34: Leading a City out of Rock Bottom, Building Calgary 2.0

But certainly also, you know, as being a leader of a city when you have 1.5 million people that are suffering from the highest recorded suicide rates ever, domestic violence. All these, you know, terrifying facts that we really don't want to talk about.

Inside each of us is, first of all, the potential to work through it and to continue finding not only life, but a good life. Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams and this is the podcast where we explore personal stor of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live right here we cover subjects in business, sports and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, hand signals, trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use morse code, whatever you like, just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcastricilbertwilliams.com Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastericgilbertwilliams.com I know you're gonna love today's interview, so let's get started. Hey everyone. Here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it is a special episode. It's the first time that we have a returning guest and it's also the first time that we're gonna get to discuss the concept of From Rock Bottom to Rockin it from a political leadership perspective. And as everyone knows, typically on the show here we explore personal stories of rock bottom experiences and how people get back up, you know, wipe off the dust from your shoulders and break through to the ROC that are waiting for us on the other side. But today we're going to look at it from the angle of being a political leader. So imagine for a second, imagine wherever you are, in your living room, in your car, whatever it is, imagine for a second you were actually the mayor of your own city. Just close your eyes and imagine what that full responsibility, what that looks like. This is your full time occupation. You're now in charge of and responsible for decisions about the school system that your kids go to. You're in charge of building code, decisions that Determine how the house or the apartment is that you live in. And you're also now in charge and responsible for in a way that every single job that every person has around you, your friends, your neighbors, your coworkers, all that stuff is squarely on your shoulders. Now that sounds a little bit heavy. It kind of. It basically is. With all that weight on your shoulders, how would you lead a city out of this recent, relatively rock bottom experience that we're all going through here in Covid.

Right.

That's on your shoulders. Now, you gotta think of it this way. This isn't a time for finger pointing and being, you know, critical. This is about what would you do think about that from that perspective. So in that context, here with us on Rock Bottom to Rockin, it is returning guest from episode 12, none other than Calgary mayoral candidate Zane Novak. Now, welcome back to the show, Zane. It's the first time I get to say that it's exciting. How are you?

Thank you very much, Eric. Thank you for the first show we did. And thank you again for having me back. And it's a privilege to be your first returning guest.

Yeah, it's great to have you here. So what are you up to these days? I mean, you're going from air, you got all this stuff going on. But tell me in your own words what's happening right now.

It's obviously a very full schedule. I'm still working with my businesses because one of the interesting things about running for municipal politics is as the candidate, even though you can raise and have to obviously raise funds for your mayoral or councillor race, whatever it is, you're not allowed to draw any funds from that reserve for yourself. So you still have to make your own living, you still have to pay your own bills, you still have to do all of that. In fact, the bills that I incur in this for anything I've purchased, I'm not even eligible to reclaim from that fund until after the election. So you have the whole election campaign that you're running, and it's new territory for someone like me who's not an incumbent. And then at the same time, you are still providing a living for yourself and looking out to the future and planning one day ahead, but expecting to be situated for five days ahead or five years ahead. So, yeah, it's a whole new world, definitely. And politics is an animal all unto itself. And you will never truly realize that until you throw your hat in the ring.

And that's why I started off this intro here of getting people to imagine, because everyone's got a different experience. Politics was never really a hot subject in my personal house growing up. My parents never really spent much time focusing on that. My mom was in the school board in Ontario. And usually it was always a criticism. Oh, it's. Can't believe they're doing this. Oh, I can't believe they're doing that. And it was always that. Without really going into the productive intricacies of, well, how do we. Right. How do we get from here to there? It's just really easy to point those fingers without taking the time to put ourselves in those shoes. And that's why I started this whole show in that concept. And I relate to you, by the way, with raising money, not being able to do anything with my new startup here and raising some capital with some investors. It's weird to be sitting on this pool of resources, but my personal income has actually gone down because it needs to be managed properly and professionally, which means cutting expenses that aren't necessary. And there's no point paying myself to a higher degree in startup mode. So it's a very weird feeling to be in that spot.

Well, it certainly poses its challenges. I mean, for instance, give it an analogy. Imagine if you have, you know, in business school and all these types of things. So we said, okay, imagine you have built the world's best mousetrap or the new widget that everyone needs, but you need a lot of things in order to concept, you know, take that conceptual idea into actual fruition in the marketplace. And you need resources, you need material, you need expertise, whether it's engineers, you need a marketing team, you need resources, and a lot of that is capital. So in running for a political office, it's no different. You have this dream, you have this vision, you have this idea, and you have this passion that you want to bring to fruition, but you cannot do it on your own. So what do you do? You go to family, friends, you know, whoever, and if it was an interpretal idea such as yours, you go to family, friends, funders, you know, investment capitalists, the banks, whoever, and you come with your business plan and they go, okay, we will fund you, but here are the conditions by which you have to accept this funding. It's going to take you at least two years before there's any chance of success. Because I, in this mayoral race, have been doing this. Well, as of February, three years, we've been working on it. And your investment investors go, okay, this will take at least two to three years. You're going to be working on just about 24 hours a day. You will incur expenses which you can't hand in. You will have a team and some of which will be, you know, paid. It's going to take about a million dollars in funding to win the mayoral race. And you have to present the business case for this. You have to do all of this. Everybody's going to be invested in it, so many people will be paid, etc. Etc. Etc. You cannot receive a single penny unless you win. Unless, you know, so here you are as an interpreter going, okay, you're investing. You can't get a single penny because you got to work 24 hours a day basically. And then once it comes to fruition and success, then possibly you'll start to get paid. But remember, along the way, if you for any reason quit, this whole idea dies. No one can do it without you. You will have let down and disappointed everyone on the team. I mean, who as an interpretal individual, accept those terms? You'd never do it. So, you know, you sometimes wonder why maybe there's a lack of depth in who we have in leaders in the political arena. When you understand the process, it eliminates a lot of people, men and women, who would want to do it for all the right reasons. Just because the way the play is arranged, the chances of success for a non incumbent who doesn't come from, you know, large philanthropic money just really doesn't have a chance. The game is stacked against them. So I mean, that's one thing that our team is facing is how to be really creative. This, we have a goal where every dollar donated to us, we get $5 of value out of. We are trying to do some of. I'm not going to tip my hand at this point. Some of the most creative campaigning, forward thinking items that have ever done in the municipal election, I believe that, you know, inflation adjusted, we will run the most cost effective campaign in a major municipality in Canada probably ever. And I think that, you know, our team is really dedicated and their heart is in it. And because when we are elected to the mayoral office, you know, one of our platform items is being very efficient, being accountable, you know, bringing accountability, City hall. And part of that accountability is definitely on a fiscal basis. So we need to start that fiscal responsibility in the way we run our campaign. By being creative, forward thinking, taking advantage of every opportunity we can, people are donating their money and that puts an obligation and responsibility on us to do it the best we can. And I think that that is a message that's been lost in city hall. Taxpayer Money that goes into City hall is really no different than the donation money that's given to me. Because that donation money that's given to me is people believing in me, believing that we can make change, make lives better, make things better. How is that any different than the taxes we pay to our City hall? I mean, we fund City hall because we want better services, we want better things in our community. We want better buildings, better roads, better infrastructure, we want better advocacy for our city. We want to feel safer and we want to feel that this is the community that loves us like we love them. So that obligation goes from the donations right into when we're in City hall and it's taxpayers money we're dealing with.

