This article is part of our Beyond the Family Business series.
Hosted by Luke Hansen-MacDonald, a second-generation family business leader, Beyond the Family Business is one of the most thoughtful and engaging podcasts about family enterprise in Canada. In every episode, Luke goes beyond the headlines with other leaders in family businesses and family offices to explore lessons they have learned, their successes and their challenges.
In this episode, Luke sits down with Olivier Desmarais, chairman of Power Sustainable and senior vice-president of Power Corporation. A third-generation member of one of Canada’s most prominent business families and grandson of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, Desmarais discusses his journey into the family business and how he helped build an investment firm focused on delivering both competitive financial returns and positive environmental outcomes.
In this conversation with Luke, Olivier shares:
- How his early experiences in renewable energy helped shape Power Sustainable’s investment philosophy, and why he believes climate impact doesn’t have to come at the expense of profitability.
- The opportunities behind Power Sustainable’s $10-billion commitment to Canadian infrastructure and the role private capital can play in strengthening the country’s economy.
- Why family business leaders should become more involved in civic and political life, even if they have no intention of running for office.
- His advice for getting involved in public service, including why aspiring leaders should learn to follow before they lead.
- Why maintaining a healthy society for future generations matters just as much as preserving the family fortune, and how his analogy of the family tree and the soil has shaped his thinking about legacy.
Previous episodes of “Beyond the Family Business” on Canadian Family Offices feature Geoff Smith, K.C. Daya, Jeffrey McCain, Ian Wilson, Derrick Hunter, Pierre Somers, Ben Hertzman, Lee Bragg and Danielle Saputo.
Disclaimer: This podcast is sponsored by BMO Private Wealth. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or professional advice. The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization or company. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any investment decisions.
Transcript
This transcript is provided for convenience and is based on the audio recording of the video. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, minor errors are possible.
Luke: Hi, I’m Luke Hansen-MacDonald, and welcome back to Beyond the Family Business, a podcast where we discuss the opportunities and challenges of operating a family enterprise.
Today’s guest is a third generation of one of the most prolific Canadian business families, and the grandson of former PM Jean Chrétien, Olivier Desmarais is the chairman of Power Sustainable and senior VP of Power Corporation. First we discuss Power Sustainable and you may have heard of his company because they had a great deal of press during a recent summit as they committed to $10 billion to Canadian infrastructure. Second part of the interview is focused on service to your country and community. I’m interested as I get older and caring a great deal about the future of our country. I want to know how do I get involve? And participate in a way I haven’t before. Olivier does a great job of breaking this down and giving me good advice. He also shares his own philosophy on what he hopes to accomplish over this lifetime.
This episode is brought to you by BMO Private Wealth. As a client myself, I’ve seen firsthand how they can help families like mine navigate the future. And this episode was made in collaboration with Canadian Family Offices. All right, let’s jump into it.
Luke: Who are you? Where are you from, and what do you do?
Olivier: Hi, my name is Olivier Desmarais. I am in Montreal, Canada, and I have the pleasure of running or helping to run an alternative asset manager that invests around the future economy called Power Sustainable.
Luke: Very cool. And everybody knows what your family business is, Power Corp, but I guess the quick question would be, when did the business start, and what generation are you in now?
Olivier: So, I guess I would be the third generation. My grandfather on my father’s side would have been the person to have started gen one, to which my dad and uncle took over as co-CEOs and really sort of took the very solid foundations that he built and, while he was still there, but he went up as chairman, helped grow it into the financial conglomerate that it is today that holds stakes in life insurance, asset management, and wealth across North America, call it Anglo-Saxon Europe, and a little bit in Asia, China to be precise.
Luke: Just to start things off, I guess, can you tell me a bit or a little bit more about how you got into the family business in the first place and ultimately into Power Sustainable? Because your education path was not purely focused on business. You also obviously had some other interests. So, can you tell me a little bit about what that journey was like?
