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00:003, 2, 1, 0, go!
00:14Sorry, say that again.
00:15You are busy on a weekend.
00:18Oh yes, we're renovating our house, so I'm always busy.
00:24Oh, that's amazing.
00:26So, how is everything?
00:28How are you?
00:29Very well, thank you.
00:32I have recently joined Pick My Brain website and I was just scrolling in between the profiles of people who
00:42I can talk to from Canada.
00:45So, let me introduce myself and then we can continue the session.
00:52My name is Ahmed, I'm from Pakistan and I work in a telecom organization.
00:58And I am basically a business developer.
01:04I usually follow the customer behavior and customer analysis and customer trending and words required and words not required and
01:17who is doing what and what type of communication is being done within the network.
01:24So, while I was going through your profile, I saw a couple of things and that's why I contacted you.
01:31And the most interesting thing which I read was, you know a lot about transformation, vision, expression, and joy.
01:49How are you, how are you experienced in so many things?
01:55Well, I don't consider that a lot.
01:58I consider it a whole.
02:01I'm an interior designer, so I have always been working in an industry where I get to express my creativity,
02:12which is important to me and always has been since I can remember.
02:19So, that is joyous for me.
02:23I feel so fortunate to be able to do that and to make a living at it.
02:30I meet amazing people.
02:32I help people express themselves.
02:36Often people are very linear and conservative.
02:41And I help them understand that they're creative too.
02:46Everybody's creative.
02:47It's just whether you've been allowed to express that or not, I think is a big part of it.
02:54And I've been doing this for a very, very, very long time now.
03:01I have to ask you, are you doing any job with certain people or are you doing your own business?
03:11Well, I have my own business, but my business is doing work for others.
03:18So, I do residential work.
03:21I help people build homes.
03:24And then I do commercial office space and restaurants and things like that as well.
03:30So, how do you feel empowered while working for yourself or running your own business?
03:36Is it worth investing the time in your own business or rather would you just go and do the business
03:43with someone else?
03:46Well, when I graduated from university, I'm going to say the word I had to work for other people to
03:56gain experience and understand better the business of what I do.
04:03But within five years, I started my own business.
04:07I wanted to be the one in contact with the client.
04:10I wanted to be doing the business the way that I wanted, not somebody else's way.
04:19So, I'm empowered by that.
04:23Yeah, I was going to ask you the very same question.
04:26Is it intriguing?
04:28Is it empowering?
04:30Or do you think this creates or puts you in a whole other level of pressure that you have to
04:37earn?
04:37You have to do certain things.
04:39You have to keep going.
04:42You have to pay the bills.
04:45I'm not motivated by money.
04:47So, money is not my main reason for doing the work.
04:57I have to express myself.
05:00I have to help people.
05:01And then I just trust that everything flows from that.
05:08So, and it does.
05:10So, the more that I'm aligned with joy and being of service, because that's a main thing.
05:21I'm of service.
05:21That's my thing, too.
05:23So, as long as I'm doing that, then my bills are paid.
05:28It's all good.
05:30Sometimes I have lots of money and sometimes I don't.
05:34But I have long since stopped worrying about that.
05:39I don't think there's any more security working for somebody else than there is for me working for myself.
05:48Oh, that's very courageous.
05:51This is really interesting.
05:55How did you build this confidence in you?
06:04I think it's just my nature.
06:07I'm going to say I'm just awkwardly stubborn.
06:11And it didn't ever occur to me that I couldn't do what I set my mind to.
06:18I just knew that the next move was to have my own business and that it would work out.
06:27I felt I had enough tools.
06:30I'm smart.
06:31I can figure things out.
06:32I ask questions.
06:35And, yeah, I wouldn't know any other way, to be honest.
06:41So, do you have any employees of your own or are you your own boss or your own employee?
06:46I did in the past.
06:49Like, I'm 66 years old now.
06:53So, I work differently.
06:56But I've had two design-related businesses working at the same time.
07:03One was supplying and installing furniture and fitments.
07:07And the other one was the interior design.
07:10And in that period of time, I also had a business partner.
07:13And we had employees then.
07:16That was very stressful.
07:18That part of having employees, that was different than having a client, let's just say.
07:29I prefer just having the client.
07:32And I'm also not balanced, really, in that I feel and I think I know that I can just do
07:44it better.
07:45It's faster if I just do it.
07:48So, I don't mind training up and mentoring people.
07:52But then I'm happy for them to just, you know, flow along to the next employment, if you will.
08:01That's interesting.
08:03Tell me what fascinated you the most to not have the employees or not have the pressure of owning the
08:11employees.
08:14I think it was just happenstance.
08:16So, I built up this business and partnership in a city, Winnipeg, in the middle of Canada.
08:23And then about 10 years after that, we moved to another province.
08:32Like, we moved across the country.
08:34So, I sold that business.
08:36And I had very young kids.
08:38I was an old mom.
08:39I had kids older.
08:41And we moved.
08:44And it probably took two years before I started getting work again.
08:49But I spent those two years just raising my boys.
08:53And then I just, from there on, I didn't employ anybody.
08:58I employed people on contract, but I didn't have employees in the strictest sense.
09:06Okay.
09:06But if I ask you to go back some period behind and tell me your whole journey, how was it?
09:15From where did you start?
09:17What was your education?
09:19And how did you land at your first job?
09:22And what was your most proudest moment in all this journey?
09:28Oh, okay.
09:30Well, when I was in high school, I took drafting, where all the other girls were taking whole mech and
09:42sewing and cooking.
