15 Missing Pieces Virtual Seminar - Part One

You asked and I heard. This week I have something absolutely different for you, which is the first part of my full day seminar, 15 missing pieces. Today we're going to look at the introduction that I share with my virtual audiences even before the seminar starts. Now, I did my best to pretend I had a virtual audience, that you were one of my participants. I'm sharing the slides and I'm sharing the same information that I have with many audiences over the years. This is one of my most popular seminars for non indigenous or mixed audiences. So I'm dying to hear what you think. This is part one of what's probably going to be three or four videos. So let's talk about it. Hello, you absolutely amazing person, you. As mentioned, my name is Sandy Boucher. Thank you. And I am thrilled that you're joining me today for my 15 missing pieces seminar. So I'm going to give this a try here. I got to say, I use a PowerPoint presentation. I know you probably groaned, but a couple reasons here. One, so many people I know are visual learners. If I can show an image that reinforces what I'm saying, it's just going to make it easier for you to remember this valuable information. And the second point is, don't worry, I'm not going to be here reading a bunch of boring slides. I would never do that to you. So let me go in and share my presentation with you. Hopefully that works. Yes, it looks like it's working. Hopefully all you can see is the big presentation. Now I do have one rule actually in all my seminars, whether they're live or virtual. And I do want to say, please do not try this with any other facilitator. You might get yourself in trouble. But I am all about supporting the conversation. So I'm telling you right now, if you see a slide at some point in my presentation, you see an image that super resonates with you and you wish your co worker, your colleague, your friend, your daughter, your partner, your parent was here so you could share it with them. I give you full permission to take the picture. Now, if I'm moving through the slides so quickly, or just put up your little zoom hand or type something into the chat, I will see it and I will go back to that slide so you can take a screenshot or print the screen or whatever the case may be. Okay, so you do. And I should say, you do not need to remember my name. You do not need to remember the name of this seminar. This is not about copyright. This is about supporting conversations. So you have My full permission to do that. So, as mentioned, my name is Sandy Boucher. What I just said in Ojibwe is my name is Red Thunderbolt Woman and I'm a proud member of the Loon clan. I belong to Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And I am so many things, a trainer, a facilitator, consultant, author, blogger, and yes, a podcaster. At one point I'm considered an expert in the fields of Indigenous empowerment and Canadian reconciliation with an emphasis on anti Indigenous racism, work and decolonization. Personally, I'm a 10 year domestic abuse survivor. So yes, I know the full impact of of colonization. If you don't understand what that means, you will by the end of this seminar. Now, I did want to share that we are talking about 15 missing pieces today that is part of a larger offering which was the 52 steps to reconciliation. I believe it was 2022 when I shared a video every Monday with my following and it was one of 52 steps. Now that entire collection is contained in my membership. And if you want to know more about that, just head to my website, sandybouchet.com super easy to find. And now a warning. My spirit name Misko Paganon Kwei Red Thunderbolt Woman. I am said to represent that split second in time when the thunder sounds exactly as the lightning strikes. Now, if you happen to live in an area that experiences thunderstorms, you probably know that means when those two things happen at the same time, that the storm is directly overhead. That would be me. I explain it to people that I'm not known for being subtle. I can be very direct, very blunt. But I want to reassure you that I never do that out of disrespect. I have no desire to shock you or make you feel uncomfortable. I do it because we have such a short period of time and you need this information so you can go on and do the work you want to do. I'm doing it to be respectful, not anything else. And I am going to be so respectful that in this seminar, when I'm about to say something that might come across as shocking or a little blunt, you're gonna see this slide first. So I always tell my participants that's their chance to grab a hold of their chairs, embrace themselves, so they're ready for the next slide. I promise you, nothing is going to be painful. Okay? I should say, however, it might be triggering. If you're an Indigenous person on your healing journey, aren't we all? There might be things we touch on in the Seminar that might be a little hard to hear. You take care of you boo. You do your self care. If that means you have to walk away or come back to this later or in two weeks, you know you and I totally support that now, don't we have to acknowledge this is the cutest little elephant I've ever seen? Yes, but this is the proverbial elephant in the room. We need to talk about something. So many people hear the word reconciliation and they have no idea what it means. And for a lot of mainstream corporate CEOs or SE Suite, they're thinking how much is it going to cost me? So let's look at what reconciliation is. Fifteen missing pieces. The reason why I titled this seminar this is it's 15 pieces of information that mainstream is missing that was not part of your education program. So you're trying to engage with indigenous people and you don't even have the complete picture. So