So building on this subject, if in episode 12 when we first talked, we explored your personal story from Rock Bottom to Rock and it anyone that hasn't listened to that episode, just check it out, episode 12, you know, we've done 20 episodes since we last shot it, recorded and published. We've had seven time Olympic medalists, we've had some NHL all stars, we had Chong from Cheech and Chong in Hollywood looking at a few interesting subjects with him. We had Dame Stephanie Shrill. Anyways, it's come a long way when we draw this bridge between personal to leadership and how do we deal with rock bottom? So two questions on that. Just so everyone is on the same page and everyone who's listening understand what it is from a city perspective in terms of employment and income in relation to impacts of COVID 19. What is the current situation in Calgary? Explain it in terms of numbers to everyone listening. What has happened to employment and average incomes and vacancy in Calgary over the last, let's say 16 months as Covid really hit? And what do you feel like? Do you feel that as a personal responsibility and how do we kind of lead out of that from a personal perspective?

Well, Calgary was already, you know, to a great degree on its knees because of the economy and politics before COVID even happened. And then when Covid happened, not only did it take us down to the knees, it took us off at the waist, almost at the neck. So we as an urban center have close to 1.5 million people living within the boundaries of Calgary. We have some of the highest vacancy rates of any urban center in Canada. We have the highest unemployment rates of any city in Canada. Urban center in Canada.

And let me inject this, let me just tell people listening, this is an oil and gas city. This is how we're known to the world. We're oil and Gas. Now the price of oil was less than a zero at some point last year. So that's what's going on. Calgary is coming from. When we're talking about Calgary being on its knees, that's what we're talking about. Sorry, continue. Just want to make sure everyone got that.

Yes, definitely. We had been noted as an energy capital city in Canada, almost in North America. And we have had a fight for five years with commodity pricing. We've had political environments, you know, federally and provincially, who really have not been positive about the production of hydrocarbons, limiting the ability to build pipelines to export. You know, when you have your major resource which has funded a lot of Canada to the tune of $661 billion in transfer payments in the last 20 or so years, and when the rest of the country doesn't support you and you can't export that resource and your city is the head of office capital of that resource in Canada, all those things, you know, just impact you just unbelievably are. We've lost, you know, two to 300,000 jobs in the last five or six years in the oil and gas industry. Along with the fact that Covid impact that you mentioned a year ago this time we were in actual negative prices on natural gas and oil. It was actually, you know, people were trying to store it. They were renting tanks, doing everything can store because it was actually costing them money to ship it down the pipeline. They had to pay out of pocket to ship their product down the pipeline for sale. So it's just a catastrophe of things. And then with COVID and small businesses closing, Calgary's just taking this. It's just, you know, the hits keep coming and they're not the top 40. Every time we see light at the end of the tunnel, it's a train coming and it's hitting us. And we statistically are suffering from all of that. So that weighs upon I think anybody in a leadership role. And if it doesn't, then you shouldn't be in a leadership role, even if it's a business. But certainly also, you know, as being a leader of a city when you have 1.5 million people that are suffering from the highest recorded suicide rates ever, domestic violence. All these, you know, terrifying facts that we really don't want to talk about but are very real appear in this. They're part of that purview. Right. I was just downtown talking in some zoom meetings with some leaders here in downtown Calgary. Oil and gas, we have one of the most beautiful and certainly the Most connected downtown cores of any city in the world set up amazingly well for business. I would rival it against any city in the world for business connectivity. And our vacancy rate Is posted over 30%. However, what people rarely talk about is the fact that so much of that space that is still rented is not occupied because people have signed 5, 10, even 30 year leases in certain buildings but yet they've laid off 60, 70% of their staff. So I bounced this off of a number of CEOs of companies down there and they all agreed that in their buildings where they still go, there is at least 70% of the offices where lights never come on. So you have a downtown core that's one of the most amazing in the world. And 70% of the lights come on. Terrifying. Terrifying for the future of the city if we do not figure out how to deal with that and move forward from it.

So people that are listening and of course going through their own version of a rock bottom, maybe they're a small business owner or whatever it happens to be, or someone got laid off in the family or maybe they got laid off themselves. It's enough of a challenge to get back up and wipe the dust off and come through and succeed through our own personal rock bottom experiences before taking on the burden of the same thing multiplied by whatever the capita is of the city. Why would you want to take on that? What's driving you here?

