Why I Decided to CHANGE MY FOCUS! (After 15 years of seminar delivery!)

So if you followed my career for any length of time, you know that over the last 16 years in business, I've created a lot of different things. Whether it's a keynote speech or a full day seminar, which is what I started with workshops, lunch and learn sessions, I am constantly creating content that helps bring Canada together. Whether it's empowering Indigenous people or helping non Indigenous to understand that the way things are being done just doesn't work. And if we're ever coming together, then things have to change. It's not about throwing the baby out with the bath water. We don't need to change everything, but things have to change. But if you have followed my career, you also noticed in the last couple of months I've thrown everything behind my brand new onboarding course. Course, my onboarding program. 90 minutes of video content with related questions that I believe can change everything. Now why would I do that? Why would I move away from seminars and workshops to focus on an onboarding program? 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 for 16 years I've been on the front lines trying to bring this country together. I spent the first seven years exclusively in First Nation communities, helping with the healing and the empowerment, helping Indigenous people to realize that financial stability and self sufficiency does not require us giving up who we are. That we can keep all of our traditions and customs and still not be dependent. That we can break free of that imposed dependency to enjoy the luxury of living life our way. But then I realized, wait a minute, why is the training only happening on the Indigenous side? How racist is that? There has to be corresponding training for non Indigenous Canadians to help them realize that assimilation is not the answer. That continuing to expect us to just fit into their structures and systems is how we got into this mess in the first place. So I've done the seminars and I've done the workshops. And for the last eight, nine years I've worked with non Indigenous Canadian entities, universities, colleges, hospitals, clinics, municipalities, business, small, medium and large corporations, and First Nation communities. I balance the founder working on both sides, still committed to the belief that we can come together and then when we finally do, Canada will fly to heights it's never even imagined if we could stop fighting with each other, which means being respectful, which means back off the bulldozers. Whether we're talking literal physical bulldozers or the attitude of running over The Indigenous opinion and voice. It was that mentality that drive, that commitment that had me create the bridge onboarding program. It is designed specifically for non Indigenous Canadians who are interested in or as part of their employment, are being asked to engage with, work with Indigenous peoples agencies or communities. Because there's so much misinformation out there, I knew they needed help. So why did I go with an onboarding program? Why did I go with 90 minutes of content rather than a full day seminar? Well, off the top of my head, I came up with seven reasons I designed this program and by the end, hopefully you'll see why I did it this way. First off, on the Indigenous side, the stereotypes are literally killing us. They're killing the opportunities we may have to create better lives for ourselves. And in some cases, they're literally putting us at physical risk. I'm an Indigenous woman in Canada facing six times more likelihood that I will experience violence in my lifetime. Been there, done that. Let's hope that doesn't happen again. So first and foremost, the need for Indigenous people, the, the need for the change to bring Canada together, that was reason number one. Reason number two, after 8, 9 years of working with non Indigenous Canadians, your workloads are as insane as ours. Because if you don't realize Indigenous people working in the communities and agencies have indeed ridiculous workloads, you may be believing the stereotype and should unpack that. But mainstream, to set aside a full day for a seminar, that's they're probably not going to have the budget for it. They're definitely not going to have the time for it. They like lunch and learns. They like one hour of training. That is my most popular booking when it comes to non Indigenous entities, whatever the entity may be. So I knew an onboarding program if it was only 90 minutes long, if it was 17 separate little short videos that they could take bites out of, and if we could get people unpacking the stereotypes at day one, it's an onboarding program, so you take it as part of your orientation, then maybe we could stop stereotypes from growing on day one. So recognizing how busy Canadians are in these entities I work with was the second reason I went with an onboarding program. Third, over the last maybe decade, I have definitely seen Indigenous communities and entities for a variety of reasons, hiring non indigenous people to work as part of their team. So whether it's frontline social work, health and wellness type work, or it's consultants or whatever the case may be, the capacity wasn't within the community. So they've hired Non indigenous and holy moly's that if you don't realize what that does to an indigenous agency or community, the supervisors and managers that are working with these non indigenous people, it often adds to their workload because now they have to address the joke or the comment. And I'm not talking about the out and out racist comments. Hopefully someone we hire would never do that. But it's the subtleties. Indigenous engagement is nuanced and they say sentences that show they have no idea the history of or what's actually going on. So to prevent indigenous managers and supervisors from having to deal with that very uncomfortable situation and to protect the non indigenous new employee from finding themselves