Archive 2012 to 2018

CANADIAN OLYMPIC CURLER 2010 Olympic Silver Medalist At the age of 23, Cheryl Bernard started an insurance brokerage and propelled the agency to a multi- million dollar brokerage in just eleven years. At the age of 43, she helped Canada win a silver medal in curling at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.Cheryl and her teammates won the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in 2009 and headed to Vancouver to represent Canada at the 2010 Winter Olympics, ultimately taking the Silver Medal. Two months after the Olympics, Cheryl was nominated by her peers as the 2010 Most Valuable Player in Women’s Curling. Cheryl has volunteered on a variety of boards, including the Canadian Curling Association and the World Curling Tour. She created the annual “Curl for a Cure” in support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, raising over 1.3 million dollars for the charity. She was the Official Spokesperson for the 2010 Terry Fox Run and has done promotional work for the Alberta Children’s Hospital, Children’s Miracle Network, Dairy Queen Miracle Treat Day, Microsoft and the Toronto Sick Kids Hospital. She is currently the Spokesperson for The Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada as well as a Celebrity Ambassador for World Vision Canada. Cheryl has also co-authored and published Between the Sheets, Creating Curling Champions in 2005, which describes the mental side of the game of curling. She just recently published the second edition of the book entitled The Silver Lining.

David MacLean is an entrepreneur, business leader and speaker. For a two year period, while running his business, David and his wife Anne homeschooled their two sons and embarked on a global educational odyssey travelling to 7 countries on 3 continents, on over 24 trips to more than 100 destinations, travelling more than 110,000 km.

Their adventures included swimming with sharks in Hawaii, diving with dolphins in Costa Rica, trackingtigers in India, and searching for Scotland’s Loch Ness monster. They visited mosques, temples, cathedrals, castles, battlefields and 2000 year old Roman baths. They studied and hiked through the most bio-diverse region on the planet, rappelled down waterfalls, white-water rafted, zip lined through the rain forest and studied Central America’s most active volcano, amongst many, many other adventures.

As part of this educational adventure both sons wrote and illustrated children’s books that were sold to help endangered species, and donated to orphans around the world.

Most significantly, the family’s lives were changed by the work they did with orphans, children at risk and impoverished people in Mexico and India. This above all else shifted their perspective on life.

Their educational odyssey, the children’s books they wrote, and their charitable work received national media attention in Canada.

Discover from the MacLean’s extraordinary global adventure how you can lead and live intentionally in a socially conscious way: how you are “Meant to be Spent” to leave a lasting legacy locally and globally, and how your happiness best grows when transplanted in the soil of other people’s lives.

Jana Webb is the creator of Joga and works with professional sport teams and athletes across North America. She facilities Joga Teacher Training’s, which enables yoga teachers, sport therapists, coach’s and doctors to become Joga certified and now has over 200 Joga Instructors worldwide. She is a TV Personality, Published Author, Public Speaker and proud partner of Under Armour, Vega and Right to Play.

Awards/accomplishments: Rose Valley leadership award, acceptance into outdoor ED program, We day attendee 2011/12, 2012/13, 2013/14, 2012 RVE speech competition nominee, performer at CNB talent show 2013, 2014, B.C winter games bronze medalist in martial arts, football divisional championship, football provincial contestant, 3 year completion of interior savings swim across the lake, official B.C registered hunter, youtube produced slam poem performances.

The rethinking of business from greedy to giving is the ideal that Aanikh Kler strives for. Currently 16 years old, he believes that his generation should not wait, and does not need to wait until they “grow up” to start fostering change in the world. Thus at age 13 he created his first social entrepreneurial venture: UndrTheRadr Ringtones. UndrTheRadr is a ringtone App for iPhone/Android devices that gives its user a ringtone that generally only people under the age of 21 can hear. UndrTheRadr Ringtones donates 20 cents on a 99-cent download to Free-The-Children in support of their efforts to educate children all over the world who are truly living under-the-radar. In April 2013, at the age of 15, he was selected to pitch UndrTheRadr to over two million viewers on CBC ‘s Dragon's Den. He was one of the youngest ever entrepreneurs in the history of Dragon’s Den to have successfully secured a deal with one of Canada’s top venture capitalists. Having maintained, updated and marketed UndrTheRadr from its launch in 2013 to present, he has become one of the youngest App developers ever to reach #2 most downloaded paid app on the ITunes App Store.

Inspired after a life-changing trip to Cambodia at age 13, and seeing child labor first hand, he wanted to use his education to make a difference. He has spent thousands of hours over the last three years (whilst being an active High-School Student) raising awareness through public speaking, media interviews, social media and blogging on how social entrepreneurship shifts the paradigm of business thinking and doing.

