Leading Moms Podcast

1.05 Mi-Jung Lee: Seeing Snowballs In A Snowstorm

“I felt like saying to God, ‘There’s been some mistake here – I report the bad news. I’m not supposed to be the subject of the bad news,’” muses CTV anchor Mi-Jung Lee on discovering she had breast cancer, who then went on to raise awareness about the double jeopardy of dense breast tissue. “Sharing one’s story allows someone to put their hand out and prevent us from drowning.” Mi-Jung Lee - Leading Moms Podcast [https://i0.wp.com/www.leadingmoms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Mi-Jung-Lee-rectangle-social-tile.png?w=1250] [http://content.blubrry.com/leadingmoms/LM_01_05_podcast-mi-jung_lee.mp3]LEADING MOMS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: MI-JUNG LEE, SEEING SNOWBALLS IN A SNOWSTORM I have two teenage boys aged 15 and 17 and everyone tells me, “You know what, it’s a lot easier raising boys as teenagers than girls.” I’m going, “Okay.” With girls I’m told it’s the drama. It’s the emotional rollercoaster the emotional volatility but with boys it can be the opposite – inertia. Their days can be just all about monosyllabic answers to every question that you give them. Sometimes it’s not even words, it’s just two letters and a number like PS4. Sometimes they make me LOL. Other times they make me FOL. Yeah, that’s a new one, it’s freak out loud. But, one day stands out in my mind when FOL was absolutely justified. Our oldest son left really early that morning on his bike, around 6:00am as he had an early class. We didn’t think too much about it, he was in high school at the time. We thought, “Oh, wow. Isn’t that great? He’s riding his bike to school.” At our kids’ school when a student is absent, they call home. We can retrieve our messages from work and there’s an automated voicemail message on our home machine that said, “A student in your household was absent for period one, period two, period three.” I’m thinking, “what is going on”. With both parents working, it can be a challenge to deal remotely with issues. You feel helpless, but there is one app that can help when you’re feeling helpless. It’s called Find My Friends. It can ease some of the pain. If your kids have an iPhone you can use GPS to find out exactly where they are. So, we did that. We look him up and it says Sunshine Coast. I’m going, “What? The Sunshine Coast?” It’s a school day and my teenage son is in Gibsons? No, he was not abducted. There was no need for an Amber Alert. He went on his own free will with a friend who was kind of a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. You can imagine how furious we were. I thought how narcissistic of him but you know, teenagers are narcissistic – that’s why they drive around with cars that have N on them. I said, “How could we have raised such a self-centered teenager?” Later that evening we sat and talked with him. Well, talked might be a bit of a euphemism. We punished him and knock on wood he hasn’t pulled that kind of stunt again. But, the bigger issue is: parents, how are we going to raise a child who is not so self-focused, who is not so narcissistic and who thinks of the community? Well, living by example is key. If I want my child to be aware of the community I have to behave that way. I have to lead by example. Let’s face it, as adults we’re pretty self-centered but we’ve replaced the self with family. We become family-centered and very few of us actually think of the wider community. Hitting a Like button on Facebook or Instagram does not count for being a agent of change. I mean, voter turnout in BC is 52%. In Vancouver’s Civic election, the voter turnout was 43%. We’re a pretty apathetic lot. For the average person, complacency only gets shoved aside when there’s a crisis. My job is to interview or tell stories about people who have been shaken out of their normal routines; sometimes it’s a tragedy. One of the toughest things about being a journalist is to interview a grieving parent – I used to feel bad asking. I don’t feel so bad now because often in their darkest moments people want to tell their story. Sometimes in our deepest personal crisis, we feel most connected with our community. When the storm is raging within, we reach out for that life preserver. And sharing one’s story allows someone to put their hand out and prevent us from drowning. That’s when we really understand community. When the community rallies around a grieving family, that family is lifted up and I’ve seen that many times as a reporter. Why does a family who has lost a child talk to the media about their son’s overdose? Recently a 17-year-old Burnaby boy died after he took Fentanyl. His grief-stricken family went on the news to warn other people about the dangers of drug use. In the middle of their unspeakable pain, they spoke out. Friends of ours who live in Calgary also had a son, Anthony Hamptons, who took Fentanyl at 18 years old. His mother found him in his room turning blue. She had to do CPR to save his life, but he suffered brain damage and now he has to learn to walk again. They recently told their story on CTV. They said they wanted something positive to come out of something so terrible. For years I interviewed people who were broken, but they spoke out so they could fix someone else. So they could save a life. I didn’t realize that one day I would also have that opportunity. It was a sunny June afternoon two years ago at 4 o’clock. A busy CTV newsroom was getting noisier as reporters and writers were getting ready for the show and I was getting ready to anchor CTV News at 5pm that day. Makeup and hair all in place, ready to face the TV world, but then my cell phone rang. It was my doctor confirming the biopsy results. The lump that I had found on my left breast was cancer. I felt like saying to God, “There’s been some mistake here – I report the bad news. I’m not supposed to be the subject of the bad news. That’s not what I signed up for in journalism school.” I’m used to crafting others people’s stories in neat two-minute reports. I like being in control of the story. Suddenly, I was facing the start of my own story and I had no idea what the journey would be except that it wouldn’t be easy and it wouldn’t be just two minutes. My first hurdle was the 5 o’clock show though – would I be able to get through anchoring? I managed to read the newscast, chit chat with the weatherman and not become a heap of tears on live television. I held it together and got through the show and later that evening at home came the tough part – telling our boys. There were 13 and 15 at the time. My husband told them at the dinner table trying to be as positive as possible. I didn’t want to have to tell them because I knew I’d start crying. I could see the