that way, with a sense of community. 28:42 I, I feel like that might have been her, the Indian side of her. No, she was Norfolk. Okay. So I think it was her lack of having that love- Oh... around her growing up. Yeah. Like, she was the woman, she was a nurse, so 28:57 if she found out another nurse at work was being beat by her husband, my mom would come home, and she'd say, "Thomas, Allison, move your stuff out of your bedrooms. 29:04 You're gonna be sleeping in the living room for the, until Anne finds a new home." And I, we'd be like, "Who's Anne?" "She's one of the nurses." And she'd say, "You, her and her kids are coming to live in our house. 29:13 They'll live upstairs, we'll live downstairs." And she would take us to this person's house, and she'd say, "I'm gonna knock on the door. Anne and the kids are on their way to our house already." 29:23 When the husband answers, "You two, grab..." We were little. She'd say, "Grab his legs, and if he tries to get you off, just bite." And she's gonna run in and grab some things for them. And then my mom would bolt it. 29:35 She was tiny. She was like four foot eight. And she would run in this house, and my brother and I would hold on as tight as we could. 29:42 And next thing you know, these people are living with us, and there was, like, five families that did. My father's funeral had about 200 people, 29:51 and at that funeral, there were so many people that came up to me and said, "Oh, when I moved here from the Philippines, we lived with you, and your father helped us get a job. 29:59 When I moved here from Africa, we didn't have any warm clothing. Your parents picked us up at the airport with winter c- coats, and, and we stayed with you for a while." 30:07 When my mom passed away, there was over 400 people. They had speakers outside the church. And it was, I don't even know how to explain it. Like, 30:18 at the time, the church, my mom wasn't happy with the church she went to anymore because it was taken over by the brothers, which are very staunch and serious. 30:25 And to my mom To make people want to love your religion, you have to be accepting. You have to make it feel like a home and feel like people are welcome. And so she didn't like that. 30:38 So the, the new brothers that were there were really annoyed [chuckles] that all of these people were at this funeral, that they had to get speakers out, and that it, it ended up a party, really, a beautiful wake, because it was 30:55 people that she had helped them be raised to deliver their babies and then deliver their grandbabies, and they all-- My mom used to knit little caps for the new babies. 31:05 All of them came with their little caps that my mom had knit for their babies, and I hadn't had a kid yet, so I was like, "Can somebody give me one just in case I have one too?" [laughs] Oh my. Wow. Yeah. 31:17 I was gonna say this when you were starting to tell the story, like, I think your dad also had a, a, a huge contribution. Why? Because from what you've said, he also had a very open mind. He wasn't- Yes. 31:32 Yeah, he had an open mind. He encouraged you to explore the world. Yep. Didn't force things on you. Wow. Yeah, my dad was-- I was daddy's little girl. There's no doubt about it. Mm-hmm. 31:41 My mom and I, we didn't fight, but we weren't as close when I was little. Mm-hmm. My dad used to take me to the bar with him, teach me how to play pool, teach me how to play darts. 31:49 He'd say there-- He'd buy me T-shirts that say, "Anything a boy can do, a girl can do better." 31:54 And he would literally say, "There's no way you're gonna turn into a teenager, and you're gonna go to the, the billiard with some boys, and they're gonna be like, 'Let me help you.' No, you're gonna beat them." Oh, wow. 32:05 "You're, you're gonna know how to, you're gonna know how to fix a car. You're gonna change the oil. You're gonna all of it." Oh, wow. And, and there was no judgment, right? Like being a girl- Uh-huh... is hard. 32:14 Back then, especially as a colored girl- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm... '70s and '80s in North America- Mm-hmm... uh, it was difficult, and he was very much like, "No." 32:25 He, he was, he was the person that talked to me about relationships. He was the one, 'cause my mom didn't really have a lot of experience in any of it. Wow. 32:33 So he was the one that said, "Never let a man treat you anything less than what you deserve." Wow. But also, pull your own weight. [laughs] Wow. I feel like-- What this feels like to me is that, that 32:49 your parents had such a strong legacy. Very much. Um- Very much... a phenomenal legacy, and they handed that to you, and you lived it out as this really phenomenal, um, lady leader. Wow. Okay. 33:09 So how can we incorporate this village mindset in our generation here? That's a really, really good question. So I come from the, 33:22 the ancestry, my ancestors are all lead with, like, practice what you preach. Be the change. Don't wait for somebody else to do something. Do it. 33:35 So the only way I've ever been able to see and, like, I'm not one of those people that's like, "Oh, I haven't talked to Jennifer in forever. Ah, she's probably busy," blah, blah, blah. No, I'll just call Jennifer. 33:50 And then when I talk to Jennifer, I'll say, "Jennifer, when's the last time you talked to Nelia? You should give Nelia a call. She misses you." Be an example. Be what you wanna see. When it comes to my home- Mm-hmm... 34:02 I used to say I'm raising my daughter like it's the '70s. There was no tech. There was no TV other than on certain, at certain times you go watch movies. Hmm. 34:11 Otherwise, you're drawing, you're playing, you're out on the street getting dirty. 34:15 And still to this, just on the last weekend, she's almost 13, and there's younger kids in our neighborhood, and she's like, "I'm gonna go check out what the younger kids are doing." 34:21 She ran out there, took out the scooter, ran back in an hour later, grabbed a bunch of jumbo freezies out, and I said, "What are those for?" And she's like, "Well, there's six little kids out there. 34:29 I'm gonna cut them in half and give each of them a half." And I was like, "Good. Share with the kids." [chuckles] And- Oh, man... it just, it just happens. I, I, I love your generous heart. 34:40 I think that's really the, the best way to describe it. I think that our generation tends to be very individualistic, building our own little castles, our own little ideologies. But here you're, you're saying, "Nope. 34:53 Let's share. Let's build together." Wow. Always. Always. Mm-hmm. You always have more than someone else, right? Mm-hmm. You always do. Yeah. Christmas at our house, even though we were dirt poor, we got three presents. 35:04 Before we went to midnight mass, my mom said, "Look at those three wrapped presents under the tree. Pick one to give to church to donate." We didn't know which one we were giving away. 35:11 [chuckles] It could be the best one under the tree. Wow. And she'd say, "Somebody else has less than you do. You have three presents. Somebody has none." Wow. What a woman. 35:24 [chuckles] Hey, thank you for spending time with us. If today's conversation gave you something to think about, I'd love for you to subscribe and join us again next week. Until then, keep building with intention. 35:36 I'll see you at "Breakfast and Launch."
