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.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: So this is Faces of Atlantic, where we go beyond titles and talk about the real human, human side of leadership. I'm Terianne Richards and today I am sitting down with my friend Steve Forin and we're going to uncover the story behind him as a leader. Hey, Steve.
[00:00:40] Speaker C: How you doing, Terianne? Good to be here.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Good. I'm excited for you to be here.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: I'm interested to hear what we uncover.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: I know, I know. It's like it's a mystery.
So when we strip away the titles, right, Because I can look you up online. You've got an amazing website, you have an awesome LinkedIn profile. When I strip away that, I strip away the titles, the strategy, the success.
Who are you really?
[00:01:08] Speaker C: Like, you're gonna see it on my website and on my LinkedIn.
I'm. Because this is something I'm really proud of, even though I didn't have a lot to do with it is. But I'm a proud grandfather of four and 40 years, married to my first girlfriend, Linda. We grew up like three streets apart and for years we traveled back and forth. We had a cross going to schools, we went to different schools. I went to the Catholic school, she went to the non Catholic school. And we never met each other once in four years until we started working at a grocery store together.
And I guess that was the genesis of the four grandkids that are 1, 2, 3 and 10. We have sleepovers Monday nights with a 10 year old and a 2 year old and we're recording on a Monday. So in an hour's time our oldest grandson will pop by our place on his way home from school and stay the night. And on Wednesday nights we have sleepovers with the one year old and the three year old and that's a busier night for us. I'm the oldest of five, grew up in Halifax. I share one thing in common with Bruce Springsteen.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:02:18] Speaker C: We both live within a mile of where we grew up.
So how's that for no time?
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Oh, I love that. I don't think I knew that you had four grandkids. I mean, I knew that you were a grandpa. Now do we call you Grandpa? Grampy, what's your. Oh, you have a name. What is it?
Bump. Bump. Bump. That's what it is.
I love It. I have a grandson as well. Just one. He's five and I'm nene now. How did you get bump?
[00:02:46] Speaker C: Well, he couldn't say Gump, and it came out as bump. So that stuck with me. And Gump kind of came from. The kids were calling me grumpy because, as during the pregnancy, the first, like, because they would bring their pets over and I would. Our house was like a lobby at a hotel, like, just perfectly. It's not now. And so. And if the dogs came in, they'd be wet and I would get grumpy. And they said, well, we can't call them grump, but why don't we call them Gump?
And so that kind of was the. And Max, he couldn't pronounce the G and it became bump, and so it just stuck.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: I like it. Yeah, I. My Nini is mine, and it's not that awesome. I googled it. I was like, I'm not a grandma. Like, I don't want to be grandma or nanny.
[00:03:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Because I'm young. So I was like, I googled and I Nini. I was like that. That I like. I can land with Nini for sure.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: It's good. And Linda, my wife, she wanted to be Gammy. She was all in. Like, she wanted Gammy. Well, max doesn't do GS, right. He's the oldest and the oldest names them.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: So Linda's grandmother name is me.
That gets very, very confusing when you start talking to smaller kids. Who did that? Me.
You're wondering which me did it? Like your grandmother or you or any of them. It's just.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Oh, oh, I love it. I love it. So, you know, obviously I've known you for a few years, but we're going to pretend that folks who are watching this video that are listening to this don't know. You don't know what you've been up to over the last few years, where your purpose, where your mission is. Share a little bit with us. What have you been up to? What is your purpose driven mission in terms of your business? Who are your clients, the type of work that you're doing?
[00:04:38] Speaker C: Yeah, I crystallized this belief about eight years ago. And the belief is my or my dream. I crystallize this dream, which really is, in essence, it's been the evolved purpose of my work, my work life. One billion happier people.
And so. And the tool that I have chosen to use to kind of help get to that place is gratitude and a grateful frame of mind. And so the work I do is really Very, very simple. Teaching and equipping individuals and organizations teams with the whole concept of grateful leadership and how to use that to help create a happier world and happier workplaces too.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: I love that. Can you delve a little bit deeper? Because I mean, I think we've all heard that gratitude is important and that it' good for us and but I think you can sometimes hear things and it feels very abstract, like, well, what does that actually mean and how does that play into my day to day life? When you are having those training sessions, when you're up on stage sharing these stories, what is that common thread? What is that message that you're giving folks in terms of how to implement gratitude into the world to become, you know, those happier, you know, individuals, workplaces.
