He's friends with Quebec's Top 500 CEOs

Welcome to another CEO Wisdom pod. We have Roger P. Duguay with us today. Uh, that's said in English because Roger is, uh, from my native Montreal, Quebec, and we spoke a bit of French today. Uh, Roger is very impressive. He's a managing partner, a practice leader, uh, CEO and board services. He's an author of 3 books. He's a marathon runner as well as preparing for Marathon des Sables. You should put ultra marathon runner in there because, uh, did the Dariqana and a bunch of, uh, these crazy long distances. He's also a drummer in a band, of all things. And, uh, you've got one of the best backgrounds I've seen, Roger. Uh, not only because it's Montreal behind you, but you have Terry Fox behind you. So it's a guy that we both, um, uphold to, to our highest standards. So welcome to the podcast. Tell us a bit more about yourself, Roger.

Hey, it's very good to be here. Thank you, Charles. Great to have someone, you know, native Montreal, moved internationally, not in Mexico, US, I think, and, uh, get a chance to talk to you. Um, yeah, diverse background, you know. I'm an actuary by background, did an MBA, 5 years at the PhD level, dropped out. Um, was an expert for 10 years, went in tech for 10 years, and now I've been, uh they call it executive headhunter for 15 years. But I was supposed to be a drummer. So when I was 16, I had to choose between becoming an actuary or a drummer in a band. So it was too extreme, but, you know, very similar in a way of mathematical structure in your brain and became an actuary, but still playing a band. So still playing a band now, 30 years later, in my band, rock band. And this is where I am today. So I'm still in Montreal. I lived 6 years in Toronto, 1 year in London. I'm a travel junkie, a music junkie, and very intense.

So here I am. And what do your friends think of you? I'm asking because, yeah, you have such a different background, and usually in Quebec we have the Cut the tallest blade grass, St. Jerome, and you seem pretty ambitious and you have made a great success for yourself so far. So it's like, do you find that there's other ambitious people like you in Montreal?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. You know, being in Montreal, and I'm from a very small town, I think most likely one of the smallest towns in Canada. It's called Saint-Sérénie in the north of Quebec. You know, no one speaks English. It's only animals and farms. So until I was 18 years old, I couldn't speak English, you know, it was so French. So I went to England. I knew English was important, would be important in my life. So when I was 18, I went to England on my backpack to learn English, came back and went to university. But the fact that the bilingual city, the French, English, we have to work a bit harder, you know, to succeed outside. The French Quebec, so, uh, national Canada, US. So, so there's a lot of, you know, you know, that a lot of Cirque du Soleil, you know, of those guys, you know, like that from Montreal. So, so a very interesting city.

Yeah, Guy Laliberté is one of my, uh, favorite entrepreneurs still. Uh, we've got other less entrepreneurial but like, uh, very important people, uh, Celine Dion and René Angélil was such a great combo together. That was a business— the incredible business in itself, right? What other founders do you study or CEOs or do you have— do you still have like mentors nowadays? You and I were talking about a couple last time we spoke.

Yeah. Well, the chance I have in my current job, you know, I'm co-leading the Canadian operation of Boidin, which is one of those— the 7 international firms. So we are all over the world in 40 countries, 75 offices, and we do about 5,000 placement of executives per year. And out of that, out of the 5,000, about 20% are president and CEOs. So we place about 1,000 CEOs a year across the world. And as most of the major consulting firms, we have practices. So for 5 years, for a while, I was the practice leader worldwide of all placement of CEOs. So that gave me a lot of exposure to senior executive and CEO placement. So that was a— that gave me a lot of data. And, and, you know, if you make the relationship with any researcher or PhD, a professor at university, they would die to have the data of 5,000 placement of CEOs with interview notes and 2 hours, you know, of data. So we have a lot of data on, on who should, who would, who will become a CEO.

Man, that's crazy. Yeah, all the closed-door conversations you must had. So are most of these CEOs from Quebec or Canadian?

It's like, oh, because, you know, as you said, we have 5— we have 75 offices around the world. So when I say with you about 1,000 CEOs a year, it's all over the 40 countries. In Canada, we do about 5,500 placements, about 100, I would say, in Canada per year. We place about 100 CEOs in all over Canada. So, and that goes from, you know, CEOs of Loto-Québec, Via Rail, to technology company, to mining, to museum, to zoos. I mean, we do everything. Now, as long as there is a CEO needed, you know, we attract the This is, uh, forever.

