Our Year So Far!! (YouTube Live January 14, 2024)

And it says I'm live. We're gonna hope that's true. I'm not sure if I'm talking to myself or not. No, it doesn't look like it's a few people. Feel free say hi in the chat. I'd love to know who's here. Love doing lives because then I actually get to interact with people. I do that in the comments, if you know what I mean. This is a little, little bit faster. A little bit faster. I, I guess, yeah, I was trying to think when I go, when I do a zoom, public zoom, at least then I get to interact with people. But this is, this is the next best thing. So here's I'm hoping. Happy New Year for one. I hope all of you had amazing time off no matter what. If you were celebrating or not celebrating. I hope you got some rest. I hope you got in some self care. If you did celebrate Christmas, I hope it went amazing. If you. I hope your new year is starting off absolutely amazing. I am one of those people that was really looking forward to 2024. 2023 was rough and I was kind of happy to kick it to the curb. Bye. Bye. Out the door you can go. So yeah, we are here in 2024 and we are going to make the best of it. I'm definitely going to make the best of it. I turned 60 this year and I think that that's a big flipping deal. I haven't figured out what I'm doing for my birthday yet. I am. I have something planned but it's actually this month and my birthday is not till April so I would actually like to do something really epic, go somewhere for my birthday. I just haven't decided yet. I'm thinking, I don't know, you know, like one of those casinos that has concerts. Not that I'm big into casinos, I'm not big into gambling. Concerts I am into and they tend to have smaller, more intimate concerts. So that if anyone has any suggestions of what I could do. I'm in northern Ontario, Canada so pretty much anywhere except out west would be warmer. But yeah, if you have any suggestions, feel free to throw them into chat again. Feel free to say hi. What I wanted to do today is go over. These are all the index cards for all of the videos I've done so far. I guess the 14, well a couple were member only videos so those don't count. But two weeks worth of videos so far in 2024. This is your chance to ask your question or let me know. That video confused me that one I need more info on. And of course, if you have suggestions for future videos, there is a question you need answered or something you would love to know more about. Always open to hearing that. I have so many of these cards that are your suggestions that I haven't got to yet. But a year is a long time, so trust that. Feel free. No dumb suggestions, no dumb questions. If you don't know, you don't know. This is a safe space. This is what I'm here for, to help you learn that stuff. So the room is quiet. So I. I'm. I'm totally cool with talking to myself. I shoot videos for a living. Well, not for a living, but a large part of what I do. I'm talking to myself. So I'm good. I am so totally good with that. January 1st, my very first video of the year was talking about my mom and my mission for the year. Her mission and my. My mission. Did I mention. Yes, my mention. Mission for the year. So you're learning a lot about mom again this year. And. And she was an epic woman and I don't mind sharing her with you at all. And I talked about how her mission was to give her children, us, me and my brothers, everything that we needed to go on without her. And I just think that is the epitome of empowerment, is it was never about ego. It was never about her showing off how much she knew. In fact, she didn't want us to know how much she knew. To her, the focus was helping us to realize how much we already knew and teaching us how to figure out things on our own. So she was a master of asking questions that got us to think deeper. I can remember anyone who's a parent can probably relate to this. When I was a young mom and I became a single mom, I think I was 24, and the kids were like one and a half and three and a half. They were little. And then I went to work full time because I had two kids to feed. So it was. It's not easy. It's not easy having two little kids. I don't care if you're at home all the time. It's. It's not easy. And often I did the classic calling my mom, showing my age, doing this, not this. And I would say, like, I don't know what to do with these kids. I just want to, like, throw them out a window. And of course she knew I didn't really mean that. So no one panic. But instead of telling me what to do, her response was always something like, wow, you know what? That sounds super frustrating. What's going on? And I would tell her, you know, my daughter wasn't listening, or my son wouldn't go to bed or whatever the case may be. And she would ask me if that had ever happened before. And of course it had happened before. And she'd let me share that with her. Then she'd ask me what worked last time. Last time they needed a nap. They were super tired. When after the nap, they got up