Olivier: Yeah, sure. So look, I studied political science and sociology, I guess at McGill, is where I graduated from. I really like the political philosophy side of it. Highly recommend people to take some philosophy. It’s very helpful in life. But then decided, well, one, university’s kind of fun, and the real world looks scary. So, I went for another tour of duty in law at the University of Ottawa, the civil law program to be precise. And also, it’s more of a profession than a liberal arts degree. And so did that. Looking back on it, you know what? It was more helpful than I thought it was. Even though inside my third year, I more or less knew I was not going to be a lawyer, and it was not for me. And so made the pivot into business after that and sort of had a nice, diversified experience in business. When I joined Power Corporation, really took on two main projects, one being La Presse, our newspaper transformation from old newspaper to the digital model that we have today and successfully-
Luke: Oh, wow. Very cool
Olivier: … did that. So that was super fun because I’m a big fan of politics and community and papers fit into both of that and the business model was challenged, right? And so, we were able to pivot that. But then also found a smart little entrepreneur here that was doing some community rooftop solar and joined into that, and that was the beginning of my world into energy, and climate, funny enough.
Luke: Oh, very cool. And so, you found this individual and that is what ultimately, you built into Power Sustainable?
Olivier: Yeah, correct. We were doing it more with Power Corp’s own capital at that point in time. Started with rooftop solar and the solar industry that came out of Ontario. We went into run-of-river hydro but exited that because we were also playing around with wind. And how to say everything is a very capital-intensive business in this business. And so, we had to make a pick, and so we chose to go with wind over run-of-river hydro for a few different reasons. And then we just started to win a lot because we were in the right place at the right time with the right team, and eventually we converted that into a more asset management kind of corporation from an independent power producer, because as I mentioned, it requires a lot of capital.
Luke: Okay, and then that’s when you started to look at having outside investors also come in and not just deploy Power Corporation’s capital itself?
Olivier: Correct. I’d say, look, when I was there, I learned a lot about the energy grid. Because when you go into something new, first job is to fully learn. So how does the energy grid work? I didn’t really know that, and because of the companies that we had, I was able to really learn about how the US system works, how our system works, how energy in general, from electricity gets priced on the generation side. And it was super interesting. But two, I also learned about renewables, which brings you to climate. One, it was profitable, so that was fantastic. But two, got into the learn more and more about climate and went, “Oh boy, this seems to be very real and is quite the issue,” and went through the whole normal journey as people start to really dig into climate. And the idea was when we made the pivot, A, how do we access more capital? But two, we need to do this at scale.
And so, we had seen that we could do it profitably. We knew that it had good climate benefits, shall we put it this way? And then now we really need to scale this, because we have to go faster. And so, the idea behind Power Sustainable, if you want, was if you can be best in class profits, which means you have good investment teams, and you can have climate impact with this being the most important naturally, and it’s a transition, so you need to take time. And you can prove that you can scale it, then why wouldn’t everybody just invest in this? And the amount of money that they’re saying that we need to get there is trillions of dollars a year, if you want, to be invested. And so that means that philanthropy and/or concessionary capital, which were much more talked about when I got in this 14 years ago, that was not going to be the solution. They’re absolutely necessary and super pivotal towards allowing for the transition to happen, but only capitalism can fill this gigantic hole that’s needed. And so that was the core thesis, and we had started small, medium, and gone larger so that we had the confidence that we could really scale this up and do it and prove it.
Luke: Very cool. Yeah, as I said to you in our precursor call, one of the things that interests me most about your story is the fact that you’ve built a mission-driven or an impact-driven business, which is motivational and inspiring to me. But also-
Olivier: It’s a lot of fun when you can do well and do good.
Luke: Yeah, 100%. Totally. That’s the dream is that you have both of those and I think it is one of the main themes or topics I want to touch on in this discussion, is just how you do it in a sustainable way, or in a profitable way. Because as you said, capitalism has to be a core ingredient for it to actually make sense in the long term. So I guess maybe, digging into that a bit further-
Olivier: Yeah
Luke: … as you built Power Sustainable, how did you ensure that you had that right recipe of profitability and impact?