by the end of the seminar we will have taken care of that. It's going to involve unpacking, which is a classic term we use. You're going to look at those things. I like to say that you never think about those phrases you use, that you don't think twice, or the things you believe about indigenous or non indigenous people, that you don't give a second thought. You're an adult now with an intelligent brain and world experience. But you inherited things from people before you got to this stage. And this is not about shame or guilt. I'm not going to come down on your parents for what they taught you because someone taught them. But we have the power to unpack and leave those things behind. So that's exactly what we're going to do in this session. Now I will be sharing practical information with you during this session. So I highly suggest you take notes that you write it down because it literally helps you to remember. And of course, if you have a question, please write that down so you can make sure to answer it during the Q and A sessions. I want to answer. It's actually my favorite part of the seminar when we do the Q and A. So please write down your questions. Now speaking of questions, I'm going to ask you a few now and the first question is how willing are you to change how you do things if it means you're going to achieve reconciliation? On the scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning now there is no way I'm doing things the way I do things. That's it. 10. Of course I will. I will change whatever I have to to achieve reconciliation. Where would you land? Now, before you answer that, or maybe you want to rethink your answer. Change can be incredibly uncomfortable. It's the learning curve, right? You're new at it. It's going to mean you will make mistakes. Not that you might make mistakes, that you will make mistakes. And it means you might be embarrassed from time to time or find that you have to apologize for something you said or did. So now that you considered that, again, how willing are you to change how you do things to achieve reconciliation? On a scale of 1 to 10, now, at this point in time, I'm going to stop sharing, and I'm going to go back into the presentation so I can see your beautiful faces. And if you could do me a favor in the chat, type in what number you type again. No shame, no guilt. I just like to get a read of the audience. So, scale of 1 to 10. One. There's no way. I just don't feel comfortable changing 10. Of course I'm going to change. Okay, let's see those numbers. Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much for that. Okay, now I'm gonna go back into my presentation. Share. Okay, we did that. We did that. I have long said for many, many years that I can work with the people that say, I don't know. It's I don't care. That scares me. So before I say anything else, which means a huge thank you to you for being in this seminar, because that means you do care and that I can work with. Now, I'm going to share a lot of stuff with you in this seminar. So at different times, if it's new to you, instead of blurting out 52 questions, if you have one or two questions to clarify something, that's fine. But if you want to push back or challenge it, I'd ask you. Don't do that. Instead, what I want you to do is what our elders teach us. I want you to sit with it for a while. I want you to contemplate the information that's shared for 24 hours, for 24 days, whatever the case may be, the truth is there is no risk here. There is no threat. At any given time, you can decide to discard every single thing I tell you. So you're in control of this. But for us to bring this bridge together, please take the time and consider the words, if nothing else, realizing that they're true for us. And if you want to work with indigenous people, you got to get better at understanding how things look on our side of the bridge. Now, one of the Things I was asked to speak on is to the sacred things, tobacco ties, ceremonies and cultural appropriation and basically where the line is. So I just want to give you one rule. I'm not going to speak on the actual ceremonies because I have no idea who's watching this video. And that's you don't go around sharing your most sacred stuff with just general strangers on the Internet. But I am going to leave you with one rule to guide you. So if you're non indigenous, you do know where the line is. And that is do not extract, rather join when invited, listen and learn. But what I always like to say is if you are respected enough, cherished enough, valued enough by an indigenous person that they feel comfortable sharing a teaching with you, you have to remember that the teaching does not come with the teacher's certificate. It is not your teaching. It is your teaching to use on your own path. I would go as far as saying you can use it in your relationships with your children or your partner, but you're not supposed to be going out and holding a sharing circle and pretending that these are your teachings. Now that would be crossing the line. So it's got to be reciprocal, right? If they've invited you there, then what you give them in return is your attention, your respect, listening, taking the time. You don't just extract what you need and leave the rest. Listen to the whole picture. Because I can tell you firsthand, we learn the hard way. We go sit with an elder and we think we have one question. But you know what? If you just sit there and listen, you end up learning one, so much more than you anticipated, and two, you'll learn a whole bunch of stuff you didn't even realize you needed. So it's not about taking. It's about opening yourself to the opportunity of learning with humility. Now, I have another question for you. What, in your opinion is the biggest challenge to