I'm so blessed to do what I do, to have these conversations every week with individuals. Sometimes my heart bleeds for the trauma someone has to go through, circumstances they have to overcome, and how they find a way to chase their dreams and change their world and more often than not, change ours for the better. Now the underdog and Cinderella story. Someone that never believed in themselves and ends up standing on a podium or winning an osc. Then there's times like my guest
today, Peter Samuelsson. Frankly, part of finding happy is realizing if you have raised people and lifted people up and helped people, you live on forever like ripples on a pond. Through them, I want to reach out and hug this individual. I fall in love with their humanity. I mean, this is a guy who's a very successful movie producer and he could have just done that the rest of his life, but he had a
different calling. I think all I'm doing is giving them the opportunity to find their empathy and do something productive with it. Unpack that knapsack. The tools you learn as a producer, your intellectual, emotional, organizational skills, your ability to tell stories, to raise money. And he's created 7 non for profits and each one has had a material impact on individuals lives and their journeys. I say to people, if you're a cpa,
don't just volunteer to lick envelopes. Go and do something where they need a cpa. If you're an engineer, there's lots of charities that need engineers. You know, leverage on your skills. And he's just written this book, Finding Happy. His name is Peter Samuelson. And you'll make me very happy if you listen to everything he has to say. Hi, it's Tony Chapman. Thank you for listening to Chatter that Matters, presented by
rbc. If you can please subscribe to the podcast and ratings and reviews, well, they're always welcome and they're always appreciated. Peter Samuelsson, welcome to Chatter the Matters. Honored to be here. Thank you. So I wanted to begin with your book Finding A User's Guide to youo Life with Lessons from Mine. You describe it as a guide for young adults to find their sort of unique and personal happy space. So
unpack that a little bit for me. One of my seven nonprofits that I am the founder of is FirstStar.org where we house, educate and encourage high school aged foster kids for four years each with the goal of getting as high a proportion of them as possible into college. In the United states, less than 6% of American foster kids get a degree in the most recent cycle, which is going on right now, 89% of our 12th graders from our 12 academies across the country are
going on to college. So through First Star and also through another organization called the Mentor Project, I've done a ton of of mentoring. And I realized a couple of years ago that there were patterns of what mostly seemed to bother them, like two dozen things that always came up. So I thought, well, I wonder if those are the titles of chapters in a book. And I started getting up at five o' clock every morning, five days a
week and writing for at least an hour. I wrote a book and each chapter, you don't even have to read it in order, but each chapter ends with things to think about, points for reflection. The next thing was they said, what do you want on the front cover? My idea, but executed much better by a graphic designer. A word cloud of all the things that the book is about. And the more the book is about it and how to get it, how to deal with it, if you're a
young adult, the bigger I'll make the font. And so the big words are, you know, life and health and success and social media and all these things. But it's also got the smaller words like how to dare and exams and support and how do you get a mentor and all those good things. I bought 600 copies of my own book and I had them dropshipped to the students. We call them the scholars of First Star. And I'm starting to get feedback, which I'm just incredibly moved by.
But I don't want anybody to think it's only for foster kids, kids who've been abused or neglected. I think it is for older adults to buy for any young adult that they think could use a bit of a hand up. Tell me a little bit about. Because you had this great film career which we're going to talk about, and then you have this extraordinary platform you're now using to help so many people in so many different ways. What do you think the DNA, how did that happen? Like, was it as a young kid that
you were the underdog? You try to take the DIs at a disadvantage? First I happened because I read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and another document, that's the biennial survey by UNESCO measuring the developed nations, I think 14 of them in descending order, by the welfare of their children. And in that second document, the United States ranks dead last. We are one of only two countries out of 170 or so that have not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights
of the Child. So I, doing research, always Good. It's what you do as a film producer. You don't want to make the same film someone else already made. I came to the conclusion this is like the forgotten group of citizens. And there's a lot of them. 500,000 citizens of the United States are in foster care. By definition, they've been abused or neglected, and they're being raised by strangers. And then we kick them out at age 18, mostly.
