The Importance of Love & Irreverence

"I am carrying all my hatred and contempt for power, its laws, its authority, its society, and I have no room for guilt or fear of punishment." – Diego Rios, Chilean Anarchist

 I stumbled upon Rios’ quote in my last year of University, tying together a blog piece by Mandy Hiscocks, an activist who spent much of 2012 in jail for her activity in the G20 protests. Since then, it has remained a staple in my thinking, whether it be a disdain for corrupt power, a desire to eradicate and change systems, or the unquenchable need to create anew: I have never had room for guilt, nor fear.

Rules are made to be broken.

It has constantly reminded me why it’s important to be a shit disturber – and to make my irreverent characteristics work for me, and to use them to do good. Shit disturbing has been my best quality as a marketer – when used properly, with love and compassion.

But first, I need to back it up a bit.

How did I get so fucking irreverent? As an undergrad, I engaged with fringe societies, traveling to Montreal for the Carré Rouge protests, bussing to New York for Occupy celebrations and sleeping in parks. I studied critical politics, closely investigating the happenings of the day through a critical gender lens, with a precise focus on the political events of the late 2010’s. I incorporated my learnings from these radical groups and my academic critical investigations of power dynamics into my daily life.

Throughout my education and working life, I have steadily climbed a ladder of radical and critical thought, rather than a corporate ladder.   

At the start of the Occupy movement (following the 2008 harsh economic downturn), the prospects of real social and global change ignited a passion for causes I had cared for my whole life.  I organized, I wrote, I volunteered, I worked.  I investigated the limits of societal comfort to expand the human capacity for fairness and just systems.

I have always known about the power of words and the power of an impassioned few, from a young age.

When I reflect back, I realize that my irreverence and ability to disrupt the shit didn’t start only after I got a fancy education. It started long ago.

From my earliest work experience, I knew normal power structures weren’t going to work for me.  In my first job at age 14, I was sweeping popcorn and selling movie tickets, and seeing free movies whenever I wanted. I was told any normal 14-year-old would leap at working at the local movie theatre. Then I happened across Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto and it provided a language to identify what I deemed unfair processes that alienated myself and my colleagues -  all of us, young teenagers from low-income and immigrant families - from our labour and its profits. I brought this language to my workplace and colleagues. We threatened to strike and begin a union for fair treatment, just wages, and non-exploitative work with unprejudiced chances for advancement.

I was banned from the property for five years. 

Later I became a student of Critical Sexuality Studies at York University and worked to disrupt the structures of “space” within the university. I organized campus Feminist Porn Film Festivals and panel discussions on HIV and AIDS stigmatization. I founded a bursary for sex workers in academia and published the University’s first queer zine, ‘Grey Zone’. I became accustomed to conceiving bold, new ideas and bringing them to life, while getting other students engaged and active. 

I have always been compelled to call others to action and to create change. It has always been important to me to question, to dismantle, and to eventually recreate.

Hearing of my work with the York University Wendy Babcock Bursary Award, Maggie’s Sex Workers Action Project called me for an Indiegogo fundraising campaign in 2014 to increase their street-workers safety, while raising general awareness, and fighting Bill C-36, a Bill detrimental to their workers’ safety. Avoiding the pitfalls of any regular A-B campaign, I took risks and aimed high: I gained the support of one of the adult entertainment industry’s most notoriously outspoken performers. The campaign went viral across Canada, the US and Europe, and raised more than 130% of its fundraising goal. 

People in the media caught wind of our work, and important spokespeople from Maggie’s argued the Bill on television.

At that time, Bill C-36 failed to passed.

In 2015, a film studio offered me an internship in their Canadian office. It was difficult for me to understand the complexities of corporate life – there were so many things left unsaid, untouched, undiscussed within corporate culture. Corporate life felt like swimming in a fishbowl while no one would acknowledge that we were indeed just fish. I engaged with my work as best as I could. Invariably, I came up against superiors with my big ideas and plans. One or two big ideas, from the part-time intern, is good. But when will they give up and just pack boxes? Eventually, I burned out.

I left and began working with documentary films – I felt as if my creative contributions would be able to drive positive change in the world. Bringing awareness to important issues was always important to me. I felt like I had placed myself in a sea of other shit disturbers, their method was film, mine was marketing and publicity. With this newfound position at a documentary festival organization, I worked with my team to bring awareness to all of the films we were working with. With my guidance, we launched a new video campaign across North America. It was a record-breaking year for the marketing team.

But, my spirit felt quiet. Dampened. Constricted. There had to be more.

