Growing with Louroz Mercader, Yonge + St. Clair BIA
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Louroz is an experienced city builder and communications professional with a progressive career in the public and not-for-profit sectors. He is currently the Executive Director of the Yonge + St. Clair Business Improvement Area and is focused on supporting small businesses recover from the pandemic. As an active member of the community, he is a volunteer board member for several organizations. He is also the co-founder of RISE Tribe; a Filipino youth networking, mentorship and leadership program. Louroz is a recipient of the Ontario Medal for Young Volunteers awarded by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, a 2009 Diverse City Fellow with CivicAction, and is a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum.
Episode Transcript
Daniel
Louroz, you have had an extensive career in the nonprofit space, social goods space, government or politics. I'd love to know if you could intro yourself by telling us a bit about your story.
Louroz
My current role is Executive Director of the Yonge + St. Clair Business Improvement Area, or BIA (there’s about 90 of them across the city of Toronto, supporting main street storefront businesses all across the city). But you're right, I think I've known you for the better part of a decade, working on nonprofits and starting them from the grassroots. I'm passionate about several things, but I think the biggest one has always been about young people and how we grow and mentor them and provide support so they can continue to do amazing things in this world. As I've grown older, there's been more of a focus, particularly in my particular background, the Filipino community. So I've been doing a lot of community building work around that. Then also politics runs through my blood, you've been part of my campaigns for Mississauga City Council. My big focus on that is, again, how do we cultivate a new generation of new leadership in politics? And there's a subsector to that, my interest is also to have more and LGBTQ+ candidates who are running for city council and all these different levels of government. So that's sort of the spaces that I've been working on over the last little while.
Daniel
And like you said, over the years, you've been able to find links and connections and you tie everything together. But for someone from the outside, they'll probably see a list of all the things you've done and be amazed. What are a couple of causes that you're personally passionate about? You mentioned a little bit before, but we can talk a bit more in detail.
Louroz
I would highlight two that I just alluded to right now. So the first one around sort of used then supporting the Filipino community about five years ago, I really focussed-in with my circle of friends who are around the same age, were mid-career as well too. We were all sort of young Filipino professionals growing up here in Canada, and we saw that there was a gap or a need to provide support for young Filipinos, especially in the greater Toronto area. So five years ago, we started a grassroots organization, and now it's a nonprofit called Rise Tribe. And so this idea of bringing our communities together and providing sort of support for the next generation of Filipino young leaders out there and how can they grow and prosper in their careers? So, a lot of times within the Filipino community, we sort of limit our young people to certain industries, namely health care and hospitality. But living in this country today, and the sacrifice that was made by our parents and grandparents, so he could be anything you want to be. So how do you expand the horizons of young Filipinos to be able to break out in different careers, like design, like politics, a nonprofit or business? So it's been a remarkable journey to be able to build a grassroots movement from the bottom up that directly impacts my community. You can see the positive change that happens that way.
Daniel
Amazing.
Louroz
So that's a wide and sort of big area that I focus on. And then the other one is around politics. So speaking about being a candidate myself, an openly gay candidate running for municipal council in sort of suburban Toronto, Mississauga, I found when I was from my own lived experience, there was a lot of support for people like me. And I'm like, I can't be the only one that thinks it feels this way. And so, really, we took the opportunity to link up with other candidates, whether they're ready for municipal, provincial, or federal. I created a sort of a national organization to be able to support all these LGBT+ candidates. So, again, that's been a remarkable journey, to be able to link all these incredible leaders and to see the growth of them actually succeeding at actually being elected to office. And our big thing for that, that's called Proud Politics, I think right now it's easier to elect somebody who's overly gay in, let's say, downtown Toronto. But how do we expand the horizon to get more of these candidates elected in all parts, all levels of government? So to be able to create a national network of them has been extremely rewarding.
Daniel
It sounds like for both of those examples, Rise Tribe and Proud Politics, you saw a need for something that didn't exist, and you created the platform to help do that, which is amazing, and it's unique. A lot of people in the nonprofit sector, the first thing they do is they look for a cause to volunteer for. And they're executing and helping out, and they're definitely making some kind of impact. But it seems like the path you’re always taking is to look at it from a bigger picture perspective and look at it maybe even from a legacy perspective. Do you purposely take that approach?