And we say, okay, Harry, have a nice life. Thrust into an unforgiving world with their worldly belongings in a trash bag. And we expect great things from them. Well, guess what? We don't get it. I felt I needed to do something. I know that in my family, when Mr. Lund, my 10th grade English teacher, said, see me after school, he said, now, look here, if you work about twice as hard, Samuelson, you can go to a really good university. I said, I'm sure that's not the case. My dad left school at
14. I don't think anyone in my entire family has ever been to college or university. And he said, oh, it'd be even better then. Cause you'll be the first one. I was. And particularly for underprivileged kids, it's a really good idea because you won't be homeless for another four years, and you have a community when perhaps you don't otherwise have a family or a community of your own. And so I just sort of invented this
program. I mean, the real miracle is I was able to persuade ucla, the then chancellor, Gene Block. I met with him for two hours. He stood up at the end, shook my hand and said, I think we should just do this. He said, where is the money gonna come from? I said, I think it is the single most emotionally powerful, likely to succeed story that I've ever had the privilege of telling. And I tell a lot of stories because I'm a film producer. And that's what
we do. You have to raise $20 million for something that doesn't exist yet. How do you do that? Well, you tell the story. So we did it. And two weeks in, it's like watching flowers grow. All the grades came up, all the behavior improved greatly. The ambition, the glass ceiling was shattered. And they're now in the workplace, or they've got their masters, or they're in law school, or they're in medical school, or they're gonna be an architect, or they're doing really well in Silicon
Valley. And I realized, this is mad. Why don't we send as many of our foster kids or crown wards in Canada looked after children in the uk. Why don't we send as many as are capable of going and why don't we correct all the things that are deficits in their lives? They're very poorly educated because they're all poor and they go to crummy schools in the main, why don't we have excellent
academics? Well, that's what you have at a university. You think they may know a bit about teaching math and English and science and all the rest of it. And then I thought it's not enough we have to teach life skills because most of these kids have been raised by wolves. Week one how to brush your teeth for 13 and 14 year olds. Why don't they know how to brush their teeth? Well, because nobody took the time to show them how to do it. Why do you think you're wired this way? Because you're a very
successful film producer. You had a perfect career selling stories that a lot where there's thousands of scripts that never get financed. Everything's going well for you. What do you think happened? Was it early in life or is it the teacher that said if you work twice as hard you could go to school? Is there one individual that sort of said you got feet, start climbing? I think it's two individuals. I think it's Mr. Lund, that English teacher in 10th grade
and my dad. Because my dad left school at 14, but he held post secondary education in awe. You know, for him it was the thing that he was deprived of because on his 14th birthday literally he had to leave school, go and get a job and bring his pay packet home in a brown envelope every Friday and give it to his mom so that she could buy potato shows to feed four boys. Single mom. What kind of
storyteller was your dad? Because it sounds like what you just described in many ways is your calling, which is to help people that have gotten dealt certain cards in life. In your case of your dad, 14 years old, you're gonna put food on her table. Was it just the way he described his life or was it his desire to make sure you didn't have to have that life that has made you such a champion for others? He died three years ago at the age of 97. He was my hero and he
was my exemplar. And I watched him do his thing. I mean he made himself really successful by sheer intelligence and hard work without the benefit of ever going to college. Just cause he was damn good at what he did. And he did some very special stuff. He was the ultimate networker. He could find the name, address, description and in the end email address for every person he had met in his entire adult life. And he had them categorized on
index cards. He never got on mass transit without talking, not just to one person sitting next to him, but to the other one on the other side as well. And he would. For the longest time when I was setting up First Star in the uk, I would stay in my parents house and we would talk over dinner and he would say, I had the most fantastic conversation. I was sitting next to a young woman on the bus, Nigerian. She's a senior nurse down at Great Ormond Street
Children's Hospital. But it's a very interesting story because her father, a Muslim from the north of Nigeria, and her mother a Christian, which is a very dangerous liaison for two people to have. And she's the product of that. And I said, how do you know all this? He said, well, you know, I was coming from Edgware and it's quite a long bus ride and we talked the whole way. I learned from him to listen. And I also learned that in the end of the end of the end to find happy, which is
what the book is about, has to do with. Helping other people again because there's a Hollywood note to it. Everybody would go, why would you ever switch? I mean, you worked on Le Mans, the Return of the Pink Panther with Steven Spielberg and stuff. What made you journey this very successful career in film? You're a storyteller, you love telling stories, you love helping others. Sitting in a theater and having people feel happy is a wonderful calling,
