Nora Jenkins Townson is Founder of Bright + Early, An Unconventional HR Consultancy

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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:04] SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, a business visionary and welcome to Toronto's Podcasts.
[00:10] SPEAKER_00: Part of the Canada's podcast network, your source of the great insights from entrepreneurs
[00:15] SPEAKER_00: across Canada.
[00:16] SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to meet with Nora Jenkins Townsend, who is the founder of Brighton Early,
[00:22] SPEAKER_00: an unconventional HR consultancy that has helped some of them a successful start-ups skill.
[00:30] SPEAKER_00: So Nora, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:32] SPEAKER_00: They're great to see you.
[00:34] SPEAKER_00: Why don't we kick off by, you know, you're telling us a little bit about yourself and
[00:38] SPEAKER_00: what you do, you know, that kind of a two to five minute review of who Nora is?
[00:44] SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
[00:46] SPEAKER_01: I grew up as a hippie kid on a flower farm and I really wanted to move to the city and
[00:52] SPEAKER_01: work in advertising.
[00:53] SPEAKER_01: And what I found, you know, when I reached that, you know, mythical world of work was that
[01:00] SPEAKER_01: a lot of things were really a mess.
[01:02] SPEAKER_01: You know, people didn't enjoy where they were spending their nine to five and, you know,
[01:06] SPEAKER_01: I really wanted to make that better.
[01:08] SPEAKER_01: So many people fall into HR, but I'm one of those people who got into it on purpose.
[01:13] SPEAKER_01: I went back to school, studied in, you know, that area.
[01:17] SPEAKER_01: And my dream was always to be on the employee experience side of things.
[01:22] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, all those things that we think of as bad experiences that work like, you
[01:27] SPEAKER_01: know, the hiring process or the onboarding process or performance reviews.
[01:32] SPEAKER_01: I wanted to make all of those things better and oriented towards personal growth.
[01:37] SPEAKER_01: I've been in the HR tech, the HR space for about 10 plus years now.
[01:41] SPEAKER_01: I've been saying that for a while, so it made me time for an update.
[01:46] SPEAKER_01: And I've always been on that creative side.
[01:48] SPEAKER_01: So, at agencies, creative areas, and then many years in tech.
[01:53] SPEAKER_01: So I spent a long time at FreshBooks, which is kind of like an early tech darling in Toronto.
[02:01] SPEAKER_01: And I was also an early hire at Wealth Simple, where I headed up everything people there.
[02:06] SPEAKER_01: And from there, I started Brighton Early, which is my current venture.
[02:11] SPEAKER_01: So, Brighton Early works with growing scaling businesses, usually between 10 and, you know,
[02:17] SPEAKER_01: 150 people on staff.
[02:21] SPEAKER_01: And we help them build absolutely everything along that people journey.
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: And from a lens of, you know, creating an amazing employee experience.
[02:29] SPEAKER_01: And also keeping an eye on, you know, making sure those processes are inclusive.
[02:33] SPEAKER_01: So, we're currently a team of five and we work with clients all over North America.
[02:39] SPEAKER_00: You worked with Wealth Simple, you worked with FreshBooks.
[02:42] SPEAKER_00: Why are you being an entrepreneur?
[02:45] SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a great company.
[02:47] SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to put us sort of wire differently.
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: You know, why did you move out from such great companies?
[02:54] Speaker UNKNOWN: You know.
[02:55] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. So really just the opportunity to continue to build.
[02:59] SPEAKER_01: So, as I mentioned, at Wealth Simple, I was a pretty early employee.
[03:03] SPEAKER_01: So, everything around, you know, recruiting or HR hadn't been built yet.
[03:07] SPEAKER_01: And we needed to scale super, super quickly.
[03:10] SPEAKER_01: So, we hired, you know, over 100 people in that first year that I was there.
[03:15] SPEAKER_01: And you can't just put, you know, dump 100 people into a company and expect them to succeed
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: without the kind of scaffolding there of good processes.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: So, we needed to create an amazing recruiting experience,
[03:27] SPEAKER_01: create an amazing onboarding experience.
[03:30] SPEAKER_01: And like everything along that line, we needed to make sure that people were growing.
[03:34] SPEAKER_01: We suddenly had a lot of new managers.
[03:36] SPEAKER_01: So, there was just so much to build.
[03:38] SPEAKER_01: And I'm really a builder.
[03:40] SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we got to a point there where, you know,
[03:42] SPEAKER_01: I had a team that I was managing.