boys were fighting back the tears. I tried putting my fear in an internal compartment and prayed to God to help me be strong. Friends connected me with other women who had had similar experiences. They generously gave their time to talk to me and I was touched. I talked with a friend who had gone through breast cancer. She introduced me to another friend. We actually all lived on the same street. I called it my cancer club. It’s not a club that anyone wants to join. It sounds pretty depressing but it was actually it’s such a great source of strength. We talked and walked for hours and we agreed on a few things. We agreed that doing searches on the internet late at night when you’re tired, bad idea. Don’t do it, okay? We agreed it was not a good idea to read obituaries. We shared funny books and encouraged each other with cup half full stories. There are plenty of decisions to make – would I get a lumpectomy or mastectomy? I decided for the lumpectomy, removing the lump from your breast, and finally – hopefully – getting all the cancer out. Lying on the hospital bed being wheeled into the operating room and I was terrified. I tried to channel my inner Angelina Jolie – how does she make it look so easy? She’s an actress, it’s her job to look glamorous – though what about us mere mortals? Looking at myself in the mirror, post-surgery covered in bandages… glamorous was not a word that came to mind. I was relieved to hear it was stage one. The cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes. The bad news there were still some pre-cancer cells left in the breast tissue. I had another date with my surgeon, another lumpectomy. I’m thinking I can’t afford that much more shrinkage here. What am I going to be left with after this? I was praying that this would be the end of my surgery. I didn’t want to rack up any more frequent flyer points at Mount Saint Joseph’s Hospital. I had the next surgery, but unfortunately my pathology reports showed still some more cancerous cells left in the tissue. Okay, it was time to wave the white towel and go ahead with the mastectomy – removing all the breast tissue and then having reconstruction. More decisions to make. What kind of reconstruction? My plastic surgeon said one option is you take fat from one part of your body like the abdomen and you rebuild your breast with that fat. What? Move fat from your belly and add it to your breast? Why had I not heard of this before? I mean I told my friends about this, they were all like clamoring to donate their fat. I said, “Think of the potential here. I could just see the headline: “Live fat transplant helps breast cancer patient.” The potential is huge here, but in the end that was not the option that was the best for me. Getting an implant was the better option for me and a new lefty, as I call it. However, a question really bothered me. I was getting regular mammograms – why didn’t my cancer show up in the mammogram? Then I learned I was pretty dense. Some of my friends might agree with that. But no, my doctors were not trying to insult my mental sharpness. It was a fact about my breast tissue. Having dense tissue puts you at a greater risk for breast cancer. I didn’t know that. Women with dense breast tissue have double jeopardy. They have a greater risk of having cancer and are less like to have the cancer show up on the mammogram. Dense boobs are dangerous boobs. A mammogram is not enough. The cancer shows up as white on the x-ray but so does dense tissue. So, hard to see a snowball in a snowstorm. 40% of women have dense tissue. How many women know about the issue of dense breasts? Not that many. I didn’t really know about it until I had breast cancer. Why aren’t we told about dense breasts? This was my aha moment. I said: this is the story I need to tell. This is the message that could save lives. Let me tell you about a Connecticut educator. Her name is Nancy Capello. She dutifully did her breast self-exams got her annual mammograms. They all came back normal but then six weeks after her mammogram, her doctor found a ridge on her breast. He said, “Get another mammogram but also get an ultrasound.” The mammogram didn’t show anything but the ultrasound did. She had stage 3C breast cancer. The cancer had spread to 13th lymph nodes. Nancy Capello endured a mastectomy reconstruction, eight chemotherapy treatments, and 24 radiation treatments in 2004. Then she started asking questions, “Why had my mammogram failed me?” It was the first time that she was told that she had dense breast tissue and about how mammograms can miss the cancer. She asked her doctors, “Why are we not told about this?” They said, “It’s not standard protocol. Radiologists do write down whether you have dense breast tissue in the reports but it’s not standard protocol to tell patients.” She started working towards changing that. Nancy launched a mission to educate women and also change the laws starting in Connecticut, her own state. She passed a law – first of its kind in the US that requires women to be notified if they have dense breast tissue. After their mammograms, they’re going to get a letter saying they have dense breast tissue and these reports letters will mention the potential benefits of MRI or ultrasound. Now, 24 states have laws to inform women if they have dense breast tissue. Wow! Here is a woman who has turned her crisis into real change. She is definitely my hero. So, what’s happening in Canada? Sadly, not very much. Patrick Brown, an Ontario MP, tried to start a private member’s bill but it got stuck in the Senate. I don’t think it’ll ever become law. Mammograms can tell women if they have dense breast tissue. You can’t tell by the size or the texture. It’s something that an x-ray or mammogram will show. But in Canada there’s no policy of letting women know if they have dense breast tissue. Knowledge of your risk can be scary but it can be empowering. I’d like to challenge you. If you do go for a mammogram, ask if you can find out if you have dense breast tissue and you could consider maybe getting an ultrasound. I did get my mammograms, but they didn’t show the cancer because of my dense tissue. If women knew they had dense tissue, they could look at other options like an ultrasound. I wasn’t happy about having cancer but I was thankful that I could reach other women through my stories that aired on CTV. My story producer Laura Evans was instrumental for helping me just open up in that story. It was really hard and we wrote it together and I’m grateful for her help. Of the thousands of stories I’ve done, none have garnered more reaction than my breast cancer story and my stories about breast density. I was even trending on Twitter that day. I will continue to give speeches and talk one-on-one