but it wasn't enough. And that's one of the tension point in your story that I'm fascinated with, where you said, I'm going to use my platform, my intellectual, my financial and my emotional resources and I'm going to do something different with my life. Turns out that the job of a film producer is this idea enough for me to give it two years of my life. What is the story? How do I tell that story? Who's gonna write it? Who's gonna direct
it? Who do I think the demographics are of the audience? Who's gonna distribute it? Where's the money gonna come from? What's it all gonna cost? How do I crew it up and then how do I measure success? Take that toolkit over from film producing to some intractable, previously unconquered social challenge. Starlight. Seriously ill children are sad. When they are sad, their T cell count is lowered, then they don't heal properly. That's very bad. Why don't we just make them
happy? First star. 6% of foster kids go to college. How do we jack up that percentage? And in fact, the most recent cohorts across the country, it's 89% for the first 12th graders. So we're on a bit of a roll. Or rather the kids are. Or edar. Old ladies shouldn't sleep in damp cardboard boxes on a rainy night. You can't
possibly build your way out of the challenge. Cause it's vastly too expensive just to house the unhoused people in Los Angeles county would be $5 billion with a B. I have no idea how you raise $5 billion. I said, I wonder what I could do that would be a lot better than a damp cardboard box. And that led to edar. Everyone deserves a roof. Edar.org and on and on. I think a great deal of it is not some great noble virtue. It's that it gives me joy. It's how I find my happiness.
And in my mentoring. I say, what's missing in your life? Well, I need someone to love me. You're absolutely right. You need unconditional love. Any human does in order to thrive. I say, well, where are you going to get it? Well, I'm on this app and that app and the other app. I flip left, I flip right. And I say, well, just think about it. Imagine you were an alien judging the rational chance that you will meet your soulmate by flipping left and right on an app
where the whole thing is pack of lies anyway. And they say, well, well, what would you suggest? And I said, well, let me tell you how I met my wife. I met my wife because after my cousin introduced me to one dying child whose wish was to go to Disneyland, and we flew him over and his mom. Two weeks of amazing wonderment that made him happy and his mom happy.
And they went home and he passed away. And at least she was left with some memories of him full of joy on the teacups at Disneyland and not wasting away in a hospital bed and then dying. I mean, I thought to myself, compared to getting a film made, this was easy.
So I called a meeting. Who do I need? Well, you always need a lawyer, and then you need an accountant and you need a publicist and you need a. I thought, I need a graphic designer because we've got to do a logo, and I need someone who understands hospital politics. And I had had one date, and I remembered that she said she was an accountant. So I phoned her up. I have a charity that's about to happen. And I wonder if you might come because I really need an accountant. So she came to
that. And when the lawyer said, what do you want to call it? And it was the accounting lady who said, you know the children's rhyme? Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight I wish I may, I wish I might, I have this wish I wish tonight. She said, why don't we call it the Starlight Children's Foundation. And the graphic designer said, I can see the logo in my head. It's a child reaching up for a star. So that was our second date, me and the beautiful young lady who was an
accountant. And for Christmas we got a live band and we threw a concert in the auditorium at County USC Medical center in la in the children's ward. And we had had donated to us these big adult sized animal costumes. And the accounting lady was inside the dolphin, all the mascara had run down her face. And I had a vivid moment where I thought, oh my God, I love this person. To me, the apples doesn't fall far from the tree with curiosity about humanity. Any of your kids sort of inherited that.
How can I push water uphill and defy what everybody says hasn't been solved before? Our youngest, Becca, is a fundraiser for a boarding school in Ojai. Why is she a fundraiser? Well, because from the time she was little she was over promoted to be the volunteer captain at the First Star annual event. And she got the bug. Our older daughter, Pamela, she's a therapist, entertainer, writer, blogger. An extraordinary young woman and does things because of what one ought to do and that she
perceives she can be helpful. And the two young men, David, the oldest one, he's a financial planner, he was a schoolteacher. And then he said to me, I realize I will never be able to buy a house if I stay as a teacher. And he represents high net worth people. But what does he do with his spare time? He's on the board of an organization called Jewish Free Loan.
Don't Charge Interest and help people in a bad place. And Jeffrey, who cares passionately, that's my youngest son, cares passionately about the world and social justice and he advises people on healthcare. He may be the person on this planet who understands American healthcare in all its appalling complexity better than anyone else I've ever met. And he just helps people. So yeah, I think there is a little bit of a baton past, frankly.