Rachel Creighton is a 16 year old female, native to the small town of Digby, Nova Scotia. She has lived in Digby her whole life, and wakes up to the smell of the salty ocean mist every morning. Rachel attends Digby Regional High School as a grade 11 French Immersion and is Vice Premier of the Student Council. She is very involved in extra-curricular activities in her school and around town. Through the years, Rachel has earned several awards and achievements for sports and academics. Athletically, she has won 1st place at the Digby Fun Run (2009), 4th place at golf Provincials (2011), 3rd place for figure skating Provincials (2011), 1st place at districts and regionals for High School golf (2010 and 2011), and several dance awards along with National titles. Academically, Rachel has won 2nd place (2010) and 1st place (2011, 2012, and 2013) at the Science Fair, Renewable Energy Award, 1st place at Historica (2011,2012, and 2013) and the Dean of Science Award including scholarship to Saint Mary’s University. Rachel is a member of the National Society of High School Scholars and maintains a 98% average at DRHS (2012-2014). Along with those awards, Rachel was also honored by being chosen to the National TEDxKelowna speaking competition where she will speak her mind upon a chosen topic in September 2014. After winning the TEDx Kelowna competition, Rachel became far more interested in Ted Talks speeches. To date, her favorite Ted Talk is “What adults can learn from kids” by Adora Svitak. Rachel hopes to learn some methods from Adora for her own Ted Talk.

Dr. Shimi Kang is an award-winning, Harvard-trained doctor, researcher, media expert, and lecturer on human motivation. She is the author of the #1 Bestseller, The Dolphin Way: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Healthy, Happy, and Motivated Kids Without Turning Into A Tiger (Penguin Books 2014). Her articles appear in major media outlets including the Huffington Post, Psychology Today and TIME Magazine. Dr. Kang is the Medical Director for Child and Youth Mental Health for Vancouver community, a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia, and the founder of the Provincial Youth Concurrent Mental Health and Addictions Program and BC Children’s Hospital. She has helped thousands of children, adolescents, and adults move toward positive behaviors and better health. In 2012, Dr Kang received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her years of utstanding community service. She is the proud mother of three “awesome” children!

Before the age of 30, Ryan Clements had obtained what many people would consider a successful career: multiple University degrees, including advanced training at Harvard, and a financially secure position at a leading law firm. There was only one thing missing for him: fulfillment. To find fulfillment he had to step into the unknown and embark on an empowering five-year journey that would lead him to the world of entrepreneurialism, consulting and writing.

Ryan’s passion is empowering others to find fulfilling work, and living their “inner greatness”. He is the author of the book Unsuited: How We Can Reject Conventional Career Advice And Find Empowerment, and in addition to his diverse entrepreneurial pursuits, Ryan also consults to an international company that builds customized educational and training solutions for a variety of organizations, across a wide range of industries. He has also worked, in a consulting and business coaching capacity, with a number of start-ups, and continues to serve as mentor to them.

Ryan has a passion for teaching and is a frequent public speaker and trainer in the areas of small business start-ups and micro-entrepreneurialism, social media marketing, sales training, customer service and branding, as well as entrepreneurial mindset and motivation. He also provides mentoring, and public speaking, on career planning.

Ryan, his wife Meghann, their three kids Maci, Cohen and Seth, and their dog JoJo, reside in Okotoks, Alberta against the backdrop of the Canadian Rockies.

Ryan is also a freelance writer and blogger and writes widely on topics of entrepreneurialism, motivation, productivity, marketing, and pursuing “unconventional career paths”. For more informationvisit his website at www.ryanclements.com.

Dr. Holder earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. He then completed his postdoctoral training at the Brain Research Institute at UCLA where he conducted brain transplants to reverse impairments caused by brain injuries. As a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, he studied how natural chemicals, 200 times the strength of heroin, were released when people ate chocolate chip cookies. During this time he worked as a Biological Consultant with the NutraSweet Company to determine whether aspartame is safe for pregnant mothers and their offspring. He also spent a research sabbatical at the University of Hawaii swimming with dolphins in studies of their language and creativity.

Dr. Holder is now an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia where he studies the science of happiness. He leads a research team that is identifying factors that contribute to happiness in children (e.g., temperament, social relationships, spirituality and religion) in Canada, India and Zambia. His team is also investigating strategies to enhance happiness in adults, and the links between personality disorders (e.g., psychopath) and happiness.

Dr. Holder is an award winning teacher and researcher. He regularly gives keynote addresses and workshops on happiness in the workplace and in one’s personal life. He frequently appears on television and radio and has published over 50 papers including two recent books on positive well-being.

Jonnie Penn spent his high school days filming skate videos and wizard movies with his friends in Victoria B.C. At age 18 he became an award-winning filmmaker. The accomplished activist, philosopher and writer was chosen to represent Canada at the Oxford University Debate Championships. In 2006 he started The Buried Life (http://www.theburiedlife.com) in a garage with the help of his elder brother and two neighborhood friends. Their mission is to complete a list of '100 things to do before you die' and to help a stranger each time they cross an item off. The project has become an international cult-hit MTV series, online community, sold out national speaking tour, and #1 New York Times Bestselling book. In 2012, Jonnie returned to McGill University to cross off #11: Get a College Degree. In 2014 he will begin a Masters degree in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge.