Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to Faces of Atlantic, a series hosted by Terianne Richards that gets real with the leaders, change makers and everyday doers shaping Atlantic Canada. Each conversation dives beyond titles to uncover the grit, growth and human stories behind the work.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: This is Faces of Atlantic, where we go beyond titles and talk about the real human side of leadership. I'm Terry Ann Richards, and today I am sitting down with Terry Kingston, and we're going to uncover the story behind her as the leader. Welcome, Terry.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Thank you. I'm looking forward to being uncovered.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: I like it. All right, so I love to start off just with this question because the entire premise of Faces of Atlantic is shining a light on just the beautiful breadth of humans that we have here across Atlantic Canada that are doing really cool things that have had really amazing stories. And there's so much more than just their titles. And so my first question for you really is when I strip away everything I can see on LinkedIn, right. I go view you on your website when I strip it all away, the strategy, all the successes, who are you, Terry? Really?
[00:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an interesting question because it does go, as you say, beyond the labels. And yet it's hard to define ourselves without saying, I'm a this, I'm a that. I've done this, I've done that. But mostly now I am using a definition I resisted for years, and that is that I'm a widow. And I'm a widow who's still running her own company that she started in the early years of a diagnosis that her second husband had. And so sometimes I feel like this little business of mine was built on the ashes of something that was already dissolving. But I could see the need and I wanted something. And so, yeah, it's a long answer and a complicated answer, but I fought the title of widow for years, just like I fought the title of caregiver when Harry was sick, because I never wanted to see myself as a caregiver. I was his wife. I was the woman who loved him. I was his partner in life. You know, I was a mother then, and now I'm a grandmother. And all of those parts of me, if you line them up against the wall and saw me from little girl all the way through to not so young anymore. There's something, each stage of that, that woman's definition in her growing up that creates the who I am now.
And, man, it's not been an easy journey, but it's been a rich and rewarding one. Most.
[00:02:55] Speaker B: And I had the privilege of having you on my disrupt HR session stage and you know, you shared about grief and about that being a topic that needs to be maybe more in the forefront because it's the one thing we are all going to at some point deal with and it's not really an if, it's a win and it's happening all around us at all times.
You know, before we jump into maybe some of the other topics that I want to touch today, I really want to talk about you and your journey through grief because I think there's a reality here that often isn't said.
But there are ridiculous number of individuals right now struggling right, right here, right now. They are listening to this, they are watching this and they are struggling as it is right now. Maybe they're in the caregiver stage. Maybe they have just recently lost someone. Maybe they just found out they're going to lose someone.
Can you talk to me about that journey? Because it seems to be something you are extremely passionate about and I know it's a very vulnerable topic and so I want to be, you know, cognizant of that. But would you be willing to share sort of your viewpoint of grief of the journey and why it's a topic that needs to be sort of part of the conversation?
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely needs to be part of the conversation.
Even when I gave my own TEDx talk years ago for TEDxUNB, the title of that talk was can we live better by talking about Dying?
And that was the question I wanted the audience to ask themselves. I took them through some of the journey with Harry so they could see how necessary it is. Especially when you're in the stage of anticipatory grief, which I honestly feel is the hardest stage of grief when someone you love has been diagnosed and even though know we're being positive and everyone's saying, you know, don't, don't be so negative. He they said five years, it could be way, way longer. Certain diseases have a trajectory and when you understand the trajectory and you can see it and watch it and you're watching the six foot four man's man, hunter, fisherman, everything just start to shrink before your eyes. That was the hardest part of that whole journey.
And so I learned how to talk about grief by I've got a bookshelf like this long just behind me here with all sorts of books on anticipatory grief. What to say when someone's, you know, when someone's that ill, how to deal with it myself.
I know you talk a lot about leadership. For me, the whole leadership role for me was leading my way through all of this in a way that respected what Harry needed from me in various stages, but what I also needed from me when I stepped away from the hospital room, when I stepped away from the specialist visits and went home on my own and sat there some nights with way too many glasses of wine and just trying to cope with the thought that he was going to be gone soon.
And so how do you look at your. The future you'd planned? I've told this story in different ways on Facebook and in LinkedIn, but when you marry someone for the second time, when you're 50 years old, you don't think you're going to get 50 years of anniversaries together, but you. I was hoping for a good 30. I was hoping that as I sit here now as an almost 70 year old, that I'd have my life companion at my side and that we would have the things planned that we had planned and the, the trips and all of that sort of thing. And when you're sitting in a hospital room and you can see the end coming, and I've described it this way before, it's like standing on railway tracks and seeing the train coming at you at full speed and there's nothing you can do and sometimes you can't even step out of the way.
And so that learning to cope with all the thoughts of what could have been, what should be, what the future should be, even now, what could be had that not happened with him, had he not had that disease.
That's the hardest part. And you really, it's almost like every day you get up and I have to reframe.
Okay, so it's not the future you thought you'd have back in 2006 when you got married, but this is what you do have now. So how are you going to deal with it? And some days I deal better than others.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Is there anything that you leaned towards or maybe coming out of it, looked back and thought, man, that could have helped or that would have been better or that did help. Was there anything that really allowed you as a caregiver to move through that and still, you know, in a lot of ways be here and smiling and, you know, I certainly hope thriving.
What were some of those tools, those strategies, those things that worked for you?
[00:08:04] Speaker A: I'm a reader and like you, I do a lot of deep research.
I'm not someone who can go to support groups and I know for a lot of people support groups are the lifeline, but I have a very close family My children, my adult children have been fantastic since day one. They've often been my sounding board or the ones that'll pull me back if I'm getting a little too crazy and off in the, in the weeds a little bit. I have very good friends, I have a very strong faith. It's not particularly tied to any one religious institution anymore, but it's a faith that nothing happens to me, that isn't supposed to happen to me, that isn't part of like a blueprint or a life plan.
And even the hard days and the struggles and the disappointments and all of that, it's all exactly how it should be. And that's really hard to describe, but that's what I believe. And it doesn't mean I always like what it is, but it just means that that's how I cope. Is feeling okay? There's something here. Maybe I haven't put my finger on it yet, but I do feel like I'm moving, like I'm growing. And it's always been about personal growth and evolution and alignment and all of that. Since I was a teenager in high school and university, that's been my driving force. It's how can I understand the human condition enough so that I can be the best human I can be, even when life is throwing all sorts of crap at me?
[00:09:38] Speaker B: So I know you spoke about this publicly before about sort of the topic of grief and how it needs to be sort of at the boardroom table, so to speak, that it needs to be a part of the conversation in terms of workplace culture and the responsibility of leadership.
What is it that you see as the gap? And has there, you know, since then to now, of you going through your journey and obviously I'm positive, you know, doing a deep dive in terms of research.
Has there been a shift?
And where is the gap as it sits today? Where is it that we as, as leaders, as community, as workplaces, still are falling short? And what is it that we can do to help improve the experience?
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Well, there's a couple of things happening there in our Western society. I'm not speaking of the other part of the world. We're still very death averse.
We're aging averse. We're death averse. Nobody wants to talk and face the fact that we are dying. At some point we all will. And so when you try to bring it up sometimes, oh, you're so negative. Oh, you're so focused on death. Well, actually, no, I'm not. I'm focused on being as fully alive as I possibly can be by taking down that fear of death, by facing it. I have a little saying that fear fades when we face it head on. And the more we bring the boogeyman to the dining room table, the boogeyman, the specter of death, and just start the gentle conversations, like, what are we going to do when Uncle Sam, who's ready to go into a senior home, how are we going to come around his family? Or when Pauline, an aunt, you know, from way back when she was starting to struggle with health issues, how can the family rally around what support? Getting people to identify what. What support they need, not what other people think they need, but what they need. And then having an opportunity, especially in the workplace, to have conversations with managers that understand the grieving process as it's happening, the anticipatory grief, the caregiver, the burden on caregivers and what's happening to them in the workplace, the more that we have responsive and responsible workplaces that see that there's a great company, it's an American company. I'm hoping we can start a Canadian one day called Bereave, which I came across on LinkedIn when I was doing the research for your Disrupt HR. And they're. They've got a huge database where they're putting information of when people are on leave for personal leave, when they're dealing with a sick parent, or when they're on leave for, you know, more days than usual because this is happening, or how many days it took them to get back to work after the loss of a spouse with just really interesting metrics and really, you can't fix and improve what you're not measuring. And so they've taken it upon themselves to create this measurement so that people start to see, like the quote I had in in the Disrupt hr, about over a billion dollars worth of business losses due to grief and, you know, employees coming back to work but not being properly supported.
So I think the ongoing g.
Simply employers asking themselves, are we doing enough to support our grieving employees? And if we are, how do we know we are? Or are we asking them? Or, like, are they just assuming that because nobody says anything in a performance review or a discussion that everything's okay. We're trained to say everything's okay.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: When it could be anything but. Right.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Jeez.