Part of finding happy is realizing you don't only live the life with a beginning, a middle and an end, but also if you have raised people and lifted people up and helped people you live on forever like ripples on a pond through. One of the areas that you branched out very quickly was the fact that your talent as a producer could tell better
stories. Inconvenient Truth, I think even set up a whole film production company and doing everything he can to encourage Hollywood to be much more about positivity and possibility. And to me that takes your talent and allows you to amplify that to a large audience. But when I'm talking to you and I might be wrong, I'm sensing that you get so much more from that phone call at lunch you just had, or the individual you just talked to, or that person that came to your apartment, the mother and
the dying child. Is that because you see and feel it more? You don't know who's watching the stories, but you know that you're personally vested in a story. Is that what defines it? Because you seem to spend more time on where you're personally vested versus storytelling to the masses. I think there is a huge negative going on in this ridiculously polarized world we inhabit, which is that somehow
empathy is getting lost. And in the end I think empathy and feeling things in your heart, believing in social justice, believing that it's the God given right of every child to make the most of themselves. I think when you lose that, then we are a bunch of robotic AI on legs. Arguably the loss of the greatest attribute that separates the men from the machines. There's no point having that sense if you don't do something about it. I think there's too many people who just sit and complain about
everything in sight. And I think there are so many opportunities to find joy in helping others. It's one of the keys to the mysterious nature of life. And pretty much anyone can do it. I teach two classes in firstar. One is videography, but also I teach a class in generosity. It's called random acts of Kindness and pay it forwards. And in the first class I say, okay, here's a question for you. You're walking along the sidewalk and there is an old lady, fast asleep,
face down in rags. Do you A stop, put a dollar under her arm and walk on? Or B, do you wake her up and give her the dollar? Or C, do you look the other way and pay no attention to her at all? We talk about most humans that God do feel empathy. And when we see social justice is out of whack, we feel compelled to do something about it. An old lady who was homeless took me by the sleeve because I Asked her, where do you sleep at night, my
dear? And she took me onto some scrapland next to the freeway out here. She showed me this gigantic cardboard box and I thought, this is offensive. I've got the refrigerator and this old lady is sleeping in the box. What is the matter with this? It's out of whack. That led to me inventing this four wheel single user. Strange. Basically a portable single user homeless shelter. In the daytime, you push it around, you do your recycling.
At night, you park it, you let the front down, you let the back down, and you now have a seven foot long cot off the ground. That's where that idea came from. From the shock of realizing that it was just wrong, it was out of kilter. So then I say to the kids, each of you is going to receive $200. But then you have to give it away. We want you to write 300 words to whom or to what you wish it to go because you feel in your heart it would be worthwhile and help
someone else. Two, three weeks later, we're going to go back and see did the unhoused guy buy the shoes or did he buy a big bottle of brandy? Because sometimes philanthropy goes wrong. It opens their eyes to the fact that there is always someone that you can help and you are never the worst off. Then I ask them, what does the second law of thermodynamics say? Is that in any closed system, what is a closed system? The motor in your automobile, your family,
your planet. If you don't apply external energy, if you just leave it alone, if you don't oil the engine, nurture your family, if you do not take care of your planet, it'll all fall to shit around you. That will be very, very bad. How does Steven Spielberg come around to you? And is it just through your power of storytelling and conviction? Because I understand he's a big part of some of what you do. The producer of ET And Star Wars, Kathy Kennedy, told me I should meet him and she knew him very
well. So I pitch up at Amblin and the assistant says everything to scare the hell out of you. Don't give the collateral material to Mr. Spielberg. You give that to me. And you have 20 minutes and he has an ambassador arriving on the hour and you'll need to be gone by then. And anyway, so you're kind of discombobulated. You go in, we sit and we talk. And I'm looking at my watch and I'm thinking, I've been in here almost an hour now.
