Inclusion

Chantal shares a baker's dozen author's names along with books that she's read(ing) to learn about people with different lived experiences.

Chantal explains the difference between being treated the same, being treated equitably in terms of systemic barriers.

Chantal shares an example of embracing equity and random acts of kindness during IWD 2023.

This blog contains recommendations for a baker's dozen books by Indigenous Authors.

This blog posts covers a few reflections about learning and gratitude for the year 2022.

This post announces a series of courses that can help you explore and discover your unique path to your ideal career.

Thoughts about mentoring programs available through professional associations.

After almost 10 years in business, I’m doubling down, and investing time, money and energy in clarifying what services I offer through Empowered Path Inc.

Sharing my thoughts about the services I offer helps me refine the content for my new webpage, and helps me clarify what stories I can share to help my ideal clients find and connect with me.

I’m a big believer in Inclusion Diversity Equity and Accessibility (IDEA). I also know that I can learn a lot from other people’s lived experiences.

To me mentoring is when people act as trusted thought partners, helping each other out and celebrating each others' success.

The past two years have highlighted many inequities in the systems we have in place in our communities and workplaces.

Every now and then someone asks me for a list of books by Indigenous authors. There are many reasons, some want to learn more about the lived realities of Indigenous peoples in the lands we call Canada, others want to make a step towards reconciliation by purchasing books written by Indigenous authors.

In 2021, as I prepared to launch my first online courses, “Networking: Identifying and Connecting with Friendly Forces” and “Navigating your Career Route Map: Designing Courses of Action to Help You Achieve Your Definition of Success” I decided to invest in help from professionals whose strengths complement mine.

Earlier this week it occurred to me that I hadn’t published a blog lately. I wondered if I was suffering from writer’s block, or if it was something else. Then I set aside the thought, because I had a full week.

When I served in the military, shortly after I arrived at a new posting, I met one on one with all my direct reports and invested the time to learn what their career goals were. When new people joined my team, I would hold a meeting to welcome and learn about them too.

Many people don’t enjoy meetings at the best of times. There are entire books written on how to run effective meetings, and lots of cartoons and jokes about ineffective meetings.  Meetings are an obvious pain point for many.

I’m thrilled to share that the introductory offering of the Navigating your Career Route Map: Designing Courses of Action to Help You Achieve Your Definition of Success program is now available online!

Just as I believe that everyone has gifts to share with the world, things that they excel at doing, and can do better than most people, I know that there are things that I’m not good at doing. I’ve learned that the best way to compensate for that, is to partner with people who have the skill sets I lack.

“Recce” is a military term, short for reconnaissance, and basically means exploring the paths you might take without committing too much energy or investing a lot of money and other resources to help you make an educated guess on how you may choose to achieve your goals.

Honesty is something we owe ourselves and the others in our lives. Honesty requires reflection, and facing uncomfortable truths. To me living honestly means that the person I show the world is the person I am. It’s about being genuine and authentic, being true to myself. 

Leadership and Inclusion are two of my special interests. I’ve been learning how to lead people for more than 40 years. Yes, I started learning about leadership while I was a young teenager, as an Air Cadet. I continued to learn more during my military career. Now I’m an entrepreneur and I call myself a Thought Partner.

Spring is the season for new beginnings.

​I believe that everyone deserves to be treated with respect.

Today, I had the honour of being one of five panelists in an International Women’s Week event co-hosted by the University of Ottawa Institute for Science, Society and Politics and the Idea Connector Network.

The last week in January 2021, about 1700 people attended the Human Resources Professional Association (HRPA) Annual Conference. I’m honoured to share that I was one of the 73 speakers featured during the conference.

One of the top tips shared by content creators is to write about what your audience let’s you know they want to learn more about. This week’s blog is in response to a question on LinkedIn about why the words “Happy Birthday” can be a trigger.

Over the 2020 holiday break, as we kept to our home and connected with our family and friends through phone and video calls, I had the privilege of taking a break from my business.