So, I mean, I see that as a call to action. And I hope folks who are listening to this, watching this, are hearing sort of the message in the bottle, if you will, that, you know, death is inevitable. And, you know, especially, you know, I'M a New Brunswick girl. I'm, you know, born and raised and you know, I certainly know the data in our own province of we have a very aging population. I'm going to make some assumptions. That is happening in a lot of places all across the board. And so that means it is happening in the workplace. And if we're not having the conversations about it, if we're not supporting our people, there is a detriment to the organization in terms of, you know, the bottom line. And so I think when you know something is inevitable to your point, what are we doing about it and how are we measuring that it is working or not working for our community of at the workplace? Because it is happening.
And even if we put our hand head in the sand, it's still affecting. Yeah, yeah.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: I always say when we put our head in the sand, there's a whole other part of the anatomy that is being exposed, which isn't helpful to anybody. But yeah, it's so true. And I just, I really hope that as HR managers and people start to really dive into this whole business of how can we have the most effective, wonderful workplaces for people to work in or men manage the things that are going to be happening all the time. I live in St. Andrews by the sea now. It's mostly an aging population, so I'm certainly used to that. But death doesn't only happen to old.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah, you're right.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: That happens at all stages and ages. And our ability to stand by someone, not try and fix them, not tell them how they should grieve or how long their grief should take, that's a huge one. Three to five days. Please, back to work. You know, be done with it. And we want full you to show up at your desk.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: Doesn't matter if he's dying. Doesn't matter if he's dead. Doesn't matter what's going on. You're. And they're right, you're being paid X number of dollars and we need this from you. And as a grieved employee, I think it's so important that figure it out. There's got to be that flexibility, that respect. Some people can come back and pick everything up right away, but people that are neurodivergent to start with and have trouble with overload and losing focus and you put throw in a couple of different factors like I was dealing with when Harry was ill, when my son had a. A tumor behind his eye that took three different surgeries. One a craniotomy. You know, this was happening at the same time. And my daughter was coming back from Madagascar and Malaysia with malaria and, you know, different. And this was all happening at the. The same time. And I had. I was in a workplace that said, well, we need you to do the job you're being paid for. And that's when I left, because I thought, they're right. They're absolutely right. I couldn't do both. I was falling apart. And. And I knew that I had a limited amount of time to do the one job I had left, and that was walk Harry home.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah, put it blank. And you hear that and you think, wow, like, what opportunity that organization had to support a human who was experiencing life. And it was compounded.
Whereas because they didn't and because you were left to your own devices. And there is a capacity to all of us and there are different capacities for each of us that the decision had to be to leave. I feel like. And there's so much more I want to talk to you about today. And, y', all, this isn't even what she does for a living, but this is something like, I think this is the beauty of why I want to do this series, is because I believe in my heart, probably because I am, that we are multifaceted humans. Like, there's just not, like, one title. Like, I'm not just an entrepreneur. What do you do, Teriann? Well, I'm this and I'm all of these other things. There's all these intricacies and passions and knowledge that people have, and they're not just the business, the title, the role they have. There's so much more to us.
And so I very much appreciate that you have moved through this series, this experience in your life, and came out with a passion and a level of knowledge that you're willing to share. Because I think. And we're going to get to talking about what you do in terms of your business, but there's a beauty in when we speak and how it can change lives. And I think that this is equally. When I, you know, I have a client that I work with that does work around menopause. And I'm just like, there's a topic that, you know, it's not going away, y'.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: All.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: We'd like it to, but it's not. And nor is death. And so I just, you know, virtual high five to you for continuing to have this conversation. And I will 100% link to your TED talk as well as the disruptive HR talk, because I think this is a conversation that people need to be having at the boardroom and at the kitchen table and help to shift that worldview, that perspective that you say us Westerners have.
And if anybody didn't get the metaphor I just want to like bring some humor to it. So when you stick your head in the sand the other part of your anatomy is your butt is in the air Everybody. I just wanted to say that just.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: As we exposing your assets is how I put it.
I'm from Liverpool. Everything's a double entendre when you know.
[00:19:11] Speaker B: So let's talk about you and your current role because I, I love the work that you do as you know.