Well, I think that the same thing that's driving me for this is what's helped me survive and succeed through all of my life and that's passion and forward thinking and focus. So yeah, you know, I said a lot of negative facts about the situation that Calgary is in. But I know that there's a far better version of Calgary if it's handled right, just, you know, in the near future. And that's what's driving me, my love of this city, my love of my neighbors, the fact that, yeah, you know, when I walk down the street so many of my friends who, you know, those from, from large corporations, but especially the small entrepreneurial individuals who have, you know, risked everything, started a business and I walked by their business now and there's brown paper on the windows, it's not fair and it's not right and it's not their fault. It wasn't through even mismanagement or anything else. It was just a situation of politics, time, circumstance, the pandemic that dealt them an unfair hand. And I think that, you know, for any situation that happens like this, you always, for me it's Always been, will I succumb to it or will I rise above it? To me, everything in life just comes down to that. No matter how terrible, how tragic, how stressful, how difficult, how ominous, how seemingly impossible it is, you always just have two choices. Will I succumb to it or will I rise above it? And I have always done my best to try to rise above it. And so with that in mind, I know the city can do the same. You know, for many years in Alberta there was always this saying, the Alberta advantage. The Alberta advantage. And people flocked to Alberta and Calgary by the thousands for work, for jobs, for employment, for recreation. But you know, to live here, to work here, to have a prosperous future because of the Alberta advantage. But you know, what really made the Alberta advantage a possibility was the Alberta solution. Us Albertans, you know, we often just when things get tough, we just put our head down, we work harder and we create our own solutions. And I know that this city will do that and it will do it with a team like I have, with ones who see the opportunities for the future. Yeah, oil and gas always going to be a big part of Calgary. It's paid the bill for 40, 50 years, but they're on their knees right now. We need to exhibit leadership, City hall, and we need to find new ways forward for the prosperity and success of this city. I don't believe it's up to government to create jobs. I don't think they do that very efficiently or very well. But it is up to government to create the structure where prosperous jobs have a chance of surviving. Not only surviving, but thriving, prospering and growing. And that's what I think City hall for many years has failed to embrace, is to create a structure where prosperous jobs are welcomed, where they succeed and where they grow. And that's evident by the fact when you look at the demographics of growth in Calgary, we're growing in every age group except 20 to 24, where actually the last survey came out, I think we were down 4.4% in the red. Negative. Another terrifying fact. I mean, that's our future. Those are our future leaders. Those are the young adults coming out of school, entering the workplace, entering post secondary. They're the ones who will build careers here, families, homes. They'll be our leaders. They'll be an entrepreneurial inspiration. And this city's lost that vibrancy that wants to have those youthful, forward thinking, energetic individuals as part of our structure. And we need that. So that's one of the things that we really are working with. How to engage all demographics, especially the that 18 to 24, that 20 to 24 that's so vital to our future. So we, you know, have a lot of thoughts about that and they involve interesting things such as clean technologies, agricultural technologies, financial technologies, the film industry, etc. But yeah, you ask a simple question. I gave you a really long answer. The simple answer is I love the city. I know we can do better. I know we have to do better. And we have a whole bunch of community driven ideas of how to create that.

Thank you so much for sharing this show and spreading the love. Every time you click that share button or put it on your social media, it makes a big difference to those who listen to it, to the guests that I have on here as well, and to me personally. This is a passion project. And so all of your help, sending me feedback, sending me an email, clicking that contact me button on my website, all of that is amazing and it really touches my heart because when I was little and struggled, I dropped out of school, I got into drugs and violence. It was very difficult and I hit rock bottom. My own rock bottom in that context was when I was around 17 years old and I thought I was going to jail for a long time and didn't know what was going to happen. And I got out because people reached out to me and helped me. People picked me back up and gave me motivation to move forward, just like you're hearing in these interviews. So this really is a passion project for me and I'd love it if you checked out my book as well. I tell my whole story on there. You can find it on my website. Eric Gilbert Williams. Just click on my book. I would love for you to download a free copy of the intro and prologue. It's there right now anytime. There's an audio version as well. And now we're going to go back to the interview. Talk to you guys soon. So first of all, I was part of that group that was attracted to the Alberta advantage. I moved here in 2006. So Alberta had already made its impact on the map for a little while. To entice people like me, we called them UFOs back then, unemployed, from Ontario. There was all these UFOs coming over to Alberta because that's where the money was, that's where the business was. It's a great tax situation here and there's a lot of opportunity that was here and of course arguably is here still today. But back then specifically there was enough of a draw of the Alberta advantage for me to drop what I was doing and I wasn't exactly unemployed, but as an entrepreneur between ventures it feels that way. I looked at what was going on Alberta and I thought, you know what, this is a time to start a construction company because that's what's needed at the time. So I dropped everything I was doing. Had a rickety old rusty van, an old nail gun. I was in debt at the time and had this dream of starting a construction company even though I had never done one before ever in my life. Literally back then this is what happened. I'm sitting back in my. I had a bedroom office back then because I was quite young and actually I was still living in my parents house back then. I think about, I was like 21 or something and picked up the phone, made a few calls, sold myself as a roofing contractor to companies in Alberta, in Calgary specifically lined up contracts they paid to have me drive myself out. They paid me in advance to drive to Alberta even though they had never seen me or met me and I had no real official company. They just paid me to come here because there was so much work for people that lived in Alberta. And that's exactly what I did. I jumped in, I jumped in my old van and drove cross country in the middle of November. So this is winter, I know that doesn't come from Canada. We're talking the winter of winter. I get to Alberta, it felt like there was as many cars in the ditch, safely of course, just kind of sliding around. There was as many cars in the dish as there were on the highway. Right. And I get to Calgary, if you look November 30, 2006, it was like minus 40 or whatever with windchill, minus whatever, whatever. And here I am showing up with a nail gun and a big pile of debt to go do some roofing. And back then that was normal because there was more work than there were people. And there was a cycle of issues where you don't have enough workers in order to get the work done. So all the way across country, come here, start the company, build it up, you know, next thing you know, 60 people on the team doing several million ARR non stop. Number one, we ended up getting this number one fastest growing company by the profit 500 back 2014, which ironically, and this is where it leads into what we're talking about ironically was a difficult time for Calgary. 2013, 14, 15. And at that time, from a political leadership perspective in the construction industry, there was a lot of spending opened up to renovate schools, renovate government buildings, to increase Physical construction infrastructure. And that was fantastic for the construction industry. So even though there were certain segments of the workforce in 2000, 13, 14, 15 in Calgary that were struggling in construction, I personally didn't feel that. My competitors certainly didn't feel that because we were booming. Some people could say, oh well, we just need to open up government spending and fund a whole bunch of projects. Is that really a long term solution, yes or no? What I'm leading to now is about the concept of tech. For example, how many people listening to the show realize that one of the founders of Uber came from Calgary? Is this something that you guys knew? Did you know that Garrett can't came from Calgary? This is literally the birthplace concept of one of the most destructive technologies and companies that exist in the planet came from Calgary. But people don't know that because now if we go back for a second to Gary Camp's story where he built up StumbleUpon, it was a fantastic company, sold it for $75 million from Calgary. Great story, great for a city, absolutely wonderful. But what happened next? The next thing that happened, he leaves, right? He built up a tech company, he sold it. Big success story. First thing he does, he leaves, goes to Silicon Valley, goes to San Francisco, takes that money with him, takes the brain, most importantly, takes his brain with him to go do something else. And the next thing that he does happens to be Uber, basically. Well, I mean, we all know how that story is currently. If Uber had have been born out of Calgary, where would Calgary be on the map? And for me as well, my current venture is a social media platform. And when I decided to get into tech, the first thing I decided to do was do it in Silicon Valley, was to go in California. So I built a huge, relatively successful company in construction, which was great for the economy here and for jobs here. Created a lot of jobs here, lots of them. But the first thing I did after selling was do a Garrett Campton, go all the way to California, because that's what's known for tech. If you're in tech, that's where you want to go. Now Calgary has a bunch of little success stories. I call them sunicorns. Anyone that doesn't know what a unicorn is, when I'm talking about that, I'm talking about Silicon Valley terms about a unicorn is a company that reaches a billion dollar valuation, whether in the private market or the public market. You get a tech company that reaches a billion dollars, you're now a unicorn. You're creating jobs for everyone. Cement in Calgary, for example. Fantastic. Fintech company that has basically re engaging with people that are struggling with their financial obligations from an AI level, bringing empathy back into the world on how we deal with our late bills or our missed payments to first of all lower the amount of those missed payments so that companies aren't hurting so much. But also bring in an interaction and this isn't a plug for them. I just find the concept fascinating. Bring in an interaction of empathy to people who are struggling to meet those obligations. And this is a Calgary based company. I think they're a Sunicorn. I think they're going to hit a billion dollar valuation very, very quickly. And we could look at a few other companies as well, Adabotics for example, going into supply chain stuff. There's a lot of Sunicorns in Calgary. If Calgary had five, I'm just going to throw the number five. Five unicorns pop up in the next two or three years. So five companies in the technology sector that reached or exceeded a billion dollar valuation. Would Calgary still hold this perception and this image of being an oil and gas company or would it be on the map and what would that do for creating jobs here in this city? And I know I'm ranting here. I'm in Calgary right now. I came back to visit friends. Of course it's difficult in Covid but I'm still a Calgarian at heart, right? When I come back here and tell my friends about what I'm doing in tech, I'm a weirdo, right? I come back with my long hair, my flip flops, my Marvel comic book TV shirt because I've been in California too long and just, you know, relax. I come back here and I'm a weirdo. I gotta cut my hair, I gotta put in the collar shirt. No one understands what I'm doing because it's not oil and gas. No one understands. But this could be something that creates a lot of jobs and gets a lot of people out of the rock bottom moments. That was a really big rant. I just want to stop now and let you comment.

