To mark the end of International Women's Month, I host a conversation with three remarkable women. Shamira Jaffer, recipient of the 2023 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Innovation Award; Jennifer Menard-Shand, a three-time nominee for the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards; and Dr. Georgette Zinaty, President of WBE Canada and a passionate advocate for women-owned businesses.

Together, we discuss the challenges women still face, the achievements they are making, and what Canada needs to do to support more women entrepreneurs in not only starting out but also scaling up. Because empowering more women to build businesses is not just the right thing to do, but also one of the smartest growth strategies our country can pursue.

To learn more about WBE: https://wbecanada.ca/

To learn more about the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards: (Nominations are now open) https://www.womenofinfluence.ca/rbc-cwea/

Audrey Hyams Romoff spent over 30 years in the glossy world of public relations, building OverCat Communications and shaping the images of A-list celebrities. Her professional life was marked by polish, access, and control. But behind that world was a much more private story, shaped by inherited trauma, silence, and profound loss.

Audrey's Grandmother and Mother were survivors of Auschwitz. The Holocaust was rarely discussed in their home, yet its shadow influenced everything. That silence became even more painful when Audrey's mother died by suicide, forcing her to confront not only grief but also the emotional legacy her family had carried for generations.

In this deeply moving episode, Audrey talks openly about her memoir, The Ripple Eclipse, and the tension between the dazzling life she built and the pain she inherited. This is a conversation about family, trauma, grief, survival, and the courage it takes to break a silence that has lasted far too long.

To buy Audrey's book: The Ripple Eclipse: https://a.co/d/05tdv7FW

Wes Geer chased rock and roll the way some people chase salvation, all in, full volume, no brakes. Wes Geer went from a kid with a guitar and a dream to co-founding Head P.E., tearing through the chaos of the '90s rock scene, then playing with Korn, and living the kind of life that looks electrifying from the outside and destructive from within. Fame, excess, addiction, collapse, Wes lived every mile of that road.

But this episode is not just about the rise and the wreckage. It is about what happens when someone survives the fire and comes back carrying a torch, or in this case, a guitar. Today, Wes is the founder of Rock to Recovery, using music not to fuel self-destruction, but to help others heal, reconnect, and find their way back. This is a wild, hard-living, soul-searching adventure through music, darkness, redemption, and the power of turning your greatest pain into a path for others.

To learn more about Rock To Recovery: https://rocktorecovery.org

To purchase Wes Book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1735529974/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

My advice to anyone is this. If you can, follow your passion. Follow it to where it brings you intellectual and emotional rewards, a sense of purpose and place, and in this volatile world, always have a Plan B. This is why I am so excited to introduce my two guests this week.

Elysia Racanelli is a family doctor by day and avant-garde singer by night, whose haunting voice and commanding stage presence will stop you in your tracks.

Jonathan Roy is the son of Patrick Roy, one of the greatest goaltenders of all time. Jonathan worked hard to follow in his father's 'skates', but when the NHL was beyond his skill set, he chose to pursue music. I am glad he did, as I have fallen in love with his music.

In these live interviews, both share the deeper reasons behind their pivots and the lessons they are learning along the way. Their stories offer a powerful reminder that finding your path in life is rarely linear and often requires the courage to step away from expectation to follow your heart.

These conversations took place during the staging of Odience 360 by Montreal-based Summit Tech. This is the most immersive stage and retail technology I have ever witnessed. I have provided a link below:

Check our Odience 360: https://youtube.com/shorts/5_Y3GkhIgyE?si=VcPE5CFv_GV9_Oon

Check out FirstUp by RBC X Music: https://www.rbc.com/dms/enterprise/music/first-up.html

Jonathan Roy: https://jonathanroyofficial.com

Elysia Racanelli: https://www.youtube.com/@elysiaracanelli

Have you ever considered that the sports you are watching are fixed? This episode ois appointment listening for Sports fans, sports gamblers and concerned parents, and an eye-opening story for anyone interested in how pervasive organized crime has woven into our society.

My guest this week is Declan Hill, Oxford-educated and author of The Fix. Declan is world-renowned as an investigative journalist who has infiltrated organized crime fixing rings to understand how the world of sports fixing actually works and why the extensive marketing efforts to encourage more people to gamble on sports have added more fuel to the fire.