with women who have been diagnosed and are scared like I was. I’ll never forget how my family and friends supported me when I really needed it. Cancer is one of the more difficult ways of getting your friends to cook for you, but it did work for me in that time of need. I’m glad I can now return that favour to others. Cancer has given me more empathy. I hope that rubs off on my sons and it stays with them long after I’m no longer tracking them with GPS. It often takes a crisis to open our eyes. Some of us have to learn the hard way, but you don’t have to wait for a crisis to stick your neck out and tell your story and hopefully make a stronger community. ABOUT MI-JUNG LEE Mi-Jung Lee is a veteran investigative journalist and co-anchors CTV News at Six with Scott Roberts. Before this role, her reporting won numerous awards for excellence. In 2017, she won a RTDNA award for her coverage of the opioid crisis in Vancouver. In 2016, Lee broke stories on Sexual Harassment Claims at WestJet – stories that earned her a Webster Award for best TV reporting. Her investigative reports have also won numerous RTDNA awards for excellence in journalism. The hidden camera investigations included stories on the underground world of massage parlours that sell sex, a “natural health doctor” claiming to cure cancer and how casinos fail to protect problem gamblers. Lee is a trail blazer. When she began her career in 1990 as a reporter and part-time anchor at Victoria’s CHEK-TV, Lee was the first Korean-Canadian newscaster in BC and one of only a few Asian-Canadians on the air in Canada. She joined BCTV in 1992 where she reported and anchored. In 1998, she joined Vancouver Television as the co-anchor of VTV Live at 6. In 2008, she hosted CanadaAM: Western edition. Lee was the anchor and producer of CTV News at 11:30 p.m. from 2001 to 2010. Born in South Korea, she has lived in Vancouver since she was four. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with an English Literature degree and Ryerson University with a degree in Journalism. In 2008, Lee travelled to Brazil as an ambassador for World Vision’s Vancouver Campaign for Children. She continues to volunteer with several local charities and organizations. Lee is a cancer survivor and has spoken numerous times for charities raising money to fund cancer research. She also is a member of CTV’s Ride to Conquer Cancer team and trained for the epic 250 km bike journey in August 2017. Lee lives in Vancouver with her husband and two sons. ABOUT THE LEADING MOMS PODCAST Welcome to the Leading Moms podcast, where every mom has a story. Launched in 2012, Leading Moms started as an annual one-day event in Vancouver, BC, with an aim for each mom to recognize her significance and belonging, gain a sense of mastery and be impactful in her business, community – or the simple everyday of her family. Now these thought-provoking, inspirational talks are available on this podcast. Join your host Christine Pilkington, entrepreneur, publisher and TV mom expert, every other week as she shares the best talks from the past six years and more.

1.04 Amy Robinson: Shopping For Good

Owning the majority of purchasing decisions, moms are an economic force. They are also run our parent advisory committees, frequent our parks and are generally the backbone of our local neighbourhoods. When we direct our spending to our local economy rather than large multinationals, our neighbourhoods experience a massive benefit. Amy Robinson of LOCO BC shares why. Amy Robinson, LOCO BC - Leading Moms Podcast [https://i0.wp.com/www.leadingmoms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LM_-Amy-Robinson-tile.png?w=1250]LEADING MOMS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: AMY ROBINSON, SHOPPING FOR GOOD Hi, everybody. I’m going to talk about business and I’m going to talk about money and the economy and how our spending creates strong communities. I think we need to teach our kids about money and about the economy and not just about how to save but how we put value into the things that are in our community and that’s how our money flows and how our value flows and how that can strengthen our communities. When I think about how did I get that value? How do we teach kids values? Because when my parents, I definitely got that value from my parents – and yet it was never explicitly stated to me that you supported farmers and that you supported locally on businesses. And so, I’m going to tell you about my roots and how I got that value. This is my mother’s mother’s community: Harriston, Ontario. My mother and father were raised in the Greenbelt on Ontario in two towns, twelve kilometers apart: Harriston and Palmerston. And if you lived in Harriston or Palmerston, you either farmed or you worked in the supply chain of the auto parts industry. I spent my childhood driving – we lived in Ottawa at this time – I spent my childhood, every long weekend, five of us and our dog in a cage, piled in the car and we drove to Southwestern Ontario, six-hour drive and we spent our weekends in those communities. My grandparents no longer farmed but my great uncle and aunt farmed. So, I visited farms along the way and spent other time gathering eggs and produce, and buckets of honey from local farmers that my mother still knew. From maple syrup and apple butter from the Mennonites and I guess it just got infused in me that that was an important thing to do. If you bought my father a gift, it better damn well say Made In Canada on it because the livelihoods of the people he knew depended on it. He bought Ford cars exclusively his entire life and it’s because of the manufacturing jobs that the Ford assembly plant in Ontario provided for people he knew or the supply chain of the auto parts industry, the people he knew. The people of Harriston and Palmerston know a thing about how buying local supports a strong community as well. This is the L&M Market – this one is in Harriston. There’s also one in Palmerston, it’s like a six little chainlet in Southwestern Ontario. It is not a fancy store and it’s for salt-of-the-earth people. For a while, L&M and I think nine other similar small businesses in Southwestern Ontario came into a relationship with Sobeys, who is Canada’s second largest food retailer. They have fifteen hundred stores across the province – across the country rather – and they operate so many brands. Brands you might recognize here are Thrifty Foods, Safeway Canada, I think there are Sobeys stores in BC. Sobeys has a corporate policy that they only sell meat from federally inspected plants. Most federally inspected meat comes from huge multinational corporations like Maple Leaf Foods. Small farmers in Ontario don’t take their meat to federally inspected