and they were great and wonderful. Oh, wow. Do you think that would work this time? No one never thought of that. I think I'm gonna try it. Awesome. Let me know how it goes. She never once gave me the answer, even though it would have been way easier for her to do that. But she also knew if she gave me the answer, then I believed in her knowledge and wisdom. She helped me to figure it out on my own. I believed in my knowledge and wisdom. That's where self confidence comes from. So if there's someone in your life you want to empower, don't be giving them answers. Help them figure out their own. We talked about puzzle pieces and how there's no image on the box when it comes to life. We actually got to figure it out. And I really reviewed and went over the idea of indigenous centered space, which is what my space space is. I'm. Let's see if I can get the people that are in the room using the chat. I have a prize. January 2nd was the one thing you need to be able to work with indigenous people. And I mentioned humility. I mentioned it would be nice to, you know, have some education on indigenous people. But there was one attribute, one thing you had to be able to do to successfully be able to work with indigenous people. And I'm wondering if anyone in the room remembers what that is. If you do, I'm going to send you the free downloads so you can just read it on your phone or read it on your iPad, whatever. Of all of my four books, you can see two of them there. Well, no, that's a book and that's my notebook. The rest are on the top shelf. But I will send it. Of course. I want to need your email address to do that. You can email me that later. Don't put it in the chat for everyone to see. But if you remember, I'm going to set this aside. Remind me to tell you what the answer is at the end. But the first person who types it into chat is going to get a free set of books. I have no idea how much the downloads cost. That's in the shop on my website. I don't remember what the price tag is, but for you it's free and you get it immediately after the live if someone answers correctly. So that would be awesome in my mind. Happy to share with you. Okay, so remember the. What did you need? Wasn't he. Humility is the bridge builder. We need that Education on indigenous people a good thing. But there was something else. Let me know. I'll be able to tell if you saw that. That video. It's the January 2nd video. You got it, Debbie. Yes. Yes. Debbie, way to go. I am so freaking proud of you right now. So, Debbie, can I type into chat? I'm gonna try and see if this works. So it's sandy@sandyboucher.com. i hope it looks a little weird on my end, but hopefully you can read that on yours. Send me an email so I have your email and I will send you those right after the life is done. Yay. Yay. They are just. Just FYI to give you a heads up so you don't panic when you get it, the PDFs of the books are too big to send attached to an email. My server will just shut it down. It won't allow it. So I put them into Dropbox. I'll give you a Dropbox link. You go in there, you can download it to wherever you want to download it to. Way to go, Debbie. So proud of you. That was amazing. There's. I don't know if I'm gonna offer any more prizes. We'll have to see what comes up on these cards. I have no idea. That was a spontaneous idea. January 3rd. So was that last year? It must have been last year. It must have been in December where I did the video where I was once again crying. I have never done that before and I've cried in so many videos since I started this last November. It's ridiculous. But it was about, like overhearing the racist comments when I was in the hair salon and I thought that was a safe space space. And it just so upset me because I thought I was among friends. I thought I was safe, that I didn't have to deal with that. Totally put my guard down and found out otherwise the hard way. So the January 3rd video was called the first one is free. And I've mentioned that in a couple of videos since then that I realized once I got over the. The grief and the shock and cried the tears, that's a healthy thing to do. I never Stopped myself from doing that, in case you haven't figured that out. And I just realized, you know what? I'm not weaker than I thought. I'm not less than I thought before. The first one's free. I didn't see that coming. Right. But. But I know better now. And the next time I walk in there, you can bet if something said, I'm going to be ready for it. So fool me one, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. And I ain't no fool. So that one, even though it started out as such an incredibly negative experience, turned out fine in the end. Yay. Next one, January 4th. This video, this video, this video. Prince Harry, unconscious bias and racism. And I thought, I thought maybe naive, but I thought we were going to have this amazing conversation about unconscious bias and how that is not an excuse. Just because you're unconscious of your bias doesn't mean what