After multiple working experiences that taught me the value of my own skills as an innovative strategist and systems designer, I decided to launch my own business. As time had gone on in my career, I started to feel as though I wasn’t contributing to a changing world. The positive changes that I wanted to see in the world weren’t happening. I had given up my disruptive and rebellious nature to try to fit into a corporate culture that didn’t fit.

I shook the poorly fitting corporate clothes from me and launched into the next phase of my career, one that would also be my longest job yet: CEO and founder of AlphaPR.  

I started a publicity agency in Toronto based solely on both my shit disturbing nature, and my capacity for compassion and empathy – a deadly but gentle mix, in my opinion.

At the forefront of my work with Alpha was always the desire to bring historically marginalized stories to the masses. I used my clout and connections from my time at big studios and with popular festivals, to help women, survivors, queer folks, and creators of colour tell their stories – through film, through art, through books and music.

It was an exceptionally fulfilling time. I never faltered on my convictions, and my morals.

Over time, I softened. I have learned that, with irreverence, must come compassion and gentleness. I have had to do so without fear.

In a world where it is imperative to act with conviction, even if and especially when I am disrupting the status quo, I have to be unflinching as well with my gentleness.

I have to be unforgiving with my kindness.

I can rebel, I can question, I can challenge. I can do so without guilt.

But I must love. And I must love without fear.

Being An Addict Made Me A Better Business Woman.

I always tell people I have lived two lives in one: one of a drunk; one on the other side of addiction. 

I was just over a year sober when I first started working in the entertainment industry. There were glitzy parties all the time, and glamorous film junkets to put together: networking, film festivals, mega stars and talent visiting from all over the world, including Hollywood. People in this industry worked hard and they played hard. 

I hid my recovery and my sobriety like it was something to be ashamed of, I thought - no, I knew, that it would be a major damper on my career in a star-studded, drug and alcohol fuelled industry. 

Once, at a party at a festival in Toronto, a loving co-worker suggested "I might want to leave" as the evening began to turn. She was right. There's always a point in the evening when, as a sober person, your tolerance for being around people who are drinking fades. People begin to spill drinks. Their words slur. Everyone is a VIP and they no longer want to hide it. Your tolerance fades fast.

I was 25 when I started in the industry and I was just getting my feet wet. The last thing I wanted was the be branded as ‘different from other workers’, let alone a liability. My sobriety made me more reliable, I thought, more trust worthy. Didn't it? But it also made me a black sheep: Why aren't you toasting at the office Christmas party? Where is your champagne? No wine at the lunch meeting?

At almost a decade into my recovery I've come to learn a few things about alcoholics and addicts - myself included in this category. We are resilient, resourceful, feisty, and rebellious. It just depends on what side of the journey you're on in order for these qualities to be deemed good or bad. When we are deep in our cups, these qualities wreak havoc on those around us. We ruin relationships and lives. 

When I started my small business at the age of 27 - in my 5th year of recovery, all of the qualities I picked up in my years of surviving as an addict, and that I was able to really practice in my recovery from alcoholism became incredibly useful. My bandwidth for stress? Massive. My resourcefulness? Ask me to find something, I will. No money? Don’t worry, we will get it. It was all the qualities of me as addict: resourceful, rebellious, feisty, head-strong, that I was able to put to good use.

I made my alcoholic qualities work for me.

It doesn't hurt that I've seen shady "business deals" on the streets - I can now spot them a mile away, even in a boardroom.

On the other side of recovery, I also began to grow my spiritual life. This has undoubtedly aided in developing my business with values of integrity and grace. Flexing my spiritual muscle daily - from spiritual readings, to daily meditations (which have been ongoing now for almost ten years), to grounding myself and my business in my spiritual values and integrity, has helped me to form the basis of my business, and all the relationships that have flourished from it.

None of this would have been possible had I never been a drunk who had hit their bottom.

Being a drunk taught me survival and resilience in struggle. Recovery taught me integrity and faith. No money in the bank? I had a reliance in the universe that everything was going to work out. That next business deal is around the corner. Not sure this meeting will go well? Suit up. Show up. Put your best foot forward and bring a bucket of unconditional love. Someone screwed you over? Well, pray that they find peace and contentment… That one is still hard sometimes. 

What I thought to be a big burden in life, my decade-long, black-out drinking career, has become one of my greatest benefactors in business. Being a recovering alcoholic and addict has widened my lens in life. While I may be rebellious and resilient, my capacity for vulnerability continually grows; I am able to connect with a wide range of people from a vast background of experiences and places; I can hold space for pain and art and openness more than had I not had the experiences I have had in this life so far. 

Being an addict robbed me of ten years of my youth and early adult life.

But recovery has been a bountiful adventure, which has returned the gifts of a sober life in multitudes.