Louroz
I don’t intentionally go out and say, I'm going to start a whole brand new organization, and I would caution people to do that right away. I think you need to look at and sort of do the environmental scan of the current landscape. For both examples within the Filipino community and LGBT politics in Canada, it's first you look out and see whether or not there's other organizations that are currently there. I would encourage, if there is an existing organization, to reach out to learn more about them and see if you can contribute. But in both of those cases, there was no other organization that was competing in that same race. Yes, it was definitely filling a need and a void in those communities to be able to do that. I think once we sort of did the scan and a good example is when we were looking at building Rise Tribe, we reached out to the Filipino consulate here in Toronto, and they gave us a list of 500 Filipino orgs. That's great and we're like, incredible. One of these probably is working on the issue that we're talking about Filipino youth mentorship. That's what we quickly found out, that nobody was working in that space, and that's why we needed to like, okay, so this is our opportunity to build something from the ground up. It does take sort of time and the right sort of people and other people who are willing to volunteer their time and energy towards starting something.
Daniel
Right, exactly. Because it requires a different type of drive and energy and motivation. But if you could build something like that that serves as a platform and helps so many other people, it's definitely worth kind of putting that in. That being said, there's a lot of branding, marketing, storytelling that has to go into that. If you're starting from scratch, do you have any tips? I know you're obviously personally very active on social media.
Do you have any tips, advice or best practices for organizations that are looking to really get more active and most importantly, stand out from the crowd online?
Louroz
I'm smiling because I obviously know that this is something that you're an expert in. I learned a lot from you over the years, the importance of sort of branding and design, and then with that, also the storytelling and the narrative. Yes. For each of those organizations, when I talk about sort of the founding principles or the story of why we started, it always comes back to a personal experience. So me growing up as a Filipino if you're in Canada, or me going out as a candidate, as an LGBT candidate in Mississauga. I think when I tell that story, that's how you're able to stand out, because it's personal, it's authentic, it's lived experience. You're more likely to connect with an individual or an organization or a potential sponsor when you're able to tell your story. So it has to be authentic. I think if it's not, people see right through that, that it may be a marketing gimmick. But if you're speaking from the heart and it's a true story and you have a bigger sort of goal to achieve in terms of the impact you're going to make, you're easily able to draw the right people towards your cause.
Daniel
I love that. Now that ties into my next question, which is about personal branding. From your perspective, obviously you've taken the approach of embracing that personal brand, you have a whole story. First of all, as a political candidate, it is a big thing about your personal brand. But also, as someone who's multifaceted and you're part of so many initiatives, you're the thing that ties them all together. So if you could share for anyone in the audience who's kind of hesitant, they're behind the scenes: What role has your personal brand actually played in your network, or in the success of the initiatives you've been part of?
Louroz
Well, I think it's certainly helped that I ran as a candidate and so it's sort of forced me into this exercise. To be able to defy myself and sort of develop the brand image and goals that I've tried to achieve as, as a political candidate, but just even for my own personal life. That's obviously made it a little bit easier, but I think regardless of whether or not you're a political candidate or not, it's very important to, to shape who you are and to define that narrative out there. Because in today's society, why do you meet somebody new? The first thing you do is you look up whether or not they have an Instagram or a LinkedIn profile. See what they're putting out and some people obviously will use that to determine whether or not to further a relationship with you or to go into business.
Daniel
Definitely.
Louroz
So it's really important to shape that. The other thing is that it doesn't cost any money to do that. So I think it's really important to be able to take the time to really see what people are putting or what you're putting out there, what people are actually viewing. It’s really important to take time to define that. I think for me when I was going through that process, it was interesting to hear what other people thought and, and, and, and felt what my personal branch. To hear that and to get confirmation, they're like, “yeah, Louroz you're really good at this”. So that's what you should continue to focus on or find the right word to describe what you're trying to accomplish. Then of course if politics, you have to keep it short and simple. You know, I used to have a boss that told me that it has to be punchy all the time. Because people have to remember. Anything about the Filipino community, you just need to talk to or connect with Louroz or any LGBT related initiatives.
Daniel
those things carry you, no matter which organization or initiative or job you're in. Those are the kind of things that tie it all together, which is important. And you have to kind of do the work to find that.
Louroz
Yeah. Then my other part of that is that it's an ongoing thing. You can continue yourself, evolve. To grow over time. So it doesn't need to remain static as well.