[00:06:04] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm trying to synthesize a whole bunch of ideas because in there are a whole bunch of different rabbit holes that we could go down.
Number one, this idea of, you know, we know gratitude's important.
Like think about it, your upbringing, you know, you listen like watching or listening, like what was your upbringing like? You think of your parents upbringing, what was it like? There was no science around gratitude and manners or anything. They just knew, like over centuries we've just known that we need to do this right.
We're in an age today where there's a pile of research around this and the evidence is overwhelming and you know, depending on where you look, they'll tell you that gratitude is the number one, the best predictor of living a flourishing, thriving life. You know, and we're certain, you know, you look at the UN Global Happiness report like the west is leading the decline in global happiness. And so my work, when we can give people all these facts and figures and science that is exactly like Charlie Brown's teachers.
Wa wa wa wa wa. Because you know what, we know this and blah, you know, it's true.
I just tell them a story, you know what, we like stories as people. I was in a session last week and with the group one engage them in just helping them find it for themselves and you know, stories and then conversations and the number one comment that I get is eye opening, which is really kind of strange when you think of how simple this is. But we so seldom step back and just kind of take stock of our life. And what most stands out to me from what I hear from folks, is how easy it is to take our lives and the people in them and the situations, we have to take them.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: For granted when you look at your life because I know, you know, previous to this Work. You had a life before, right? I think you were an engineer, correct?
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Still an engineer.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: I suppose once you're always one, right.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: That doesn't actually just disappear at some point. But was there a defining moment in your life that really changed the way that you show up and lead as a human today in Atlantic Canada?
[00:08:42] Speaker C: I've always been very positive. 20 odd years ago though, I had a realization that my life was handed to me on a silver platter. And it was just this gradual accumulation of experiences and things that were happening in my kids, how they were progressing.
And up to that point I thought I had done it all myself. Kind of you would self made man, self made woman, self made personal. I kind of, I would be like, I'm one like regardless of whether you think my successes were big or small, I was just like did it on my own.
Yeah, I had this realization my life was handed to me on a silver platter which flips that completely upside down when you see everything as a gift.
And I was in grad school at the time and so I ended up doing my research on this and around gratitude. And when I finished, I looked at my wife, I said hun, I think this is the work I got to start doing.
And you know one of the key moments in helping me have that realization. Our kids and their first jobs were it was in a neighborhood coffee shop. And Nick, who's the oldest, starts in August, minimum wage, five, six, seven hours a week, August, he starts end of December. His net worth based on just his bank account is greater than half the world's population.
And so he's, I started thinking he didn't, I'm thinking he didn't do it on his own. Do you know who I'm really talking to? Yeah, me.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
So tell me this, when you sit down with folks and I'm sure you have all sorts of conversations because I know that you know, you work one on one with folks, you're facilitating, you're doing trainings.
I'm sure like a lot of folks that I seem to be having conversations with, you have those one off conversations where somebody comes up and says how this type of work is shifting their thought or changing their life. Is there a story that comes to mind where you can sort of put the glue together for us that speaks to how gratitude really actually, because it is when anyone listens to this and they hear it, it sounds so simple. Yet a very large percentage of folks probably aren't putting this into practice on a day to day basis. So is there A story that sort of comes to mind where this really shifted for, like, there was an aha moment that you can link that to for us.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: Well, I know last week I stopped asking people who used to have a gratitude practice. I stopped asking because I just realized out of a group, easily 10% of the room has had a gratitude practice, and it falls away.
What we know is the number one barrier, the number one obstacle to maintaining a gratitude practice. Because this is simple.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: Forgetfulness. We forget. And that doesn't come from me. This comes from Bob Emmons. And Bob, he was.
He started researching gratitude before it was cool.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: So what, he was one of the initial people that got this going. And there was some gratitude research done before the early 2000s, but Bob was one of the researchers in the room that stood up in 1999, 2000, when the temple foundation decided they want to support gratitude research.
Number one barrier is forgetfulness. And we. You know why we forget?
Life happens.
Something happens with my mom, something happens with the kids. I get busy at work, I get sick, I get this diagnosis. And when that happens, we totally shift our focus.