Don't Know what happened to the guy, the ambassador. But I'm still here pitching away. And I'm still there an hour and 45 minutes in. And he says, okay, I'm in. What do you want me to do? And I said, you're the chairman, I'm the president. We'll put a board together, we'll raise some money, and we will make seriously ill kids happy. No more complicated than that. He said, done deal. He said, if we're going to ask people for money, I better give money. He said, well, how much do you think I
should give? And I said, I'm not going to tell Steven Spielberg what he should give. And he said, no, give me a number. I can always say no. And I said, I'm not giving you a number. He said, well, then you can't leave two and a half million dollars. And I saw his mouth say, okay, I'll do it. And I staggered out and I went into the Amblin parking lot and I hid behind a tree. And I phoned by then my wife, that accounting lady, and I said, I just met with Steven Spielberg for nearly two hours.
He's donating two and a half million dollars. Oh, my God. And there was a silence. And my wife said, tell me exactly where you are. Do not drive. You aren't safe. I will come and get you. And that was the beginning of the charity. We come back, Peter and I talk about othering empathy and my three takeaways. And then a final tribute to his father. Hi, it's Tony Chapman, host of Chatter that Matters, presented by rbc. Ideas matter. Ideas are the oxygen of human
endeavor. They breathe life into how we work, live and play. Ideas let us create and innovate and overcome complex and often challenging circumstances. Big or small, revolutionary or evolutionary, almost every positive step forward begins with a good idea. So bring your ideas to RBC because they matter, and they'll bring theirs because you matter. Ideas happen at rbc. The publisher thought I was nuts because I put my email address
in the book. They said, you must never do that. And I said, well, I kind of want to create a feedback loop that's buried in the book. So you would actually have to read the book in order to find the email address. I'm starting to get emails in. I love it. My guest today is Peter Samuelson. I could have done the whole episode on his talents as a Hollywood producer. We barely touch on it, because what matters more is that we focus on such a magical word, empathy.
Peter, you've been recognized with so many awards, outstanding Citizen leadership from Ernst and Young. I mean, just time after time, does that stuff matter to you? Is that just a way of getting your more people to know about your platform? I mean, how do you sort of balance the ego, the showmanship, getting the dollars and cents and still having time to teach a class on generosity or
paying it for. First of all, I don't give a hoot about certificates of merit and this, that and the other, except that other people care about those things. And in raising money for my nonprofits, they help me. You know, it's a leg up if you like. I'm blessed to be pulled down a peg not only by my ever sarcastic wife, but also by my kids. I said with great excitement the other night, Seibert and Schuster have got a new retailer signed up. Target are going to have a
big display of the books. And there was a silence and my son said, where are they going to put it in the store? And I said, I have no idea. He said, well, I think you should tell them that the best place they could put it is between the condoms and the plastic cutlery. And I said, I think you're right. I think that is its natural place in the universe. And I'm going to tell them. And the other question, which is how do you find time? Be hyper organized, discipline
yourself and on and on and on. It's all right there in the how to get stuff done chapter. In my case, I'm blessed by the fact that I don't sleep very much. And it's that old adage, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. Film producers are the ultimate entrepreneurs. And it repeats on a one year cycle or maybe an 18 month cycle. And you develop kind of pattern recognition of how you solve crises. How do you help the crew
to work together? How do you keep them targeted on the script, the mission, the budget, the schedule? I went to Steven Spielberg after we'd been working together a few months and I said, you know, this is no good at all. Thank you so much for making the big donation. But when it runs out, we have to raise money and you don't want to meet anyone. I don't know, you're shy or something. You don't want to ask people for money. He said, I find it very difficult.
And I said, well, we've got to get someone, someone tall, fierce, who will just steam in and get us donors and lead from the front. And he said, well, who? And I said, I think General Norman Schwarzkopf would be really great. Sure enough, we wrote A letter together, and Stephen signed it. And the phone rang in my office, and it was General Schwarzkopf's assistant who said, the general would be happy to meet with you if you'd like to come to Tampa. So I
fly to Tampa. I get in an elevator at a high rise, and it stops between floors. And a voice in the wall says, please hold your driver's license up to the camera. Oh, okay. So you hold up your driver's license. He says, welcome, Mr. Samuelson. The general's expecting you. And it jolts, and it takes you up to the penthouse. And I go in his office, on his desk, he had the largest revolver I have ever seen or heard of in my life. I said, is that because of terrorists? He said, no.
Journalist. So he leans forward and he says to me, Mr. Samuelson, what do you know about the United States Army? And I said, honestly, sir, you could safely assume nothing at all. When you enlist, you don't just get a rank, you get a specialty. You're an infantryman, you're a cook, you're a driver, you're a rifleman, you're a sniper, whatever you are. He says, and it's a pin on your shoulder.
