Conversations for Change interview

This last year in 2010 I learned of a book called High on Life edited by Nejeed Kassam and then later on I learned there was going to documentary called Conversations for Change. All of it seemed so wonderful, the basic concept-write a book and film a documentary around all kinds of different people that are out there making change. The age range for these changemakers? all ages-young and old.

I had the pleasure of meeting with some of the people from this project and I am continuing to be amazed as they continue to travel and edit and film and write.

A couple of days ago I was interviewed by the group and here was what I had to say: Interview with Conversations for Change



1) What inspired you to become involved in Social Change?

When I first started out I never even thought of my actions being referred to as social change. I only ever thought of the projects I was involved in as being fun and involving as many “cool” people as I could in and around the projects I was involved in. It was only after I had started, completed, and then started some new projects that I realized two things:

1. That I was actually having a ton of fun for myself and it seemed like the people around me were having fun

2. That we are actually making a difference in so many people’s lives.

This was perhaps one of the most powerful realizations that I had ever made in my life, along with the fact that I could actually make this sustainable by creating a really fun job out of it all. Once I started living and breathing in this sector it has been about the people all along, be it the people I work with, the people I work for, or the people I serve, all who inspire me. Every ounce of inspiration comes down to people. I would never have driven for 2 hours to give a 1.5 hour practice twice a week for over 5 years if I didn’t love the people I was doing it for. I wouldn’t have spent thousands of dollars and hours working on projects if I didn’t get to spend it working along side so many other hardworking and caring individuals.

So long story short, what inspires me, your everyday average Joe who cares, that is what/who inspires me.

2) What projects are you currently involved with?

Running Creativision keeps me pretty busy most of the days with everything from working with executives on creativity training, to helping university students figure out what the hell they want to do with their life, to helping companies creatively design their next brand, and everything in between.

However, there are two main things that are on the forefront of my radar these days. The first is a book I’m co-authoring with a good friend of mine, Collin Vine, called Career Chaos: What the hell are you going to do with your life? This book is interviewing literally hundreds of people all across Canada between the ages 4 and 98 asking how we figure life out? What we should do? Where we should go? If we could do it all over again what would we do? Would we change what we learned? How we learned? How would we deal with chaos? So far there have been so many amazing stories with so many surprise endings to many people’s stories.
The second major project that I’m working on is a combination of 2 things the first is a day for students to come together, get creative, and put out some useful products or services to the community. This day will be called “A Day of Play, Seriously!” This day will lead into a 5 week program in the summer where youth, ages 10-16 will be able to join for the first 4 weeks, again being challenged to solve some of our communities challenges in fun and creative ways. Then in the final week, perhaps the most fun week for me, the youth will be joined by a few adults to work on one final community challenge. The only catch, in this final week the youth will be the creative experts and will lead the adults as project managers through solving a community challenge.

To learn more, to follow along, and to find out how you can help with any of these projects come visit www.creativision.ca

3) What is, if you have one, the message that you would like others to hear? What can other inspiring young change-makers do in their communities to help enact social change?

My message is always about one thing, to have fun in life. Do the things in life that YOU want to do (believe me, many people will want to pull you in a million different ways, reflect and think about what you really want), make sure you can do it for a long time, do it with people who make you smile, and really give it (whatever “it” is) all you have. Come at the work you want to do from a million different angles (practice creativity, be creative). Finally always be willing to change the course, to learn something new, and be prepared to teach others, because believe me no one will think quite the same as you, so having all of those skills just mentioned will take you a long way in being a change-maker.

Change is really hard, but when it happens, man does it ever feel good!