Yeah, these are my favorite people most of the time. Uh, what traits do you see in a CEO versus a founder?

Um, we have the chance that one of the practices we have is working with VC and PEs. Okay, so we have the chance to get hired very often by a private equity firm or a VC firm to find CEOs for them because they are investing into one of those firms. They want to replace the CEO or you want to promote someone. So we have a chance to be working a lot in the area of VC, and I know you're a big fan of that. So working with a lot of tech companies, we had a chance to work now with all the Canadian, you know, unicorn, like, you know, Shopify and Lightspeed and Plusgrid and all of those guys placing C-suite. So what we see once again here, especially in the Quebec market, we have a lot of VCs, a lot money to invest, and there's a lot of technology companies. So definitely a lot of, a lot of good entrepreneur network in the Quebec market.

And who are the best CEOs so far that you've worked with, and what traits do you see in them that makes them so good at their jobs?

Well, that's a, that's a very difficult question because maybe what you will define, what you would define as a great CEO, what I would define as a great CEO, what the stock market would define as a great CEO.

Well, let's take the stock. I think a stock is a good middleman.

Um, you know, it's one type of individual that's going to be the founder to, let's say, your first $100 million. No, yeah, zero to one. Yeah, zero to one and to $100 million. And after that, the $100 million to $1 billion, you know, that might be taking you to an IPO. So those are two different types because The CEOs we find for VCs and startups, you know, need to be extremely hands-on and most of the time needs to be inspirational, need to be evangelists, need to sell, to Series A, B, C sell, and needs to be hands-on and strategic and need to be usually very strong commercially because, you know, they're selling the company. Or having be the founder who is a technology brilliant guy. Okay, so you have those two profiles that we see, that commercially focused gonna take you out, or that extremely brilliant technology guy that now becomes the CEO. So we see those two main, um, branch, let's say.

And what about the CEO of, uh, $1 to $100 million?

The CEO to $100 to $200 million, or to $1 million to $200 million?

Well, I think you said 1 to 100 million, right? Yeah.

So, well, I, I would say the 0 to 100 or the 0 to— it's, it's that kind type of very hands-on, commercially focused technology or technology. After that, once you start, you're done with the VC and now the private equity is coming in. Yeah. Or the IPO is coming in. Now you need a different kind of CEOs. What we see, the board— this is where the board is calling us and say, okay, now I need someone who has done it. Okay, they want someone who has done it, someone who can manage a board of directors, someone who can manage the investors, can manage, you know, the employees. So you need that three-head beast, you know, be good with the board, with the investors, with the clients, with the employees.

So yeah, and in your practice, like, what percent of your time is actually placing these people and what percentage is, uh, getting them through your doors like sales and relationship building?

That's a good question. Being a partner in a firm like us, it's, you know, it's like in the law firm or in many management consulting firms like McKinsey or BCG, very similar. So first of all, you need to build an amazing credibility in the market that the company will give you the mandate. So you need the reputation, the credibility, the experience. So they they pay you a lot of money to find the right person. So first of all, you gotta win, but after that you have to deliver and find that person. So being a global firm is very useful because we have a global worldwide database. If I give you an example of one of the Canadian unicorns, Lightspeed, you know, when it was the biggest— one of the biggest IPOs a few years ago when they went on So when the VC hired us, hired me to find the CEO, there were about like 50, 60 employees, you know. And I found a French-Canadian, GP Chauvet, in London. So this guy was in London, England for a while, you know, because of our global network connection we have. So we were able to identify this guy based on in London and bring him back to Quebec, you know, and started as a chief revenue officer and grew them, you know, from, I don't know, $50 million to a billion. So he was one of example of when we're looking for someone specific, we're going global. So we have many examples like that. Most of our searches are global by nature because we have a global database. Of course, if you're looking for a bilingual CFO, you know, for a, you know, an organization that has a huge department of finance, you know, in Quebec, you might— you don't need to go global because you need the bilingual aspect.

Is it hard to convince someone to go, uh, live in Quebec? Because Montreal, amazing culture, it's different. Uh, we've got, I don't know, you know, ski hills, right? Hockey. And lots to do. We have a nightlife, but some people could be shocked by the, the cultural barrier and the language and all that, right? So how hard was it to bring that guy here?