Sports thrive on uncertainty. The drama, the underdog, the last-second miracle, the feeling that nobody knows what comes next. But what happens when that uncertainty gets hijacked — when outcomes are fixed not just in final scores, but in moments you barely notice?

In this interview, we dig into match-fixing and spot-fixing, prop bets and micro-bets, and why Declan believes a major American sports league is heading toward an existential crisis within five years.

We also talk about how that 'casino in your pocket' is affecting athletes, fans, and young people's psychology. What happens when you move from playing with fun money to your house money, or worse, when gambling becomes an addiction equal to tobacco, alcohol or heroin?

Sports fans, sports gamblers, concerned parents and friends and true crime followers, Declan Hill will not disappoint.

Declan Hill is an investigative academic and journalist. He specializes in the study of organized crime and international issues. He was the first journalist to break the story of Asian match-fixing gangs linked to the multi-billion dollar gambling markets destroying international football in his book 'The Fix: Soccer & Organized Crime'. It has now become a best-seller in 21 languages. In 2013, he published the academic version 'The Insider's Guide to Match-Fixing' which is now available in English and Japanese.: https://www.declanhill.com

If you are concerned about sports gambling, Declan encourages you to visit: https://www.gamblingwithlives.org

On occasion, I break format, step out of interview mode, and speak directly to you about what I believe matters to you, to me, and to our country. In this episode, I talk about Canada's K economy and the growing, dangerous divide between those who have and those who have very little.

I look at the human cost, the impact on our psychology and our society, and five things we can do to rebuild our economy. To grow our way forward, versus borrowing on the backs of future generations just to cover today's bills.

I hope you can find ten minutes over the next few days to listen, and to share your thoughts.

Thanks for listening to Chatter That Matters.

Let's chat soon.

This week's podcast is for all who are dealing with the reality that their future will not look like the past. There will be no neatly paved road. No ladder with perfectly placed rungs. Instead, there will be relentless headwinds, industries reshaped by technology and marketplaces rendered by global forces. Jobs will collapse, and new ones will emerge.

Which is why I invited The k3 Sisters Band to join me this week.

Three sisters who chose to make their destiny a matter of choice, rather than leave it to chance. Homeschooled. Fourth-generation musicians. As children, on a flight home from Disney, they sketched the name of a band that did not yet exist. They kept the drawing, they kept dreaming, and they kept doing.

They played in churches, fairs, school cafeterias, and nursing homes across Texas while other kids lined up at lockers.

They did not wait for a record label to find an audience.

They mastered streaming and social platforms like TikTok.

Their songs have been played millions of times, and they have fans in 70 countries.

They created a community built on positivity, anti-bullying messages, and songs written in their fans' languages.

Fifteen years later, The k3 Sisters Band have released 15 albums, written over 170 songs, and just recorded 24K Gold live with no digital or AI modification.

Their philosophy is simple. Do it yourself. But do it.

In a culture that often feels dystopian, they chose a utopian view.

In an industry obsessed with shortcuts, they chose craft.

In a digital world addicted to filters and AI, they chose authenticity.

This episode is not just for young people or music fans.

It is for parents wondering how to prepare their kids for an uncertain future.

And for anyone who feels the ground shifting beneath their feet.

I have included some of their fantastic music.

To learn more about The K3 Sisters Band: https://www.k3sistersband.com

To find out more about RBC Future Launch to support Canadian Youth: https://www.rbc.com/en/future-launch/about/

To find out more about FirstUp by RBCX music, a program dedicated to providing emerging Canadian artists with a platform for exposure, funding, education and mentorship opportunities. https://www.rbc.com/dms/enterprise/music/first-up.html

Vancouver's Chinatown was never built to be trendy. It was built because people had nowhere else to belong. Shut out of opportunity. Pushed to the margins. Told where they could and could not live. So they built anyway. Store by store. Family by family. A place that began to pulse and then became magnetic to all who lived in and visited Vancouver.

And then slowly, the pulse weakened. Rising costs. Aging buildings. Poverty. Then the pandemic. The streets emptied. Businesses struggled to survive. Anti-Asian racism surged. Fear replaced foot traffic. Absence replaced community.