Olivier: Okay, so first of all, I like to say I got into sustainability from the business angle, not sustainability to business. Right? And I like to say I got into sustainability for all the noble reasons, the money. And so, in the game, when you’re competing for people’s money to invest, I’m sorry, you have to be competitive. If it’s not competitive, it doesn’t matter. You’re not going to win; you’re going to lose. For that, I’m not an investor. It’s a very unique skill set that everybody thinks they have. I need to team up with and attract the best investors that have a history, a proven track record of being able to de-risk and deliver profitable outcomes. And while talking with a lot of people, we saw that, A, we were able to meet people that were kind of doing sustainability but didn’t even know they were doing it from where they were investing, and that understood that with the technology and where everything is going, that this is just totally doable. And the way I like to tell people is it is not rocket science. It is pretty much just private equity as you know it, and we just do the quick math to make sure that we’re having good climate impacts. And/or if I have 10 companies that can be bought, and five of them have better climate impacts, instead of picking one on this side, I’ll just pick one on this side, because it will be more long-term consistent, or more long-term sustainable.
And I like to give an example of a company, right? So, they bought a waste management company, like a recycling company. They upgraded the facility, put in better sensors, better arms to identify plastic, right? So, they used to have only 3% of the plastic that was being recycled and then converted to oil, if you want, because that’s what you do with recycled plastic. The rest was all going to landfill. Well, they were able to get that 3 to 12%. So first of all, now you’re putting that much less plastic into a landfill, which has its own climate benefits, but also that more plastic that’s being reconverted into oil to go, I guess, back into petrochemicals or whatever, which is technically a barrel that you didn’t have to pull out of the ground. And so, there are ways of calculating it with the correct certifiers such that you can prove that you are, by doing these upgrades now, avoiding this much less emissions. So off they go to cities to go pitch that, “Hey, first of all, we just upgraded all our equipment, so we’re as competitive and if not the best priced person. But here’s the kicker, we can prove that you are saving this much carbon by choosing us.”
Unless the person’s a sociopath, that’s just even better because now you get to brag to your citizens that we’re doing this for the climate and we can prove it, and it’s not having any cost to you. It’s not costing you more because we’re just as competitive. So, they redid that inside another district and then bought a bunch and then sold it to a larger capital player that repeated the model. And so, when I give that example, people go, “Oh, so it’s just private equity.” I was like, “Exactly.” Except that we’re doing these calculations and we’re thinking about it and we’re able to see the extra benefits that those businesses have, that other people aren’t really thinking about. And I think it gives us a better chance to win.
Luke: Yeah. Well put. And it is hard to debate, especially playing that back. It all starts with getting really good team members. So, once you remove that element, which I think is often maybe the misconception, is that when you see impact investing, it is more philanthropic, or you feel like it might be more philanthropic. So, you remove that from the equation and it’s really just good financial decision-making, then yeah, why wouldn’t you do it? It’s an obvious choice.
Olivier: Look, you need everything in order to get there. But part of the confusion side of it is people think that you have to shed basis points. That’s not true. Maybe in some areas, but the places where we play, there’s more than enough companies that can have good impact and be top tier in profitability. If you see climate as one circle and sort of a world of profitability in the other, they do intersect. And in my lifetime, I’ve seen that intersection grow. And in a way, eventually, we won’t say climate investing or sustainable investing, it’ll just be investing. We’re just getting ahead of it by figuring out what that is, and as you take a look at companies versus is it profitable, but then does it have a good climate angle and story that we can help really lean into such that more of these companies start winning, such that we start being the change that we want to see.
Luke: And how do you, knowing that that is a good idea, how have you managed to keep it as a competing interest with just profitability? Because obviously profitability can attract you in the wrong direction over time, and there’s, I’m sure, many examples of people that started out with good intentions and then ultimately chased money. You’ve been able to balance the two of them. How have you constantly, I guess, revisited that balance and made sure it stayed true, whether it’s through measuring it or just setting clear guidance?
Olivier: It’s an evolution, right? We want to, within the realm of possibility, lean as much into good climate outcomes, as not. If that line moves and something becomes unprofitable, well, we’ve got to move with it, if you want. So, we’ve got to keep that conversation so that we’re always at that cutting edge, if you want, of definitely profitable because that’s our mission. That’s why people give us their money, and we’re not going to mess that up. This other one, though, is also what we’re trying to do, and one of the reasons that people say, “As long as you guarantee me this, I like the fact that you’re trying to do that.” And that’s a conversation that we have with our investment teams, and that we keep on working towards. And it’s just more knowledge, lots of discussions around different ways of thinking about things.