you said isn't racist. You don't need intent to be racist. Right. We got to be more conscious of what we say like that. That doesn't take the. The pressure off kind of thing. And I ended up with a whole bunch of comments about the Royal Family and the monarchy and Prince Harry and a few people that felt the need to slam Meghan Markle. As if I'm going to allow the attacking of women on my channel. Hello. That's never going to happen. So. Yeah, so that was frustrating. I did enjoy reading the book, mind you, I read the spare and yeah, it just. It's an amazing book because it's written by not a prince, but a human growing up in that reality. Right. And. And doing stupid stuff like we all do as kids and teenagers. But the implant implement. The things that happen as a result, implications. That's where I was going. Because he's a prince. And even just as a child being raised to know you're just the. In case the air in the spare, like, like mind blowing. If you go into it, you can't hear audio. Carol, is your volume turned up? I've got my volume on and up. Everyone, Everyone, can someone give me a thumbs up? Thank you. That. Well, Debbie must have heard me because she knew to answer the question. So Carol, I would definitely check your volume. Everyone else, can you hear me? Just give me a thumbs up or a heart or something in the chat. Let me know. I'm hoping, I'm hoping, I'm hoping. Yeah, my microphone's on. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? I'm gonna assume you can hear me. I'm hoping you can hear me. Oh, thank God. Lynn. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lynn. Are you a member and Debbie's a member? You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for showing up. I love the little pink hand. That is so cute. That appeals to the muppet side of my personality. Thank you so much for letting me know. I was this close to having a little bit of a panic, so I'm glad. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, Carol, hopefully check the volume on your end. Oh, s Mountain. Thank you. Miigwech. Thank you so much for letting me know you can hear me. Love, love, love it, Lord. Thank you so much. Migw Appreciate it. Awesome. Carol. I hope you get that fixed. That would suck otherwise. I guess you could watch the replay, but you're here. Like, why would you want to watch the replay that? Look, January. Does anyone have any questions yet? We've gone through four. Just if you have any questions, even if it's on a video that I'm not even talking about anymore, feel free, type it in chat. I don't care. We're having a conversation. I'm just really not that uptight. You can hear me. Debbie. Thank you so much. Awesomeness. January 5th, in my Absolutely subtle way, because I'm known for being subtle, not my video was called your solutions suck and it was being pushed off the colonial cliff and it was the poem I wrote about, you know, colonial systems for education and no training for employers and the child welfare system, no training for foster parents that take in indigenous kids. And just all of these places where training needs to happen and hasn't been. And as a result, assimilation is keeping is happening because without that training, non indigenous foster parents, non indigenous teachers, non indigenous employers are just going to treat indigenous children or people or employees like everyone else. And that's that forced assimilation. So yeah, that's going to change on January 6th. Oh, that was a Saturday. I shared some quotes and I got a really good response to this one. This one made me happy. I was glad, glad that you guys appreciated it. I shared some quotes that I hang on to that I use on a regular basis. The first one, their vision problem is not your value problem. If people can't see how amazing you are, that's on them, not on you. Not your problem. The second one that I used to run into all the I haven't done a seminar in a while. Well, a brief one last week, but I used to run in and run into it in live events all the time. And that was people. You know, I would see someone and just See the enthusiasm in them or the talent in them or whatever. And I would comment how amazing their career is going to be. And I. All I would never get back is the excuses why they could never do that. So the quote I came up with is, you will forever be limited by the barriers you choose to defend. If you honestly believe your lack of education is going to stop you, it will stop you. Not because it has the power to, but because you're giving it the power to by believing it can. There's a whole bunch of people that told me I would never succeed in business. I'm in my 15th year. Yeah, I. I mentioned that to her. Debbie. We'll see. Hopefully. Hopefully. Carol, let us know if you get it fixed, please. Please and thank you. What was I saying? Yeah. You will forever be limited by the barriers you choose to defend. So quit defending them. Quit. Quit looking for the reasons why you can't do something and find the reasons you can. Oh, I