This guy was easy because it was a French Canadian, and most of them want to come back. Yeah, this is why we have about over 5,000, let's say, French Canadians who are worldwide, knowing our database that we entertain and our communication with So that's easier when someone is from here, has family here, like family getting older, you know, it's a good thing, you want to be back for the family, or they came for education, they came to McGill, stuff like that, so they've experienced that. To bring someone who's never been here, like, you know, an American or even like a European, It's a lot of risk. We don't like to do that. We're doing it. Clients is asking for the global search, but high risk. I would say, because now I know it's a podcast, now it's easy, it's easier to say, but there is a 50% risk the person won't succeed here, especially when you bring the family, the husband, the wife, the kids, you know. This. It's, it's very difficult to get integrated if you're not bilingual. The schools, you know, the winter. Oh man, it's, it's tough.

Yeah. Um, do we have an edge in Montreal for CEOs? Like, do you feel that, um, yeah, we are wanted abroad as CEOs, uh, French Canadian? Um, like this guy in London, right? Why did they bring a French Canadian to London is my question.

Oh, in the beginning, why did he go there? I think he went there to become At that time, he was a chief revenue officer in tech. I think within that, while there was a couple of sectors that Quebec is well known for, like entertainment. Arts.

Arts for sure.

Yeah, arts and entertainment. You think of the Cirque du Soleil or Moment Factory, you know, Robert Lepage, or C2 Montreal, or Cirque du Soleil. Those are big names that are— they have global recognition. So even like Live Nation or Walt Disney, you know, they would come and pick up people from Cirque du Soleil. Because that became a global player. Or Moment Factory, those ones who did the Las Vegas Sphere in Vegas, right? Those are French-Canadian. So we have global knowledge in art and entertainment and in tech because, you know, we have a strong tech sector. So I would say we export a lot of tech senior engineers to Silicon Valley as well. I don't know if you remember, but Montreal has 4 universities.

4.

4. 4.

I thought it was way more. Um, Université de Montréal, UQAM, Concordia. McGill is such a great institution.

And HEC Montréal, I know it's great for business. So it's a critical talent pool, critical talent pool. So, so for tech to come, um, I'm an actuary by background. Now it's not as popular as before in the way that It was the first school of actuaries in the world was in Quebec. So this is why there is so many actuaries in Chicago, New York, Toronto, or who became president of insurance companies because it was a great school of actuaries. So I would say we have a couple of sectors that are in demand worldwide.

So what happened to us, right? Like, uh, we have Yoshua Bengio, which is a godfather of AI. Uh, there was this Element AI company that was the, the rise of something, but it seems that I don't know, Joshua is not on the capitalist side of things, and we're certainly falling behind, right?

Like, very good question. LMN AI was a client of mine, so we did a lot of work for them, and it became a bit of a very sad story. But after that, Ben just started now a new organization called Law Zero, which is very promising, by the way. Yeah, I mean, he switched because, you know, he's one of the AI leaders in the world, and like most of the true AI leaders, they're getting scared before all of us. So he said, I'm gonna build a nonprofit based in Montreal, it's gonna have a worldwide impact, that's gonna try to give a frame of what AI ethically should be. Okay, so we're working very closely with them to support them in the Mila which is the Institute of AI, you know, it's great organization in Montreal. So we have a strong AI, strong AI, um, play in Montreal. If you think of even Covail based in Quebec City, you know, with the founder Louis Tetsu, great AI organization as well led in Quebec. So we have some good AI play here.

So are we like the guy in your background, we're still fighting, we still have a shot to get on the scene versus these AI giants like Anthropic, OpenAI? Do you think Montreal can still be on the AI map?

Not at that level because we don't have the money for that. I, I don't think we— I don't think so. We'll play at that level of those mega giant. But what we're doing with Law Zero, they're not doing it in the US, is creating that nonprofit that's going to try to give a frame to everyone worldwide. So that Law Zero thing has a shot to be the global worldwide reference in Alpha AI.

The capital is weird, right? Like, I do fundraising as a service. I'm a VC, and I'm like, I'm confident I could raise hundreds of millions, not billions, to inject in Canadian companies. Why? Because we have a talent moat. A lot of engineers won't move down to the US. We still have these institutions. I mean, if that's the challenge, I'm going to go all in and fund these companies, right? I think, you know, what's the bottleneck, Roger, is I think, like you said, Joshua probably had a bad experience with VC money, right? And the conditions, the strings attached behind this, and he was alienated by that. And I just think, yeah, if we can raise the capital and not have the draconian conditions, Yeah, and have these AI godfathers believe in it again. University of Toronto is like a ground zero for AI as well. I think we can have a major moat, right?