And sometimes you learn that though it might not achieve a decarbonization goal, it has a lot of other benefits that are positive for society. And so, you’re consistently talking about all of these different dimensions, and you’re making sure that when you buy the company, you are articulating what you mean and where your sustainability goals are, so that you’re open and upfront with them. Because as of now, it’s not a simple one-size-fits-all. And so we say, “Okay, well, here’s how we think about it. Here’s how we went about it. Here’s all the proof points that we have, so that when you due diligence us, you’ll see that at this time, with this company, this was for sure the best that we could have done, and you saw where our thesis was.” Because in 10 years from now, who knows, they could discover something that makes it less good. But it’s about being open, having that conversation, and going forward.
On the energy infrastructure side, much more simple. Wind, solar, batteries, that’s an easy story to show up, right? If you think about data centers, well look, we’re going to need data centers in the future. It’s just that we’re not going to not do that. But one, within the data centers and the hyperscalers, what are the best practices? Right? So being the most efficient at water usage, hugely important. And so inside the world of what data centers you can, our infrastructure debt team will lend towards those that have those most efficient, best use, or won’t even use water for cooling systems. And so, you’re allowing capital to help move the ball forward while they’re always making sure that they hit their profitability that they’re going for.
Luke: So, to play that back
Olivier: Sorry.
Luke: No, no, I asked a simple question to a complex topic, and what the reality is that while energy, renewable energy maybe is easier to measure, every other type of asset class has its own unique set of criteria, and you guys are constantly evaluating those, looking at the science behind them, and being transparent to your investors about here’s the thesis of why we’re doing this, and that changes depending on what kind of asset you’re investing in. So that makes a lot of sense. Sounds complex.
Olivier: Yeah. Sometimes on the debt side, although it’s rarer, but that’s not the goal. This is just a pure profit play. I mean, it’s just so lucrative, we’re going to take it, but it does no harm. There’s no benefit, but it does no harm. And we’ll just say it. It’s like, look, I’m not going to say no to a free, I don’t know, 13-14% for the debt side. That’d be good. We have a responsibility to our shareholders. But the line will be, don’t do any harm. And so that will be open. Now, I think one out of 20 deals there, the rest of it all has very good outputs there. Like fertilizer to energy has lots of benefits and is a very attractive market.
Luke: Right. So now pivoting a little bit, your team got quite a bit of press at the recent Canada Investor Summit. I saw your CEO on Bloomberg. I believe the Prime Minister even called you guys out as one of the key investors in Canadian infrastructure going forward. I believe you guys committed 10 billion or something along those lines to Canadian infrastructure. It’s a very topical thing right now to be thinking about what is that future economy and what are these key pieces of infrastructure that we’re investing in in our country. It sounds like there’s a tremendous amount that is about to happen in the next few years. I guess, what role is Power Sustainable playing in this renewed focus on infrastructure within our own country? Is that the mandate that’s coming out from the federal government? Is it meaningfully changing how you guys are looking at your thesis, or does your thesis naturally dovetail sort of into what’s already being proposed?
Olivier: Yeah. Look, first of all, Canada has a historic moment, and I think we have a government that’s going to fully utilize this historic moment and is busy putting in all the pieces to make that happen. And there’s the will of the people, because of the rift with the United States, to make that happen, that will be hugely beneficial towards long-term of Canada. We have always been North America focused at Power Sustainable. I would say that when the President Trump came to power and sort of attacked renewables, if you want, we had really good projects there, but the investors were just nervous. And so, we pivoted and said, you want to know what? We’ll do not Canada only, but we’ll do Canada to start in a major way, and if and when the US decides to go back because it is one of the cheapest forms of energy, we’ll just go back there because it’s a bigger market. And so just so happens that we grew our pipeline because we were going to be all Canada focused, and we’ve had a team here for over 10 years on boots knowing all the developers, that we were able to build a very sizable pipeline that fully fits into Canada being an energy superpower, both from selling energy, but also from producing energy.