[03:44] SPEAKER_01: And my role was a little different.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: So, we were opening in London and New York at the time.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: I was doing a lot of traveling.
[03:52] SPEAKER_01: And my role was more on like the management side of things.
[03:58] SPEAKER_01: And I really am a builder.
[04:00] SPEAKER_01: So, even though, you know, I was so happy with the company and so happy to,
[04:05] SPEAKER_01: you know, be a part of something so awesome that, you know, continued to build great things.
[04:10] SPEAKER_01: I found myself unhappy with that particular role.
[04:13] SPEAKER_01: And I have a really strong relationship with Well Simple's founder, Michael Kachin,
[04:18] SPEAKER_01: who's just an amazing guy.
[04:19] SPEAKER_01: You know, you can't find a single person in the world to say a bad thing about him or working with him.
[04:24] SPEAKER_01: And we had a lot of kind of heart to heart discussions over it.
[04:27] SPEAKER_01: And he said, you know, Nora, you're a builder.
[04:30] SPEAKER_01: And I figured if I went to a different company and helped that through that same building phase,
[04:35] SPEAKER_01: the same, if I did my job well, the same thing would happen to me over and over.
[04:39] SPEAKER_01: So, I wanted to have the biggest impact.
[04:41] SPEAKER_01: I wanted to work with as many companies as possible to help them through this really tough and
[04:46] SPEAKER_01: challenging step of like, I want to be a good place to work.
[04:50] SPEAKER_01: And I'm growing really fast.
[04:51] SPEAKER_01: Like, please help me.
[04:53] SPEAKER_01: You know, I also just kind of wanted to see into a lot of different companies
[04:56] SPEAKER_01: and how they make decisions as well.
[04:58] SPEAKER_01: You know, one of my, you know, life career dreams is to stumble upon, you know,
[05:03] SPEAKER_01: the magic formula that no one's found yet as to, you know, what makes an incredible company
[05:08] SPEAKER_01: that's really productive and really happy.
[05:11] SPEAKER_01: And starting bright and early gave me lots of chances to look into that.
[05:15] SPEAKER_00: You say you're a builder, so you're an ideas person.
[05:18] SPEAKER_00: Some of our best ideas come and release, expect them.
[05:22] SPEAKER_00: How do you, you know, disconnect, reach out?
[05:25] SPEAKER_00: How do you get inspired?
[05:26] SPEAKER_00: I mean, is it, do you have a, a processor?
[05:28] SPEAKER_00: Is it just like completely random?
[05:31] SPEAKER_01: We have a really good process for doing that as a team right now.
[05:35] SPEAKER_01: So we really want to think outside the HR box of, you know,
[05:38] SPEAKER_01: how things have been done before.
[05:40] SPEAKER_01: So we have a time every week where we're, and also a channel and Slack focused on inspiration.
[05:46] SPEAKER_01: So we bring inspiration, whether it's through outside speakers or, you know,
[05:51] SPEAKER_01: one of us doing research or reading a book and, you know, bringing it back to us.
[05:54] SPEAKER_01: And we've looked into things like service design, design thinking.
[05:59] SPEAKER_01: We use a lot of that.
[06:01] SPEAKER_01: We're looking these days, you know, into, you know, how do societies, you know,
[06:07] SPEAKER_01: that are successful or range themselves?
[06:09] SPEAKER_01: Like we're trying to take inspiration from Indigenous cultures, etc.
[06:12] SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of it is about like how people organize in a way that's like harmonious and productive.
[06:17] SPEAKER_01: And we're trying to think kind of like outside of, of work for ideas that could be applied.
[06:23] SPEAKER_01: But we're always looking at, you know, what other companies around the world and, you know,
[06:26] SPEAKER_01: other countries are doing.
[06:27] SPEAKER_01: Just trying to look beyond like the norm of our lens and our bubble that we live in,
[06:32] SPEAKER_01: and bringing those back and seeing if we can take some lessons.
[06:35] SPEAKER_00: I don't want to make this a COVID thing, particularly.
[06:38] SPEAKER_00: But I mean, maybe we should just, you know, you're in the HR end of things,
[06:44] SPEAKER_00: in the tech side of things as well.
[06:46] SPEAKER_00: What have you seen change in the last 90 days kind of thing?
[06:51] SPEAKER_01: Well, the big, the big obvious one is remote work.