Daniel
People are afraid to define themselves, as we're people, we evolve, our careers evolve, our interests evolve. The next thing we wanted to ask you about is challenges. No matter what kind of size organization or what stage you're at, there's always some kind of challenge. I'd love to know if there's examples of challenges you've gone through that you've overcome.
Louroz
Good question. I think at one point in my life, I was doing too many things. , and that's because I am really passionate about things. I was a really patient to try to be able to make a difference somewhere. And it was actually interesting because I had a really good friend who was, sort of, a coach, a leadership coach who made me do an exercise where I wrote down everything that I was involved. She forced me to write down and to explain why I was doing it. Increasingly, the reason why I was doing a lot of things is because it was what other people expected me to do. And you know, that's great that people are relying on you or reaching out to you to be able to do that, but you only have so much capacity in that day, and your energy, to be able to expend out there that you really need to be focused on where you're spending that time and energy, and that was an incredible exercise to go through, and I continue to do that on a yearly basis. So like really examine it am I doing this for the right reasons? My other criteria is, am I having fun? Measuring the impact to see I'm actually making a difference. Are we moving a needle on something? Like are we actually making a positive impact on some of these? But I think the key component of that is you have to have a good side because a lot of this sort of social good and volunteer work you'll get paid for, for sure. You get paid in other ways. But you have to prioritize, I think that's a challenge. You could be pulled in so many directions and you really have to be able to focus and concentrate your effort.
Daniel
Love that. And you were able to kind of overcome that a little bit by assessing everything.
Louroz
Yes.
Daniel
And by asking you some of those questions. I think that's great advice for people, anyone in the sector. But a lot of times when we start out, like I did as well as a student, there's all kinds of opportunities to be thrown at you. And you meet other people that are in the same boat, that they're all doing 25 things. So it's kind of this mindset change and eventually you do kind of figure out your niche and your area focus and how you can make the most impact. Because if you're the volunteer, let's say you're a volunteer communications person in 16 organizations, are those 16 organizations really getting the best of you? Something you learn to balance.
Now, on this podcast, we always want to talk about showcasing your wins, amplifying your impact, because a lot of times, there's some great work happening, but it's behind the scenes. Is there any advice you can share with organizations directors, marketing, and people about showcasing your impact? I'd like to ask you that first.
Louroz
I love that you do that because you're right. I don't think we celebrate our success and wins. I know in the Filipino culture we're always taught to be humble and not to like toot our horns. But the reason why you need to do that is because you want to further the cause. And you wanted to attract the right partners and volunteers and sponsors to be able to amplify your work. I think it's really important to be able to stop and pause to do that. I think the other big thing is to recognize your volunteers and your partners and your sponsors. I think it's so key to sort of like building the foundation of any organization or cause for sure. The best thing that I've seen in terms of authenticity besides the organization celebrating itself through social media or some sort of post is, what other people celebrate you. I think that's even more valuable when a partner or a sponsor or volunteer sings your praises on social media. Sometimes even just asked to re-share the content. And so again, it doesn't cost a lot of time and money to be able to do something like that, but it's really important to sort of amplify the work that you're doing. I think that my advice is to, number one, take the time to be able to celebrate your accomplishments, to thank everybody, and then also to reach out and ask your network to be able to celebrate.
Daniel
Love that. Because that's what it is. It's all community stuff. We don't work in isolation. People do feed off of that energy as well. Someone who knows someone may see that and decide to get involved themselves or, or sponsor something themselves. So you never know where your story or how your story will impact someone else.
That being said, when it comes to you being active on social media, for example, what are some platforms that you personally use a lot in your work, and on your own personal initiatives?
Louroz
Yeah, I think it depends on what the project is or the organization that I’m representing. From my own personal brand, I think it's Instagram. That's sort of my primary platform. We're able to sort of curate, what's happening in my life and what I'm working on. And then I think a big part of it, especially in sort of my political activities, is definitely on Twitter and that's like the town square for all these things. Shared content, I’ll retweeting things and, and connecting with other sort of players and, and, and other candidates that are out there. And then, professionally for my work, definitely able to share, especially in working on business development and supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs. Like that's the space for it. So it's not limited to just one platform. It depends who the audience is. I used a different thing and to a lesser extent as well on Facebook as well. I have noticed in terms of the generational divide if I'm trying to reach an older audience, they're definitely on Facebook still. So I know people sort of discount that as like, what's the point of posting it there? But depending on what the project is or what the content is, there are benefits to being able to post there.