So why don't you kind of share a little, a little glimpse into what it is you do in a day to day in your business and how that came to be.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Well as part of it was as I think I said it earlier, I'm sitting in a cubicle in the government and I'm know Harry isn't going to be around forever and I'm thinking I don't want to work in the government forever. That was already clear. I'm not a cubicle person. I don't think in boxes and I'm very non linear and I love public speaking and I had found this public speaking club when I first started working for the government in 2002 and I just started wanting to do speeches. I'm not afraid of public speaking. I love. I actually went to this club to learn how to stop speaking to speak within the time limit and you know, just really, really learn to do that. And then I started competing and in the Toastmasters thing there's a bunch of different contest bunch that's a very good Toastmaster word. But in particular the International Speech Contest has a deep criteria about storytelling and how to get messages across from the stage using storytelling. So I started competing and I competed for for quite a long time actually won a lot of contests but never the International Speech Contest until I moved to New Brunswick in 2021 and the first speech contest I entered there I actually won at the district level so became the champion for all of Atlantic Canada and New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, all the rest of it. I tell people I was a overnight sensation, 21 years in the making because I never got that level in the other. But I just kept digging into storytelling. It became very clear to me and somewhere along the line of that trying to win a certain type of speech contest, I found out about the TED style of speaking. And it was based on an article that one of the Toastmaster champions had written called TED Fluence. And in it, Darren Lacroix had said that unless Toastmasters started to learn to speak more like TED speakers, we were going to get left behind because TED was very. This was in 2011, I think, when he wrote that, that the TED style of speaking was becoming the standard for how people wanted to be talked with or to. Instead of, you know, the sage from the stage. I am the great leader and you will listen to me. And so. But storytelling is such a huge part of that. So I took tons of extra stories, telling courses, spent thousands of dollars on different coaches for myself so that I could get deeper inside what makes a good story. Because I wanted to be as a coach, I wanted to be the best coach I could be when I have people come to me and say, I'm going to compete in like a big, huge contest in Toronto in a couple of months, or I want to speak at DISRUPT hr or I want to do a one woman fearless speech, which I also spoke about grief at, in Halifax in the summer.
So I just have a passion for helping people find the right story.
And then I've learned over years how to help them take anything out of the story that doesn't move the action forward. I have made speakers cry when I have said, that's got to come out of this speech. Never lose it. Tuck it away. But that cannot work for this stage. You're using up too much time or you're taking the audience on a journey they don't need. And yeah, so that has become a huge part of who I am as a coach now, is I can listen to you and help you find and refine and define and craft the story that will help you move your audiences to action.
And I stand by that statement.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: And you just had a win recently. Well, your clients had a win. I mean, you've had lots of wins actually, you know, over the last few months that I know of and I only know of a few. So. But from my perspective as somebody who, who, you know, you're a speaker's coach and you're helping individuals and I should throw out that she's also my coach when I made the decision to apply for TEDx. But you just had a really cool win with a couple of your clients up in Ontario. Right. Do you want to talk about that? Because I think it's just really cool.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: It is really cool. So I have a book publisher family that I'm part of. So lucky. Book publishing is the. Are the people that published my book on Get Ready for ted when TED is ready for You.
But we have a weekly call, and on these weekly calls we're supporting each other. Sometimes we're looking at book titles and subtitles and. But back in February, one of the authors gave a run through of a talk he was giving at the earlier level of this speaker. Slam is the big contest that was just happening. And Charles was getting ready for the. His first time, first time on stage. This man, he's a brilliant, lovely writer. And so I had so much fun working on that story with him. He goes and wins the whole night, first time ever on stage, first time competing, and Charles wins.
So then he's in the final, which was last Saturday or two Saturdays ago. They get winners from about five or six or seven different talks across the months to come and compete against each other. So 14 speakers the other night. Two of them. I'd been coaching Charles, I helped with his second talk. And then there's my wonderful narcoleptic friend Michelle Weger and her Great Dane service dog, Quinn, who were able to get in what they call the wild card position.
And so she ended up taking the whole show like she was brilliant. From the time she walks out on stage, everything we had talked about, she. Everything we had worked on, she had another coach as well, a very highly qualified coach. But Michelle was delightful to work with because she would go away and shape everything I just talked about. And she would work and practice and work and practice. And that I can tell you when I'm sitting there waiting for results to be announced, my heart is pounding as much as if I was one of the competitors waiting to hear.