Well, I think that that's the type of rant that we need to hear and we need more than a rant, you know, we need to make sure that we do things within Calgary that those individuals A want to come here and B want to stay here. Now there are some amazing things happening like Nick and Mike that did cadoodle. I mean they're Calgary boys and they worked on things such as the Titanic with, they call him Jim Cameron, we know him as James Cameron and they're from the northeast and now they've come back and could do to like you know, it out streams the Nickelodeon's, the Netflix kids ones. I think that company is close to a, you know that, that brand, that label is close to a billion dollar evaluation. They've come back and they're spearheading things like the Alberta First Film Foundation. We are, I really want to promote the film industry and right now, for instance CBS is filming a 10 series miniseries here with Kate Beckinsale and we need more of that. We need to showcase the beauty of this city. We need to do it also in a way and they're starting to so that editing can be done here, the whole process can be done here. And it makes sense because it's such a beautiful city. We have beautiful scenery, we have spaces to film, we have the availability and we're starting to build a real network of support staff. And when you know, you talk about filming something I don't think people realize the depth of impact that makes into our community. It brings in a whole new talent level. It also helps with transferable skills. My hairdresser, I just did a. My daughter came with me and we did my hair and she filmed TikTok and everything. She's going to be posting about sports, small business. Well, you know she stands in as an extra. She does film and makeup also for movie sets. And then she also has a little gig where she can go in and just be an extra for $400 a day. And so she did that the other day and was standing behind Kate Beckinsale on this little film they're doing. It brings in caterers. You know, it fills up our catering industry, it fills up our hotels. Calgary hosts traditionally when it's non Covid the stampede and that's 1.3 million guests that come through here in a 10 day period. So we have the hotels for it, we have the restaurants for it. We have, you know, the lounges, the bars, the infrastructure, the transportation. We have all of that to do that and we need to find ways to fill that space. The other 355 days of the year we are working with and talking to like for instance the bitcoin industry, you know that whole, that whole currency line, whether it's bitcoin, ethereum, any of them. They do not really have maybe other than Prague, they don't really have a hub city in the world. Well, why wouldn't Calgary be that? We have, you know, the best technology, WI fi, fiber optics, the most connected downtown, high speed we have all of those things here. Rogers just announced they want to buy Shaw Communications Group for I think it's $26 billion and relocate their head office here in Calgary which will create 1800-3000 jobs in the upcoming future. Well, that's very tech driven. I mean your whole communications, telephone, satellite, cable, all of that, we need to showcase to the world that we are that. And I think this goes back to what you said, oil and gas. Well, what is the identity of Calgary? For 30 years or more it was oil and gas, a rodeo and a view of the mountains. I think that right now Calgary is struggling for its identity. If you ask anybody in the world, or even a Calgarian, like, what's the identity of Calgary? Well, nothing against oil and gas, man. They have paid the bill here for 40 years and our city hall has found creative ways to spend and waste that money. But that can't be our sole identity going forward. We need to create a new identity for this city and we need to showcase that to the world. And I think that, you know, the film industry, the technology industry, the agriculture industry, agriculture is the second largest industry in Alberta and we have some of the highest quality food, whether it's grains, whether it's, you know, our beef industry, our sheep industry, any of those types of things. Alberta sets a world standard in all of those categories. And the other thing too that we have is we have, you know, clean, economical energy. Natural gas is so abundant here and it's so economical and that can we have an advisory board that we're setting up in dealing with ways that, that can really grow food, hot houses, all that kind of stuff. Now you change the narrative away from oil and gas and you're talking about economically providing high quality food to Calgarians, to Albertans, to Canadians, actually to the world. And that is an undeniable need and we have the ability to do that right here. So these are the types of innovative things that we want to create. We have individuals who are taking natural gas and converting it to energy for bitcoin mining. And now we have a whole structure around how we can take that further and take that into the hothouse industry to grow things like mushrooms, which can be used in actually in manufacturing products. Mushroom fiber. We're also working with resource companies downtown here and exploring ways to do waste to energy. I mean, waste to energy is big in Europe. There's 400 places in Europe because of the lack of land space, they have to, they can't just keep building big landfills. Well, we kind of forget about that here because we do have those wide open spaces. But that doesn't mean it's morally, ethically or environmentally the right choice. So we're looking at ways to take waste to energy, which is forward thinking. We need to have plans here that position this city not four years down the road that most politicians do so they can get reelected, but 30 years down the road so our children and grandchildren have a prosperous community to live in. So those are the types of things that we really want to emphasize. And you know, your rant, I love that rant because those are the rants I go on. We need to find ways to showcase to the world what this city is. It's much more than just oil and gas. It's an opportunity for them to have a flourishing business in a city that is young. It's vital. Our downtown core is, you know, some of the best built, most modern buildings in the world. And we have spaces, we have warehousing. We're a hub. Our international airport here is a hub. Intern hub, airport. We're also working with the airport authority to encourage aeronautical manufacturing here, creating a greater hub for it. There's 52,000 jobs at international airport. We want to see what it's going to take to make that 152,000 jobs in the next few years. And those are all high tech, value added, prosperous jobs.