In my last blog I asked if you had any questions you would like me to answer in this format. That same day, I received a Job Search question from one of my mentees. This blog expands on my answer.

When I was a child, I was taught that I lived in a man’s world, and that as a woman I would have to do more than men to succeed. My father in particular repeated this teaching. He wasn’t saying that it was the way the world should be, he was arming my sister and I for the reality we would eventually discover when we started work.

Lately I’ve been spending time thinking about my “Why?”

I love learning!  Every week, sometimes every day, I have the opportunity to learn something new. I’m grateful for every new thing I learn, whether it’s something as simple as how to create polls in my offspring’s high school online communication platform (it’s ridiculously easy) or as complex as learning how to write a relatable, meaningful and marketable book.

It’s 6:30 pm Sunday and I’m sitting down to write this week’s blog. I was working on other projects and almost missed keeping my promise to myself to write and publish a blog each week.

Western society expects leaders to be in charge, to give tasks, and make sure that these tasks are completed. My style of leadership follows a different path. I genuinely believe that every person has something to offer their team. I make a point of learning what each individual on my team likes to do, is good at doing, and would prefer to do. I also find out where they need help. Once I know my teams, then we can figure out who is going to do what tasks. In my experience, people perform much better if most of the tasks they’re given are things they enjoy and are good at doing.

Did you know that people can’t read your mind? That your boss can’t reliably guess that you want a lateral transfer? That your clients won’t guess you’d like more money? That your dream career might be a question away?

I’ve had the privilege of being mentored since I was a teenager, first by my parents and their military friends and more recently by business mentors. I’ve been actively mentoring other people for the more than 20 years. I’ve also been privileged to participate in peer mentorship. Every time I’m involved in mentorship regardless of the role, I learn something new.

I’ve worn glasses for more than 40 years. I am visually impaired to the point that without my glasses, I could not legally drive a vehicle. The first thing I do on waking is put on my glasses. I consider myself to be healthy, and am grateful that my body is fit enough to allow me to do pretty much anything I want to. Many of the people I know wear glasses, they’ve become so normalized that most of us don’t think of people wearing glasses as disabled.

​I’ve enjoyed speaking in front of groups for as long as I can remember. As a child in grade school, I used to tell my playmates the story of what we were playing that day, and then assign everyone a role.  I even occasionally assigned speaking parts (forgive me, little sister).

I’d like to start by acknowledging that I am writing this blog from traditional Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee territory. I am grateful to be able to live, work, learn and play on these lands. I’m grateful to share these lands with Indigenous peoples who still live on these lands today, Wednesday July 1, 2020.

There’s been a lot of talk about Systemic Racism in Canada over the last week. Do we have it? Are our national institutions rife with racism? Do you have to consciously make a choice to act in a racist manner to be a racist?

I’m an avid reader, I have been for as long as I can remember. My family, friends and many of my colleagues know this to be true. I can work a full week, and read 3 or 4 novels when recharging between tasks. Unless the book I’m reading is teaching me something new.

On March 23, 2020 I published a blog which read in part “I'm looking forward to a new, more equitable normal a year from now. When everyone is treated with respect, regardless of what they do for work, their level of education, what language they speak, or any other ‘difference’.”

This morning, after listening to the bird song coming in the open kitchen windows, and writing my list of things I want to accomplish this weekend and next week, I thought to myself “I can’t write a blog post for this week.”

This week’s blog is going back to the theme of what I’d like to see in our New Normal after COVID-19, what I started writing about two months ago. I want to talk about respect. Respect for all workers, all career and education choices.

​Everyone is shaped by our life experience. By our upbringing, the jobs we’ve held, and the setbacks and triumphs that we experience. I was brought up to be self-sufficient. My parents expected my sister and I to finish post secondary education, to earn a living, and to be financially independent. They set these expectations for us because they met so many other couples whose marriages failed, invariably leaving the women in financial difficulty. The values I was taught as a child were reinforced by my military career. Be self-sufficient, education and training are important and can help you succeed, everyone should be treated with respect.

​Living through COVID 19 offers us an unprecedented opportunity.