And yeah, I'm sure they could have heard me scream from in my little seat here in St. Andrews all the way to Toronto. Charles came second and Michelle came first. It was fabulous.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: That's super exciting. When you think of some of the speakers you've worked with and the messaging, what is it about those speakers that really land with the audience that stands out to you? Like, what is it? Because I think that there are a lot of individuals who think of speaking as super scary. And it is in its own right, but it's also beautiful. And there is when you know, when you have a story, when you have a message, when you have a mission, to me, speaking is the best way to bring it forth. And so I'm curious because you have had the ability to both be a part and witness so many speakers, you know, across Canada and beyond. So is there a specific element that kind of comes to mind that stands out as what makes a great speaker?
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Yes, very Much so. And it's a little bit, you mentioned the word stripping away of things before. It's literally taking anything out of both the speaker and the talk that's artificial or that's put for a performative purpose rather than the authentic you being amplified. I have a pull up banner and it says no cookie cutter speakers allowed. And what that means is I don't coach everybody the same way me. I don't have a method that I push everybody through or everyone has to do module one before they can go on to module two. Anyone who comes to me for coaching comes to me at the level they're at already.
And it's up to me to quickly see what they need and how I can move them forward as quickly as possible. And that comes from years of teaching speakers for TEDx Ottawa and TEDx Canada when I had two or three months with them after they got yes. From the committee, which as you know, itself is a challenge.
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: After they got there. Yes. I had X number of weeks to get them fully, fully TED ready. And that's when I really learned to tighten up their process as well as tighten up my advice and whatnot. But the biggest thing, and it took me years, maybe that's what the 21 years in Purgatory were all about, was trying to be what other people thought a good speaker should be.
Trying to be the kind of person who would win a Toastmaster speech contest or the kind of flamboyant, you know, all over the place, which is just not me. So it took me Harry's death, it took me moving to Atlantic Canada, it took me settling in to more of who I am now before I could stand on that stage in Maine in 2024 and give a winning speech. Because that was Terry showing up. That was pure me with a story and all the skills that I'd learned. But everything else had been pulled away. So being the real you, I'm on, you know, amplify is what I try to do. And it's to take the essence of each person and show them how to get. Move the nerves out the way, learn to cope with it. What the central nervous system needs, what we need when we're preparing to perform or to step onto a TED red dot.
It's all of that. But what it comes down to more and more is be authentic, be the real you. Because that's the person who makes the connection, whether it's over coffee or on a zoom call or standing on a stage in front of 500 people.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Yeah, just show up when you think about, you know, the hundreds, potentially thousands of individuals who are sitting there with a story locked inside of them, but also are a part of, like, what is it, the 77% who are also petrified of public speaking.
What message would you give them? Because I have this inclination. There's a whole lot of people that would love to share that thing, to share their story.
What would be your advice to them?
[00:29:40] Speaker A: So there's a little bit of a problem with that. Question is some people have stories locked inside them, but not every story needs to come to the stage or not every story is ready for the stage. So I just had a conversation with a client this morning and we talk about, you need to heal enough of the story. I can talk about Harry dying now and, you know, my journey as a widow and all of that because I've talked about it enough out loud that my ears understand where my head and my heart. I still choke up sometimes. But it's about learning what the lesson of your story is for the audience.
And that's the big gap that most people don't even want to cross. They want to tell their story. And I say, if you want to tell your story, find the support group, find the therapist, find your friends, your family, line up your stuffies on your bed or whatever, you know, but tell your story. Absolutely. But learning to tell the story in a way that serves the audience is where excellent public speaking starts. And so that is where I really.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: I think that is a beautiful point because I think you're right. I think there are a lot of people that have a story.
But to your point, not all stories are ready or need to be brought to a stage, to the podium.
And I love the reframe is what's in it for them really, is what you're saying. Right. Like, what is the audience getting from this? How do they resonate? What is the lesson they're getting?
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah, and that's a Chris Anderson thing. He's had that in his book TED Talks since day one, where he said, it's not about the emotions of the story or the emotions you feel in the story. It's got to be about what's the lesson for the audience? Why are they listening to you? And what will it create that helps them think, feel, do, and act differently when you sit down and you've stopped talking.
And so that whole audience centric turn, I always, I tell and they're tired of hearing me say it. It's not what you want to say as a speaker that's important. It's what the audience needs to hear.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: 100.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: So that they will.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. 100.
And it's a, you know, even as in my own journey as a speaker, and I'm like an accidental speaker because I was, you know, in my early 20s when folks started handing me a microphone and I was allowed to get on a stage.
But it is that journey of recognizing that when you get up, you're there for them.