[06:54] SPEAKER_01: You know, working in tech, there are a lot of companies that we work with that.
[06:57] SPEAKER_01: We're already remote friendly, but surprisingly a lot of them, you know,
[07:00] SPEAKER_01: when they are in that hyper growth and building stage, a lot of them actually were pretty staunch
[07:04] SPEAKER_01: on working from an office.
[07:06] SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of tech folks like investors, VCs, things like that are pretty adamant that,
[07:12] SPEAKER_01: okay, you know, you have to be able to have those, you know, in-person run-ins in the office.
[07:17] SPEAKER_01: And you need to be able to tap someone on the shoulder to be able to build really quickly.
[07:22] SPEAKER_01: And so we actually did have a number of clients who, while otherwise quite forward thinking,
[07:27] SPEAKER_01: we're not open to doing any remote work or working from home.
[07:31] SPEAKER_01: And they've really kind of come around on that now.
[07:34] SPEAKER_01: Some of them are actually, you know, becoming huge advocates for it because they just kind of
[07:39] SPEAKER_01: hadn't tried it and needed to tweak their processes. So I think that pivot,
[07:44] SPEAKER_01: there's obviously a lot of challenges around that as well, like making sure that people are,
[07:49] SPEAKER_01: you know, engaged, you know, how do we measure someone's success without, you know, seeing their
[07:56] SPEAKER_01: butt in a chair at work? And that's something we already should have been doing because they could
[08:00] SPEAKER_01: be doing anything in that chair, not necessarily working. And of course, lately, there's also,
[08:06] SPEAKER_01: you know, a lot of folks having to deal with childcare on top of working. So there's a lot of
[08:10] SPEAKER_01: conversations around that and what's broken there. And then also the Black Lives Matter movement,
[08:17] SPEAKER_01: you know, resurfacing at this time and, you know, a lot of pressure on employers on, you know,
[08:23] SPEAKER_00: how they're going to engage in that. You know, without giving too much away, you mean,
[08:28] SPEAKER_00: what's your vision? What's sort of the opportunity in your particular industry over the next,
[08:34] SPEAKER_00: you know, let's not say five years, that's the way to the next three years kind of thing.
[08:41] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think that there's an opportunity to build a new way of how we think about designing
[08:48] SPEAKER_01: companies and kind of a new vision of HR. So I think there's still a lot of folks that think that,
[08:54] SPEAKER_01: you know, it is focused on, you know, paper pushing and rulemaking and policy writing.
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: These days, you know, again, as we're seeing from the current movement, you know, people want to
[09:05] SPEAKER_01: buy from companies that treat their employees well, that have, you know, a heart that are diverse.
[09:11] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, there's just the stakes are so much higher and companies with those factors,
[09:16] SPEAKER_01: companies that are diverse, companies that, you know, have great employee engagement, they just
[09:19] SPEAKER_01: perform better. So I think our opportunity is to kind of find the perfect formula and be able to
[09:28] SPEAKER_01: scale that. So that's kind of our ultimate vision of, you know, working with all these incredible
[09:32] SPEAKER_01: companies, you know, what are the top ways that, you know, these incredible companies can be built,
[09:38] SPEAKER_01: and then, you know, what can we share about that? Can we scale it, you know, beyond just consulting?
[09:44] SPEAKER_01: Can, you know, is there a vision there? So I think that's what we're moving towards.
[09:49] SPEAKER_01: And an inspiration for us there is like the design thinking firm, Idao. So they really, like,
[09:57] SPEAKER_01: when you think about, you know, the process of design thinking, you think about Idao, if you want
[10:02] SPEAKER_01: something, you know, designed at a top level, you go to them. And, you know, if you're trying to
[10:09] SPEAKER_01: build something, you know, internally, you may go to them for consulting expertise on that design
[10:14] SPEAKER_01: thinking methodology. So I guess we kind of want to be like the idea of HR, they're thought of
[10:20] SPEAKER_00: like very forward thinking as well. What's the greatest challenge you've, you've faced today
[10:25] SPEAKER_00: in the business? Is it this last 90 days or is it? Yeah, I mean, it's been, it's been, you know,
[10:32] SPEAKER_01: at tough few months for sure. I think a lot of it is just like the uncertainty of the first little
[10:38] SPEAKER_01: while. So, you know, not knowing, you know, is the business going to continue to do well through
[10:43] SPEAKER_01: this? Like, are these companies that, you know, we've been advising and kind of shepherding, like,
[10:48] SPEAKER_01: are they going to be okay? Are the people around us going to be okay? So just that uncertainty,
[10:52] SPEAKER_01: and then from a leadership perspective on my team, you know, I have folks who are, you know,
[10:58] SPEAKER_01: really caring and having to be like in that leadership position. And I think all of us are who,
[11:04] SPEAKER_01: you know, run companies or manage anyone during this time. It's really tough to, you know,
[11:10] SPEAKER_01: when you don't know, to be able to, you know, keep up and inspire that confidence in people. And,
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: you know, how much, if I'm worried, how much do I show that? Would it worry them more or is
[11:22] SPEAKER_01: transparency better? So I think I went through a lot of thinking on that and so did a lot of,
[11:28] SPEAKER_01: a lot of leaders that I know. And in the end, I went with, you know, transparency overall,
[11:35] SPEAKER_01: so kind of like sharing my feelings and worries and thoughts, but not in a way that kind of
[11:40] SPEAKER_01: bent into venting, like, if I felt like I had to do something like that, I would go to someone else.
