Sandi L Boucher shares four quotes that shaped her thinking: one on allyship across marginalized groups, one on fixing environments instead of blaming people, one on how people need to feel you care before they listen, and her own line about the barriers you choose to defend.
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Hello again, you amazing person, you, Sandy Boucher here once again, still in my hotel room. Now it's about 5:30 in the morning. I'm going to shoot one more video before I start my trek back home today. I wanted to share with you four quotes. Not just quotes I like, but quotes that changed things for me. And of course, I'm a visual learner. And these quotes, for the most part, come with an attached image that I want to share with you. So I'd be very interested to know, what did you think of them and which one resonates the most with you? Let's talk about it. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine River First Nation in Treaty 3 Territory in Northern Ontario. And yes, I'm not home right now. I'm actually still in London, Ontario. But today I head home, back to my home. My home office, my fur babies and my backyard if the weather is nice. Let's get real. Now, as I mentioned in the opening, I wanted to share four different videos with or not videos, images with you. Four different quotes with you that totally changed everything for me. So this first one I first came across during the Black Lives Matter, the. The uproar, justifiable uproaring after uproar after the death of George Floyd. This one stopped me in my tracks and just had me nodding and saying, yes, here it is. See, if there's one thing I know for sure is marginalized, we share pain. We understand what it's like to be attacked, to be judged, to be hurt. And we have to remember that I, in a heartbeat would show up at a Black Lives Matter event not to speak speak, not to take over, but to hold space and add power to another group that understands. And I have black friends who would do the exact same thing for an Indigenous gathering and a half. It is not. And it's not even about taking the mic and saying that our paths are similar. It's not about taking the mic at all. That's what being an ally is. So I know they would stand next to me as we dealt with whatever Indigenous attack happened recently. And I would happily do same for them because our pain unites us and we do understand that it's something we can use to unite us, not to bite us. So that's the first one, the second one you have heard me mention a hundred times. I mentioned it yesterday in seminar. It is literally my favorite quote and I always joke around that I wish I had wrote it as an author, it bugs me that I didn't. But I didn't. So here's the second one. When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower. I don't remember where I was when I first read this, but I do remember stopping in my tracks because instantaneously thought of indigenous youth being an indigenous youth in grade nine, coming out of the communities into the city, forced to do that just to be able to go to grade nine and feeling like there's something wrong with them, that they're stupid or they're never going to. To be able to compete or get the lessons that they're. They're hearing from the teacher, never once really realizing all of that is a result of the environment. The fact that they didn't have the advantage or the privilege of going to a high school in their home community is not their fault. The fact that getting qualified teachers into those communities, not their fault. The fact that the federal education budget per student is far less than a provincial school school budget per student is not their fault. So that they went without the resources that other students do. We don't have this conversation often enough. And the students are suffering. There is nothing wrong with our kids. There is nothing wrong with our women. There is nothing wrong with our men. What you're seeing is a reaction to the environment. We have to fix the environment. You have heard me say it a million times. Indigenous people in Canada are flowers trying to grow in soil doused in gasoline. And we need to find better soil and we can help them do that. Now, my third quote. I should have grabbed the book. I have an email to myself and you can see I took a picture. It's the 16 undeniable laws of Communication with John Maxwell. Remember I talked about the 16 laws and I told you I would read the book and then do a review of it. Well, I'm reading the book now, thoroughly enjoying the book way more than I thought I was going to. And I came across this quote yesterday. I'll put the information, you know, the page number and what law it was talking about. I didn't put that in my email. But this quote. Well, 100% for public speakers, of course, that's who the book is written to. But this actually made me think of the academics and the CEOs and the bosses out there, supervisors. I just think this one should be remembered in many conversations. Here's the quote. People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care. People don't care. How much you know until they know how much you care. Think about all the times that someone just went off on their ego trip sharing how much they knew, connecting with absolutely no one that might be in the law of connection, come to think of, is not about an ego trip. It's not about how many $15 words you know speak to your audience and connect with them. That is literally why you and them are there. And the last one, now my turn to go on an ego trip is my quote. And I believe I shared it in my very first book. And the only reason I'm sharing it is it keeps coming up. It keeps repeating itself. Every single time I do the seminar or I end up in a conversation with someone about their future and their plans, it comes up and here's the quote. And for this one, I don't have a fancy dancy picture. I should put it on a picture. I might do that for this video. The quote is, you will forever be limited by the barriers you choose to defend. You will forever be limited by the barriers you choose to defend. And what do I mean by that? So many times I've met someone, usually a youth, younger woman, and I'm like, oh my God, your, your intelligence is amazing. Or your personality is so infectious. Like, I could just see you being so successful. And their response is a list of the reasons why that could never happen. And never once do they realize that it's not the barriers they listed that are going to stop them. It's the belief that those barriers can stop them. Over, under, around, or through. That is how you have to deal with your barriers. I would not be here enjoying a career. I love poverty far in the rear view mirror, if I hadn't dared to overcome my barriers. And for marginalized, racialized and indigenous people, it is essential to overcome the barriers, the barriers that someone else erected, the barriers that we now carry in our minds. You can do it. I wouldn't like, can I live long enough to see an indigenous prime minister? That'd be kind of cool. Or actually, I have other plans for our political system. But that's another video. I hope you enjoyed these videos from my hotel room. The next one, I will be back in my office. Until then, I love you. Take care. Bye bye.