And there's this beauty of what you've lived through in your expertise and all of that, but you are there for them. And that reframe in two ways has also, you know, it's made me a better speaker, but I think it also took some of the fear away because then it really was no longer about me, it was about them.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's two things. To answer your other question. Show up as yourself.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: And serve the audience.
And it makes all the difference. You've got a gift to give the audience when you step on stage.
That's not I'm the great speaker or I'm the motivational, inspirational speaker. Your job is to get them to see themselves in your role and go, oh, I want that, or, oh, I can do that, because.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: That's the beauty. That's why I love the coaching part so much. I keep thinking I should do more speaking, but I love coaching.
[00:33:05] Speaker B: It's just. Well, I'm sure you'll continue because you've had a lot of speaking opportunities as of late, so I think they'll just continue, right?
[00:33:12] Speaker A: I hope so.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: So. So as we wrap this up today, I get a couple more questions for you. A few of them will be rapid fire, but you moved from, I think, Ontario, right. To Atlanta, Canada.
What made the decision for you, like, what was it about Atlantic Canada that brought you here?
[00:33:31] Speaker A: It's my firstborn child who is a professor at the University of Maine over in Orono, Bangor, and who comes with her students. She's a scientist. Comes to her with her students to St. Andrews once a year for a big science conference. Knew I wanted to leave Ontario. It was getting too expensive as a widow. And it was Covid. And I wanted to be closer to her, you know, so we could at least visit back and forth. And she just said, mom, you're going to love St. Andrews. I'm from Liverpool, England, but. But grew up in Bermuda. Atlantic coast is kind of in my bloodstream. And both my children were born in Fredericton when their father was military and we were in Gagetown. So there are some roots here. And I have a very good friend who is a huge part of the choir and choral music in New Brunswick. And so I felt like I was. I had Janet, my friend, and Danielle, my daughter, that could sort of anchor me in a new place. And so that's why I came to Atlanta, Canada.
[00:34:31] Speaker B: That is amazing. So I don't know if you knew this, but St. Andrews is my absolute favorite place in the entire world. Like, if I'm in a mood or if I'm sad, I will literally drive to St. Andrews. And it's like almost as I come, like, you know that part where, like, you go down the hill and up the hill, my whole heart starts to, like, get like all, like. I don't know, I get like the fuzzies, like, oh, this is lovely. And then I go and I walk around and I mean, there's not a lot in St. Andrews, especially if you go like, you know, this time of year, but it doesn't matter. There's something about the energy there. I used to have a store there and maybe there's some good memories from that as well.
[00:35:06] Speaker A: You told me that.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: I love it. And I do believe part of my healing has happened since I moved here.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: I love that.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: I feel like I have my feet underneath me. I'm grounded. There's not even traffic lights in St. Andrews. I mean, come on. It's gorgeous here.
[00:35:21] Speaker B: It really, it is gorgeous there. And the people, lovely. And it's just cute and small and just. It has like its own energy. So, yes, I'm. I'm a total fan. Okay, so some rapid fire questions. Coffee or tea?
Coffee. Morning person or night owl?
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Oh, morning.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: All right. Oh, yeah, you did send me that message.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: I tell people I'm smarter in the morning.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: What is your happiness ritual? In other words, what do you do to bring joy to your world?
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Well, chatting with my grandchildren is one of them.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Face me. They're in Ann Arbor, Michigan, so I don't see them nearly enough, but FaceTime is our friend. Awesome chatting with either of the kids. Yeah. Family and red wine. Gotta be honest.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: Love it. Love it. Okay, final question. When you think about your journey, what is one word, one sentence that sort of wraps it up in a bow, which is a very difficult question.
Is there a word that kind of comes to mind? A sentence that comes to mind? A mantra?
[00:36:25] Speaker A: I'm going to borrow from Louise Penny here because this was something that struck me when I read one of her books. Surprised by joy.
Oh, I wake up in the morning now and I just say, okay, how am I going to be surprised by joy today? So, Louise, Penny, thank you for that. It's so true.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Beautiful. Surprised by joy.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Love it.
Listen, Terry, thank you so much for sharing your heart, your wisdom, sharing all that's you and more on today's episode. And I wish you the best of success and the most joy moving forward.
[00:37:06] Speaker A: Thank you. And your success is my success. So we're in this together.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: You are correct. Thank you so much.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: All right. Thank you. Terianne, this was wonderful.
This has been Faces of Atlantic with host Terianne Richards, real conversations with the people shaping Atlantic Canada.
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