And no matter how much you get promoted, you keep your specialty until, if you are a brilliant leader in the ceremony where you get your general's stars, they take away your specialty pin because you are no longer a specialist. You are a general. And I sat there like a complete idiot, thinking, of course, you gotta have a generalist. And their specialty is leading in order to get everybody to work together in a team. And I thought, that's
what we do as film producers. We are mediating between the videographers and the costume designers and the set decorators and all the rest of it. That's our job. We are the generals. We are the generalists. And servant leadership, which is especially important in a nonprofit, make people feel as though you listen to them and they count. Make sure that you give people credit, Give them face, give them space, take their good
ideas. That's the best kind of leadership. We're living in a time where I would say words like empathy and social justice are not necessarily roaring across society. I'd say politically, it's quite the opposite. How do you stay inspired and motivated to keep up the battle? When you stick your head up and look around, it looks like a tsunami of negativity and impossibilities crashing down ugly. In human behavior is on the ascendant for sure. I'm a
centrist politically. I got One foot on the left and one foot on the right. I believe in capitalism, I believe in social justice. Am I allowed to hold two ideas in my head at once? Yes. Life is choices and so is politics. I think a horrible thing that is going on is that we have left empathy outside the door.
If we are ever to bridge this ridiculous gulf between red blooded Americans and blue blooded Americans or whatever the phrase is, those to the left of center, those to the right of center, it is empathy. I mean, if you actually get people to talk about their children, their families, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, they're all exactly the same. Unfortunately, what we've allowed is some pretty awful leaders
to drive people down a rabbit hole. Very interesting thing that we did as a family a few years ago, we went to Perigord region in France and we went down into prehistoric caves and there you are and you're looking at the pictograms and there's a guide. And I was just thunderstruck by the fact that it was cold,
dark, scary as hell. And I could absolutely imagine stone age people being there, scared out of their wits, scared of hunger, the saber toothed tiger, the tribe on the other side of the valley who might steal your food or your women or whatever. Along comes a leader and the leader says, you can count on me. You don't need to feel scared. We hate those people the other side of the valley. You stick with me and I'll keep you safe from them. They are other, they are not like us.
And I think that othering, and it is maybe more from one side than the other, but it is definitely from both sides. It divides races, it divides religions, it divides people socioeconomically and by nationality. I think it's bs. Most human beings actually want exactly the same things. They want to have a happy family, they want their kids to survive and thrive. They want to put food on the table, they want to
have a job that is meaningful to them. And maybe if they're really ambitious, they might like to make the world a better place. That's what my book is about. It's called Finding Happy what is short term happiness for me? Chocolate ice cream, big tub of it. What is medium term happiness? Unlimited supplies of chocolate ice cream over time. But long term happiness in the end, I think you have to help other people because that joy, those ripples on the pond that you send out from your
own life, that is the ultimate happiness. Sure, I get pleasure from standing at the back of a theater auditorium and my comedy is up on the screen and they laugh in the right place. But really, really I don't think being a film producer is a joy. I think it's a slog. What is more joyful to me is lifting people up and then seeing them thrive. We just had the awards show in first star in one of the academies. We gave an award for someone who just bought his first house.
