From Skid Row to CEO - Joe Roberts

Joe Roberts, known as the Skid Row CEO, went from living under a bridge in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in 1989 to becoming a Canadian millionaire before he turned 35. The former heroin addict and street person went on to become a company president and CEO with help from a loving mother and street-based agencies.  Tune in to hear his powerful story.

Transcript

Perley Brewer   0:10
Welcome to today's podcast.
My name is Pearlie Brewer and I will be your host.
Today's podcast guest is one of the most sought after keynote speakers on the Canadian Health and Safety Conference circuit.
Joe Roberts, also known as the Skid Row CEO, has an inspirational story that everyone should hear today.
He is here with us to share his story.
Welcome Joe.

Joe Roberts   0:34
Thanks for having me, Perley.
It's great.
Great to be on the program.

Perley Brewer   0:38
So the way I wanna start this Joe is is this you know where we tend to get up every day and you know A new day is before us and we sort of go about our day and then we go about the next day and so on and it becomes some somewhat of a routine.
And for many people, it's it's.
It goes on that way, year after year, but for you, certainly life has taken many, many different terms.
So where I'd like to start with you today, Joe, is if you take us back to what life was like for you around the age of seven or eight.

Joe Roberts   1:11
Hmm.
It's it was ideal.
I grew up in a a small little town north of Toronto, a little place called Midland, and I had this ideal childhood.
You know, if I was to describe it to somebody at a, it was like a sitcom, you know, like the leave it to Beaver store show.
I realized anybody under the age of 40 doesn't know what that means, but it was this ideal upbringing.
Dad worked at a seat belt factory.
Mom was a stay at home Mom.
She had a part time job in a dress factory, older brother, younger sister Tree Fort in the backyard town I lived in had 5000 people and it was just like living in Mayberry and things were perfect, you know?
And until they weren't, my my father passed away suddenly from heart failure.
Um, our family lost their income and we were lower.
Lower income to begin with, like we weren't poor.
But you know, we didn't have a lot, but we had a real connectedness and family.
And losing Dad was deeply impactful.
We lost our economic security.
I lost the direction of a great father and my mom lost her partner in raising these three small kids.
So now it's a single mom.
Mom, the fellow who came along next.
My mom remarried quickly.
Not to me.
Speech.
The thought my father's memory, but it was it was an economic necessity and he wasn't anything like my dad.
He wasn't supportive.
He didn't want to play baseball or go fishing with us.
He was a mean spirited alcoholic, and so by the time I'm nine years old, I got a fractured sense of self worth.
I got the beginning of some mental health issues.
I've got some early childhood trauma of losing Dad and the grief, and then the ongoing physical, mental and emotional abuse from a, you know, a violent, abusive alcoholic.
And so before I was even 10 years old, there was some deep rooted damage that would then eventually surface and in the context of safety, you know, I was.
I grew up to be that kid who just didn't care about myself.
You know, why would a kid who who's got such a low self esteem, who's walking around thinking he's not worth anything terrible PPE or harnesses or, you know, whatever that may be?
Why?
Why would I bother putting the effort into it?
You know, if I didn't think I was worth it and that's kind of how life, you know, started.
So it was really good.
And then it wasn't.
And that sort of set U, what happened next?

Perley Brewer   3:43
So let's continue on with the story.
Your your father passed away at 8:00 and 9:10.
What was life like then?

Joe Roberts   3:53
Well, my brother was the coolest kid on the block and I really love my brother.
He was three years older than me, but he didn't include me a lot.
You know, older brothers can be kind of like that and.
And so I was always tagging along and wanting to be a part of one day.
Him and his buddies were experimenting with drugs, and they they finally said OK, you want to join us?
And I I was.
I was eager to belong.
I wasn't so curious about the drugs.
I just wanted to be I wanted to fit in, you know, I wanted to be part of the cool group and so I use substances for the first time and something magical happen.
IS1I belonged.
I fit, you know, and the two is that I went home to this House that was filled with violence and yelling and intimidation and fear.
And I wasn't as scared for the first time in my life, I felt safe.
You know when I'm talking to groups.
Perley, I'll ask them.
Like, what did you do during COVID when the world felt really scary?
What do you do when you feel uncertainty?
There's so much uncertainty in the world.
You know, we've got wars.
We've got climb, you know, extreme climate things.
We've got division and politics.
We've got tariffs, we've got gas prices, housing prices, homelessness, addiction, like all of these different things, and that impacts our psyche.
You know, we were just chatting before we got started here.
And you know, there's the old adage of don't take work home with you.
But what about what's at home that you take to work with you?
What about what's between your ears that you take to work with you, you know?
And so my question to Group is always like, what do you do when life gets stressful?
When life gets hard, do you eat?
Do you drink?
Do you smoke?
Do you use or do you have healthy stuff?
Do you know do you meditate?
Mindfulness exercise, right?
Talk to people.
I found a way to cope in an emotionally uncertain world, and so I I ran with that at the time I was 15, I got kicked out of the house.
By the time I was 16, I got kicked out of school, and by the time I-17 and I got arrested for the first time, and so my life was sliding out of control.
Until you know, I was that guy you'd see in downtown Fredericton pushing a shopping cart or downtown Moncton and yeah.