And, and now we just helped, and just, we just helped, like, we were lucky to be involved, boy, then again to support the creation of a joint venture between Inovia. Inovia is a very, very well-known VC in Canada. I don't know if you know them.

Yes, I know them.

I think Pichette, you know, ex-CFO of Google, is one of the partner, Chris Orsenault, the founder. So they did a joint venture with Mila and they created the first Canadian, or whatever, first AI fund, joint venture with the Mila and the VC I know of. Yes, so now we got like a couple of hundred millions to found pure AI companies based in Montreal.

Bordy and Andrew D'Souza, that's the kind of talent we have in Canada. Do you know that guy? The ex-CEO of ClearBank?

Yeah, just reputation. I'd love the chance to work with this guy.

He is in my top 5 favorite entrepreneurs. That's like the kind of geniuses we produce in Canada. Waterloo University is also like such a groundbreaker for AI.

Yeah.

And that guy is a fucking genius. Like, this guy, he is like Sam Altman level. I would very much get behind this guy. Bordy AI, I'm not sure if you've checked it, but it basically connects founders with capital. It's like a WhatsApp that you open, it's so amazing. And this guy's behind it, right? And previously behind ClearBank. ClearBank, I mean, had sort of a sad ending as well, but it was a nice shot that he took, right? Scaled it to multi-billions, exploded during COVID and after that, they had some problems, right? Like, because financing all, types of crazy businesses, a hard business. Um, coming back to my question of you, uh, sitting down with these CEOs, right? Because I see like, uh, your office, which looks amazing, have all these bottles in the background. Like, how do you— how do you lure one CEO in usually? What's your, your playbook to be like, hey, uh, why don't you, uh, think about hiring us to place you in the best job ever? Like, what's the, the full pipeline?

There is two questions to your questions. So there is how, in how to connect with them to make sure they hired us, Borden, to find them. And after that, how do you seduce them? And when I get hired, what, how do I get them to my office to listen? Okay, so the first, my job as a managing partner of Borden, you know, I define it very often as my job is to have the 500 cell phones of the top 500 CEOs and chairmen in Quebec. Okay, that's my job. Yes, partner. Everyone— I need to know everyone at the top. Everyone needs to know me, and permanently I need to be in their mind. Why?

You need to think of you when there is a—

yeah, because the law of the large number— I'm an actuary, so the law of the large number, you know, people stay in a role 3 years. So if you have 6 VPs, what does that mean? So 2 vice presidents per year will be fired or will quit. That's a lot of large numbers. So when they quit, it's always emergency. I'm always like a fireman because someone quits, they call, they want a meeting tomorrow morning, and we start the day after. Okay, so when you fire someone, it's emergency. It's always very, very like restructuring or Almost like even worse than investment banking. I think restructuring in us is like always emergency. Yeah. So this is why, you know, I write, you know, I wrote 3 books and I do a lot of conference and now I'm all over. I've done at least 20 boards, you know, in my life. I do fundraising, I'm a co-chair to get known as the, uh, more than as the dominant senior headhunter. Okay. So they know us, they call us. If we lose, that's fine. There's good other firms, but at least we want to get the call. Once we get the mandate, now, okay, we got it. How do I get people to answer the phone, come to my office for coffee, you know, and change, take a new job? Because the people we are after, they're happy, they're very good, they're not looking for a job, right? Those are the ones we want. Those ones looking for a job, we don't want them, you know. That's the, that's the jungle there. So How do I get the attention of a successful CEO right now who's running a business that is not looking for a job, is very happy? Yeah, right, that's very hard. That's almost impossible. So, so a couple of things. The, the credibility of a firm like Boyden, the reputation I have, the partners I have— when I call, they will take the call. Why? Because one day they will manage, one day they will need us, if we didn't, we say, okay, right, Boyden is calling, Roger is calling, I'm gonna pick up the phone, okay, I'm gonna come for coffee because 5 years from now when I'm gonna call him, and I want to be nice to him. So having— this is why it's very difficult for small boutique headhunting firm, you know, to be successful in very, very large role because not have the reputation. When we call CEOs of Casa de Pol, the CEO of Air Canada, they will answer our call.

That's why you need to have a minibar that's enough to kill 100 elephants behind you. That's the secret weapon.

Well, that's, that's not about the collection. That's, that's only—

it looks like a beautiful one.