successful Indigenous non Indigenous engagement? Again, next question. What, in your opinion is the biggest challenge to successful Indigenous non Indigenous engagement? Now the truth is, I have been asking this question for about 15 years and I've received a lot of answers in return. And I'm not saying that any single one of your answers is wrong, but over the years I have noticed they tend to fall into three. I think it's three different buckets. So let's look at those. Oh, and by the way, this is based on 15 years of me working in elementary, secondary and post secondary schools with countless colleges and universities in so many First Nation communities and agencies, working with mainstream Mainstream municipalities and businesses, and speaking at countless conferences where I have asked the question. So three challenges appear repeatedly. It is three buckets, as I mentioned. The first one, Canadian history, the lack of trust, the fact that there's so many promises that has been. That have been broken. It would be really nice to try to pretend we're starting at ground zero, but none of us are. All of us have inherited whatever from our past, from our parents past, and now trying to move forward. There is no starting at zero. So if you run into an indigenous person that doesn't trust you, I know it feels personal, but they don't know you, so it can't be personal. Chances are really good it's Canadian history. And if there's one thing I always ask in my audience is please do not judge us for our survival mechanisms. What we've had to do to figure out how to survive the next bucket is different cultural values. And we're actually going to touch on that in detail in this seminar. Not saying either one is right or wrong. They're just different and they can cause conflicts if you don't realize that. And the third one, unsafe spaces, which is huge. I can think of so many cases, especially in the recruitment retention area or realm. Indigenous people are hired, they're enduring insults and jokes that are not funny. And if you are not a marginalized person that has experienced experience that you may be tempted to minimize it as just a joke. It's a gut punch. It is a literal gut punch. It's like I went, I felt for a second I fit in and we were comfortable. And suddenly I am the target and centered out the equivalent of bullying. And enough time goes by and they endure this. Now their mental health is on the line, and I'm sorry, no paycheck is worth that. So they end up leaving. That might be my cultural values, but it isn't worth sacrificing yourself for. And they end up leaving. And that reinforces the stereotype that we're not reliable. It's got nothing to do with reliability. It's just we endure enough on a daily basis. We're not going to endure even more stupidity just to get a paycheck. So we got to fix those spaces. Now, I want to reassure you that this is most definitely a safe space. Now, what does that mean? It's easy enough to say, but I believe a safe space, they don't just happen. They have to be created, they have to be defined, and they have to be maintained. So in this case, what does this safe space mean? Well, let's define it. Let's look at the rules. First, all questions are welcome, but they must be asked softly without judgment or condemnation. Now, to explain what I mean by that, I'll give you two examples of a question and pretty sure you'll be able to figure out the difference. The first one is, I don't understand why indigenous people don't just whatever. That's an example of a question being asked softly. Or you could say, why the heck don't indigenous people just. Did you hear the judgment dripping off the second one? That is not asking softly. So no judgment. If you're confused, ask your question. Just make sure it's not coded in judgment or condemnation. Next, listen when others are talking, do not interrupt. Why is that the case? We know why. Because it's totally, completely disruptive. If someone's talking and another person is having a side conversation, you are telling the speaker that we do not value your words. That is the epitome of disrespect. And nothing is important enough unless you're bleeding profusely to do that to someone. So if we're going to start creating safe spaces, we got to learn to hold space, be quiet when someone else is talking. We should be listening anyways. Next. Now, this is the one that people worry about all the time. They're worried about. My non indigenous participants are always worried about using the wrong word and offending me or hurting someone in the audience. This is a learning opportunity, and my rule is you can't use another word if you don't know another word. You can only when you ask me a question. You're sharing with me what you've been taught. If you haven't been taught the information and why a word is inappropriate, how can you know not to use it? This is a safe space. This is where I want you to ask your questions rather than of your colleague after it's done because you might catch them off guard. Maybe they haven't had the healing or training I've had to do this work. So the rule is, ask your question in whatever way you think you're going to ask it. Whatever words you use, the best ones you got. If you use a problematic term, one, I'm going to point out that a term is problematic. Two, I'm going to explain to you why it's problematic. Three, I'm going to give you a better word to use so the next time you don't get yourself in trouble. And fourth, most importantly, I'm going to answer your question. Trust me, I've heard Worse. So just ask your question. Okay? I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to send you out. This is so you can get the information you need. Next, strive to learn rather than teach. Every now and then I run into someone, participant