Perley Brewer   6:20
So what?
So what did you get arrested for, Joe?

Joe Roberts   6:25
Well, a lot of it was just related to the lifestyle.
Some of it was petty theft.
Some of it was related to the illegality of drugs.
I was never.
A threat to society as much as I was harmful to myself, if that makes any sense.
So and a lot of it is just, you know, it's kind of hazard in proximity to the lifestyle.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like it's.
It's kinda like you can think through it through the Safety lines.
It's like, OK, if you're at work and you know you're not doing this and you're not doing this and you're not doing this, that's gonna happen eventually.
Your time is gonna run out if you're in a work environment where you need eye protection and you just don't wear it.
Eventually you're going to catch something in the face, and it's going to be maybe serious, maybe not so that that's what the legal stuff was.
It was just all related to lifestyle of of of, you know, an increase.
Consequences in in the choices and behaviors that I was making related to an an escalating drug, drug addiction, or substance use disorder.

Perley Brewer   7:40
So were you still in Ontario?
What that time or had you migrated to BZ?

Joe Roberts   7:44
No, I was still in Ontario.
I lived in.
I moved from the little town of Midland up to Barry and Barry at the time was a 30,000 people and I was bumping around there and I was going.
I was doing OK in school.
I wasn't a star student, but when school was no longer part of my life now I became sort of a kid on the corner and hanging out in the pool hall and the, you know, that sort of stuff.
And eventually wore my welcome out and decided I'm going to leave this small town of Berry and I'm going to go to the big city and I jumped on a greyhound and I went out to Vancouver and I made that mistake that so many young people make everywhere in this country.
You know, they leave that small village or they leave that small town, they think I'll go to Moncton or I'll go to Fredericton or I'll go to Halifax or I'll go to Montreal or Toronto or Vancouver.
Problem is is that when they land in those cities and they don't have their people, you know they they don't have any kind of connection whatsoever.
They find themselves incredibly vulnerable and now exposed to things that they weren't exposed to in that small village of 400 people, or 1000 people.
And that's what happened to me.
I landed in Vancouver.
You know, I remember it was a beautiful, sunny mayday and I thought, yeah, today's gonna, you know, bancomer's gonna be the place where I get a Mulligan.
I get a do over but that was not the case.
It was completely opposite to the place where I had that little celebration.
You know that aspirational moment, if you will, was a park that I would end up living in.
And as the weeks and months went on, I just seemed couldn't seem to get any traction.
You know, I'll say this you when you introduced me.
Perley, you you talked about some of the, you know, the accolades and and some stuff.
But I'm here today because of over 10,000 people.
I'm here today because people had tough conversations with me.
People supported and encouraged me, and I think that that's probably one of the most relevant pieces when we think about Safety.
We think about parenting.
We think about coaches, we think about our influence on other people.
You know, I had.
I had people who were in my corner, who who had the courage to have those conversations.
You know, I speak to Safety groups often, and a lot of times Safety as a profession or upholding standards.
It's a thankless job.
It's like, oh, here comes that guy again.
Or that gal again.
Put my hat on.
Put my glad you know.
But the reality is, is that I'm here today because people held me to a higher standard and and help me navigate through that tough stuff. Yeah.

Perley Brewer   10:25
Now I wanna go back to you provide domain cover.
We all know how beautiful city it is and you said you, you know, you've arrived at a new destination with those wide open eyes.

Joe Roberts   10:31
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   10:36
What was life really like living on the streets in Vancouver?
What's a typical day like?
What's going through your mind on a typical day for you or for any of those people living on the street?