We gave an award to someone he and his wife have just had twins through IVF cause they couldn't wonderful things. What did you call that? The difference that society between my cave and your cave. Othering perfect. It's allowing a charismatic bully from both sides or either side to say those people are the devil because they look a bit different. It's kind of easy to be persuaded that you aren't scared of them, you hate them. Them. Peter I always end my podcast and my three
takeaways and the first one, I love what you say. Life is not a beginning or a middle or an end. It's the legacy you leave. If you help others, they'll go on and help others. And that is a true mark of a life and time well spent. I thought that was great advice. The second one is I wish I got to know your dad. He must be in heaven looking down and going this is the kid that I dreamed of raising. I can imagine him on a bus. My dad was like that, just talking to anybody, having
conversations. That's made me a curious person. And then the third thing is this othering which I believe in too. I think social media is a big part of it because they make a lot of money herding you into that cave with other like minded people liking each other's pictures and hating the other people. And it's a manifestation in politics just, you know, why wouldn't I keep take
advantage of it to stay in power. But I think if we challenged othering with empathy, as you say as individuals and as a collective consciousness, I think we could make a massive dent in the universe. I'm going to make sure as many people as it can read your book and follow you. And I hope you got another 30 years to go because your energy and passion, I think you've changed. Steven Spielberg's life has got higher purpose because of you. Even though he's probably got every
academy award you could win. And I would say the good general with his revolver is happy you walked into that office one day because you're, you're bringing other people into a cause that's not your cause or your calling. But more than anything else is maybe the calling for humanity. Right now, Tony, you do me great honor. One of the greatest joys I've ever had is I taught a class this
random acts of kindness and Pay it Forward. I took my dad along and he sat at the back and I don't know what was more wonderful, the kids reaction and what they said or just just looking at him beaming from the back of the route. So when I miss him a lot, I hold that in my mind and I'm honored by that. Joining me now is Andrea Barrick. She's a Senior VP of Sustainability and impact at rbc. Andrea, welcome back to Chatter
that Matters. Thanks Tony. So great to be here again. I think it's important to unpack just the kind of of role that you're playing because you go, sustainability and impact are really to me, very different words. Every time I'm on LinkedIn and I see you, you're somewhere around the world really bringing this sense of positivity and possibility. So tell me a little bit more about your mandate. Sure. I mean, I think, you know, as a corporation we live by our purpose, which is helping
clients thrive and communities prosper. And so my job is actually helping the entire organization, wherever we are, demonstrate that we are helping communities to prosper. So how are we having a positive impact on society, on the communities that we're in on the planet? So it's a pretty good gig. I read the statistic that RBC and the RBC foundation is the largest source of funds and I would argue also emotional intellectual capital to mental health
in Canada, that you're involved in so many different aspects. Why is mental health such a North Star for RBC saying we've got to do more as an organization and collectively as a country to help people that are suffering with their mental health. We came at it two different ways. One is we have a huge history of supporting youth and making, you know, providing youth with the skills to be successful in the
future of work. And what we noticed in that work is that if you don't have strong mental health, you can't actually get the skills you need to be like that is one of the skills you need to be successful. So we came at it from that more sort of skills and helping youth overall with their preparation to be successful
in their lives. We also had a history of helping broadly all Canadians and in any communities we're in have better access to healthcare because healthcare creates the stability that people need to then have the futures that they want financially. And so one of the real gaps in our healthcare system right now has been Mental health, which is why we sort of
stepped in. But it's in that bigger piece saying, you know, how do we help more Canadians access the healthcare that they need so that they're better able to then continue to live their fullest lives, be their best selves, contribute to the economy, contribute to their families, their neighbors? I would say it's not mental health in and of itself. I think where RBC is sort of special in a way is that they seek out where the gaps are and we listen to our
partners. So when we talk to all of our hospital or healthcare partners, we don't tell them we want to fund mental health. We say to them, what are you seeing as the need that you can't fill right now? You know, I followed your career since you joined RBC and you had a shot at being very successful in politics and you chose to go into an organization to make a difference for people listening that
really want to make an impact, the positive dent. What advice can you give them to find that place where they feel they can chase that purpose and at the same time have meaningful, make a meaningful difference? I mean, I have a job that obviously has a positive impact, just the nature of the role and the work that I do. But I talk to, you know, thousands of our colleagues at the bank, certainly about that, about what each of them can do in their own jobs.
And the stories that they tell me are quite incredible. Local branch employees, for example, that will notice a family is struggling and will be able to proactively step in and offer assistance so that they don't get into trouble. That has an enormous impact. You know, we have people who work in, you know, sort of risk and, you know, anti money laundering and, you know, the work that they do helps stop child
trafficking. No matter what your job is, you can find what that purpose is and how you can make a difference, even if it is just being the best colleague that you can be and making people around you feel like they belong and are included in your workplace. Encouraging people to act in a positive way and create a positive social discourse is something this country desperately needs. And it's nice to have your voice added to the mix. And I know you
make a major impact working in the you do at rbc. But I think it's these are words of wisdom that we can all benefit from. So I appreciate you joining me in Chatter that Matters. Always nice to chat with you, Tony. Once again, a special thanks to RBC for supporting Chatter that Matters. It's Tony Chapman. Thanks for listening and let's chat soon.