know what it was. People said I'd never be successful in business. I'm in my 15th year. When my first book came out, people said, like, who? And who would ever want to read a book of yours? Well, three bestsellers and four books later, like, success is a really good way to shut people down. The fact that you're an essential. Oh, Carol. Yay. You can hear now. Yay. I'm so happy. Thank you for letting us know. Awesome. That you're an essential puzzle piece in the puzzle that is your family. That is the puzzle that is your community, your neighborhood, the whole nine yards. And of course, the man in the arena quote, which I have noticed in shooting my videos for this year, I mention it often, that the opinions of people in the cheap seats. The criticisms of people in the cheap seats is not anything that we should be listening to. If they're not, like, to the parents out there. I always come back to parents. If you're the parent of a young kid and someone's criticizing you and they don't have young kids in this day and age or they've never had kids. Cheap seats. Cheap seats. They're not in the arena. They're not fighting the good fight like you are, don't be listening to them. If it's another mom or dad in the same situation as you, and they might have some advice that might be worth listening to, you know, if they're judging you, don't bother listening to them. But did I actually leave my phone on? Seriously? That was the thing that's a constant theme in my videos this year. I want to make it through one video with my phone. Not going off today is not that video, obviously. So what was this? How did you do in 2023? What video? What was this? January. January. I have my cards backwards. Well, that's not gonna. I have my cards all screwed up. One, two. That was in the wrong place. Oh, there it is. January 6th. Okay. How'd you do in 2023? We were talking about the four quadrants. So how was your self care game, your mental health? How did you do physically? I am. By the way, just to go off on the tangent, I'm rocking the physically this year. I'm always trying to get in the habit of doing workouts and my incredibly busy schedule always gets in the way. That is not an excuse, it's what happens. So I knew I had to figure out a frequency because those doing a huge workout once a year is not going to get you anywhere. Doing five minutes every day is what counts. It's the consistency that makes the difference. So I have actually managed. I am trying to work out every second day, but I'm definitely crushing at least three times a week. So that's almost every second day. So just putting that out there. You can do it. I'm almost 60. You can do it. Third one, your relationships. On the scale of 1 to 10, how are they, what shape they're in and financially, how are you doing? Not blaming anyone else, Taking ownership and responsibility. What is that? The antidote to helplessness is responsibility. If you're feeling overwhelmed and helpless, focus on what you can change your responsibilities. What can you own and do something about it will pull you out of that feeling of helplessness. January 7 was Silence is power. Oh, that's when I was talking about that reaction to Prince Harry. I mentioned that I want to use Elmer Fun. I don't want to talk about Disney. It's something like it amazes me how often I will see something, shares someone share something on social media and in the comments. People want to take it off in another direction. They want to compare it to another group or whatever. And it's like, don't do that. Respect the person that started this conversation. Speak to that topic or don't or share it on your social media. Then you can go off in whatever way you want. But don't disrespect the person that drives me nuts. January 8th. I need you to hate. And you know what? You guys are amazing. If you've been watching my videos, if you're new here, you're amazing too. Don't feel bad, but the fact that I thought I was going to get the wickedest backlash for doing a video that said I need you to hate. And I didn't. I absolutely didn't. Because I wasn't asking you to hate a person. I was asking you to hate racism, hate sexism, hate nationalism. Right? And you guys are amazing. That's what you were. Now, January 9th, I did get some backlash on, and that's from this book, the Path, and I shared with you about immigrant envy and building that core and how when newcomers come to the country, they know who they are, they know their religion, they know their identity. They have to learn English and our customs and traditions. But when they go home to their apartments or homes at the end of the night, they know who they are, they practice their culture, they use their language. And how. I really envy that as an indigenous person, because our assimilation can start even in the home, even before we get to school, and then it just accelerates. We never have that chance to build core, which I'm a huge advocate of changing that. I think I mentioned it in the video. I'm a huge