Joe Roberts   10:46
Well.
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   10:49
Because I think we see them, we see them here, but I know I've I've been to Vancouver number of times and I've walked down in the area of Hastings and some of these other streets and seen seen the people.
What's what's it like and what's going through your mind?

Joe Roberts   11:03
The best way I can describe it is that while describe it physically and then I'll describe it emotionally.
Physically, yeah, it's it's just terrible.
You're you don't have access to people and resources.
You don't have access to food or or safe shelter.
You're hungry.
You're tired.
It's really hard living outside and on top of that, if you're dealing with addiction or substance, use disorder on top of unresolved trauma.
It's just a form of modern day torture.
It's just, it's just.
It's just a hell of an existence now on the emotional level, I most people won't be able to identify with pushing a shopping cart.
Admin trapped in the vicious cycle of of a drug addiction, living under a viaduct.
Here's something you can relate to is that over the last few years, with all the different things that are going on, that attacks our senses in our sense of what feels safe.
And when we feel the ground shift underneath us, we get an increase level of anxiety.
We get an increased level in stress, right?
We don't always have access and think about COVID.
When that happened, we didn't have access to the things we needed to move our life forward, right?
Things are all kind of interrupted and all over the place, and we don't know what it's going to look like tomorrow.
We don't know if we're gonna have a job.
There's people who are, you know, don't.
I don't know if we're gonna get funding so that all of that that's going on.
And so we find it.
We can find ourselves, you know, going, going to bed or laying her head down at night with problems that don't have solutions and having to wake up the next day and somehow moved the ball down the field.
If we stay Perley in that state for a prolonged period of time, then we get into stage 1 burnout.
And so this is the thing that I see a lot in first responders and police and fire paramedics, you know, healthcare workers and it's the exact same emotional place that I was pushing the shop because so you may never be homeless, but a lot of us have felt a lot, a lot of overwhelmed lately.
Now the difference is is that you know you may not have found yourself in, in, in that you know that warped circle of of of addiction or uh, I having early childhood trauma like you know a parent committing suicide or early, you know sexual abuse like some of these things how they manifest in someone's life is what we're seeing on the street.
And so look, I don't condone inappropriate behavior.
I needed to change me and I needed to step up and make that decision to change myself, but I didn't ask for having my dad died.
He didn't ask for having an abusive stepfather.
It was a lot of those things that were involuntary.
I didn't.
Right.
And so I think that when we look through the lens.
Of empathic curiosity.
Not only can we see people who are struggling, even though they're behaviors are challenging to us, we begin to see it through a different leadership lens.
And then I would challenge people to take that even further.
If you're in charge of people around you, getting them sort of work ready, getting them.
Yeah.
You know, leading and shaping hearts and minds is to see possibility to see what happened before that happened.
Because when we do that, we run a better.
Opportunity for us to actually be effective in our leadership, in our impact on other human beings as a parent, as a coach, as a health and safety professional, right.

Perley Brewer   14:44
When when you were living on the street, when you did look around, what did, what did you see?

Joe Roberts   14:49
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   14:51
How much to the other people around you?

Joe Roberts   14:54
Despair and hopelessness, and that is the same thing that I see.
I I see I've seen that in a group of bankers last week it it's everywhere now.

Perley Brewer   15:02
Yeah.

Joe Roberts   15:04
Hope and hopelessness and despair.
Because, look, human beings don't do well with uncertainty.
You know, I was in New York and I was working with the Poverty Action Group and all their money is funded by the by the feds and this, like, they don't know of 1000 agencies throughout the entire.
48 Continental states could disappear by the end of August.
These are organizations that have been doing great work in communities for over 60 years, so if you're an Ed or something working within that environment, how does that feel?
Feels scary, feels uncertain that there's a lot of despair going on, and that's because our senses are are, have been attacked with all of this challenge and change.
You know, we've got a I that's gonna change things we've got and then you go on social media and all that does is it just, you know, honestly, you just want to shut it off and have a drink.
It's just, there's just a lot of bad news out there, and so I think it's really incumbent upon individuals to know what, how that impacts them and to limit the exposure.
But to also acknowledge the humanness in that that's normal.
You we are not meant to deal with this level of tsunami change that we've experienced since first quarter of 2020.
It's been wave after wave after wave and the science on stress and burnt out burnout and Wellness and mental health is really clear.
More than six weeks of moderate to medium stress loads change challenge all these things that are going on begin to breakdown peoples mentally emotional state, right?
So what it felt like, I mean, what it felt like is that that maybe the circumstances were different.
But I could probably walk walk up to anybody on the street today and say, hey, what's going on for you these days?