Let me look at this from a new angle. The show, of course, from rock bottom, the rockin it. And it's like, okay, why are we talking so much politics all of a sudden? And this is a question I asked myself. I even had to ask myself, you know, is this an episode that we do? Does it really fall in line with the show? And I think it absolutely does. It took me a second to find the right angle. And this is what I think it is. And I want to ask you what your opinion is of this. I don't have any kids right now. So people that are listening who do have kids, if you see one of your kids struggling, do you feel a responsibility to help them through it? Usually the answer is obviously yes. Right? They're not only are they dependent on you, and even if they're older, you have this family connection, you want to help. But if you have, if I have a solution that really could work for someone, there's almost an inherent responsibility to share it. Now other people can do what they want. They can take it and run with it. They can throw it out, they can noodle on it and something else. Who knows if I'm walking on the side of the street and someone's getting mugged. There's a certain responsibility that I have inherently now to do some sort of help. Maybe not jumping into the middle of it, maybe yell or call or help or. You know what I mean? There's something that I have responsibility for when I can make a positive change in a short story. When I had my last company, there was a theft that happened in the company, and I was going to be like, no, just let it go. Fire the person. Move on. Let's not waste time on negative energy stuff. Let's just focus on moving forward. But my business coach at the time and personal friend yelled at me. He said, no, there's a thief going on right now. And substitute the word thief for anything, right? You have a neighbor who's starving. You have a friend who is struggling mentally by getting laid off or losing their income. You have a friend, a distant relative friend who's struggling with a loss of life in the family. Whatever it happens to be when we're in this situation, to be able to help someone, it's my opinion, and I've learned this through my own life now, that I now have an obligation to do something to help. Now, I can't hurt myself in the process. That's counterproductive. But to the degree that it doesn't hurt myself, I have a responsibility to help people around me and to help the world. Now, if we take that concept and apply it to you, Zane, and what you're doing in this and taking this big initiative, going into the political realm that, you know has a huge risk to you, you have this opportunity to help a lot of people, and I think it's fair to say that you feel like you can help a lot of people. Do you feel morally responsible to do this campaign and to put yourself out there to try and help as many people as possible because of this belief that you have, or do you have a different take on it altogether? It's a very broad subject, but I think it's important because to what degree do we have a responsibility to maximize our strengths, to help as many people as possible to get out of other people's rock bottom moments? To what degree is the responsibility there?

I think that, you know, you're very accurate with that. One of the most difficult conversations I had in this whole decision to run for mayor was sitting down with my daughter, who I respect more than anyone else alive in the world, and telling her I would do this because there's a lot of negative outcomes from putting yourself on this public altar of public service. Public service, it's almost a public altar of sacrifice these days, where, you know, you just know that there's going to be so much negative hubris thrown at you. And so she said, like, you know, dad with. And we discussed a lot of the rock bomb at bottom moments of my life in the previous episode. She goes, like, everything you've gone through, the tragedies, the financial difficulties, the deaths, why would you now, like, haven't you paid enough of a price? Why would you now put yourself in this position for public ridicule, for scorn, for slander, for all that's going to come along with this? Because sadly, that's the world of politics, right? Especially these days. And I said to Carmen, I said, well, you know, I fall in love with Calgary. I love this city. I've become just a huge, in the last 20 years, huge advocate everywhere as I go. Though I'll never speak, you know, disparagingly of other communities. I'll always brag up this community. But right now, I don't see that same energy in this city. I don't see the same light in people's eyes. I see it for what it is. And it's a tough, we're in a tough situation. So I said to Kirmia, so I only see four decisions ahead of me that I have one. I can just sit back and say nothing and carry on status quo. But if you know me, like I would say, if you know me, five minutes, you know, I'm not just the type person who's going to sit back and shut up when I see something that could be better, could be fixed, should be changed. My other option is to just be negative, just be that classic armchair coach. And you allude to this at the very beginning about how everybody sits back in politics and criticizes, but very few stand up to do right. We always talk about armchair coaches and hockey. Well, politics. Everyone, I think, is an armchair coach to a certain degree. So I could just sit back and be negative. And I said, kirmia, you know, if you and I just succumbed to the negative things in our lives, we wouldn't be here. My third option is to pack up my bags and go somewhere else. But, you know, this is my city, this is my community, it's my friends, it's my network. And everywhere you go, there's problems. So my only option that I see is for me to stand up and do something about it. And this is me standing up to do something about running for mayor. And I have always lived my life. And this is what, you know, I did. I've done over 20,000 plus volunteer hours in the nonprofit community here in Calgary and at risk communities, marginalized disadvantaged senior communities, children, on and on and on. And I've always said, even though I usually didn't have time to do it, I rarely had the energy left in me to do it. But I always said, if not me, who will? So I bring that same saying to this campaign. You know, if I'm not willing to stand up and do something to make this city that I love better, then how do I have the right to ask anyone else to? If not me, then who? So that I hope kind of answers your question as to where my head is at and why I'm doing this.