in the audience that is desperate to show how much they know. And I understand every single one of you carry wisdom. I could learn tons from every single one of you. But if we do that, this is now a seven day seminar. I don't think anyone wants to sit through that. So just trust. I know how amazing you are. This is your chance to learn. And last but not least, and probably most importantly, be willing to unlearn what you have previously thought to be true. Now let's look at those last two in more detail. And I have a story for you which is definitely going to happen through this seminar. Looking at this book here, I want you to imagine for a second I was in my early 20s, maybe mid-20s. I had two young children, I was divorced, I was working full time, single mom. Things were stressful. It was a Saturday morning at home. I was relaxing in my incredibly messy house because the weekend is when I got caught up on those things. And suddenly there's a knock at the door. I opened the door, my eldest brother was standing there and he handed me this book. How do you think I reacted exactly? And I have one of those faces that you can tell what I'm thinking by the expression on my face. And you. Just before his life ended, my brother went, whoa, whoa, let me explain. And he shared how he knew there was nothing more important to me than being a good parent. But the reality is, how do we learn to be a parent from our parents, which is why it's so challenging when children are removed from their parents. Keep that in mind. All we had is the example of our parents and as he said, they did their best and they got a lot of things right, but they also weren't educated and maybe they missed a few things. So he had done the research because that's the type of person he was. And he found this was top of the list, the best of the best. So he bought it for me because he knew I'd appreciate it. So after that story, I breathed the big sigh and I gave him a hug rather than shooting him. And I can say the book was definitely worth reading and definitely got me out of some tight situations. They gave practical if your kid does this, do this and it works. Yes. Amazing. So the point is, in this seminar, no one is Attacking you. So let's keep the defensive walls down. Okay? And that striving to learn. That's the sit with it that I was talking about earlier. That just. Just sit with it for a while. It might take a while. I have learned some amazing things over the years, and often it took days, if not longer for it to sink in and for me to really realize how deep the teaching was, that being willing to unlearn is the unpacking we talked about, right? That it's not about judging anyone. It's just about leveling up with your new age and stage and experience. Thanks to this seminar. It's all puzzle pieces, as my mom would say. And every single opportunity you have to add puzzle pieces to your puzzle brings you clarity, wisdom, confidence, and peace. So I'm so glad to be able to add a few pieces to your puzzle today. One of the things we're really going to have to discuss is cultural lens. It's going to come up a few times in this seminar, and this is so much easier for me to explain to people now that I'm old enough to have to wear glasses. Your cultural lens are literally the lens you look at the world through. It's made up of everything you've seen, heard, experienced, or been taught. Your side of the bridge. But someone with another cultural lens is going to see things differently. That doesn't make you wrong. It actually completes the picture if you can actually listen to each other. Now, I come from the city of Thunder Bay, and trust me, there are many different cultural lenses here, and quite a few of them do not have a positive, positive image of indigenous people. But I know who I am. My value is not dependent on someone else seeing it. If their cultural lens is blind to it, they need to get to the optometrist. Doesn't change my value and it doesn't change yours. Now, one last thing before we jump into the seminar today, because we haven't even started the seminar yet. You were each given a little piece of paper. And now I want you to take a second and write the words my ego on it. Take a second. And now what I want you to do. And I'm actually going to stop sharing for a second because I want. Turn your cameras on, please, so I can see you. Because I want to see you do this. I want you to take that little piece of paper and put it in the corner of the room you're in that you cannot reach it from where you're sitting. Okay, Go ahead. I can see you guys moving around. That's awesome. I don't want to sneeze here. Go ahead, go ahead. Give me that zoom. Thumbs up when you're done. Awesome. Now, why would I make you do that? Why would I literally make you put your ego in the corner? It's what I said earlier. Striving to learn, not to teach. You can pick up that piece of paper as soon as we're done, but please, if you could get comfy with learning and being a student for the next little while, that would be super appreciated. Okay? Thank you so much for that little exercise. Going back into my PowerPoint here, all of that is my introduction that brings us to the beginning of this seminar. Now, why was it so important for me to share so much before the seminar even started? It's because when it comes to indigenous non indigenous engagement, getting on the same page, trying to understand each other, setting some rules for a safe space, letting you know who I am so you can bring the defensive walls down is all an important part of the package. Now, this video is about to end, but I look forward to you joining me for the next video when I continue and start sharing the 15 missing pieces. Until next time. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.