Perley Brewer   17:00
Now.

Joe Roberts   17:05
And if they were able to get honest and authentic and transparent, they'd say, yeah, I'm.
I'm I'm a little anxious.

Perley Brewer   17:13
Now I I hear you very much Joe, one of the buzzwords these days and health and safety is psychological, health and safety.

Joe Roberts   17:21
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   17:21
It's it's a term that's used everywhere and and when I have just heard you talk about really what you're talking about is is just that it's psychological, health and safety and and so much change.
So many things happening now before we get into how you went about to change what, what sort of advice would you give at this point to dealing with so much going on around us?
You know you you talked about tuning out.

Joe Roberts   17:49
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   17:51
I'm retired so I have more time to spend on the Internet and watching TV news and so on.

Joe Roberts   17:53
M.

Perley Brewer   17:58
And you know, it's it's overwhelming.
It truly is as to everything going on around us, whether it's hit a course in the US that's that's a really big concern these days.
But here in Canada as well, everybody's worried.

Joe Roberts   18:10
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   18:11
Everybody's you say is concerned.
What's next?

Joe Roberts   18:14
Well the the the simple advice I would say is first of all I would say something before the advice and that is to understand that stress and and balance in psychological safety, we need to consider where do our energy drains and stress come from because stress comes in multiple forms.
A great example.
Um, OK, so I'll tell the example in a second.
We know that stress comes in forms and my, my, my business partner for 10 years was a psychologist.
He studied this and did a PhD on it.
So does recovery imbalance and so the different stressors in our life look like social, environmental, mental, emotional and physical.
So you think about a somebody who works in a factory, that the environment in that factory, the noise, if there's noise or there's that can be impactful if you drive to work in the winter, that environment drains energy, social can both drive energy up and drain us of energy, a new relationship, a new baby.
Good, but also takes a lot of energy out.
What are the mental stressors in our life?
What are the emotional stressors in our life?
And then the physical, oftentimes, Perley, when we think about psychological safety and Wellness and all these topics that we discussed, we talk about nutrition, we talk about sleep.
We talk about a day off, right?
Let's have a long weekend.
What do you do in the long weekend?
I go fishing, I go camping, I go hunting.
Whatever.
That's great.
The physical boxes stick, but what about the emotional?
What about the mental?
What about the environmental like going for a walk in the woods, going for before walk by the ocean, right?
So, so then the advice is is to catalog and take a look at those.
What are those five areas in my life and where am I deficient?
And that's where you begin to do small micro changes to get some agency back in ones life.
And so So what we're doing is we're not taking one giant innovative leap towards Wellness.
We're putting small little things into our life like micro bricks packing carrot sticks instead of eating a Big Mac.
Alright, not to bash on McDonald's, but you know, taking small cleaning back an extra 15 or 20 minutes of sleep right when we do that, we can look at what where is the deficiency and get it back to a place of balance so that we we don't slide down and find ourselves in the bottom end of that, that Wellness continuum because that's where all the scary stuff is.
That's the PTSD substance use disorder, anxiety, clinical depression and suicide ideation, and all those other things that can come from staying in that sustained low, low point.
So yeah.

Perley Brewer   21:08
So your your back, we're back to talking about you living on the street in Vancouver.

Joe Roberts   21:14
Hmm.

Perley Brewer   21:15
Something caused to change.

Joe Roberts   21:18
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   21:18
What was that that led to your change?