Daniel
It really is about posting based on where your audience is at and you're trying to reach, and with for example, Facebook, there are groups that could be extremely active. And even people in younger demographics are using them for certain thing. I know people that are using them for things like their specific condo building that they're partying. That's where they go for that group. Or, or something for school. So there's always a use case for it. You can't just be on one platform, you kind of have to cross post because someone like you, you're involved in so many things that you have those different audiences.
Louroz
I will say, I would love to be able to understand how to use TikTok. I know. So that's the sort of the new frontier and, and I spend hours watching other people's content. And so the other thing that I've learned is that you don't have to do it alone. And so even just the work I'm doing, even though I, I don't know how to personally, how to use the platform, I think reaching out, to my network and, and looking for support to be able to use that platform in the future.
Daniel
Yes, absolutely. Love that idea. There's a lot of exciting things happening on TikTok, even podcast content is going on TikTok. Yes and the things I've been learning as well. You know, just posting, a whole clip of a podcast of this conversation, for example. It's all gonna blow up Onie, and I forget, they have to actually, there's, there's, there's a lot of editing that has to go into that. It's about, yeah. Are you starting with a hug? Are you putting graphics, captions, questions? Like, what is it? Have you chosen the right song in the background? There's, there's a huge range of things, so, yeah. But, it's good not to just write those off and, and ignore it can meet that purpose. Over the years you've probably had some great mentors. You've obviously done a lot of workshops, seminars, and training that you've attended. What are some like best practices or principles that you could share to someone who's starting out in the nonprofit space or in the community workspace?
Louroz
Well, I think they should follow you, Daniel. So I think that's key as well. So follow Daniel on Twitter, and could I retweet a lot of your content. No, but seriously, I think that you have an incredible source of information, and best practices and community for me. And I value that, so you're definitely sort of one of the people that I reach out without thoughtful ideas and now that I think about it, you're mostly involved in almost every project that I work on in some form. Even at one point in time with Volunteer Toronto, specifically I worked on a project called Grassroots Growth, Supporting nonprofits and organizations across Ontario. That's another great source or organization, and there's volunteer centers across Ontario as well too in every single city community. So I would reach out to that if you're thinking about starting a non-profit, cuz a lot of but know how to start one. Or like, what are the rules and regulations that you need to do to become a non-profit. So definitely reach out to those. And then in terms of like thought leaders, I think the one sort of newsletter that I continue to subscribe to and as you read the newsletter, is called Non-Profit AF, a weekly blog about working in the non-profit space. I love his insight and just like honest opinions of what's happening and sort of the best practices. So that's another source that I go to as well too. But I think the other great thing is just even just talking to the people who are part of sort of the network that I, that I, that I'm in is just talking to people about their experiences and why they're getting involved and how they can bring things to the table. I think that's what continues to fuel me to continue to do stuff out there.
Daniel
In this space, you could be working with a really small organization or even on a bigger organization, you can kind of still work in isolation. It’s great, I get fueled by that as well. It could be exhausting if you have back-to-back meetings, 12 hours a day, but some of those meetings can actually give you that more energy, more drive, more motivation, and you can keep learning that, which is awesome.
I know you've changed roles a few times over the last few years. New initiatives. What has changed and what have you seen change in the way that organizations are marketing and communicating fundraising, especially because of the pandemic?
