The Kook Jester Show

I was happy to return to the Children’s Heart Centre for my interview with Dr. Shubhayan Sanatani, Division Head of Cardiology at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, Canada. Over the years, he and the entire heart team, took wonderful care of our family. I have long been curious about why he chose to pursue cardiology, and today, I got the chance to ask.  Dr. Sanatani kicks off our chat with...

Our guest today is Annika McDade whose soul purpose in life is to create amazing relationships between people and their dogs. Her in-person dog training company is called Canine Connection Training and is based in Vancouver, Canada. However, you can access her expertise and video library wherever you happen to be via her online portal - SniffDog. During our chat, she talks about all the informatio...

Saba Marzara co-founded FedFedFed, which delivers dietician curated meals right to your door. Endlessly fascinated by the food we eat, Saba looks to impact our health and nutrition on a larger scale. We look at the ever-growing problem of diet related diseases along with what first piqued her interest in the field, and how the name FedFedFed came about. I became a customer of FedFedFed. The compan...

Our guest today is surf photographer Marcus Paladino. His book is called Cold Comfort , and his work captures the raw and wild essence of Vancouver Island’s west coast. He kicks off the interview by sharing the best piece of career advice he received - get paid for what you love to do. Living those words, he has carved out a niche documenting cold water surf. Some highlights from our chat include:...

Tiffany DaSilva, founder of flowjo, is our guest today. Irritated by peoples’ relationship with their phones, she decided to something about it. Creating card decks full of bucket list activities for couples, dads, and self-care, Flowjo’s mission is to help people build long-lasting and meaningful memories with the life they have right now. Our interview was fun. Tiffany hits on everything from th...

Lee Rodgers is our guest today. Our chat always came back to limitations, as in, your true capabilities are far beyond what you actually believe them to be. Case in Point. Returning to cycling in his mid-30's, Lee turned professional at the age of 37. The stories he shares are incredible. To give you a teaser, he found himself lined-up alongside the legends of the sport (Tom Boonen, Fabian Cancell...

Our guest is Amanda Hemmaway. She is the owner and director of iDance Vancouver, whose mission is to encourage and empower the dancer in all of us. Amanda dug into many aspects of her journey that include: bringing childhood dreams to life, lessons learned from buying a business, and building a community through dance in an expressive and soulful way. And Amanda absolutely loves phone calls. So ca...

Dan John is my guest today, a leading voice on all things related to strength and lifting. Having followed Dan’s work for about 6 years, it was exciting to have him on the show. Some highlights from our conversation include: the importance of failing publically, how parents should encourage their kids, and the pain/pleasure matrix of goal achievement. His latest book is Attempts: Essays on Fitness...

John and I get right to it, digging into the Leadville 100, the 100 mile running race across the sky, which he has completed 4 times. Other highlights include breaking big challenges into the smallest manageable pieces, and learning how to not reinvent the wheel when learning something new. Case in point - the Rubik’s cube. For the record, he solved it under three minutes during our post-interview...

Today’s guest is Steve Moss, frontman and founding member of the The Midnight Ghost Train. Powered with a thick and heavy sound, they are one of my all-time favorite bands. On June 18th, TMGT kick off their 10-date European reunion tour at the Freak Valley Festival in Netphen, Germany. Steve takes us wide and deep, chatting about everything from writing songs live on stage and the band’s early day...

Felix Böck is our guest today, the founder and CEO of Chop Value in Vancouver, BC. Chop Value's mission is simple - harvest single use chopsticks from the urban environment and then, transform them into beautiful home décor pieces, like cutting boards, tabletops, and light sconces.  Using Chop Value's micro-factories as a model, we get into how truly green economies should operate, and how ma...

Today, I get to speak with Ania Wysocka, the founder and creator of Rootd. Rootd is an incredible app that helps people to manage anxiety and panic attacks in the moment. With over 1.25 million downloads to date, the app has been featured in publications like Women’s Health, Healthline, and Time Magazine’s The Age of Anxiety. In recognizing her contributions to mental health awareness and technolo...