Joe Roberts   21:23
On a cold, rainy morning, I was beginning to descend into opiate withdrawal and I needed $10 and I walked into the bar across the street and I sold my boots and locked out in his December cold, wet, rainy.
And I remember feeling this, this level of despair.
And I had some really dark thoughts, and instead of acting on those, those those dark thoughts, I I said a little prayer and I asked for help.
And the next day, I walked into a Salvation Army soup kitchen.
They connected me with my mom and I ended up going back to Ontario.
I entered into a detox facility and then a full residential treatment program.
The thing is, is that that I understand is that the heaviest thing that I ever lifted in my life was my hand for help.
And there's so many people today who are silently suffering and their lives aren't as dragged out and hopeless as that.
And so they'll suffer in silence.
And sometimes the people sitting next to them at home don't even know the level of stuff that's going on in their head and heart, and and that the I live for years in that illusion of self sufficiency.
And I never asked for help, and sometimes it's hard for people to ask for help.
And so I say two things, if you can and reach your hand up and ask for help, do it, but also recognize there's people around you who may not be able to do that.
Try and create an opportunity for them to do that.
I started doing something during COVID where I'll text.
I have 5 male friends and I'll text him.
How you doing today?
Scale of one to 10.
That's it.
Do you get a text from me and be hey, Perley, it's Joe.
How you doing today?
Scale of one to 10.
That's it.
And if you're, if you're doing a two and you say I'm a two, I'll pick up the phone.
Say what's going on?
You wanna go to Timmy's for coffee right now?
Before I left the downtown east side just to finish that thought, I met a guy on a park bench.
His name was Gus, and the and I sat down beside him and I was dirty and disheveled.
And I remember he looked at me and he said, Joe, he said, Joe, you are a remarkable young man.
If you could deal with your homelessness and addiction, you could go out into the world and do something extraordinary, he said.
Joe, there's more to you than you could see.
And for the first time, and this happened about a week before I sold my boots, first time in my life.
Someone other than my mom and my daddy spoke to my possibility, even though the guy sitting beside him on that Duck Park bench was this dirty, disheveled, homeless kid.
He looked past how I was showing up in the world and he spoke to what my potential was, and I think one of the biggest takeaways in things I try to teach when I share this story is that we can all be like us to see possibility to be.
That's why I said curious and empathy what happened before that happened and encourage people.
And sometimes encouragement comes in the in the form of a tough conversation too.
It's not all slap on the back out of voice stuff.
It's hey, you need to change something, bud.
And and that that set me that sent me on on on the journey to where I am today.

Perley Brewer   24:34
Who helped you?
Who helped get you into the treatment?

Joe Roberts   24:43
Mom.

Perley Brewer   24:45
Your mother, which which?

Joe Roberts   24:45
Yeah.
When I was at the, she did not begged her for another chance.

Perley Brewer   24:47
She say to you.

Joe Roberts   24:51
It was.
I was ready at that point when I walked the next day when I walked into the Salvation Army without my boots, there was a guy there who knew me and he said, what do you want to do with your life?
I said I want to go to treatment.
I just am tired.
I don't wanna do this anymore.
I'm gonna die out of crimes, you know.
And so he said.
So we did an asset inventory, excuse me, an asset inventory.
I didn't know what that meant or what, but he, he said.
Who's in your corner right now?
That could help you.
And and the name that percolated to the top was mom, and I didn't want to call my mom.
I was ashamed.
I didn't.
I was not impressed with who I was at this point in my life and but he said call her moms.
Don't give up that easy.
And I called Mom and I said, will you help me?
She said.
Yeah, I will.
One last time, one last time, and flew out to Vancouver, scooped me up.
Got me into fought to get me into a detox and that led to a residential treatment program where I stayed for six months.
And then after that, I went to college out of treatment into college, and then graduated with honors.
And I went out into the business world and in less than 12 years, I went from a kid pushing a shopping cart to being on the cover of Canadian business as a celebrated entrepreneur.
So inside me, all that time was that potential, but I couldn't get there and that's why I say Perley, I'm here today because of the values that are represented in every single Safety professional, you know, and if it's those people in my life, then you invest in me.
I don't know if I would have made it off the 100 block East Hastings.

Perley Brewer   26:35
What would your mother say to you today?

Joe Roberts   26:39
She said don't knock on the door so hard.
I'm not deaf.
She's 83.
She's still alive.
She lives in Burnaby and she still drives.
So stay stay out of Burnaby.
But my mom's proud.
You know, I got a really good relationship with my mom.
I'm I'm blessed.
Not all people in long term recovery get this gift, but to have their parents see them.
Hmm, become something more than they were.

Perley Brewer   27:07
If have you had any challenges in your long term recovery?
Have you had any of those moments that whole boy you've wondered?

Joe Roberts   27:10
Out.
Yeah, lots and lots of lots of lots of bumps in the road.
I mean, just because you.

Perley Brewer   27:22
So have to.
So how do you?

Joe Roberts   27:25
Well, I have.
I'm still connected to the recovery community, so even though you know, I got decades of sobriety under my belt, I can have him.
I can have a tough day and I can get.
Jammed up and depressed or angry or anxious.
About the state of things in the world today.
But I have a toolbox and I have resources and I have people.
So I go, you know, I'm still very much a part of the recovery community.
And and I have mentors and friends that I can reach out to and say, hey, I'm not doing that great today and not every day.
Gonna be great.
I mean, this life is life on life terms and the The thing is, is the biggest crutch that I had that I used to deal with, you know, the icky feelings in life.
I I arrested that behavior years ago and so sometimes it feels the intensity of the feelings.
But I know that if I just sort of ride through that.
It's going to be OK.