Louroz
Yeah, that's a good question. I think from the nonprofit, say definitely COVID, the period there was really disrupted. A good example is when we with Rise Tribe, just a week before the pandemic and the whole world shut down in March 2020, we hosted our first volunteer orientation. Wow. It was incredible. We had like 60 volunteers. We were on the verge of launching our first in-person, fundraising event. So we were recruiting people to be on that events committee and all this other sort of outreach work that was needed, fundraising, and then the world shut downs really of course, like everybody else, they've pivoted online and. I thought that would be the end of it kind of thing where just everything's gonna be virtual. But it was incredible that during that period, instead of doing the in-person fundraising, we did a lot of sort of online engagement, but we also attracted so much more sponsors and partners during that time. Like I don't think we believe we would be able to attract all these corporate partners to join us. Amazing. It was definitely, because they saw, they bound the website or they were following us on Instagram. Or they'd heard from somebody that we were working in this space and they're like, yes, it's like this needed. And also came a time that was actually the, anti-Asian hate, protests that were going on across North America at that time that brought partners to our table. So I think the pivot to online is a big thing. I think regardless of what org, what organization you had to be in that space. But now we're going through a transition zone right now where people are starting to do things in person again. I know there's a lot of discussion. It's like, okay, can we continue this online space or do we go back to the IRL thing? But I think a lot of people are making a decision that needs to be a hybrid thing. Same thing like what's happening in the workplace right now. Like, we can't expect that everything's gonna go back the way it was. That's the way that people are pivoting towards that. Both sort of the non-profit space and even like in the professional work environment is like you really catering to sort of two audiences, the in-person and the virtual.
Daniel
And people are looking for those experiences for different reasons too. I think in the nonprofit space and any of the community initiatives. I know one of the reasons I was involved early on is because you're able to collaborate and work with so many people in person. It's not necessarily the physical work itself where you're typing something out. It's who you're working with and what you're working for that matters. So you can feel that energy in person, so with DoGood Fundraising for example, we had a couple of DoGood Fundraising day events for the sector, and it was amazing to have these people come out. For most of them it was the first event that they'd been to since the pandemic started. Is that something you wanna do every single week? Not necessarily. But is it something you do once a quarter? Yeah, for sure. You gather, you have lunch, you learn from a few of your peers and make some connections there. It was really exciting to see that happen. And to your point, I think it’ll be a different schedule. It's not gonna be like every single week there's these, these seminars people are going to big conferences. That being said, in your role now with the BIA, what's the balance of in-person interaction and how important is that?
Louroz
Oh, it's really important and especially in the BIA that I’m currently working at. So Yonge + St. Clair pre-pandemic had a huge office population during the day. We had like 15,000 office workers. And you know, we've been struggling to attract them all back. I think we're right now hovering below 30%, and it's essential that people are in the office because it needed to support certain mall to the services and industries and the restaurants and retail stores that are in this neighborhood. But moving forward, I think the reality is how do they get tracked people in person, but also engaged inline. So just like what we were talking before, like the, it's a two-pronged strategy, basically. It's how do we, attract people back to in person to be able to shop and to support the neighborhood, but at the same time, having a parallel engagement strategy where you could connect with retailers online, like visit this online store. Yes, it's definitely a lot more work. But again, we're, we're reflecting sort of today's reality in terms of how we reach the customer or the consumer out there. Right now we were going through sort of the budgeting cycle of this, is that we need to shift sort of our, our staffing and resources to be able to meet these no certain new growth areas. Building the business case around that, I think is really important. Then, but this is a pivot that needs to happen. Across several industries. So I think that's the transition that we're going through right now.
Daniel
And you've seen that transition, with your roles, part of just in the course of the pandemic. And I think both areas in Toronto have different needs. Perhaps some of them would benefit from more of the hybrid approach. Some of them would require more in person. But I remember attending one of the events you had, in the summer. It was amazing to see those businesses come out serving food live and to, for me, it was actually when to discover those businesses that I would've never seen. Absolutely. Talent. The food, the venues, like I wouldn't have never found that if it was fully virtual. So there's a benefit to that, to those experiences.
Louroz
You're right. And so prior to me joining down to St. Clair was on Eglinton, which is also the heart of Little Jamaica.
Daniel
that's the one I was referring to.
Louroz
So a huge concentration of black owned businesses, minority businesses, and you're right. I think the other thing was, we talk about pivoting towards online and using social media to promote your business or your, your venture or your, or your cause. I think we automatically assume that everybody knows how to do that. So I think there's definitely a gap, or a deficiency, or a barrier for people to access that. And actually one way program that governments during the pandemic set up in consultation with the BIA and businesses, in Ontario and Toronto is, we started something called Digital Main Street. This provided a $2,500 grant directly to small business owners to be able to provide sort of the financial support to by training, mentorship, but also the means to be able to pivot online. So it was incredible. So like in little Jamaica, we had over 85 small businesses sign up for that pro. And so obviously, it took a lot of time to be able to onboard everybody on there. But you know, just talking to those small businesses and hearing how they've attracted new customers to their store because they saw it on social media, that's huge. It was a huge hit, but it took the pandemic to be able to create such a program to get business on board.
