DON'T BE A BULLDOZER!!

Now, as you may or may not realize, my industry is the speaking industry. Honestly, I don't do YouTube videos all the time. I'm doing keynotes or workshops or seminars to a lot of different audiences. It might be a First Nation community, the staff of the First Nation, it might be the community members, or it might be a non Indigenous corporation, a business, a non profit, Whatever the case may be, when it comes to working with non Indigenous audiences, and in this case I'm talking about the event planners, a huge part of reconciliation, well, I guess for everybody is recognizing when you're working with Indigenous people, if you are not Indigenous, this is a cross cultural relationship, which means whatever process you normally do may not work. And your best bet is transparency and authenticity. This is the way we normally do it. Does this work for you? And being willing to compromise, if you're not willing to change, then nothing changes. That's not reconciliation. That's what we have now. That is the problem. So the challenge for mainstream non Indigenous Canadians, the corporations, the large entities, is when you've been in power for so long, when you've always dictated the terms or the processes and this is just the way we do things, you can come across as a bulldozer pushing your will and your way onto Indigenous peoples, Indigenous entities, businesses, nonprofits, or Indigenous speakers like me. Today I thought we should talk about that. So 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. And as mentioned in the opening, I make a living as a public speaker. I'm in my 15th year of business. I have given countless seminars and keynote speeches. And in the last, I'd say six years, the number of non Indigenous entities I work with has very much increased to the point I often talk about balancing the feather, that I believe that for reconciliation it has to be equal parts empowering Indigenous peoples, not saving them, empowering them different, different. And educating non Indigenous Canadians on all the stuff that they don't even know about their own history. And I'm not saying that falls on Indigenous people, but I'm saying the Indigenous world view and Indigenous perspective needs to be included in any reconciliation work. If you're doing it without us, you're repeating Canadian history. That is not the point. But when it comes to working with entities that do not recognize the cross cultural relationship, that are used to doing things their way and you just have to adapt, that's colonialism. In Itself, that is that. That's not meeting in the middle of the bridge. That's the bulldozer. You have to do it this way. You can tell I've been thinking about this for a while because I have a piece of paper and my little index card. This cannot be called a little index card. I have to clarify that. But there's so many points I just wanted to put out there. And I think, like with so many things, once it's pointed out, these are not hard to realize why this would be problematic. But if you're not thinking about it, if you're not consciously acknowledging that your systems may need to be adjusted to support reconciliation work, then you're just going to end up, in so many cases, your own worst enemy. So let's see, we'll start with the My, my. My notes, my email to myself, Believe it or not, don't judge. So first off, I do not speak in speech. I have coming up that one of the first things I say is, you know, what's the biggest difference between being a black indigenous person of color speaker and a. A privileged white speaker. The white speaker never has to identify that they don't speak for all white people. Marginalized speakers do so with working. I am Anishinaabe Kwei. I am not all indigenous. There are nations that have teachings that are almost exactly opposite to mine. Neither is right or wrong. It's right for the people that belong to that nation. There's no judgment required. Anishinaabe we're very direct. That's why transparency and humility. We're like, so what's the problem? And I have definitely caught people off guard with my directness. I don't do it to be disrespectful. I don't do it to judge people. I actually do it to respect. Respect our time, yours and mine. I don't have all day to have a guessing game of why you called me. I might just ask. So the first thing is, when you're reaching out to a First Nation community, an entity or a speaker, tell us what you want. Don't hit a hint about it, don't ask, and don't make it flowery. I've run into a few entities that say they want to support indigenous people. No, they don't. They don't. They want to have more indigenous business. One is just honest. I'm not going to judge you for that. You're in business. You want to grow your customer base. Duh, we get it. But when you use the flowery and think you're saying what we want to hear. That builds mistrust. That doesn't build a bridge. So tell us what you want. Don't hint. Ask. If you need guidance on reconciliation or you want to improve indigenous engagement, just say that. Or if you're not sure how to describe it, just tell us what the issue is. We're not going to judge you. You're calling us for help. But just tell us your story. Remember, your power is in your story. Next one. This is the one that drives me nuts, personally. As a speaker, I will see. I don't do calls for proposals. Sorry, no, I didn't. Don't. I just don't. That's a personal thing. I. The people I work with, the people that come to me and. And respect me, and they probably followed my work for a while, and. And they're trusting that I can help them. And you can bet I'm going to do everything I can to help them. But when they reach out, do not give me the title of the speech you want. Tell me the problem and give me enough room to design the seminar, workshop, or speech that you need to address that problem. Do not try to put me in that box. I have worked way too long to shatter those boxes to be put into one for the sake of your event. So, yeah. How indigenous should navigate health care. No, no, Right. Like I said, tell us your story. Don't decide ours. Don't assign us things. Can you see the overreaching? Can you see the paternalistic? We're telling you