It does. And the very, very first episode that I published on the show was Joe Roberts out in B.C. and that was an extreme drug addiction story and then made a change. And the conversation comes up a lot in different discussions I have on the show here about if I'm not going to do it, then who else is going to do it? If I'm not going to take care of myself and deal with my own addiction or deal with whatever. Fill in the blank issue challenge, rock bottom moment. If I'm not going to do it, then who is? And what I find interesting about this conversation is that the next level of it is that okay, now that I've dealt with because you've overcome extreme challenges. And anyone who hasn't listened to episode 12, check it out. Zane really spills his heart out all the way on everything. And I don't want to accidentally take up this whole Showtime retalking about that stuff. Just listen to episode 12, pause it right now, go listen to episode 12 and then come back. Right? If you don't know who Zayn is and you haven't actually listened to episode 12, you don't understand where he's coming from. You don't understand what that full rock bottom story is. So check out episode, pause it, come right back and then, oh yeah, and share it with all your friends. Of course, do that. It helps me, it helps the show.

Exactly.

Yeah. Gotta put that plug in there. Once you've dealt with your own stuff and you've gotten yourself out of your rock bottom moment, well, what's next, right? What is going to be the next? And sometimes it's right for some people to just take a step back and do their own thing and stay in whatever is that. They're really good. Josh Darling is a great example of that, you know, he got out of his rock bottom and now he has a small nonprofit organization. He helps hundreds of kids a year. And not only is it what he wants to do, but it's something that's making a positive impact and it's playing to his strengths. People listening to the show, if your strength happens to somehow be in something in the political realm, or maybe it's in business leadership, or maybe it's in running a charitable organization. You've been the president of the Kirby center for a long time and this is just one of your natural skill sets. So I find it really interesting to see how that natural skill set and that calling and that responsibility look, if I can help someone else, I kind of have to do it. It's that old spider man saying, great power comes great responsibility, right? And yeah, I'm a total nerd. Now everyone knows. And now I just think it's really cool to see you bringing this type of attitude and this approach to a political arena and potentially becoming the mayor of Calgary and leading it to a new future. Moving into. Let's just talk about, for example, randomly biggest crisis, biggest rock bottom moment you've experienced either in business or maybe at the Kirby center or whatever it is. What's the biggest rock bottom moment you've seen or experienced on a business level or volunteer level that you've helped work through?

Oh wow. So many. I would think that, you know, business wise is, you know, you end up on a project where you're just unable to meet the customers what they vision for you. And you have to sit down in that boardroom and you have to tell them that this project can't go the way they expect it's going to go. And whether that's through miscommunication, the wrong product, the wrong application, I've had so many of those. Remember one time I was working at Lafarge, everything had just gone wrong. I was a manager at that time, but it was remote location, I had problem with materials. I was working the most difficult customer in the world. We were out of. We were out of rock, like rock to make concrete. The gravel we went down, we were.

Okay, wait, so you're in a rock company, you're selling rocks and you have no rocks.

So anyway, so they hauled, they. We hauled this material in to make concrete. And I get a call the next morning, you have something wrong with your concrete. And we had just done all the sidewalks in downtown Grand Center, Alberta. And they go, there's something wrong with your concrete. I go, what do you Mean, yeah, it's got orange spots all over it. And I'm like, are you kidding me? So I go downtown, Grand Center. Downtown Grand Center. Walk down the sidewalks, and here are all these loony sized orange spots in the concrete. And it's all finished concrete. It's poured sidewalk.

I shouldn't be laughing. I really shouldn't be laughing.