But you know, you know, I'm a, I'm a scuba diver and a wine enthusiast. Yeah, and every time, you know, most of the time when I go scuba diving somewhere, there is like rum in the Caribbean, so always bring back a bottle. So I've developed a passion for rum and scuba diving as well.

Nice. Yeah, I love it. We'll talk about that a little bit more. Um, okay, so you have like the phone numbers of these guys. What do you go eat with them, like once a month to fancy, uh, place? You organize mastermind dinners? You take them out to Cirque du Soleil or a trip? Like, what's, uh, your favorite cajoling method?

Um, that's a good question because at the end of the day, all law firm, accounting firm, you know, investment firm, you know, everyone is trying to invite CEOs somewhere to do something, you know, from the Grand Prix to success. So everyone is over, over invited. So, and I've been thinking a lot about that the last 10 years. So we do a couple of very crazy things at at Boyden because we have a chance to. I'm an adrenaline junkie a little bit, I'll skydiving and scuba diving, and I'm a race car enthusiast. I've got my license to do racing. So what we do is we have the chance to have access to, maybe you've heard about the Mont-Tremblant racetrack. We had the Grand Prix on that for 3 years. It's an amazing spectacular racetrack. So we are able to have it for us only one full day. We invite 60 CEOs on a racetrack, and the power of that is not about the money because, you know, all those guys are most, you know, billionaire, millionaire. They can afford anything they want, but they might not have access to the owner of the track. And now we have it for us. They put 25 Ferraris on the tracks and we spend a full day with them. So we try to do those kind of things as very It's a bit different, you know. Otherwise, you know, like, I'm not a golfer, I'm not going to take you on the golfing invite, it's not me. And I think nowadays you need to be a bit more creative. So we do about 3, 4, 5 very crazy stuff like that, and it's working very well.

I love it. Yeah, another one in my list is do tough endurance events with them, like, um, Spartan Ultra. I feel is like perfect even for someone that's fit, that it's 50 kilometers and like 52 obstacles, but it's doable. Right. In worst case, they can walk it and it's very entertaining, right? It's fun.

Yeah. I don't know if I would try it with my clients, but yeah, I mean, let me know how it goes.

Because then their real selves reveal themselves.

Exactly. Yeah.

And then you can get in their psyche. Or another one is like, I'm in Mexico here and there's a mountain. We should climb it together. It's Pico de Orizaba. So I'm taking my 4x4 vehicle. We climb and arrive at the base camp and then we can just climb the mountain after that. It's a pretty long climb. It's like 8 hours non-stop, uh, very vertical climbing. That's another fun one. Um, albeit you can't really talk like on your way up because it's so hard. But yeah, no, it's, uh, it's pretty cool, the, the track thing, right? And some of them might get competitive on track. They love fancy cars, so, uh, it's a good one.

It's, uh, it's funny you say that because, um, uh, one of, uh, you know, I have a couple of, uh, of Heroes. I have 3, let's say, sports heroes, okay? And those are completely unbalanced and not very balanced people, so I don't recommend to follow what they do. But like Terry Fox is one of my heroes. The second one is, you know, a guy, you know, in the US, David Goggins, you know, crazy guy.

Of course.

And the third one, unfortunately, you might have heard of him, just died last weekend. Nim Purja, and it's one of— it's the, uh, it's— is the guy who climbed like, you know, 40 peaks. No, Nothing Is Impossible. I'm sure you saw the Netflix documentary. Yeah, the Sherpa just died. Yeah, he died in avalanche in Pakistan.

Fuck, what's his name?

Nim Purja. Like, he's a— it was 20 years, and now it's full. I mean, they're all Nirmal Purja, and he was like a British Indian Army specialist for 20 years. He became the most well-known climber in the world. If you type his name, this is— the community is completely shocked. A few days ago he died, and he is the one who climbed all 14 peaks in the world, like, you know, within like 8 months. Check the Netflix Nothing Is Impossible documentary.

Oh yeah, I checked it, it was super good. That's tragic, man.