[11:45] SPEAKER_00: When you're faced with these kind of challenges, is there a, if you kind of got a process that you
[11:51] SPEAKER_00: use to overcome them or do you just, or do you just meet, you know, meet them head on one at a time,
[11:57] SPEAKER_01: kind of thing? I don't know if I have a perfect answer for that. I tend to be really motivated by,
[12:05] SPEAKER_01: you know, protecting other people. So for me, it was, you know, oh, I have to do, do right by these,
[12:10] SPEAKER_01: these companies that I serve, you know, for my amazing team, things like that. So I'm kind of like
[12:15] SPEAKER_01: playing, like blocker on things. So, you know, that really motivates me as, you know,
[12:22] SPEAKER_01: keeping other people safe and, you know, solving problems for them, but you have to take time
[12:27] SPEAKER_01: for self-care as well. So, you know, recently we've gotten the go ahead from the province to expand
[12:34] SPEAKER_01: our personal bubbles. So I have expanded that to the flower farm where I grew up on and
[12:41] SPEAKER_01: where there was a flower farm. They're up outside of Eurelia. Yeah, you can buy wild flower
[12:46] SPEAKER_01: seats from them. Wildflower farm. That's what they're called. And yeah, so I've been going up there
[12:53] SPEAKER_01: with my husband and son and dog just for, you know, a few days at a time back and forth. And
[12:59] SPEAKER_01: that's been great for my mental health, for sure. So like, reconnecting with nature.
[13:03] SPEAKER_00: Let's move on to some kind of lessons learned. If you could go back in time,
[13:08] SPEAKER_01: what advice would you give your 20-year-old self? Oh boy. Just that it's going to be okay. I mean,
[13:15] SPEAKER_01: you know, I'm not one of those people that had their life together at 20. I went through a lot
[13:21] SPEAKER_01: of challenges when I was younger with mental health and a few other things. And you know,
[13:30] SPEAKER_01: it took many years to get to a point where I am and I love that I'm able to kind of provide us
[13:40] SPEAKER_01: like a safe haven of a great place to work and help other people create that too. So that's kind of
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: my work in the world. But I would say, yeah, just hold on. Things are going to get better.
[13:54] SPEAKER_01: And like maybe maybe make some better dating choices. I don't know. It's not that kind of show.
[14:00] SPEAKER_00: But yeah, it's okay. What advice would you give an entrepreneur, you know, looking to start a
[14:06] SPEAKER_00: business? Well, let's be specific in Toronto or GTH, GTH, really. Yeah. So two things. One's more
[14:17] SPEAKER_01: on the general entrepreneur side and one's on the HR side. So even if it's just you and you're solo,
[14:23] SPEAKER_01: like really invest in a good accountant. You know, one thing that I learned is that, you know,
[14:29] SPEAKER_01: accounting isn't accounting isn't accounting. There are kind of scale, like I think if it is a
[14:34] SPEAKER_01: scale of like one to 10 in terms of where an accountant lies risk wise. So 10 is like Wild West Cowboy,
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: like you're probably going to get audited. And like one is like literally works for the government.