Perley Brewer   28:36
So when 20 in 2016.
Yeah, yeah.
You started a push for change I, 9064 kilometers.

Joe Roberts   28:41
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   28:46
That was about that experience.

Joe Roberts   28:49
Well, I wanted to give back.
I sold my company and now I had time on my hands and I didn't have to go to work, but I wanted to take, you know, candidates given me more than I deserved.
You know, it really did.
I just have this extraordinary life and I wanted to amplify and raise the volume on what we could do to better protect kids.
You know most of the work places in this country are safer than high schools.
Not to fact kids go to school today and they get exposed to all kinds of stuff and drugs bullying gangs like you name it.
And so I said I wanna do something to support vulnerable kids.
Catch them before they end up.
You know out there pushing a shopping cart living under a blue tarp.
So we decided we'll push a symbol of homelessness across Canada and we'll raise money and and we'll raise awareness.
And I gotta tell you, when I reflect back, Atlantic Canada was where some of my fondest memories when when I came up we we went across Newfoundland, everything they see about Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders is true.
And then some, I'll tell you what, we had people pulling over to the side of the road, giving us moose meat.
It was just.
It was just hilarious, loved Newfoundland.
But then we got to we come across board of ask into Sydney, went over Sydney and down into Dartmouth, hit Halifax on Canada Day.
So we were in part of that big parade they have and then up to Touro, over to New Glasgow across PEI and then we hit New Brunswick and we hit mocked in.
Then when you hit fragmented and some of the best and biggest events that we had were our friends in and Freddie Beach.
That was another thing.
I'm walking around this town going where is the beach?
I see a river.
Where's why they call it Freddy Beach?
But and then we went down and seeing John and yeah, it was just, it was fantastic and Land Canada was warm and welcoming.
And we hit Quebec, but then we got to Ontario and I remember walking over the bridge and walking down to the bottom of the breeze.
There was like 1000 people, and there was Walter Gretzky.
You know, I was a kid who grew up watching waiting play for the Oilers.
Go Oilers.
Um, I having Walter come out and support us was amazing and I got to spend time with that icon of a man.
Beautiful, humble and memory leaned into me and I said, Walter, what would you tell me?
I'm I'm going to push my cart in the Northern Ontario in the winter.
Would any advice and he said don't quit and I was like, yeah, well, we had that mocked and I was, I was over for something.
Some Stanley Cup.
Kind of advice and he said.
Remember the kids?
And just in that very simple thing, he he pointed to the most important part of why we were doing this was to give kids that have all the possibility in the world a fighting chance to grow up and and and transition into adulthood.
So it was, I mean, it was just remarkable thing.
It took seventeen months, 11,375 thousand steps, 23 pairs of shoes, 22141 shots of espresso.

Perley Brewer   31:59
Yeah.

Joe Roberts   31:59
And and a 49 year old non athlete walking across the 2nd widest country on Earth.
It's amazing what you can do when you connect to to your sense of purpose and passion, and I think you know, if I was to then bring that back to the folks that are listening today is that sometimes when the world gets busy or we feel unwanted, unwelcomed unloved, because of the work that we do in the standards we uphold, it's it's to remember why we're doing it so that everybody gets to go home and that that's that's that's a that's a fight worth fighting, yeah.

Perley Brewer   32:36
So advice to our listeners, 3 areas that I'd like to get your feedback on and you've talked about them in, in a variety of ways already.
But just to maybe summarize in a way, overcoming obstacles in life.
What advice would you give to our listeners?
A lot of our listeners are health and safety professionals and just normal people that are trying to make a change, whether it's a change in their own life for the better or for change in the workplace.
But advice would you give me a minute and say a 3 minute if you had a 3 minute opportunity to overcome obstacles.

Joe Roberts   33:10
I think it's yeah to overcome obstacles.
Choose what you wanna do.
Choose your possibility and then get your feet moving.
Doctor Carol Dweck talks about growth versus fixed mindset.
When we keep our feet moving, we discover and meet all the things, opportunity and people and resources we need to be successful.
But it's doesn't feel good when you're walking in a storm or walking up a hill.
I didn't walk across Canada province at times, either step at a time, 11,000,000 steps.
You know, over over 17 months but but but get focused on what it what is it that I gotta do just today in order to move this hope, dream goal or aspiration and and understand that it's not always going to feel good to something to someone to show up in suit up and and get after it but it's that consistent action they'll eventually when you the prize.