plants. It’s expensive to do. It requires transport. L&M Markets quickly found out that they could not sell the beef from their neighbours. So they relocalized their ownership and they now sell meat products from Harriston and Palmerston. They knew that it would break their community if they couldn’t sell their neighbours’ beef. How this works is that when you buy from a local business, they support other local businesses and I’ll tell you how in a minute but when you spend $100 if you spend it with a locally-owned business, $46 stays in your community. And if you spend it with a multinational chain, $18 stays in your community. So, that’s 2.6 times the economic benefit. How does this happen? Well, local businesses, we’d love them to be local-minded and we try to teach them how they can connect and support each other through purchasing relationships and other things. But even if they’re not that locally minded, they’re small – most of them are small. They are just more likely to use a local bank or credit union, to use a local accounting firm, to use local marketing and legal services. So, that money circulates and flows in the community, creating that multiplier effect and that ripple effect in the economy. They also have other benefits, like increase charitable giving. So, when we shift our purchasing towards local businesses, we can have a huge economic impact. Just 1% in consumers’ spending, if we could increase it towards local businesses in BC, creates 3,100 jobs in the province and could send 94 million dollars in wages to BC workers. So, why should we care? It’s not a pretty picture out there for small business, for local businesses in BC. This slide speaks to retailers but local businesses, independent businesses in BC are losing market share. They’ve lost fifteen percent of market share in the last eleven years. Those statistics are a little bit old. We’re going to update them in November. BC retailers have the third lowest market share in the country. It’s not a pretty picture in agriculture, manufacturing either. In manufacturing, we just recorded the lowest amount of Canadian manufacturing since they started capturing statistics in 1976. In agriculture, in 1973, BC farmers produced 86% of the produce fruits and vegetables consumed in the province and now 44 years later, it’s 43% – so half. LOCO’s mission is to get the message out. About why that’s important. I started LOCO because I could see that there was an increase in interest in the local food movement and farmer’s markets and I thought, no one is talking about ownership, no one is talking about manufacturing. So, our mission is to grow that message to take the Why message across the province and beyond, and connect others into that movement. So, growing the local movement is the last word on this slide, that’s missed. We also connect local businesses to work together, we want them to localize their supply chains, we want them to just help each other. Small businesses are out there reinventing the wheel all over and over again. So, we hope that they’ll share resources and just help each other grow by connecting with contacts and suppliers. And then we promote the benefits of local businesses. We do that through research, we do that through events. If you own a business, it’s great to come to our events. They’ve been called, my greatest compliment I think that I got about our events is that they are non-douchey networking. So, I think it’s a little bit because of our women leadership that they are authentic, they are intentional and we try to make them fun. We also run a province-wide campaign called BC Buy Local, that is trying to illuminate the market. We thought: you can’t buy from BC-owned companies, you can’t buy BC-grown products and BC-made products unless you can see them. So. we’re really encouraging businesses to use this dot. We’re encouraging consumers to look for locally owned businesses. Even when you can’t shop with the locally owned business to look for locally grown and locally made products wherever you shop. That’s my kid, Davis. He’s eleven and he says “Mama, remind me, why don’t we go to Starbucks?” And sometimes he gets so mad when I won’t take him to Toys R Us for that Harry Potter wand he wants or whatever he wants. I try to be explicit about the reasons but I hope that he’ll remember why. I hope that when we go out of our way to buy a local, stock our freezer with local berries before the winter, that those are the things that will stick with him and he’ll remember why we did that. So that, the L&M markets of the world will still be around in his future. So, as moms and as women in Canada, we are an economic force. We make a lot of the financial decisions in our households.  We make a lot of the spending decisions in our households. I don’t want to give you another thing to do but I want you to think about how your spending supports strong communities and I want you to think how shifting local money towards local businesses can actually be fun and engaging. Maybe just do that thing that moms do. We share information, right? We share, if you get a deal from a great local business then share that information with your friends and let them know, encourage them to shop at the place you shop and get the deals that you get and hopefully you can shift some of your shopping towards local businesses and strengthen your communities too. Thanks for having me. ABOUT AMY ROBINSON Amy has 18 years experience working with businesses to embed sustainability into operations. She has worked with organizations ranging from small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to big industry, regional governments and the UN. However, she has a passion for small businesses, with their unique challenges and opportunities. Amy started the not-for-profit LOCO BC [http://www.locobc.com/] in 2009 to connect, support and promote local businesses while advocating for increased local spending by consumers, businesses and institutions. LOCO’s work springs from her perception that BC undervalues the economic and social pillars of sustainability that strengthen communities, build resilience and foster innovation. ABOUT THE LEADING MOMS PODCAST Welcome to the Leading Moms podcast, where every mom has a story. Launched in 2012, Leading Moms started as an annual one-day event in Vancouver, BC, with an aim for each mom to recognize her significance and belonging, gain a sense of mastery and be impactful in her business, community – or the simple everyday of her family. Now these thought-provoking, inspirational talks are available on this podcast. Join your host Christine Pilkington, entrepreneur, publisher and TV mom expert, every other week as she shares the best talks from the past six years and more.