Today’s episode features Manuel Bernaschek. He brought two world brands at the pinnacle of quality to Vancouver, those being Fazioli Pianos and Stefano Ricci luxurious menswear. In our chat, he shares details from his early conversations with Mr. Fazioli and Mr. Ricci along with the piece of advice that he received prior to opening his very first store.  Manuel invited me to the Stefano Ricci...

Kai is the founder of Highlighter Creative , a commercial photography and design thinking studio, based in Richmond BC. Take a moment to check out his projects, especially his post-production work.  He has an inherent knack of breaking down complex ideas - the blockchain, NFTs, and the Metaverse - into understandable, digestible pieces. No matter the topic, Kai always loops back to the fundam...

To say my chat with Khalil covers a lot of ground would be an huge understatement. Geographically, we bounce from Kenya to Toronto, back to Kenya, down to Tanzania, and end in Vancouver. He talks about the difficulties he faced after immigrating to Canada in 1989. From direct personal experience, Khalil explains the lasting trauma that racism and intolerance have on a child.  Career wise, he...

Rob and I chat about his most recent athletic challenge, Everesting . I'll let him tell the story, but, in order to complete ‘an Everest’, a cyclist must climb the vertical elevation of Mount Everest - 8848 vertical meters - in one ride within 24 hours. Its grueling. Rob gets into his training, the obstacles he had to overcome, and how the day itself played out. Rob sounds like a professional cycl...

Roger Nairn joins me for this episode, co-founder and CEO of JAR Audio in Vancouver, Canada. We do a podcast about podcasts. JAR Audio constructs podcasts for brands in order to accelerate their impact and build meaningful connections with their audiences. Their client base is deep and wide. Listening experiences include: The Disruptors by RBC, Expedia's Out Travel the System, and the just launche...

Catherine is a certified transformational life and business coach and founder of Fearless Future in Vancouver, British Columbia. She leads with a mission to help people find their soul purpose. In addition to one-on-one coaching, Catherine also hosts the Fearless Future podcast. Her workshops - Ignite Your Soul and Bust the Burnout - all point toward empowering her clients to discover and lead wit...

In episode 11, I chat with Paul Brassard, co-founder of Deville Coffee . Founded in 2008, Deville has grown from its first café in downtown Calgary to 10 locations across the city with five new spots slated to open in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Kelowna by 2022. From the outset, Deville has created a distinct coffee experience for its customers. Curating unique and complex tastes from around the worl...

Dan Nelken wrote a book, and a really useful one at that, titled A Self-Help Guide for Copywriters . Punctuated with personal, and often, very funny observations from the Advertising world, his objective is to de-mystify the creative process. He delivers.  In our chat, Dan speaks about wanting to write the dumbest book possible. To my mind, that is its greatest quality. With each technique he...

The title for this episode is lifted from a story Anita shares about picking up a new (life) skill as an adult. A talented designer, deep thinker, and simply amazing human, she is partner and head of user experience at Seeds and Growth, the strategy and insights agency centered in Los Angeles, CA. While Anita touches on several interesting topics, her explanation about making the big the big thing...

I met Tom when I took his Next Level Copy class through AdHouse. Tom pours his vast advertising experience - seriously, he's worked on some amazing campaigns - into his current passion as co-dean of AdHouse, the home for aspiring AdNerds. Also, as host of the A-List Podcast , he discovers how other creatives got their start in the business. In our interview, Tom outlines what advertising has the p...

Here is my interview with Kyle Matheson, franchise owner of Expedia Cruises - www.expediacruises.ca - in Richmond, Canada. Kyle talks about guiding a travel agency through the pandemic, the future of curated travel experiences, and what pulled him towards open water swimming. 

Every once in awhile you meet a person who is perfectly suited to do what they do. Miranda Deis is the founder of Curiosity Corner Preschool in Vancouver, Canada. On a whim seven(ish) years ago, we called the contact number printed on a vinyl banner hung from a fence. It advertised a newly opened preschool. I'm so glad we made that phone call. 

Lisa comes strong in part 2 of back-to-back van Hemert episodes. As founder of both the Van Hemert Group and Women Working in Calgary, Lisa offers up an interesting perspective on the energy industry, mentorship, and problem solving. Her ability to quickly understand the multiple viewpoints on any given issue is one thing about her I truly admire. Thanks Lisa!