Perley Brewer   34:03
Self motivation and you'll walk across Canada and those cold, cold winter days getting of the bed in the morning.
How did you motivate yourself, and what advice would you give for anyone on motivation?

Joe Roberts   34:17
Connect to a sense of passion and purpose.
The reason why you do the thing that you do if I was to workshop this with someone I would say write me a paragraph of why you do this, because a lot of people that are professions isn't about money.
It's not about getting a gold watch or fancy car.
It's about something more.
What is that?
And remember that when we're dealing with stress and outside stuff that's going on in the world, that gets tarnished.
So after a while, it's like our house has dirty windows.
Our light doesn't get out the light out there doesn't get in, but when we connect to a sense of purpose and passion, you'll get up at 4:00 in the morning, walk out and -40°, and you'll push that cart and you'll weather the storm.
Because if you're doing it for something bigger.

Perley Brewer   34:58
Now I hear you say that and I'm thinking, look, there must have been Days saying in Northern Ontario when it is so cold and yes, you know the purpose of what you're doing, what was what was going on in your mind during those those days and those times.

Joe Roberts   35:18
I there was Days where I wanted to give up where I was burnt out.
I wanted to pack it in um and I had various different things in resources, but I would remember the why.
For me it was two kids, Sydney and Cameron, both from Saskatchewan, who ended up in Vancouver at 17 years old, and for me it was like.
I want to do it for them and not you.
My ankle is sore, my knee is sore and it's cold out, but I made a commitment to do this.
And and so I would try to make it about something bigger than me.
You know, I I remember this guy I met in Austin, TX, he said.
Commitments, the willingness to carry through with the decision long after the mood in which it was created as gone.
And so when we commit to our jobs, our profession, our families, our communities.
Right, sometimes it's not a one time deal.
You don't just commit and it's done.
You know, in a marriage you gotta keep going back and working on that and and and keeping that vibrant, right?
Well, the same with our our profession and our purpose in life is to continue to, to spit and Polish that piece up.
It's it's never fun to go to the gym, but it always feels good when you're done.
And so at the end of those really tough days, there was always a sense of gratification.
I remember rounding the corner one day and in front of me was the Wawa goose on Hwy 17.
It was the middle of February and in that moment all the tough days that were behind me sort of washed away, cause I realized I just pushed a shopping cart halfway across Canada and halfway across Lake Superior in the winter.
If I can do that, I can do anything.
Now I didn't do it alone.
I also leaned on the support of others, so there's many different things that we can do, but connect to that purpose and passion and put your shoes on and get out there because action changes our emotional state.
Don't wait for your emotional state to change to take action.
It's never gonna happen.
You know, if you just wait to go to the gym when you feel like going to the gym, never gonna happen.
Lace up get after it.

Perley Brewer   37:33
Third topic, career advancement.
Obviously, you'll look at your story a tremendous the hey, you, where you've ended up from a career point of view and what advice could you give folks as far as career advancement or achieving their dreams?

Joe Roberts   37:50
I I think the first, the first and foremost thing is that I'm not special and and I have the same thing in me that the gust said about me is the same about all of us.
There's more on us than we can see.
You're never gonna find that part of yourself if you don't put yourself out there.
If you don't take a chance, a lot of the things I've done and in life is I took a risk before I was ready and through my hat in the ring, and I didn't always succeed but willing to take a risk in and and having that fundamental belief that there's more in me than I can see.
And if I do this, if I take that risk, if I take that chance, I mean, what do you got to lose?
What's the worst that can happen?
It doesn't work.
Someone says no.
Right.
Which we spend most of our lives, you know, trying to become something that we already are ready quipped, perfect, alright and and and the tragedy of life for for many people is that they it's not that it ends too soon.
It's that we wait too long to begin it, so don't wait till you feel ready.
Get after it and know that there's far more to you to any one.
Listen to this and I say this to myself.
That that we know and we won't, but I'm never gonna figure that out if I don't.
You know, I don't try.

Perley Brewer   39:16
So what's next for Joe?

Joe Roberts   39:19
Launch.

Perley Brewer   39:20
Lunch.
You've written four books.

Joe Roberts   39:24
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   39:24
Your speaker that's extremely sought after for many obviously good reasons, and he any sort of dreams yourself or any sort of thoughts.
And in the back of your head that something, perhaps that lies ahead.