1.03 Anna Rice: Parenting Lessons From the Badminton Court

Two-time Olympian Anna Rice shares how sport and her own experience growing up as an athlete has taught her important life skills off the court and as a parent. Anna Rice [https://i1.wp.com/leadingmoms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/LM-Anna-Rice.png?resize=1250%2C703] LEADING MOMS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: ANNA RICE: PARENTING LESSONS FROM THE BADMINTON COURT It’s great to be here. I actually brought my water bottle with me. I was going to leave that in the green room but then Amber was like, “Is that really your water bottle?” It is. I’ve gone from fancy, sponsored water bottle to “This is the most convenient one that fits to my purse.” And I chose to keep it casual today with my dress. I hope that’s okay. I’ve gone from athlete to student to coach and now a mom. So any outfit requiring a bra and requiring more than a sports bra is pretty much black type formal wear for me. Plus I wanted to wear this sweatshirt. As Christine said, I am an Athlete Ambassador for Right To Play, and since the theme is play I thought that was fitting. Has anyone in the audience heard of Right To Play? Oh, awesome. So for those of you who haven’t: Right To Play is a humanitarian organization that uses sport and play as a tool to teach life skills and help messages to kids in disadvantaged communities all around the world including here in Canada. So I’ve been an Athlete Ambassador for Right To Play since 2004, which basically means that I speak about the organization whenever I can to schools and to clubs and to gatherings like this. But I’m actually not going to talk too much about Right To Play today. But I do want to mention it because it’s had a big influence on the message I want to share with you – especially three months that I spent in Uganda working with the organization. What I came to tell you today is how my experience as an athlete and the lessons I learned through sport and play have shaped my approach to parenting. Now full disclosure, I’m less than two years into this whole motherhood gig. And my son, Robby, will be a year and a half in a couple of weeks which makes me a total rookie by sports standards. So I’m fully aware that my philosophies and methods towards parenting will change and evolve as I learn. And it goes without saying that I have a ton of learning to do. I mean, we haven’t even hit potty training yet. But I’m excited for the learning. In fact one of the most amazing things for me about becoming a mom has been the learning curve, which mirrors my experience as an athlete. The cheesy but nonetheless true quote that I have on the homepage of my website says, “The most important things I’ve learned in life I’ve learned on the badminton court.” And if I had to pick one lesson I’ve found most useful so far as a parent it would be this: Every situation in life no matter how major or trivial is nothing more than an opportunity to learn and to extend love. I know it sounds very Eckhart Tolle of Power of Now. But it is, except it has really had a big impact on my life and helped me maximize my experience as an athlete and now as a parent. So in other words what matters is the process of what I’m doing, not the outcome. Focusing on the process allows me to learn from the experience and truly enjoy it. I’d like to share with you a story from my time as an athlete that really helped me learn this lesson. The story actually takes place over the course of many years. From the time I was around 8 years old culminating 20 years later in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympics. The star of my story is my dad who’s recently moved to Germany and has no way to defend himself, so I’m totally safe with divulging these stories. My dad was one of those parents that got very uptight and nervous whenever my sisters and I were performing or competing. I have memories all the way back to my earliest tournaments and I can still remember the look on my dad’s face peering in from the hallway now and again through the little glass. Why was he out in the hallway? Because he was too nervous to be sitting inside the gym to watch. He was too nervous to watch me, a little eight-year-old, play badminton against another cute little eight-year-old. It sounds ridiculous to us but think about the message that sends to a young person: The result of this badminton game, or the soccer game, or this piano exam is so important that my mom or dad is getting that worked up about it. Whether consciously or not, a child will make up in their mind that the outcome of this event is really freaking important – so they better perform well or Mommy and Daddy are going to be upset. So my dad staying inside here and watching me play only gets worse as I get older and more competitive. I start to interpret my dad’s not watching as a lack of interest in me and what I’m doing, which for a teenage girl can be pretty heartbreaking. A few more years go by. I started playing the Junior National Circuit and competing in the Junior National Championships. My dad goes so far as to fly across the country to places like Montreal and Winnipeg without telling me, and then proceeds to stay in a hotel for the weekend calling into the club to get my results each day.  And he’d show up briefly after the medal ceremony just to let me know he was there. To him, this is the best way he could show his support. To me, I felt sad that he didn’t get to share the full experience. Fast forward another 10 years: the Olympics. It’s 2008, the months leading up to what would be the highlight of my sporting career, the Beijing Olympics. My entire family has decided to make the trip over to China and cheer me on including my dad. I ask my dad if he’s actually going to sit in the stands and watch me play this time. He grumbles a reply and says he may just stay in the hotel and watch on TV. No. Finally, I was going to confront this issue head on. After years of Sport Psychology sessions and countless conversations with my coach, I was ready. So I sat my dad down and it all came pouring out. I explained how much pressure I felt over the years and that he didn’t have to be nervous because I had made a fundamental change. I’d realized that the outcome of the match isn’t important. No matter what happens in Beijing, I will enjoy the experience and learn from it. I shared with them how much more joy I felt playing now that I didn’t need to win. And how the totally zen thing about all this was that by focusing –  by taking my focus away from winning I freed up all this energy that actually helped me win more often. When I finally stopped talking I looked up and saw my Dad had tears in his eyes. “The reason I get so nervous,” he said, “is not because I want you to win for me. It’s because I know how much badminton means for you and how much you work at it. All these years I only ever wanted you to win for you.” So my dad came to Beijing and for the very first time in over 20 years, he sat in the stands the entire length of all my matches. I can’t express to you how special it was for me to be on that court looking up and seeing my dad in the stands cheering and smiling. I’m sure I’ll treasure that moment more than if I’d won the gold medal. I still got the motherhood hormonal thing going on. So now as a mom, my priority above all else is to help my son and myself understand that each and every situation is about enjoying the process and extending love while doing so. RW Emerson said it best, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” Thank you. ABOUT ANNA RICE Anna Rice is a two-time Olympian and five-time Canadian National Badminton Champion. At the Beijing Olympics, Anna became the first female singles player from a Pan American country to achieve a top-10 finish. Born and raised in North Vancouver, Anna completed a B.A. from UBC before moving to Denmark where she lived and played professional badminton for nine years. While in Europe, Anna completed a Masters in Communication for Development, with a focus on Sport & Development. Off the court, Anna has been an active advocate for women’s rights in sport. She successfully led a campaign to establish an equal prize money pay distribution for the international professional badminton circuit. Anna also helped defeat a proposed clothing guideline that would force all female players to wear skirts or dresses for international competition. ABOUT THE LEADING MOMS PODCAST Welcome to the Leading Moms podcast, where every mom has a story. Launched in 2012, Leading Moms started as an annual one-day event in Vancouver, BC, with an aim for each mom to recognize her significance and belonging, gain a sense of mastery and be impactful in her business, community – or the simple everyday of her family. Now these thought-provoking, inspirational talks are available on this podcast. Join your host Christine Pilkington, entrepreneur, publisher and TV mom expert, every other week as she shares the best talks from the past six years and more.

