06/12/2026
To everyone in convocation season right now — the grads, the parents, the ones holding the whole thing together behind the scenes: this energy in the air? The excitement, the potential? It's real. Don't rush past it.
I've been sitting with what it means to actually do something with that kind of energy. Softly. Deliberately. And it took me back.
Flashback to 2016. My UBC convocation with a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture.
That's not Mr. Clean — it's Vera on my hip. Bald and beautiful as an eagle, one shoe already gone, happy as ever. Her name means truth, and she's been telling it since day one. Her older sister Petra was back home in Edmonton, probably deep in a philosophical conversation with a her ride-or-die scotty-po
So much life happened since, an exciting promotion, 2 babies 18 months apart, a new city, project management for high-profile, oil and gas files— and the laundry list of adventures goes on.
Convocation wasn't just about holding a degree. It was holding it knowing I'd lived a whole life on the way to it, with 2 beautiful firebrands I was blessed to bring into this world and am blessed to raise.
Nobody does that alone. There were sacrifices I made and sacrifices others made on my behalf, and that's what I think about now — not the accolades. The mysterious gray space in between.
The vision back then was simple and categorically. audacious: leave the world more vibrant than I found it. Though i've been strategically silent on this platform I still operate on the same North Star.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't hope my girls pick up the mantle. But more important than that, I know encoded in their DNA is the drive to dream big, believe particularly when other people doubt, and trust that the Source always shows up in wild, mysterious and beautiful ways.
To the grads: you're about to hear a lot of speeches. Here's mine, short. It was never about collecting information. It's about REMEMBERING who you are and why you're here.
Tell me — what did your North Star turn out to be? I'll read every one. 🤍