in that situation, I created my onboarding program on the non. While that was the non indigenous side. Oh no. On the non indigenous side. So many Canadians are now finding themselves either working with indigenous people, agencies or communities, or wanting to business wants to grow, business has to be sustainable. Indigenous markets are viable markets. If you don't think indigenous communities have money to spend, they do. And not some stereotype that they get free money, blah blah blah, let's not go there. But they have needs just like any other. Like a municipality, non indigenous want to meet those needs. But often like seriously, we're going to meet with the people or we're going to work with the people who get it. We might work with your company because we can't find another one for a time. But if your staff, your employees are, are got the attitude, roll their eyes, see, sit in judgment, make jokes they never should have made, trust me, as soon as we find a replacement, we're going with the replacement. So to help non indigenous business and peoples be able to continue working with us and save them from themselves. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do this onboarding program. Next, reason number five. And this is a dangerous thing for me to say considering what I do for a living. But it's the truth. Seminars and workshops don't work. They work in the moment. They might work for 24 hours after the fact, but very quickly people return to their old habits even with new knowledge. Or some might retain the knowledge, but it's not the percentage. So nothing changes. It's a check mark. We took the training, but it's not concrete changing. One of the things that I made sure about my onboarding program is you purchase it once, but you can watch it and rewatch it. You have the video files. It's not dependent on getting them from me. It's not dependent on an email from me. You can use it as a, you could use it as an annual refresher for your team. You could train your entire team, not just the new employees. And I wanted it that way so that it would have more impact than a once in a lifetime workshop or seminar or even once a quarter. It's hard to make change that way. Number six was the point I just made that it's only 90 minutes long and you can watch it as often as you want. And the videos are clearly defined what they're addressing. So if an issue pops up in your agency or entity, you can go watch that 13 minute video to refresh your course. I personally would love it if the entities that purchase the program, that every employee had the program on their computer or laptop, easy access so that they go look at the video when they need it. If you watch it once and think you've got it, well, that's not humility teaching you best take the course again. And last but not least, one of the things I built into the onboarding program as it advance, because it's new, I only launched it in June, May, June of this year was I realized that I wanted to offer more support. So when you purchase the program now, yes, you get the manual, yes, you get the videos, it's yours to use. But as additional training, the first cohort of your employees, anyone who's there, signs up and gets the emails one a day sent to their inbox and they answered the questions and send it back to me, which means I can add further context, I can encourage and support the amazing answers. Look at the references on my website or the testimonials, the feedback from the program, it is working largely because of that extra support I'm putting in there. So and then once that first cohort goes through the training with me, I believe they are now equipped to guide the next new employees that come on there is now it's building capacity within the entity. I'm all about building capacity. I am not about dependence. So that's the onboarding program. One video represents a new thought. If you take the course, I believe it represents a step towards us working together. And if you purchase the course with that one on one guidance, well, now you're looking at a new future for us all. Not just your entity, but all of us that live within Canadian borders. And that's the kind of thing that gets me excited. So worst case scenario, the person only takes like the free version because yes, if you're interested and you live within Canadian borders, you can take this course for free. The next cohort of free participants open to the general public starts Aug. 5. So sign up if you're interested. You just got to email me at sandy@sandy boucher.com and let me know you want to be part of the cohort. Or worst case scenario, a person takes the free course, they take that step forward and they don't do anything else. But they've received the seeds, the ideas are planted and maybe they're not going to use it in the immediate future, but it's there for them to call on when they choose to. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all. So there you have it. This is the best I've ever done. I am so proud of this course. I look at the testimonials email address here or website address. Look at the testimonials on my website. Don't listen to me. Listen to the non indigenous people who have taken the course so far. And if you believe if you engage with indigenous people at all or would like to understand more of our share shared history, then I highly suggest you take this course. And yes, I've had indigenous people take this course because understanding our history wasn't taught in mainstream education systems. So it's slanted towards and geared for non indigenous new employees. That doesn't mean they're the only ones that can benefit from it. If you have any questions, send me an email. Otherwise, I hope you decide to take this course. If I could get businesses and hospitals and clinics and universities and colleges across Canada taking this course, well then that would change things. And that is literally why I do everything I do. Until next week. I love you. Take care. Bye bye. It.