You know what? I'm just like, what? What? So we did digging through. Well, here we had a company that was crushing rock in this gravel pit, and there were roots from the trees that had been above. Like they strip them all off, but they were still roots and they hadn't thrown out, and they crushed them. And those roots were still fresh, and they had tree SAP and everything in them. And that went straight into the concrete and ruined all the concrete. We had to tear up blocks of sidewalk. Right. And replace it and do all that. And at the same point in time, my main administrative help, she got a new job in another town that same day. And it was just like. And at the same time, we were rebuilding the plant, so we were working with just tarps around us because the walls were all torn down. And it just, you know, just on and on and on and on. And any one of those things, I think that a normal person would have just walked off the site. But all you do is like, it always comes out, well, if I don't stand up and take responsibility for that, who will? And so you just figure it out. You just figure it out. Okay. Okay. What's it going to cost? We're going to rip this out. We're going to redo it, and we're going to get rock. That's right. Even if I have to go to my competitor and buy it, we're just going to do it. We're going to do it right. And we're going to, at the end of the day, figure it out and figure out how to never do that again. And even, you know, in raising my children, we would have, like, I solo parented from 06 on. Some of my children were young, 13, 15 type of thing. And I was on the road a lot. You know, it was fortunate I had Kermie and Cole, amazing, amazing children, because I had to do a lot of stuff independently, but we had a lot of trust in our home. But still, you know, the wheels would start to fall off and I come home, you'd be frustrated and you'd just be like. And the first words out of my mouth after having been on the road, being upset with my kids, and I'D go like, oh, wow, I'm working so hard because I love my kids so much, I love my home so much. But yet the first words out of my mouth is, I'm upset and I'm angry because, hey, the chores aren't done, or they skipped school or whatever it is. So we would always have these special breakfasts and it would be about every three months on a Sunday when the frustration level in our home was really high. And I would make whatever the kids wanted for breakfast. That's what we made. It'd be like 10 in the morning, so nobody had to get up super early. And we always had other children living with us. Our host was always the halfway safe host of the community. And so everybody had to come to breakfast at 10am with their notebook. And they had, we had certain rules. No one could swear at the table, no one could yell, no one could get up and walk away. And everybody had to write down in their notebook everything that was upsetting them that was going on. But they also, for everything that was upsetting, they had to write down what they thought could be a solution to that problem. And we would have those breakfasts and they usually, you know, lasted two hours or more, two, three hours. And we'd have this discussion and everybody could be critical. The kids could be critical of me, they could say whatever they wanted to me, but we, you know, you couldn't continue to beat the old topics from two years ago either. Had to be relevant, had to be on point. And nobody could be upset with receiving criticism. But if you're going to receive criticism, the same person criticized you had to come with a constructive way of how they thought it could be better. And those dialogues, those conversations were so important. And I think that this city and these politics and these times we live in, I think that so many people get so frustrated when they feel they don't have a voice, when they don't have a seat at the table. And they made sure at that breakfast meeting, every kid, every member of our household, whether it was my own children or the friends that were staying with us, had a seat at the table and a voice in the conversation and were heard and were respected. Now, it didn't mean that every single suggestion they made was applied, but at least they got to advocate for it. And that teaches a lot of things. It teaches everyone at the table to be humble and listen. And it gives everyone at the table and in the conversation dignity and respect. And it also helps for them to create their critical thinking process so that, you know, instead of having to externalize ideas, they can internalize them, come to good conclusions because they've had a good tutorial, mentorship, training program. And you know, I'm not saying I'm the best trainer in the world. And I'm not saying that when I'm mayor of Calgary, I'm going to be, you know, you know, the Dalai Lama and know all the answers or anything like that. And I say that with total respect to the Dalai Lama and wise people of the world. But I think that it's really important that you make sure people have a place at the table and a voice in the conversation. You know, going back to that concrete situation, sat down with the guy who poured it, sat down with my team, sat down with the guys at the crusher who were crushing the gravel. And we all figure, okay, what is this? How do we solve it? How do we do it the most cost effectively, disruptively, least disruptive manner and move on to tomorrow? And if you can't figure out how to move on to tomorrow, then today's a failure. But you know, tomorrow's a failure too. And I think that that's what's really critical. And I think, you know, we started this campaign under a title called Calgary 2.0 two years ago because I couldn't run for anything elected while I was still on charitable board positions because that could be a conflict and I would never want to bring discredit to a charity that I'm involved in. I'm now resigned from the mall. But we wanted to start reaching out to community a long time ago to find out what the community was feeling. And it's amazing. Like one of the comments that we got from didn't matter who we really spoke to was they just felt here in Calgary that their voice wasn't being heard, that people weren't paying attention, and that every time they got up in the morning, they found out that they were paying more and getting less. And that is a mindset that we need to change because it's not always true, but it has been indicatively true of Calgary in the last five years especially, I'd say where we've really struggled. You mentioned like, you know, 2013, 2014, by 2015, the wheels were off and the wheels have not come back on. And then the frame got knocked out from under us, you know, in 2020 with COVID And so now everybody's just. You walk down the street and I mean, one of the things I fell in love with Calgary was just everybody I'd meet. I thought, what's your Calgary story. Were you born and raised? Because so few people were born and raised so many people. It's a magnet. I mean, 20 years ago, if you were not coming to Calgary, there was that fomo. I think that's where the term FOMO came out, with fear of missing out. Because that's how Calgary was defined 20, 30 years ago. If you were raised not just in western Canada, but, you know, in Ontario, the Maritimes, in the States, Houston, London, England. Like if you were not coming to Calgary, you were missing out. Because like you when you came here in 06, you knew, you just knew inherently that your rusty van and your air nailer, there was opportunity here and there was opportunity here. Not if you were just an engineer in oil and gas, but because oil and gas was so prosperous. There was that expendable cash, discretionary spending and non discretionary spending. There was so much of it here that it gave opportunity to others. When I first came here in 2001, I used to say, you know, this is like the wild wild west, except with law and order. It was where you could come out and you could stake your claim. And if you brought, you know, good work, attitude, a good personality, you didn't have to be in oil and gas to succeed. You could be a roofer, you could own a beauty salon, you could own a car wash, you could be creative and come up with a business plan. And your chances of success in Calgary were higher than any city I've ever been. And I've been to lots of cities in Canada and the US and other countries. And you know, back in the 2000s, the 1980s, the 1990s, we had so many opportunities here. We don't have that right now. We need to change that. And the only way we're going to change that is by listening to our community. I think that one thing that city hall has missed out on so much, if you sit in city hall and you look to the west and just a little bit to the north, you look at the most connected, like always say this, the most connected downtown of any downtown in any city in the world. But the beautiful thing about that downtown isn't the buildings. It's that that downtown houses some of the most brilliant entrepreneurial minds, men, women in the world. And those individuals, I've come to learn, love this city just as much as I. But why have we never turned to them for some mentorship, some guidance? Those are the things that we want to bring. We want to engage with community leaders and not just business. We have a Whole other program that's working with ethnic and geographic and demographic communities. But why are we not engaging our community leaders and actually not just doing a token lip service which we. I continually hear that all these advisory boards have been put together by the city of Calgary. You know, whether it's for the Olympics, whether it's for this, whether it's for that. And they will volunteer a year of their life. Experts, brilliant people, members of the community. And then the reports given to city hall and city hall just will do the opposite. They'll do whatever they want because they just do a token thing. I mean there's a thing that just came out this week, you know, it's guide to great communities in Calgary. They claim that there was community engagement but they did it during the middle of COVID when you really couldn't engage in anybody. And now they're foisting a whole new guidebook as to how the communities of Calgary should be created from here on with massive densification. No more single family dwellings, no more front yards, no more backyards, no more barbecues in your own backyard and mowing your own lawn type of philosophy. And they never really talked to Calgarians. We need to make sure that people have a seat at the table and a voice in the conversation and with the brilliant minds we have in this city. Because I sure don't know it all, my team doesn't know it all. But this city does pretty much comes back to that Alberta advantage. Yeah. What comes from Alberta Solutions. And we know that the solutions can be self created here. We just need to make sure that we're actually listening. That was a long answer.

It's great. And as we wrap up here, I'm going to wrap up on one theme and subject and it loops us back to last year when we had our conversation in episode 12. Again, everyone hasn't listened to it. Go back, listen to episode 12 and come back here. I remember in that discussion you had gone through an absolutely tragic moment where there was a car accident and you'd lost three family members. And I remember you explaining to me that you and your daughter were sitting there, what do we do? And you ended up doing a lot of volunteer work together. And if I remember correctly, that was one of your paths to getting out of your rock bottom moment as a concept was working together and doing something that helped other people, that brought you both together and it made you guys stronger because I see that as connecting to two things. First of all, that's almost no different than what you're doing. Right now, it's a continuation of it seems to me anyways, and correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my first impression. And also for everyone else that's listening to this, going through a rock bottom moment of yourself, fill in the blank of what that rock bottom moment is. What can you say to those people about helping other people to help yourself, about looking at your strengths and making a team of the people you care about most to get out of something that's difficult together and come through stronger on the other side and sometimes accidentally leading to a large leadership role, whether that be in a charitable organization or in a business or in a political situation. In your case, all three. There's a huge untapped potential, I feel, in every single person as an individual and inside of a city. And I wonder if you could speak to that for a second, relating to your experience of using this as a way to work through your own rock bottom.