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Understand that. You know, I made a, you know, a few mistakes around that that were
[14:52] SPEAKER_01: like pretty costly that I ended up fixing later. So yeah, do your taxes work with, like just pay
[14:59] SPEAKER_01: for a really good accountant. Just do it. It'll come back to you in spades. And when you're hiring,
[15:05] SPEAKER_01: when it's ready to, when you're ready to expand your team, have a vision for what kind of place
[15:10] SPEAKER_01: you want to build in terms of like what it's like to work there, even if it's just one person. So,
[15:15] SPEAKER_01: you know, your mission and, you know, what you're trying to build as a company will, you know,
[15:19] SPEAKER_01: be attractive and hiring. But so will that vision of, you know, what kind of employer you want to be.
[15:24] SPEAKER_01: And there's small things that you can put in place from the very beginning. Also, don't just
[15:28] SPEAKER_01: hire your friends or the first person you know that can complete the task that you haven't
[15:33] SPEAKER_01: hand. That can be a rough thing to go through. I see a lot of startups go through that. It seems
[15:38] SPEAKER_01: like overkill, but, you know, write out a real job description, ask everyone the same questions,
[15:44] SPEAKER_01: put your posting out there, put it in a lot of like diverse different places. Go through,
[15:48] SPEAKER_01: you know, even if you get 200 applications, go through all of them and really make a process there.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, evaluate people equally on that, you know, those questions that you design.
[15:59] SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people, you know, want to work with their friends and they fall in love with that idea.
[16:04] SPEAKER_01: Or they, you know, fall in love with somebody's like personality or just enthusiasm. Or they feel like,
[16:10] SPEAKER_01: hey, I'm early on I should kind of take what I can get. I think those are not so great.
[16:16] SPEAKER_01: So definitely have that hiring process. Another important lesson that I learned is, again,
[16:21] SPEAKER_01: taking it back to it's going to be okay is sticking with your values as an entrepreneur. So,
[16:28] SPEAKER_01: there was a time, you know, when I first started out, you was just me. I didn't know like how many
[16:34] SPEAKER_01: bookings I would get. I don't know how many clients would, you know, so it was kind of a, okay,
[16:39] SPEAKER_01: I'll take what I can get it first because I was coming from a place of fear. And, you know,
[16:43] SPEAKER_01: there was one particular company and CEO that, you know, I took an assignment with. I didn't vet
[16:48] SPEAKER_01: them enough for value alignment, which is something I do very heavily now. Like, what kind of company do
[16:53] SPEAKER_01: you want to build? What do you value? Like, who do you want to be like? So I didn't do enough of that.
[16:57] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I showed up on that first day and it was just so not aligned. Like, there was
[17:03] SPEAKER_01: totally a culture of fear or, you know, it was all cubicles. Nobody spoke to each other. I found out
[17:09] SPEAKER_01: that they had been through like so many different service providers before and didn't take any of their
[17:13] SPEAKER_01: advice. And I didn't go back after that day. You know, I wrote them a very polite email and offered
[17:18] SPEAKER_01: to introduce them to other suppliers. But, you know, for me, it was the lesson there was find
[17:25] SPEAKER_01: partners and clients that really, really align with your values at the core. And don't just take
[17:32] SPEAKER_01: on any work that comes your way because the more value aligned work that you take on, the more
[17:38] SPEAKER_01: will be attracted your way. And that's the reputation you'll build. That's your advice to people.
[17:45] SPEAKER_00: You know, what's the best piece of advice that you've ever received? You know, the one you carry
[17:49] SPEAKER_00: around and it's always there in the back of your mind. You know, my favorite piece of advice that
[17:55] SPEAKER_01: I got was about horizons. A lot of the, you know, when you're standing in a place that you are,
[18:01] SPEAKER_01: you know, in your career or anything that you're building, you see one horizon and, you know,
[18:06] SPEAKER_01: you keep going towards that horizon. But once you reach that one, you're going to see a new one
[18:10] SPEAKER_01: and a new one and a new one. And just keep going for that horizon. You don't necessarily,
[18:16] SPEAKER_01: you're not able to know five, 10 years down the road what it's going to look like. But just like
[18:21] SPEAKER_01: when you get there, see the next one. For me, that says a lot because I think a lot of people are
[18:26] SPEAKER_01: searching for something to be really passionate about, like, you know, in their careers, like they're
[18:32] SPEAKER_01: kind of wandering around waiting for passion to hit them over the head. But I think passion comes
[18:37] SPEAKER_01: from mastery a lot of the time. And you have to see a few horizons before you can get into the
[18:42] SPEAKER_01: complex details of something and get really passionate about it. So I think about that a lot.