And then we. It's not like we deliberately try to not do it.
We just got away from it and we forgot.
And so the biggest thing that you or I or anyone else can do is to just find a reliable trigger, a reminder to keep that practice alive on a day. So something that's going to be the. That's why I do the daily gratitude email. I started that before I even knew that. The number one reason why people stop making gratitude lists and stop their practice is because they forget. And so we need a reminder to keep it.
[00:13:19] Speaker B: Kind of like brushing your teeth. Right. You did your gratitude. I don't know how you would do it, but I suppose you could, like, you do a voice gratitude or something. Or write down while you're brushing your teeth. Right. Like, I see what you're saying, like linking it to something that you're gonna do kind of like automatically on a daily basis.
[00:13:36] Speaker C: This is where we need to. That's ideally I say where we need to get. I don't want to. Should anyone in, Danny? Yeah, but, you know, I always ask an audience who brushed their teeth this morning?
It's funny you mentioned brushing your teeth. Everyone puts up their hand.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:13:55] Speaker C: Next question I ask, where was your toothbrush?
I'll often ask, was it out in the garage? Was it up in the attic?
No one has ever said yes to that. Nope. It's always by the sink. You go to the sink in the morning there's, you see the toothbrush, there's a reminder, the tr. This, this thing that says, okay, we're going to brush our teeth. And we do that. We set it up as easily as we can because we know brushing our teeth is the number one predictor of good oral health. Even higher than flossing. Because if you don't brush your teeth, there's no chance you're even going to floss.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: No. You're so right.
[00:14:32] Speaker C: I've asked dentists that and dentists have confirmed it for me. Although there could be a dentist that's listening or watching and say, no, Steve, you're wrong. I'm fine with that.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: I'm okay with that. Yeah, interesting. So it's funny how you're talking about, this is me digressing like, or like moving over here for a second because I do that on tangents. But my mother was talking about this supplement she wants to take and she says I keep freaking forgetting it. And that was exactly the conversation we had was like, put it next to the toothpaste in your toothbrush because you brush. I know you brush your teeth every day. Like she taught me. I brush my teeth three times a day, for goodness sake. Because she taught me those skills. Right?
So it's interesting how some of the most simple things that can really uplift your life, right? Like you on a mission, one billion happier people. But there's also like everybody who's listening to this wants to also feel happy. Also, you know, also wants to feel good and be thriving and fulfilled. And it, and sometimes it's the most ridiculous simple things that will help you get there. And so we dismiss it because it's so simple it couldn't actually work.
But this is not Steve jumping on and saying, like, hey, I made this up yesterday and y' all should do it. It's like, hey, there's this body of research that's been around since before Steve started talking about it and then he dove into it. And this little simple practice while, you know, connect it to your toothbrush, could potentially radically shift your life and the lives of those around you. Which, that part I really like. I like the trickle down effect of happier people.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: That is definitely the premise. And my promise, like just a small tweak to your day, has a massive impact on your personal well being and your course of professional success.
For some people it is going to be easier.
For some people it's going to be harder just because of how we're wired. But it does for those of you, if you Happen to be someone who it's harder for. For me, it was easier.
But for folks who it's harder for, it might take a little longer before you start feeling the impact, the results of it.
Just, you know, stick with it and.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. So when you look at your life and, you know, as a mentor, as a leader, as a bump and all of the things that you have experienced, has there been this pattern that has had to be in unlearned to become the human you are today?
Like, I always think of things that were passed down through our parents, just stuff that we learned, and then over time, we realize, oh, that's not actually, like, fueling me anymore. That's not serving the next version of me. Was there something that you had to unlearn or, like, drop it off at its last stop and kind of be like, all right, you're gonna stay there. Could you share that with us?
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Yeah. And this thing that I've dropped off somehow, I think it's got a. Like an apple air tag on me, wanting to follow me around. You know what I'm saying?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: I do.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: You know, I was the oldest of five, and, you know, kind of. I did it on my own.
I just, you know, had a very. If it's going to happen, it's up to me.
[00:17:41] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: Someone else has a problem, it's there. I was very judgmental, so that was the. And I didn't. I don't find being judgmental serves me well.
And it. You know, because judging brings with it attachment to outcomes or expectations on others, things that I have absolutely zero control over.