09:44I was in with the boys doing drafting and things like that.
09:48Because I knew how to cook.
09:50And so, I didn't have any interest doing that at school.
09:54So, I already had a foundation of something that was a little unusual for a woman at that time.
10:02There was an art teacher at the school who really was pushing for me to go to art school.
10:11But I'm also a pragmatist.
10:14And I just, I couldn't understand how that would work.
10:17Or even how that could make me happy, to be honest.
10:20I need to be doing something for other people in the sense that I know who they are and I'm
10:27actually doing it for them.
10:28Not creating art that somebody then might buy and enjoy.
10:33Sorry, something just popped up here.
10:35So, I ended up going to architectural school.
10:42And interior design is one of the programs in there.
10:46So, I did that and I graduated on the dean's honor list.
10:50So, I was very proud of that.
10:53And all while swimming for the university swim team.
10:56So, I, you know, I was proud of myself at the end of that.
11:02Then I moved right out of university to across the country where there was lots of work.
11:10And I got a lot of really great experience very quickly.
11:18And that was in Calgary, Alberta.
11:20So, that was just me working for other people, gaining experience.
11:26And then at some point saying, I think I will do better on my own.
11:33And I had been working with this guy that I loved and thought was awesome as a business partner.
11:41And so, we partnered up and created our own design business.
11:44So, that's how that foundation happened.
11:49And then when we moved across the country and I sold the business.
11:55So, I mean, it's amazing that it had value to somebody else.
12:01It, my proudest moment would have been when I finally got the first project in this new location.
12:10It was a very, very complicated project.
12:14Like a huge jigsaw puzzle of space and people and having to create the change while everybody still worked.
12:24And we did it.
12:28And it was successful.
12:30And it was amazing to be able to pull that one off and have a beautiful outcome at the same
12:39time.
12:40So, yeah.
12:41So, this must have motivated you more.
12:51Maybe.
12:54I'm not sure.
12:55Some of the words don't suit.
12:57But I don't lack for motivation.
13:01That was just an awesome project.
13:06Yeah.
13:06It was just awesome.
13:08And I've had amazing relationships with people that I work for.
13:14I've worked on amazing projects.
13:17But that one, just the complexity alone and the fact that I figured it out.
13:24I'm not sure very many people could have.
13:26It's our crazy brains.
13:28It's how my brain works.
13:30I can do very complex things.
13:34And it just seems so simple to me.
13:39So, then I'm just motivated to go on to whatever comes next.
13:44And I'm always open to even something better than that.
13:51Okay.
13:51That's amazing.
13:52I have to ask you.
13:55I have been trying to build my own business.
13:58It has been quite some time since I have been trying to do it.
14:04I have been writing the proposals.
14:05I have been writing and drafting and modifying the pitch.
14:12Also, I have been trying to move to Canada.
14:15It's been quite some time since I've given my tests and I've applied for everything.
14:23What sort of business environment do you think does Canada give?
14:36I think there's lots of opportunity for people from anywhere.
14:41And I know now, too, that we have a huge influx of people from all over the world that come
14:49to live in Canada and going to be even more so because we need people.
14:57We're a vast country with a very small population and a lot of population that really just doesn't
15:07want to work in a lot of the industries where we need work, right?
15:12Why is that?
15:13It's crazy.
15:14Why is that?
15:15I don't understand it.
15:16Why is that?
15:18Lots of educated people here that are making good money and don't want to do any of the grunt work,
15:28want to enjoy life and be served and all of that sort of thing.
15:35And there's a lot of industries where there's just a huge need for people.
15:40And maybe that's not where our educated people are, if you know what I mean.
15:47I think from where you are, there's a lot of education in certain technologies that people
15:54are just learning that here.
15:56So come and do what you do, right?
16:00There's space for that.
16:03Um, it's very freeing.
16:07We pay a very high tax rate here in Canada.
16:11Everybody in the world knows that, but we have a lot of, um, social services as a result.
16:19And in that, I feel a lot of freedom, uh, to explore things because you're safe.
16:28Uh, there's an expectation that you're healthy, that you have access to health care, mental health
16:35care, physical health care.
16:37Um, people here are well-educated, um, yeah.
16:44I think that makes it makes for a really good work environment, really good living place.
16:53It's not like people complain all the time here about, about everything, you know, like it.
16:59And I'm like, hmm, you might want to try living, say in the U S for example, it's not as
17:06easy.
17:06So, um, I think this is an awesome place for people to come, uh, with an education, uh, or without,
17:18it doesn't matter, but with, and you'll, you'll make your business work here.
17:25Uh, okay.
17:26Uh, Brenda, you have been working for quite a long time in your life.
17:32Um, tell me how do you, if you have to start a new business now at this moment, how would
17:40you start a new business?
17:41What would be the key points that you would consider that are the most important to start
17:47the business?
17:51See, I'm very non-linear thinker.
17:54In this regard.
17:56So you will just jump in.
18:00If you have the educational background and some experience, then, well, it works for me.
18:08You just jump in.
18:09There's a lot of, there's a lot of trust involved in starting your own business and trust yourself.
18:18Um, it's not ever going to be easy.
18:22Nothing's easy.
18:23It just requires some effort and some brain power.
18:29So, um, I, in my business, having, you know, all, all of that, um, performance stuff in
18:38advance is just not how, this is not how this business works.
18:43So I'm going to say, um, I hope to have a session with you again soon.
18:47Have a great day.
18:48Bye-bye.
18:49You too.
18:50Bye-bye.
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