1.02 Marnie Goldenberg: Sex Is Good

We keep sex from kids because we carry a lot of shame around sexuality that gets in the way. Marnie Goldenberg, the Sexplainer, fills us in on why we do a disservice to our kids when we only teach kids that sex is depraved and hedonistic. And why it’s important for our kids to know that sex is not only normal and healthy – but also that sex is a force of good. [HTTPS://I2.WP.COM/LEADINGMOMS.CA/WP-CONTENT/UPLOADS/2018/10/LM_-MARNIE-GOLDENBERG_SOCIAL_TILE.PNG?RESIZE=1250%2C703] [HTTP://MEDIA.BLUBRRY.COM/LEADINGMOMS/P/CONTENT.BLUBRRY.COM/LEADINGMOMS/LM_01_02_PODCAST-MARNIE_GOLDENBERG.MP3] LEADING MOMS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: MARNIE GOLDENBERG: SEX IS GOOD I really like talking about sex. I really like talking about talking about sex. Are you with me? Because I love the idea of young people knowing about their bodies and what their bodies are capable of doing. I had a bunch of things prepared to talk about, and I’ve thrown them all away because of everything people have said this morning – the women who spoke between 8:30 and now, everybody has changed things that I wanted to talk about. So, what I want to talk about is really about how sex is a part of our lives from the very beginning to the very end, and we keep that from kids. And we keep it from kids because we carry a lot of shame around sex and sexuality that I think gets in our way. And it really sets our kids up to have a life that isn’t as empowered as it can be because, really, at the heart of sex and sexuality is power and autonomy. It’s about having control. It’s about seeking what you want. It’s about pleasure. So rather than my mom cred, I’m going to play up my mom’s cred. So I’m going to tell a story about my mom because she’s amazing. I always thought that I – and I continue to think that I was raised by a fairly sex-positive mom. I was pretty lucky. I felt like she was pretty open-minded with me and respectful. We’ve had conversations now that I do this for a living where she’s in her 70s now and she’s like, “I kind of screwed it up. There was just so many times when I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what the story was that I needed to share with you because I just hadn’t had any lessons. There was no role modeling for me as a parent talking about sex and sexuality.” And I think that that is true for so many of us. So actually, I haven’t done this in a while. But a little kind of survey in the crowd and people can look around. How many of you had good conversations with a parent or both parents about sex and sexuality? Raise your hands? You can look around. Raise them high, high and proud! All right. Now – and among those who put up your hands, how many of you had parents who spoke openly about masturbation? About four, right? So this is really a part of it. So the whole idea of what I wanted to talk about today was not just telling our kids about sex because I think we can all agree that giving our kids information about sex and sexuality is important. But I actually think that what we need to share with them is that sex is good. Right? Not just like people have sex to have babies and this is how our bodies work and this is what menstruation is. These are all important things. We need to talk to them about consent. We need to talk to them about sexually transmitted infections and all sorts of things. But we need to tell them really explicitly that sex is good. So here’s an example of where my mom did have the language. I was watching Sex with Sue – Sue Johanson. Anybody? So a little Margaret. I love Margaret. But I love Sue Johanson. And actually, I wanted to have a show. It’s going to be called Messing With Marnie. There’s still time. I might do that. I was watching that show – it was like cable TV in Toronto. And I was watching that show. My mom came in and sat down and a woman called into Sue and said, “I’m really embarrassed. But I really like to be on top with my husband and I don’t know how to let him know and I’m really embarrassed.” And my mom was like, “Ah, it’s the best!” And I was just like… And so, here’s the thing. I don’t think we need to tell our kids that we have good sex. But I would be really pleased if children would guess that about us. And I think everybody knows those stories of kids who do that – like they find out what sexual intercourse is and then they say things like, “My parents would never do that!” Right? Or the kid who finds out what intercourse is and says, “My parents did it three times.” Right? We need to do better than that. We need to do way better than that. We need to let our kids know that they can like their bodies, that their bodies can give them pleasure. And one of my things – so I go into schools. I talk to kids in schools, and that’s all great and fine. Oh, this is – oh, this is from a fantastic book. There’s an author named Robbie Harris. Yeah, write that down. It’s on my website. She is extraordinary, and her books are fantastic. And this is, yeah, this is amazing. Look. Look. Hello, everyone. This is for four-year-olds. This book, four-year-olds. So when we limit the conversations we have to our kids that sex is for reproduction, which is really when people get a little like stressed out about that, right? Like, “Oh my gosh, I have to say penis and vagina.” Like, you fall over. So not only do we need to feel brave and say “penis” and “vagina” to our kids, but we need to say ‘cause it feels good, not just because it makes babies. And when we don’t, when we forget how important it is to use words that talk about pleasure, the possibility is number one, we only equate sex with penis and vagina intercourse, which of course is the tip of the iceberg for what is sex, sexuality, sexual pleasure. It also means we limit sex to heterosexual sex. It also means we limit sex – to sex with another person of the opposite sex – never by ourselves. And it actually – when you talk about reproduction, you do not have to mention this word [citoris], which I think as a roomful of women, it’s a pretty important part of our bodies. In fact, it is the only known part of the body that exists for no other reason than for pleasure. And I think why wouldn’t we tell that information to our kids? Why wouldn’t we if sex is good, which I fundamentally believe it is a force of good in the world. Why wouldn’t we be sharing that with our kids? Why wouldn’t we be sharing that with them that sex is a way of feeling incredibly close with another person? Why wouldn’t we want to let them know that it helps you go to sleep or helps you wake up, right? Why wouldn’t we want them to know that it feels really good? Now, people might say like, “Well, why not – of course I want my children to know that. But my kid’s two or my kid is four or my kid is fourteen or sixteen… eventually I’ll get there.” But here’s the thing: there’s a couple reasons why I think it’s extraordinarily important for young kids, like preschoolers to learn and hear messages like verbalized messages from their parents that sex is good. One is because it is good. Fundamentally, it is good. Right? Number two is that young kids are really curious and they are shame-free. They have no baggage about sex and sexuality. So if we message that it is good, that it is healthy, that it’s a force of good. Right? That it’ll teach them things about themselves, that will help them express themselves in the world, that it’ll help them feel close to people. That’s a good message and they’re going to be really open and receptive to it. It is developmentally appropriate that they become less receptive to it when they hit 10, 11, 12, 13. That’s likely to happen. So why not start when they’re open? And the last reason why I think it’s really important for us as parents to share these kinds of messages is because if we don’t, who the hell will? Right? We live in a time and in a society where people and products sexualize everything. It makes sex into a bad thing. I mean at the very least it’s confusing and at the very worst, the messages are downright negative and self-loathing. So if we’re going to switch the message for our kids that sex isn’t hedonistic and depraved, then we need to do that for them. I have one minute. Okay. So I should tell the story because I actually said to Natalia I was going to tell a story. So I was in the bath with my kid. This was a few years ago and he was maybe almost seven and he was sitting in front of me and we were both facing the same direction as his hands were in his lap and he said, “Mommy, do you think I have an erection right now?” And I said, “Yes, I think you have an erection right now.” And he said, “You know, I do. But when I first asked that question I didn’t.” So, okay, this – okay, that’s an interesting thing. So I said, “I’m not entirely surprised to hear that because when penises are touched, they often become erect.” And then I said, “And you know, older boys and men will often touch their penis on purpose to make it erect.” And he was like, “Why?” And I said, “They find that it feels really good.” And he thought and he said, “Okay. But it doesn’t always feel good to have an erection.” And I said, “Oh really?” And he said, “Yeah, it’s really hard to pee when you have an erection.” And I said, “Oh, I’ve heard that.” So this is like a great example of infusing the spirit of sex positivity into everyday conversations with our kids. We have opportunities when we listen to music with them, when we’re toileting – like teaching them to use the toilet, when they’re in the bath and you’re naming body parts. Don’t forget vulva. Don’t forget scrotum. Don’t forget penis and anus. Say labia, say it proud. These are absolutely the places where our kids learn the right kinds of messages about sex and sexuality that will truly carry them through the rest of their lives. Thanks for having me. ABOUT MARNIE GOLDENBERG Marnie Goldenberg is the Sexplainer.   A circuitous path including leading canoe trips with at-risk youth, legal training, counselling for Planned Parenthood, senior leadership roles in the voluntary sector and, of course, parenting, brings her to today.  Marnie thinks sexuality is predominantly a force of good in the world and finds opportunities to engage with parents about how to talk to young people about sex in healthy and happy ways. Marnie has taught a lot of sex ed to young people, gave a TEDx Talk, and has provided keynotes and lectures on the topic. Sex ed will always be a fundamental passion though Marnie currently runs programs for youth who experience homelessness in Vancouver. ABOUT THE LEADING MOMS PODCAST Welcome to the Leading Moms podcast, where every mom has a story. Launched in 2012, Leading Moms started as an annual one-day event in Vancouver, BC, with an aim for each mom to recognize her significance and belonging, gain a sense of mastery and be impactful in her business, community – or the simple everyday of her family. Now these thought-provoking, inspirational talks are available on this podcast. Join your host Christine Pilkington, entrepreneur, publisher and TV mom expert, every other week as she shares the best talks from the past six years and more.

1.01 Alexandra Greenhill: It’s No Big Deal

Alexandra Greenhill talks about dealing with stress, including the importance of accepting, asking and offering help, as well as three words – and a new perspective – for when things in your life go sideways. [https://i0.wp.com/leadingmoms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/LM_Alex-Greenhill_social_tile.png?resize=1250%2C703] [http://media.blubrry.com/leadingmoms/p/content.blubrry.com/leadingmoms/LM_01_01_podcast_Alex_Greenhill.mp3] LEADING MOMS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: IT’S NO BIG DEAL I didn’t bring slides on purpose as a physician educator.  I’m a master of the slide deck, but I thought that we can have a very intimate 200 people conversation right here, right now for the next few minutes. And so, before I share with you something that I have learned the hard way and I have found solutions for, I just want to explain a little bit because people usually say – a physician tech CEO, like how does that happen, and it’s a long story, but I will make it very short. I was an emergency physician and one of my insights in the emergency room was that most of the things that hit the emergency room shouldn’t have come to the emergency room in the first place. So, many years of saving people’s lives in the last crisis moment, I decided to do something about it and got involved in healthcare policy. And so, that led me from Montreal to Ottawa, to then, Vancouver.  I was involved in major initiatives, implementing electronic medical records, primary care reforms, women’s issues, you name it. And all of my work was receiving a lot of awards and recognitions. And I didn’t feel happy with what I was doing because I didn’t see a change that impacted real people in real daily life. I mean, some things were somewhat better, but marginally so. It wasn’t anything that was like denting the universe. And suddenly, all these Star Trek stories that we grew up on where you have a tricorder and the doctor just heals you – none of that was becoming a reality. And then, I started reading more and more and being very evidence oriented – evidence-based. Seventy percent of illnesses – the big ones, so heart attacks, strokes, cancer, colon, you know, all sort of colitis, Crohn’s – all of these things completely due to stress – either induced by, or worsened, or triggered. And the stress that we’re talking about is not major life stress such as “I lost a loved one in a 9/11 crash of the towers”, but was the daily grind that we kind of push aside and say, you know it’s not a big deal, it’s just one little thing. And that little thing when you’d actually do studies, and I could have put up lots of slides to show you the evidence behind that, but it’s a low-grade inflammation largely because it triggers systems that were built to help us run away from the lion chasing us. It was supposed to last 5 to 10 minutes while we found safety, and