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Excerpt
Sean: Now to know that they’re not worried about coming to you and you’re doing the podcast and getting any more business in, I actually want to stem from that question. You’re doing this podcast entitled Business Leadership Podcast.
And it looks like you’re volunteering a lot of your time at Startup Canada as well, which seems to be like a big organization there. I’m not sure, but you could talk a little bit more about that so that we would all understand what it is? 5:00 PM is your family time. And yet you have a lot of time for these things.
Why are you doing all these? Why are you volunteering to help out? Because it’s, it didn’t start out as. Oh, I’m going to get more networks. If I do the podcast. Oh, I’m going to get more network If I help out at Startup Canada, I wonder, like, what was the mission-purpose, the calling that drove you to volunteer your time, helping out other entrepreneurs, teaching leadership, speaking in public, helping out in Startup Canada?
Edwin: So startup Canada.
Now I’m, I’m more off it now than I was before. Originally started in Canada. I think I got involved with the organization. I think about the same time I launched Slingshot. Like I told you, when I became an entrepreneur, there was no startup ecosystem in the mid 2000s. So I was just that entrepreneur that would go and make sales and hustle.
And don’t know, never use this digital stuff. Like I was a little late when it started learning all that stuff, you know, versus like yourself in 2010, you’re doing SEO already. It was a little more proactive in the sense that, okay, we, you launched this and this ecosystem is starting to grow and learn. I mean, grow in terms of support and helping each other. And this organization, Startup Canada was just launched. And I met the co-founder at the time and I’m like, oh, how could I get involved? Because I understood. And what I was learning was, you could go to all these events or you can be part of an organization that runs all these events and become that way.
So that was sort of my way of getting – creating a network and understanding how being part of these networking organizations – not networking organization, but these – big massive ecosystems across Canada provided opportunities like, I ran one of their digital programs, which was startup chats, which was a Twitter chat.
I ran it for three years and I mean, I wrote an article like hitting 2 billion, like impact and doing all that type of stuff. So it allowed people to learn about me and grow. It looks like an organic hack, but my reason and my purpose for that was to build my word of mouth and my network and do that type of stuff.
But what I found Sean was that as I got to know more entrepreneurs and understand their journey and their struggle. Because I was part of startup Canada, I was able to provide insight or help or guide them and that’s rewarding. I think you’re getting this from your podcast. It’s rewarding to know that you helped someone, you made a difference. And I think that’s where this purpose comes from. You’re like, Oh, I don’t want to, I could, this just feels good. I mean, making money feels great, of course, but I mean, making an impact on someone’s life that’s unforgettable. I think that really moved me and that really got me towards the podcast eventually, but that was the main reason why I stayed in it.
And I was lucky and blessed to be in a situation where I was in a leadership role or scene and volunteering. I was able to – not negotiate, but really not spend so much time on this Startup Canada stuff. It was literally like a kid when you need to, just need to run this twice a week on Twitter.
Like for one hour on Wednesdays and one hour on Fridays, like that was it. And then they would have these big galas, Sean, and I’d go to these galas and meet everyone and meet, you know, very wealthy or very successful entrepreneurs. So it was, it was really cool.