Yeah, definitely. So there's always two things that come to mind. So the situation you're talking about was a drunk driver killed my son Cole when he was 18. His best friend Bradley, who was 18 and lived with us, and my daughter's boyfriend at the time, thad, who was 22 and spent most of his time with us. So our little family went from five to two when the RCMP knocked on our door to tell us a drunk driver who of course lived, had killed Cole, Brad and Thad. And I mean, that's a pretty dark hole to go down. It's very difficult to deal with. And I'm not going to downplay the human impact of that because it's tragic. But there's always been two things that have always played to my mind. And I've always been a bit of a World War I, World War II buff and all of that, and how that shaped politics, the geopolitical landscape of the world and everything else. But I also look at it in a different perspective, very human perspective. And I think of all those individuals whose sons and daughters went to war and never came back. Young men, young women, you know, some of them lied about their age, got into the military when they were 15 or 16, and millions died and never came back. And I think about, you know, the tragedy that those parents went through. Millions of parents went through that. So whenever I think I have it bad, I can think of something like that and go, hey, there are a lot of people who've had a lot worse than me. So that helps me from just wallowing in self pity to realize that I really don't have to look very far. And even today you don't have to look very far to find families who have tragedies that surpass what Carmi and I went through. And you can't really categorize the degree of tragedy impacts everyone differently. But I just know that there's a lot of people who have a lot worse than me. So then what am I going to do with that experience? If I can't allow myself to just wallow in self pity, well then I should dang well get out and try to make sure that someone else's life could be a bit better than what it is right now. And you know, being like on the board of the Kirby, I think that we were able to do a lot of amazing things for that organization. And I think what was for me really good about it, I never joined it to put on my reference letter that I joined the board. In fact I was asked to join the board in like 2012, a year after, you know, six, eight months after Cole was killed. And I should have said no because I was already stressed out. I was already, you know, on the board of the Big Hearted Mavericks at the time, involved with other charities. I was, you know, living some of my worst days eight months after my son's death. But the Kirby asked me if I consider joining the board and I said yes. And it was not an easy task. There were a lot of difficulties for the organization, a lot of things that needed to change and a lot of difficult decisions that had to be made to make that change. And they ended up a lot of it falling to me because I ended up being president of the board for five years. But now that organization is just has never been better, you know, and founded in 73 and I think one of the best years they ever had probably in so many ways was 20 when we hired a new CEO and new direction and all of that. But the interesting thing for me was it isn't like I was the CEO that got to do the face to face and got all the recognition for was that I knew that the steps that we took as a board were able to have that organization go in a positive direction. And it wasn't just about self accolades. It was the feeling you get that you have brought change to an organization that impacts 30, 40,000 seniors in Calgary. And unless they read like who was on the board they wouldn't even know that myself or Richard or Ken or Stephanie or Tara or Peter or all the other ones on the board had anything to do with it. But we really did. And I think if you can get that feeling of self contentment without having to get put on a pedestal and a laurel wreath put on your head, if you can actually get that internal satisfaction when you go to bed at night or you get up in the morning and go, you know, I did something that was worthwhile, I did something that will make life better for others. And I did it for the right reasons. And that to me is what I have always tried to do. And even in, you know, meeting people or whatever, like having lost my mom, you know, tragedy, having lost my son, tragedy, I haven't lost my best friend, tragedy, on and on. The one thing that I learned, you know, when I was 18, so if you see an opportunity to say or do something nice for someone, whether you know that person or not, could be a random stranger, you know, do it. Not everybody gets that these days because we live in this very polarized world where it's left, it's right. There's no middle ground, there's no coming to the table and sharing ideas and moving forward. So they don't always understand, they always think there's an agenda behind why you would say or do something nice to a stranger or to whoever. But I tell you what, sometimes a kind word, a kind deed will make a life changing impact on someone in that moment that rides with them and stays with them forever. And you never know if you're going to get a second chance to do that. Because if there's anybody in the room who's lost people and to untimely deaths, it's me. And I've always been glad that I've had opportunities to have said the words, the kind words, the good words before they passed away. So many people lose some, they go, oh, I wish I would have told them I loved them. Oh, I wish I would have told them this or that. Well, I've always had those conversations up front. And so I don't, you know, when something tragic, which I hope it never happens again, done with that. But people know where they stand with me and I think that's really important.

I really appreciate your story and your time coming on here. And as we wrap up, I want to just anchor in for everyone that's listening. What I think is a big lesson here, and to me the lesson is that no matter what your rock bottom moment is, no matter how deep it is, no matter what the subject is about, that inside each of us is first of all the potential to work through it and to continue finding not only life but A good life. And that's with us, with all of us. No matter who you are, where you're coming from, what the rock bottom woman is, there is light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a train. That is actually a positive thing. And furthermore, there's also an extra hidden potential to not only do good for yourself and the people that are close around you, but to tens of thousands, perhaps millions of people around you. Maybe that's discovering your inner leadership that Zane has obviously discovered and leading a charitable organization or leading a company or maybe going into politics and leading an entire city or a nation for that matter. And I believe that no matter how deep your rock bottom moment is, and you might not believe me when you hear it right now, but I believe that there is a way to work through that and to have a positive impact on a scale that maybe you haven't even come close to imagining quite yet. So my message in Wrap up is to hang in there and nurture that seed and I'll nurture that seed for you and I'm sure Zane will as well. And I hope that we all reach down deep inside of us and find this potential to do good for ourselves and for the people around us. And we can see not only the city of Calgary, but the country of Canada and the world as a whole move forward, work through this Covid stuff and find a better way to sustain and live as a species. So there's my big grand ending and wrap up on this episode of From Rock Bottom to wrapping it. From Rock Bottom to rocking It. Look at that. I'm all getting emotional thinking about some of this stuff. And share the episode with your friends. I really appreciate it. Obviously, I don't make any money on this. This is just for fun. I do this because frankly, this is one of my own ways to reach down deep inside and have some good impacts on the world because I feel helping other people helps me as well. So you guys out there, keep on rocking it, keeping your head up and we'll talk to you guys next time. Bye for now. And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on From a Rock Bottom to Rocking It. Have a rocking it.