advocate for indigenous kids staying in the community until, like, high school, that. That they find out what it is to be indigenous and proud and strong and resilient before they even consider interacting with mainstream. And of course they have the skills to be able to go into high school. It doesn't have to be taught in English. January 10th, a lot of people knew about. So that was reassuring. That wasn't a surprise to a lot of people. I was talking about why it's such a no, no. To cut an indigenous person's hair. And like I said, most people knew about that. I could tell from the comments, which was absolutely amazing. January 11th kind of made me sad. I was talking about the lateral violence that is tearing indigenous communities apart. And I see lateral violence in my comments often, whether it's an indigenous person attacking another indigenous person, often chief and council. Sometimes they're attacking me, I guess, because they don't have a YouTube channel. I don't care what it is. Or the ones that come on for the ego trip. They want to validate that they know stuff too. No one said you didn't start your own channel. Cheap seats, that criticism. Cheap seats. Unless you're doing the work and then talk to me about working together, I'd love to support you. I mean, we don't need to be enemies. I have a video coming up about that, by the way. January 12th, I talked about assimilation just to make sure I use the word all the time and just wanted to make sure that everyone knew what it was. And then yesterday's podcast was all about culture shock. And I'm definitely seeing some positive feedback about that. There's only a few minutes left. I like to keep this around the 30 minute mark. But you know what? I have a big surprise for you guys. So I mentioned it. Did I mention it on the podcast? It might have been in the podcast. It might have been in the member only video. Not sure which one, but at the end of January, I'm actually going on my first, first ever southern vacation. One of those things I was told that would never happen. I'm going to be lazing on a beach, just enjoying solitude. It's going to be flipping amazing. But what that means is I have to prepare all these videos way ahead of time. And since I don't, I, I don't like doing that because I'd like to keep them as current as possible. So. So that if something happens in the news, I can do a video and you see it within a day or two. I can't do that if I'm going to go away for a week. So I was stressing, not gonna lie. And I don't want the videos to be crap. I don't want to just kick off like 20 videos and off the top of my head and they're not worth the time and effort you put in to watch them. That's not who I am. I don't do things half. You know what? So what I realized I'm going to do starting tomorrow. Not starting tomorrow. I lied. Starting the 22nd, January 22nd. Had to look at my day book. I am releasing well over the course of two weeks, three weeks. I'm going to be sharing. Thank you S Mountain. I so appreciate that. It's a real big deal to me too. Wait till you see all the shorts that are going to come out. Because I'm balling my eyes out on a beach because I finally, I'm wanting to do this since I was 12. So I waited till I was almost 60. I'm gonna release one of my video courses to you. I think it costs like 150 bucks if you buy the course. So there's 15 different videos that go in the course that will cover three weeks and you'll be able to enjoy it and you'll get all the benefits from one of my most powerful full day seminars. It means I'm going to be taping some intros to them. But it means most of them are already shot and you get quality tested. Information that I've, I've been doing that's been, that's my first seminar so I've been doing that for 15 years and people are still blown away by what they learn by doing watching the videos and doing the work. So yay. I cannot wait to share that with you. You are most welcome, Lynn. I, I like doing stuff like that every now and then. It's a win win as far as I'm concerned. It makes it easier on me because it's a lot less videos to sure shoot and you get quality information which is my most important part. Remember my thing for this year is to do what's right to me. That's what's right. So thank you so so much for joining me today. I absolutely love it. It's from now on, I can tell you I forgot to mention it at the beginning. We've tried noon, we've tried one o' clock now and I've done a couple of two. They're going to be at two o' clock from now on because the rest they're just too early. In my day, in my niche, decolonized nature just ends up racing like crazy to do these and that is not what I want to bring into my world. So next time will be at 2. Thank you so much for coming out. I hope I, I can't wait. I'm looking forward to all the comments on the videos. Maybe I'll be reading them on a beach. You never know. Thank you so much for coming out today and sharing a part of your Sunday with me. I love you. Take care. Bye bye.