Daniel
Maybe these are businesses that could have been behind for another several years, had that not happened necessarily. It's great to see these programs, I love that because when I go into an organization, all of a sudden I started identifying all the opportunities that they're missing out on. Some of the times you're not even aware that. Those are opportunities for them. So again, still depends on who your audience is. It depends on are your customers or your door actually there, cuz you can't just develop an app, and then you realize, well actually our users don't spend time on their phones, they're on their computer most. Yeah. For example So it's always, yeah, it's gotta have that intention. When you look at an example like, Digital Main Street, probably hundreds or thousands of businesses.
Louroz
The program expanded across the country. So it's remarkable how this great idea was really replicated, across several cities, events, and provinces.
Daniel
Love that. You've had a lot of different perspectives over the years, and we've covered a few of those today. For someone who's starting out and, and they're worried about their career, worried about the job title they have or the order it appears on their resume, because they wanna be classified as an expert in one thing, let’s say. For someone like yourself, and even for me we actually got a really broad range of experience. What advice would you give someone who's going into a field, they're starting on their career, but they do want that diverse experience. How do they go about that and how do they tell that as their story?
Louroz
Oh, good question, Daniel. Just like in the previous question that you asked, I think there needs to be an intention of what you're doing and what you're putting out there. So we go back to sort of what that elevator pitch is. So I think forcing yourself to be able to define who you are right from the get-go and you know, I guess sort of LinkedIn forces you to like, what is this one sentence?
Daniel
Then have the headline.
Louroz
And it's so important. I think is it “imagining the future of cities”. The intention there is I wanted to work in sort of like economic development and, and planning and you know, previously I worked on an exciting project called Sidewalk Labs here in Toronto. So building upon now the intention was using the experience I got from that right project and how do I move, forwarded sort of the next phase of my career and that's really worked for me. And then that elevator pitch really interests people right away. Yeah, and then from that you're able to expand, in terms of your diversity, of your experience and, and, career. But I get you have to limit it to bucket areas and what you're talking about. And so being disciplined to be able to speak about and also use concrete examples of how you've actually made an impact in that field. So you could have several buckets that you're an expert in. I would encourage that because I think employers are looking for a diverse range of experiences and talent when you're bringing forward. So I think it does take a lot of work. It does take effort to be able to define who you are, but I think that's why, one way to do it, I think I, and before that, here's another thing on my resume list, I used to work for a few months. I used employment services. I remember talking to young people about this, about starting their career. And one of the exercises we did was we had to create a LinkedIn profile. That was the exercise where they had to put all their experience in and like how you defy yourself. Like what's the motto that you got to choose. Yeah. I believe the one that I’m using is the one that your team took from the campaign a few years ago. So, yeah, I think, I think there's the intention there and I think, it's just being disciplined in terms of how you're presenting yourself.
Daniel
Just to emphasize for the young people starting out without the experience you can still define those areas, those categories. You can choose that. It's not just based on the fact that you were an assistant project manager at an organization in. It's answering, what did you do? What did that organization do? What was the mission that you were a part of? And that's how you can help define your story.
Louroz
And the cool thing about things like LinkedIn is that you got linked to your work. And to be love linked to sort of like an article or a project, website, actually alerts I really bring to life while you're talking.
Daniel
If there's a video, if there's a case study, that's something that we can really leverage on LinkedIn more. It doesn’t matter how small the project or initiative you worked on was. Don't be afraid to actually put that on there because turns out, there could be someone looking for that exact same thing, that exact same experience at their organization kind of bridges the gap, and that's how you get in.
Louroz
My other quote on that is, it's great that you built your LinkedIn profile, but you have to connect with the right people. You can't just be your friends or existing contacts. So I intentionally look for the people that are role models or are thought leaders in the field and you'll follow them or even connect with them. And so I think it's really important to sort of follow up and to, to sort to look for.
Daniel
That makes a huge difference for sure. Because what's the point of having an empty LinkedIn? So, you did explain a couple of examples. You mentioned a newsletter. What are some other sources of kind of inspiration or, or info for you that you come across? Whether it's like an account you follow, whether it's like a show or channel. Anything like that?