Joe Roberts   39:39
I got a goal to impact a that 1,000,000 liters.
The lessons that I've learned in the walk across Canada and my story of transformation from homelessness to business success has a lot of teachable moments.
And the only thing that I want to do with with my life, Perley is, is to go spread an epidemic of self worth and to impact leaders.
You know, last year I spoke at a company, the $35 billion company and when I was done, the CEO came up to me and he said you may have had unintended consequences.
I said why?
He says.
I think my 10 years up here and I said, well, please don't tell the Board of directors that you listen to my speech and you're making this.
But what he was saying is he said I want to go out in the world and do something good.
Like I want like I've done good here, but I'm done here.
I need to now go on to the next.
That's what I wanna do is I wanna spark and and and and and light that fire a possibility in the hearts and minds of as many people as I can.
As far as walking across any more continents, I don't know.
I mean, I am an endurance athlete, so I like picking a fight with marathons and triathlons.
I did an Iron Man that was fun.
Well, not really, but I think mostly what I wanna do is just inspire people to see the world differently and spread that beautiful message that Gus gave me in a park bench.
You know, he spent 8 minutes 8 minutes with his.

Perley Brewer   41:03
Have you ever.

Joe Roberts   41:05
Let me finish the 8 minutes with me 8 minutes and I'm scared that message now with over 2 million people cause the other thing is I never got to go back and thank him and so that's that's it for me.
That's that.
If I can do that for the next 10/15/20 years, well, whatever amount of time God gives me, that's that's all I want to do.

Perley Brewer   41:26
Have you ever thought about climbing Mount Everest?

Joe Roberts   41:30
Now it's too crowded.

Perley Brewer   41:32
To grab.
Yeah.
Look, Joe.

Joe Roberts   41:34
I mean some of those things, some of those physical challenges, I really dig, but not Everest.
No, it's not on my list.

Perley Brewer   41:42
Look, Joe, before we finish off, I I couldn't have this podcast today with you.
Uh, when I look at your background and and where you've come?
I started off today's podcast and then I talked about how here in New Brunswick, whether it's in Fredericton, Moncton, Saint John, similar across Canada, there are so many people living on the streets.
So many people dealing with all kinds of addictions and other issues.
Uh municipalities, provincial governments, federal governments are all trying to come up with the approaches, solutions to the problem.
If you were to be able to do a presentation on what you believe would make a difference, what would you talk about in your presentation?

Joe Roberts   42:30
First of all, I did acknowledge that I'm a person with lived experience and not a scientist to behavioral scientist or a social planner.
There are people that are far better equipped to address that as a topic when it comes to policy, I can tell you from a personal perspective.
My success came because I had access to resources.
Resources that didn't just help me through the the week or the month, but the resources that set me up to be able to plateau out alright.
So access to housing, access to treatment, access to school.
Reintegrate back into the community and a member of society.
I think on a personal level, what what can we do?
We can support agencies that you know that that are that are trying to move the ball forward, but the to be honest, like I, I vastly between some of the different approaches out there and I think I'm just as baffled as as some of the executive directors showed the province that are across the country.
I think a long term solution needs to be implemented that looks at intervention transition and long term supports.
What can I do?
Personally, I can engage that person.
You know the guy down the street that I know you know his names?
Walter, there's another guy.
I know his name.
Smart when I'm able to.
I I I talked to them.
You know, it's more than a sandwich.
It's more than $5.
It's engagement.
And if you feel safe, it's it's to get to know someone's story.
Because man, when we begin to understand what happened before that happened, then and only then we can create long-term systemic change.
Um, but it's it's hard.
I mean, if you're a business in downtown Moncton or Fredericton and you're impacted by the Open House community, then it's really it's it's it's, it's a really hard thing.
Um and it's and I don't have an easy glib bumper sticker response to that.

Perley Brewer   44:50
Well, look, I I'd like to to finish Auto Podcast Joe by thanking you for taking the time to talk to her.

Joe Roberts   44:50
Yeah.

Perley Brewer   44:55
So I know you're extremely busy.
Your wisdom, and certainly the experiences you've gone through, Barry, transformative for yourself.
But obviously I think I have a great message for all of our listeners.
Thank you very much and for our listeners to our Podcast.

Joe Roberts   45:11
Thank you, Perley.

Perley Brewer   45:14
Stay safe.
We will talk to you again next week.