then, all of those systems would shut down. Our daily life, with the ongoing small events that are happening are triggering all of those systems and then turning them all the time. And so, what happens with that is we’re not built to withstand that and our systems are sustaining wear and tear. And so, I had an epiphany and I kind of said, hey healthcare establishment shouldn’t we of something about that instead of saving people once they are sick and spending millions of dollars doing that. And people basically big yawn and said yeah we know all of that, but we have these fires going on over here, so there’s no resources to spend over there where we could have prevented the fire in the first place. And so, doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome is a definition of insanity, and I said well, I can’t participate in this insanity, I think I have a way of finding a different way forward. My different way forward started with me and say hey, I’m a N of one, what if I actually applied some of those insights in my own life and saw what kind of an impact that would have. And so, those insights did work for me and I’m now happy to share them with you. The first step – and it seems like a very small, obvious, little step – is my default answer for somebody who offered help became “yes”. Before these insights, when people said “Can I give you a hand?”, the proud, independent oh-I-can-get-it-done-no-problem me would say, “No, I’m okay, thank you.” And then, I just changed and I said to people offering me help at work, people offering me help at home, I would say, yes. And then, things happened: that created capacity. I might have something that I could have done myself, but now somebody else was doing it and, therefore, I had more time to do something else that mattered to me. And it was fun. Like people would actually then stay over and have coffee, and I would see my friends more often. The most immediate impact of that was great. So many people here in the room have that policy already. Am I preaching to the converted? Are you the kind of people that when people offer help you are like: yes! [Laughter] Okay. All right. Some of you, but some of you need to do some more extra work. So, the second step on that journey is crossing the psychological divide and actually saying: Can you please help me? So, asking for help. [https://i1.wp.com/leadingmoms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/LM-01.01-IG-quote-1-Alex-Greenhill.png?resize=300%2C300] And that requires some bravery, because most people don’t want to offend. They don’t want to impose. They’re not sure if it’s going to get done that way. I don’t want to owe you. It’s more threatening to move into that space and ask for help, but I can assure you wonderful things happen. And most importantly, all of the research, including some great stuff being done at UBC shows that people offering, providing help to others feel better on the spot – like if you help somebody else out, the person offering the help feels better and they will live longer and healthier. So, in fact, by asking you for help, I’m giving you an opportunity to feel better right now and live longer and healthier. And so, after doing that for a while and sharing those in [inaudible], I have tons of people who’ve tried to implement that and they’ve seen the benefits, are all of the problems solved? Well, no, not entirely. Life is better, but not yet to the degree to which I wanted to improve it. And so, there’s three additional things you can do after those three steps. And the first one of them is – actually Arts Umbrella gave me the short way of saying that, which is: When they do birthday parties with kids, the first thing they do with the kids is they say “If you get paint in your hair, what do you say?” No big deal. “If you get paint in your eye, what do you say?” No big deal. “If another child runs into you and drops a paint on your clothes?” No big deal. And so, one of those things is that being a mother and running around being busy, things will happen that’s outside of your control and your day’s going to go haywire and my first thought is it’s not a big deal, right? It’s not a major disaster, there’s nothing I can’t recover from. And you know, I was late for the BCIT convocation in May where I was the keynote speaker because my daughter was throwing up until half an hour before. There was nothing I could do. There was nobody else you can delegate to. I can’t ask anyone else. It’s you. And so, no big deal. The second one is we’re building a whole bunch of tech tools that will make it easier for you to reach out just in time and ask people, friends, and community for assistance, so watch for all those tools hitting you on your mobile phone. You can figure out which one of your friends is available to help. And then, last but not least, is people underestimate the benefits of giving hugs. Hugs release oxytocin. It’s an instant booster to your health and well-being. And if there’s nobody around to give you a hug, giving yourself a hug totally works. So, doctor prescribed, 90 seconds, wrap your hands around yourself and tell yourself, I’m awesome. So, I welcome questions and interactional stay for later on, but: Accept help, ask for help, offer a help. If things go haywire, no big deal. And then, whenever you have a good chance to give a hug or receive a hug, I would also recommend take it. ABOUT ALEXANDRA GREENHILL Alexandra T. Greenhill is a mom of three and a physician tech innovator. Passionate about big ideas that use tech to make people’s lives better, she co-founded myBestHelper, an award-winning tech company transforming how families find help for child and elder care. She now serves on the board of myBestHelper, and is the co-founder CEO of Careteam Technologies, a digital platform that helps health organizations provide care coordination for patients with complex, chronic diseases across different health conditions and contexts (hospital, clinic, community and home). Alexandra has served on numerous non-for-profit boards, including a two-time public school trustee and Chair of the French School board of BC and the Canadian Institute for Child Health. She has received many recognitions, including BIV Top 40 under 40, Startup Canada Women Entrepreneur, YWCA Women of Distinction, YWCA Women of Distinction nominee, WXN’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Canada, and the Queen Elizabeth II Medal of Service. ABOUT THE LEADING MOMS PODCAST Welcome to the Leading Moms podcast, where every mom has a story. Launched in 2012, Leading Moms started as an annual one-day event in Vancouver, BC, with an aim for each mom to recognize her significance and belonging, gain a sense of mastery and be impactful in her business, community – or the simple everyday of her family. Now these thought-provoking, inspirational talks are available on this podcast. Join your host Christine Pilkington, entrepreneur, publisher and TV mom expert, every other week as she shares the best talks from the past six years and more.