[18:46] SPEAKER_01: I went to a really awesome training by my friends at Ross Signal Group. They do like manager and boss
[18:53] SPEAKER_01: training called better boss. And one of the last activities after learning for a few days was to
[18:59] SPEAKER_01: write a postcard to ourselves to remind ourselves of, you know, a business lesson or something that
[19:04] SPEAKER_01: we've really learned and wanted to remind ourselves of. And they would mail it to us later. And I
[19:08] SPEAKER_00: just drew that horizon. Some quick questions, rapid fire questions, I can tell you, Paul.
[19:14] SPEAKER_01: Are you a morning or a night person? I'm morning now that I have a toddler.
[19:21] SPEAKER_01: He forces me.
[19:23] SPEAKER_00: You had to make one word to describe yourself. What would it be and why?
[19:27] SPEAKER_01: To natious. Because I've been through a lot and, you know, I don't give up. I always see the
[19:34] SPEAKER_01: positive side of things. If something goes wrong, I find a way around it and to keep going.
[19:39] SPEAKER_00: That's a common one in entrepreneurs. What book are you currently reading?
[19:44] SPEAKER_01: I'm currently reading how to be an anti-racist. We are doing a book club with a VAT with the author's
[19:50] SPEAKER_00: discussion questions on our team. What's keeping you up at night? Apartment toddler.
[19:57] SPEAKER_01: That's an interesting question. I think Sam answer as the book. You know, I've been going through
[20:03] SPEAKER_01: a lot of learning in the past few weeks. I'm someone who's always kind of identified as like,
[20:08] SPEAKER_01: hey, I'm an ally when it comes to issues on race. I think what I'm realizing is that you can't
[20:15] SPEAKER_01: really be an ally. You can get comfortable in that identity and stop learning. I think you can
[20:22] SPEAKER_01: make actions that are either an ally ship or not. What you can do is choose to make those actions
[20:28] SPEAKER_01: over and over and keep learning. I'm doing a lot of learning around that right now, like a lot of
[20:33] SPEAKER_00: people. Last but not least, I don't know whether you listen to the end of any of the podcast,
[20:39] SPEAKER_00: but there's we have a tropical island question which seems very nice. There's nobody. None of us can
[20:45] SPEAKER_00: go there at the moment. So there's a small tropical island which we can take you to with only one
[20:51] SPEAKER_00: phone booth and no internet. We drop you off with no technology. At any time you can use the phone
[20:57] SPEAKER_00: on the island to call a boat to come and pick you up. How long do you last before making the phone call?
[21:04] SPEAKER_01: And what would you do until then? Probably a week. Knowing comfortably that I would be able to make
[21:14] SPEAKER_01: a phone call and leave, I could stay for a couple of weeks. I'd be able to call my family and
[21:19] SPEAKER_01: tell them that I was cool. I think I would actually try to really do the whole thing, pretending
[21:30] SPEAKER_01: you're stranded thing. Because I think everyone's curious about how they would survive in a situation
[21:35] SPEAKER_01: like that. We don't often get to actually play that out. So I would try. I would build a shelter.
[21:43] SPEAKER_01: I would scour the island for supplies and plants and things like that. I'm pretty good with plants
[21:50] SPEAKER_01: because of where I grew up. So I have some foraging skills. I would build a shelter. I would build a
[21:56] SPEAKER_01: fire. So I'd try invocation like that for a couple of weeks, but if I ever got really hungry,
[22:02] SPEAKER_00: I can always call. That's great. Thank you very much for the interview. It's been really fun.
[22:10] SPEAKER_00: Our listeners and viewers often want to connect with people. So how can listeners find you online?
[22:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah. The best way to connect with me is probably on Twitter or via email. So you can check out
[22:25] SPEAKER_01: Brightonerly at Brightonerly.ca or you can follow me on Twitter at NoraJKS.
[22:32] SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Nora. And thanks for coming on to Canada's podcast. Really appreciate it.
[22:37] SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Phil. Thanks for having me. Thanks everyone for taking the time today to listen to Toronto's
[22:42] SPEAKER_00: podcast on the Canada's podcast network. I hope you enjoyed the podcast today. Make sure you sign
[22:48] SPEAKER_00: up for a news service or write a review for us on iTunes. You can connect with us on Twitter,
[22:54] SPEAKER_00: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or at CanadaSpodcast.com where you can listen, discover and engage.
[23:01] SPEAKER_00: You can also check out what other entrepreneurs are doing across the country. We'll see you next time.