Really tragic, you know. So he was one of the most experienced climbers in the world and, you know, he died. Well, the only thing is good, he died doing something he loved, right? So that's a beautiful death in a way. It's tragic but it's beautiful. Because he, he was, he was living what, you know, with no fear. So yeah, but that's kind of—

you need to expect that with that sport, you know. Uh, it's like me and my superbike, right? And that's why I'm selling it ultimately for an equally dangerous motocross. But we could get in that later. But it's the risk that comes with it. There's very high risk in riding a very fast motorcycle. Not on a track, and there's also very high risk in climbing a mountain, right? So fortunately, Pico de Orizaba is somewhat safe, right? Like, there's not a lot of, uh, avalanche there, if my wife listens to this. Um, yeah, no, these are, are cool heroes. I mean, Goggins, like you said, right? Like, very unbalanced. Um, I would add to this one Ernest Shackleton, right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a legend. This guy, uh, his full crew survived, right, and took the decision to get out of the frozen boat, right, for 4 or 5 days in a makeshift boat. Such a crazy story, um, one of my favorite ones. So, uh, oh, while we're on the— that topic, you, uh, are preparing for Marathon des Sables, right, which is like intimately related to your mindset in that business. Tell us why you run, right, and what's your, your mindset right now ahead of the race.

Great thing. Yeah, it's very, uh, everyone is asking me why I'm preparing for that, because definitely it's not, it's not necessarily healthy or good for your body. Um, so, so why are we doing this? Uh, I, I describe myself, there's two reasons for that. I describe myself as a lazy overachiever. That means, you know, I'm not, I'm not the guy who's gonna run a 5K every day. I wish, I wish I was that kind of guy. Little 5K so you stay healthy. So I don't do that. I do— I need to register to something, and now I'm gonna exceed it. So like, I did my first marathon, now I just registered, I train to do it. So every time I put an objective, I try to surpass it. But if I don't register myself to something, I don't train. So it's, it's very bizarre, mining. So I always, I'm always and I'll register somewhere and I'll do something. Okay, so that's my main thing of why I do that. Second one, why Marathon des Sables? Marathon des Sables is an old dream, and over the last 10 years I had— it's crazy, you know, you run like 120K in the Sahara Desert in Morocco, you know, with a backpack, 20 pounds, gonna be all your food, everything, you know. It's terrible. I mean, it's terrible. I've already lost like 10 pounds almost training. I'm gonna lose another 10 in the race, but there's something spiritual about it, you know, and I'm running long-distance running, not short, but for me, every time I go out for a race, an hour, an hour, over an hour, this is where I mentally relax because I'm very intense by nature, you know. I'm I mean, naturally, half of the time people think, you know, I'm on drugs. I'm just purely, purely just like that. And, you know, I mean, so one of the way that calms me down and makes me like, you know, disconnect is a long-distance run. So for me, I love, I love leaving for 1, 2, 3 hours and run. Love it. My brain goes crazy. And when it's hot, I don't mind. And the marathon itself, for those who knows a little bit of what the Chemin de Compostelle is, you know, it's a, it's like a 20-day walk, you know, in Spain and France, very spiritual. And for those who's been to Burning Man as well, because I've been to Burning Man, and to me it was a bit of a spiritual thing as well when you love music and art, you know. So if you mix Burning Man and Chemin de Compostelle, you get almost a Marathon des Sables. That's the way to look at it.

Oh man, that will be legendary. Um, sure, painful, but pain is always part of the equation, right? Like, I'm having chills of just thinking about it. It's also on my list. I wouldn't view it as that challenging compared to other crazy shit I have on my list, like Moab, for example.

But yeah, that's crazy. That's true.

But wait, it's epic. Why? Because Denis Villeneuve and Dune. That— yeah, you, you listen Dune tracks the full time.

Yeah.

And, and Dune is like top 5 favorite movie, and it's so spiritual. It's so spiritual, this movie, right?

So you're right, it's gonna be a trip.

It's gonna be a trip.

It's gonna be a trip. And, and there's something in that. I've been in India and Morocco, and there's something. I slept in the dunes, on the dunes of the desert. There's something, you know. And, you know, you all— I believe in something, you know, a bit of spiritual, but you only grow when you're in pain. Pain makes you grow. And I love to push my limits, and I'm the kind of guy who wants to know where are my limits. So I like to push them. Am I able to do that? When I, when I When I did the PhD, you know, I'm a math guy, you know, I'm an actuary and be all of that. And I was like, okay, I'm not a good writer. 5 years of the PhD, you need to write a lot of stuff. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna push myself, I can do it. So I want to prove myself I could do that, but I didn't want to become a professor, so I stopped after 5 years. But I like to push, you know, in music and travels and sports and everything. I think this is how you grow.

I love it, man. Rajeev, thanks for being on the podcast. Where can people find out more about you?

Just type my name, Roger T. Dugay. That's it.

That was Roger and Charles Cormier for another