And I don't. I know when I'm on the other side of being judged, when I feel like I'm being judged, I don't feel the type of inspiring impact from the person who's judging me. And so if I say if I want to be in that, like, when I'm on the other side, that's how people feel. I don't think that's serving me well. So, yeah, I've tried to leave that back at the train station. But like I say, maybe so many years of practicing being a good judge is catching up with me because it still wants to. I still find myself, you know, where I can fall into that.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's so interesting because I was actually reading an article not too long ago about that, and I think it's natural human behavior to judge. I think that's just, like, how we sort of figure out if this is, like, good or bad or, like, this is for us or not for Us, I think where what you're talking about, judging can not work for us is when it, you know, maybe affects relationships or adjust how we approach opportunities versus being a little bit more open minded or open to new, you know, perspectives and stuff. And so I think a part of it's always there and I know even for myself, always have to like, you know, there's a saying, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself. And I'll have to check myself be like, why am I judging at that level right now? Like, what am I afraid of? Or like what's coming up from the past. Because a lot of times I find that's what it is. It's something from back there that's still like lingering. And it's like, okay, that's not a them problem. That's actually like something else. I need to, I need to work, work my way through. Right.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: It. No question. I mean there's, there is a role of judgment that we're going to exercise for our own personal safety. And as a leader inside an organization, you're being paid to make judgments on like this. I'm talking about like when I used to see someone on the street come up to me, yeah, could I have some money? You got any spare change? I would be, you want my money?
Go get a job. I work for this. And then it's like, I'm not giving them money. They're going to just spend it on booze.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:04] Speaker C: How, how come, how about this from judgment. How come it's okay for me to spend money on booze, but not them to spend money on booze or whatever it is? Right.
[00:20:14] Speaker B: Fair game.
[00:20:14] Speaker C: I would just be judging the heck out of people.
[00:20:18] Speaker B: So what a space of awareness though, for you to be able to get to that. And I certainly hope somebody else who's listening puts a pin on that because you're not the only one. Right. We kind of all have our quirks.
I know you do a lot of work with the McKay forums. You're a chair. So you get to work with a lot of our top leaders across Atlantic Canada and beyond, folks that are doing some really awesome things.
When you look at Atlantic Canada as a whole in terms of our entrepreneurial, you know, the things that are available to us as entrepreneurs and as its leaders, what do you see as the, the biggest opportunity right now for entrepreneurs, leaders in Atlanta, Canada, like, what are you seeing in, you know, out there in the trenches that is an opportunity for us to continue to grow and prosper here in Atlantic Canada?
[00:21:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I work with through the MCACIO forms, I work with about 50 different CEOs and executives in all four provinces that part of different peer support groups. And I've been doing that for seven years as a compliment to the work I do with grateful leadership. And I've actually helped embed that within the forums. I moderate and other chairs use it as well too. But I think the thing that it surprises me and I don't know, it may or may not surprise you, but over this past year we've done a couple of retreats focused around AI.
[00:21:52] Speaker A: AI?
[00:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: And how you can tangibly implement it within your business. And I just go back to some work that I did with some of the groups and I asked these CEOs how are you going to be using AI in 12 months time?
So kind of ask that question of them. And with oat exception they all rated it like no, it doesn't apply to my business. Doesn't apply to my business. And this is just right around the time Chat GP T was coming out. So two years ago.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:22:26] Speaker C: And so just completely underestimating it. And I know one of the people in the room who said now it doesn't apply in our line of business today uses it as a thought partner like strategic plan into like does all this stuff and then says I want you to ask me questions about my business. I want you to, you give me one piece of advice every single day about how I can improve my business. And like there are so many, there's just so many use case studies that you can use with AI that I'm no expert on it. I mean I use it in my business. But we, you and I, we still need to be experts at what we do.
But if you can speed up the development process of like making sense of complexity so that you still are doing the like AI is really getting us. And I think there is tremendous opportunity in Atlanta, Canada.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: I agree.
Go ahead. Yes.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: One last thing, if I can button it and this, I'm taking a long time to land this.
[00:23:36] Speaker B: No, no, it's okay.