what to do. That's not reconciliation. This one. So many indigenous people out there, professionals are gonna, like, just scream yes at the video for this one. Yeah. Don't pay indigenous speakers an honorarium. An honorarium is the honorary gift that you give to elders for doing ceremonies. Right. And it includes so much more than money, and some would actually be offended if it included money. We are professionals speaking about a specific topic, which means you pay professional speaking fees. You don't get to reduce us down to some minor honorarium that your budget allows just because we're indigenous. Would you suggest an honorarium to someone who wasn't? In most cases, no. So out of specific, outside of specific niche, empowering situations, pay what you would pay any professional speaker. In my case, a professional speaker with 15 years experience of speaking. What would you pay them to speak to your group? It would not be a 90 honorarium. Okay. Now, having said that, there are some groups that reach out to me that do not have a budget. They need the knowledge. They want the Knowledge, they don't have the budget. If you do not have the budget, then you need to be open to options. This is where you meet us in the middle of the bridge. Maybe it's going to be a virtual event over live so I don't lose the time traveling, right? And if I'm traveling, you're definitely covering my expenses. Non indigenous education can't be at the price of indigenous pain. And if my business is going to take a financial hit so that you can learn something, how is that balance? That makes no sense. So maybe it's virtual over live. Maybe it's a pre recorded webinar over even live and virtual. See what I mean? So be open to options if you can't pay the price. I've spoken to this one before. I use PowerPoints in my presentations, even in my keynotes. Most often because I'm a visual learner and I know when I share a story, if I could have an image behind me, I'm not one of those people that reads slides gross. But if I have an image behind me that is impactful and fits with the story, greater chance you're going to remember it. And that's what I'm there for. I'm not there just to speak. It's. It's to transfer knowledge and. And tools to you that you can use after I'm gone. So often I use presentations and often I am asked, can you provide the PowerPoint ahead of time so our IG department can load it? No, I can't. Because in my case, in line with my teachings, I am updating that presentation probably right up to an hour before or at least up until I leave to go to the event venue. And that is me totally focusing on what that audience needs and creator is suggesting what I should put into the presentation. So if I provided it ahead of time, you would have an out of date version anyways. I will have it saved on usb. You can load it all good. That's. That's a compromise. Another one. Like I'm surprised I have to say this, except it keeps coming up. Do not assume that recording of the event for your future use is okay. Like there are so many times that that was not discussed in the booking process and I made the mistake of assuming that means it wouldn't be. And they made the assumption of assuming it would be okay. That's something. Trust me, I ask. Now, I don't wait for other people to do the right thing. I make sure that we have the discussion number point. Number seven. I've got Here, realize we are discussing and negotiating everything. You are not dictating or demanding because that would be a box. I am more than willing to help your group. Not if I have to 100% give up who I am to fit into some process you have that doesn't work. So on my card here, assume recording the event is okay. We talked about the PowerPoint beforehand. We talked about and another one that just happened this week. And I was like, wow, that's annoying. So the rule is relationship first. So like reconciliation is going to be a hundred relationships. And if you want to reach out to an indigenous entity, first nation, community, individual, even a professional speaker, yeah, send the email or, yeah, reach out on LinkedIn or whatever the case may be. But I had someone, and we had talked a few times, discussed the possibility of meeting to further discuss it. And then I just got a calendar invite that they were booking it on such and such a date at such and such a time. And I just went, okay. You didn't even bother to ask if I was busy that day. And yes, that's another email. Remember, if it's convenient. It's not reconciliation. If you're honoring our brand new relationship, you send an email and say, okay, what days and windows of time are open for you? Then feel free to send a calendar invite, but without asking that first. That feels like a bulldozer, right? So it's just stopping in the middle of the bridge rather than forcing yourself into our communities, our lives, or our businesses. Does that make sense? How does that sound to you? Especially in this case if you're non indigenous. Do you understand where I'm coming from? Back to back teaching? I can see things that, that you can't see. You can't. You can see things that I can see. But when I see something that's problematic, even if you don't see it, you have to be able to hear me and to believe that from my perspective, it's problematic. If we can fix it, then we're really building a bridge. And all of these things are so easy to fix. It might mean you have to slow down a little bit. You have to be a little less pushy and demanding and actually act like we're building a relationship and not just you're hiring me to do your bidding, because that's not what I do. I will help you in the way. There's a really good chance to realize when it comes to indigenous engagement that you may not know what you need. Trust me enough to be able to help you. I have never had an audience that's been disappointed. I hope that makes sense. I cannot wait to hear your comments or see your comments. Send me an email comment below. Don't forget to subscribe. Like all that fun stuff, share it with your friends. If you're new here, I hope you enjoyed this video. I would love to hear your opinion. Until tomorrow, I'm Sandy Boucher. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.