Louroz
I’m chuckling, because I helped raise my 10 year old niece, her name Rosalina, and at one point she asked me, why do you keep watching the news? It's the first thing that I had turned into and I explained to her, because you'd have to be in the know of what's going on in the world. Even if it's just that headline. Topic of like, what is today's newsworthy thing that everybody's gonna talk about. And so sort of that's my outlet. Like I consume so much news information. It's not just one channel too. I'm a flipper. I was gonna ask about, I'll go to CNN, I'll go to Fox News, I'll go to CBC, CTV, CB24 to get sort of the range of experience. Cause also I wanna understand. What other, the other sides are thinking and feeling as well too. A hundred percent. And, to dive deeper into sort of the areas that I'm interested in. I'm also old school. I also read the newspaper. Okay. Probably the last person in my age who reads all the newspapers. So in the Global Mail, the National Post. Again, it's, you know what I love is that in those articles they dive deeper in, in terms. The backstory and the opinions, the different cute points that bring people bring work together. But then as a result I have sort of like this huge knowledge bank. You probably could ask me any question and I'll have an opinion on. Or have a viewpoint on. But that's because I was able to like really digest that and take it. So I think that's my big thing. At whatever age you are, I think you need to be in the, know what's happening. Whether that's watching the news being a newspaper or on this point in time, just following all the social media of your favorite news channel.
Daniel
Amazing. That definitely helps, because it allows you to, one, like you said, form your own opinion and understanding of it. But two, you can apply that to the projects of organizations and ways that you're working. A big thing about this, about the sector is cross pollination of ideas. I'm sure being on so many different boards that you've obviously been able to apply things that you didn't want an organization to another.
Louroz
Oh, one more thing I wanted. Yeah. I'm not limited to just Toronto or Canada. I’m all on news from overseas, another places that I'm interested in. But it's funny like we bought that to a friend who are living in Australia right now, and I have a lot of friends who live there. They're amazed that I understand what's happening on the ground there. But the reason why I'm interested because there's so many parallels. To sort of the projects and work that I'm doing here in Canada and Toronto, and I can learn from what's happening over there. I can anticipate, okay, this has happened somewhere else. And what do they do to sort of solve the issue or advance the cause? Can we learn from the best practices that way? Yes, there's Canadian contents, but also somewhere else in the world that has sort of like a similar sort of, setting or background.
Daniel
For sure. We have to learn from what else is out there. I don't have to reinvent the wheel every single time, but also we can learn from the mistakes of what's happen. Absolutely. Super important. To wrap up, I would love to have you l share one piece of advice you would give to current leaders in the nonprofit or social sector.
Louroz
Take a break. You need to take a break. Like burnout is real. And I know people have talked about this and I've experienced this as well too, and it's hard to sort of shut off what's going on, but what's that thing where, you know when you bought a plane and they say that you put your own mass on first before you put somebody else in. And if you're not gonna be able to be your best self because you're exhausted or or tired, or burned out you're not gonna be able to have that impact that you're looking for. So really take the times on, on take care of yourself. That self-care is so important, the work that we're doing, because you need to be able to, survive and be able to last. So that's my one piece of advice. Unplug, take some time off, rest, and then come back charging once you, once you're fully charged yet.
Daniel
You can't help anyone if you're in the hospital.
Louroz
Yeah, I indeed. Absolutely.
Daniel
That's a big theme. That's actually been on this show so far.
Louroz
Oh, has it?
Daniel
Yeah. So far every guest has mentioned the need to take care of yourself. I love that it's a common thread, so whoever's listening. You can't ignore it.
What's one thing you're excited about for coming up, either in your current role or in 2023?
Louroz
So I think the big thing is I'm in this new role at Yonge + St. Clair as the executive director. So I think. , just being able to map out sort of like how can we make this neighborhood a new sort of destination for Toronto. that's right. That's barely new. What's great about is that it doesn't really have a strong identity or brand. Like when you think about Yonge and St. Clair, Toronto, it's like, heard about it, but I've like probably never been there or like, I don't know what's happening there. So I think what's it's exciting for me is, is working with my team to be able to be that next sort of like it destination for Toronto. So stay tuned because lot of excited things are gonna be happening, and I'm looking forward to everybody coming up. And supporting all the small businesses at Yonge + St. Clair.
Daniel
Amazing. Thanks so much for your time, Louroz.
Louroz
My pleasure. Thank you.