[00:23:38] Speaker C: The 50 people I work with care about human beings more than you can ever expect. And you would expect that in Atlantic Canada. So I think that gives Atlantic Canada an advantage for embracing Atlantic Canadian businesses for embracing AI in their business.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Yeah, like not losing the human aspect but using it. Because I think the reality of it is, is, you know, when you look to the outside world, looking in Atlantic Canada has always kind of been like, not that we're little, but we're little. Right. Like in, in comparison of some of the bigger areas.
But we have so much talent and so many amazing businesses and amazing leaders doing really awesome things. And so I think to your point, kind of like in our business, where we can't always compete on ad spend with the big guys, I think where Atlanta Canadians to what you're saying can really compete is in how they bring in the human and the AI aspect of. To really create more efficiencies in their business, have more thought leadership. There's a lot that you can do. Like, I just co coded an entire app with AI because I need. I wanted a calculator for my business.
And so I brought in all the data and then co code it. And I'm like, I'm not a coder.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: No.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: And it works.
And I'm like, what else can I do? Right? Like, it's so much more than like, I know a lot of people still think of like copy, right? Like, it can help you with copy and it can answer some of your questions in terms of research. But there's so much. I feel like we've only touched like this much and there's like this much to learn of how you can bring it into your life. So I love that you brought that up as a big opportunity for Atlanta Canadian leaders and entrepreneurs.
[00:25:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it really is. It's going to be here to stay. You know my daily calendar, I got a daily calendar that gives you these interesting quotation or facts or just mundane facts. And last week, one of the ones was that, you know, adults in the 1700s were really getting concerned when novels became. They started getting published and they were getting widespread use because the youth of the day were spending so much time reading.
They called it reading mania. Reading like those kids, how could they be spending all their time reading? That's how we thought 300 years ago about reading.
Like, whether it's playing video games, which I'm not a big video game player because I'd say that about video games, but maybe video games AI all these things that we're just thinking, oh, we got to be careful.
Yeah, we got to be careful, but we also got to be careful that we're being too careful. And we got to figure out how to embrace them in our business.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Fair game. Fair game. If you were to give advice to Atlanta Canadian leaders, what would that piece of advice be that could shift their business in the next 12 months?
[00:26:36] Speaker C: I would say for you, start making a gratitude list every single day. Make list of three things that you're grateful for and keep at it. And give yourself A reminder, like a trigger of some type. So put a notification on your phone, something's going to remind you to do it. Otherwise you're going to forget.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Okay, I got a few quick fire questions for you and then we'll sort of wrap this up. So are you a coffee or tea guy?
[00:27:03] Speaker C: Tea in the morning, coffee in the afternoon.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Oh, okay. All right. Morning person. Night owl.
[00:27:09] Speaker C: Morning.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: Okay.
One word that those around you that know you would use to describe you.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: Wacky.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Really?
What is your favorite book?
I know it's a tough one.
[00:27:28] Speaker C: I don't know. I don't have one. I. I don't have.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Do you read a lot?
[00:27:33] Speaker C: Yeah, but I've got five books on my nightstand right now because I've been kind of struggling with it. So I'll say my book, the one I wrote, that's my favorite.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: I like that. I will make sure that's in the show notes. And what is your happiness ritual? I feel like your happiness ritual is gratitude, but maybe you have something else up your sleeve. So what is your happiness ritual on a daily basis?
[00:27:55] Speaker C: It's not every day.
The my running, like getting out run, that is part like I daily gratitudes every single day. But just there is something very sacred about putting one foot in front of the other and I call it running. Many people would not call it running, but I call it running.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Still, you know what you're allowed to call it whatever you want.
I love it. This has been a great conversation. Is there anything else you want to leave us with before I close us off today?
[00:28:30] Speaker C: I'd just like to thank you for the time and for not giving me any questions I couldn't answer. I mean, halfway through the question, but what did you leave behind? I was thinking, I don't have an answer for this. And then I'm glad you took a long time to answer that to ask that question because you're like, oh, I got one.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: I got one back there at the train station.
I love it. Well, I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and have a good day.
[00:28:56] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks. You too, Teriann. Thanks.
[00:28:58] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: This has been Faces of Atlantic with host Terianne Richards. Real conversations with the people shaping Atlantic Canada.
If you liked this episode, be sure to follow, subscribe and share it with someone who'd love these stories. Stories too.