This week on Chatter That Matters, you will hear the story of how one woman turned darkness into light. Carol Lee looked at decay and did not see failure. She saw a break in belonging.

Carol's approach can be replicated by any struggling community.

Joining the conversation are Martin Thibodeau, Regional President of RBC in British Columbia, and Carmen Stossel, Regional Director of Community Marketing and Social Impact at RBC. They share what makes Carol Lee special and why they got involved.

If you care about your community and humanity.

You will want to hear this conversation.

Because sometimes lighting up a neighbourhood is really about lighting up belief.

Hit play to Light Up Chinatown.

Some artists find a sound or a look. Others find the truth. Bif Naked found both. In this moving episode of Chatter that Matters, I sit down with the iconic Juno Award-winning artist and activist Bif Naked to unpack "I am who I am."

Born in New Delhi. Adopted. Raised across oceans, finding love in words and music. At 21, Bif met her birth mother, a moment that brought her story full circle.

But identity is not formed only in comfort.

At 36, Bif was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Two years later, she suffered a stroke.

Those chapters did not silence her. They fed her poetry and clarified what mattered.

I loved every second of my time with Bif Naked. We discuss punk, poetry, feminism, and the discipline behind her philosophy: "save the rage for the stage."

There is wisdom in that line. Choose where your energy goes. Do not let the noise of the world steal your voice. Channel it. Own it.

If you have ever felt different, silenced or enraged.

If you have ever had to rebuild or renew.

If you believe identity is something you own, not something assigned.

This conversation is for you.

(And her music and passion roars throughout)

What happened to the truth? I find myself fixated on a troubling realization. It feels remarkably easy to win over an audience with a slogan, a promise without substance, or blatant mistruths, even when those are wildly disconnected from the audience's reality. And even more surprisingly, they are not only readily accepted but also often repeated and shared.

I wanted to understand why. Not from a political or media lens, but from a human one. What is it about human nature that makes us so vulnerable?

That question led me to two conversations on Chatter That Matters. What ties them together is a sobering conclusion. Our minds have not fundamentally changed, but the tools used to target them have. Unless we become more intentional about how we think as parents, citizens and individuals navigating the uncertainties and complexities of life, it will remain dangerously easy to sell comforting narratives that drift far from reality.

Gordon Pennycook, a highly regarded cognitive scientist whose journey from small-town Saskatchewan to a renowned thought leader at Cornell University gives him a rare lens on how ordinary people reason in extraordinary information environments. Gordon studies why we are so trusting, why misinformation spreads faster than truth, and why most of us are not irrational or malicious, just distracted. His research shows that people do not fail because they cannot think, but because the systems around them reward speed, emotion, and certainty over reflection and accuracy.

We discuss why falsehood often outperforms truth online, how social platforms exploit attention rather than intention, why news has become opinionated, and why there is still hope.

I then bring in Milos Stojadinovic, a cybersecurity and threat expert at RBC, who thinks like attackers, so the rest of us do not have to.

Milos explains how cybercrime has become organized, global, and industrialized, from ransomware-as-a-service to AI-powered scams and nation-state involvement. His insight makes one thing clear. Trust is still our greatest human strength, but it has also become the easiest point of entry for those who want to exploit it.

Robyne was a high school dropout who believed she wasn't worth saving.

Then her car plunged through the ice, trapping her 20 feet underwater and changing everything. This is the story of how choosing hope became a strategy for survival and healing.

I sit down with Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe, bestselling author and one of the most trusted voices on resilience. As a teenager, Robyne battled addiction, dropped out of school, and was hospitalized in an adult psychiatric ward. At 16, a near-fatal accident gave her a second chance she refused to waste.

This is not a glossy comeback story. It is an honest conversation about becoming. Robyn shares why pain does not have to make sense to be real, why recovery is never linear, how stress can be worked with rather than feared, and what everyday resilience actually looks like.

This episode is about hope, not as a feeling, but as a practice, and choosing to show up again when life feels overwhelming.

To find out more:

Discover – Pre-Order 'I Hope So: How to Choose Hope Even When It's Hard' Hope isn't just a feeling – it's the key to rewiring your brain for resiliency and well-being, even in the toughest times.

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