And so, we were totally set for that. Our infrastructure debt team will be playing in and around the major projects to help, and part of the capital stack to the financing of that. And there’s, I mean, Prime Minister, I think, said he wants to spend $1 trillion over the next five years. And then we have our private equity teams, which really kind of built in and around the ecosystem of, for these major projects that need to get done, there’s a whole bunch of other companies that will need to grow in order to facilitate these major projects for them to all get done. And if you think about sort of where we invest the most, energy transition, resource efficiency, decarbonization, energy like North America and Canada is no exception to this. We have a tired grid that we need to double the energy on. There is so many business and so much money that has to go into that for us to continue to be an energy, or for us to get to being a serious, an even more serious energy superpower.
And so, what I liked about what the government did is they brought the world for the first time here in Canada that has the money and expertise to getting this done. And started to create that conversation and starting to get some of these projects funded to move forward. And so, I saw it as a win from that perspective, but I also saw it a win from a different perspective, which is when you want to do something, there are hard things that need to get done, such as getting the money, getting all the legislation right, and cranking that machine. Then there’s the easy things to get right. Put on a suit and tie, shave, which
Luke: Oh, God, I’ve already failed at both of those
Olivier: It’s a finance rule but be presentable. Over here, this is Canada. We have some of the best pension funds in the world. A, we’re bringing everyone here. We’re hosting, we’re getting them to know Canada. We’re getting Canada excited in and around what’s happening. We’re getting the money such that they will make us more competitive into building it all. There’s so many different layers of what I find to be successful to this summit. And one of the reasons we were able to really come out with our announcement is because of the way we’re built, on the infrastructure perspective, but to a lesser extent, the private equity that’s really targeting exactly parts of the massive vision for Canada that the Prime Minister has. And I’m super happy that we’re going to be able to be a part of that and play into it. And in a way, I guess, I’m happy to have a leader that sees that because we built our firm thinking that that was an issue.
Luke: Yeah. Fair enough. Again, you said at the start, you were in the right place at the right time when you were getting into solar. I think you’re in the right place at the right time again with Power Sustainable, so that’s awesome. One question with that, one of the concerns I’ve heard quite a bit about is there’s a lot of, as you said, a trillion dollars to be spent over the next while. And you have to figure out where that money comes from. Obviously, we’re looking at a lot of foreign direct investment, but it’s really great to see a Canadian company like yours being one of the major investors. Are you seeing a meaningful amount of Canadian businesses like yours be able to stand up and also participate, or do you think this is going to be largely foreign direct investment that ultimately, from a private capital point of view, will be coming into these projects? Or is that unique that you guys are a Canadian one, or is that not as, is there a couple other ones as well?
Olivier: Look, we’re very happy that we’re a Canadian company and that we have real teams on the ground. I think, yes, other competitors from other countries will most probably be coming in to create Canadian teams to help develop and grow. But I think the Canadians that are already here that fit into the whole ecosystem are also going to fully benefit from this. And so, I guess I’m less nervous about foreign participation. I would love to have their money build a road because then our taxpaying money can go towards, I don’t know, something else. And so, what’s that balance? I’ll leave the government to figure that out. But to me, the winners will be the Canadians who are developing the projects, building these projects, operating, managing these projects. And so, I would expect a lot of other Canadian firms to also be happy. And you know what? If there are foreign firms that are able to help us get there faster and as profitably or more profitably, it will be all beneficial to society. And at the end, as long as it’s in Canada, it’s to our benefit.
Luke: Yeah. Fair. And indirectly, even if it is foreign money, there’s going to be local firms that have to actually deliver the services and the building and all that stuff. So, yeah, fantastic question because it’s great to see a Canadian company participating is I guess my main point.
Olivier: I think there’s a few others, and I think it’ll be perfectly vertically integrated. And so, it’s just that much better.
Luke: Yeah, absolutely. All right. Now pivoting a little bit, I want to talk to you about the word service. This is something that you brought up with me before this. It’s obvious from everything I’ve read about you and know about you and even you talking about your interest in politics and the mission-driven approach you’ve taken with Power Sustainable. Clearly, service means something quite powerfully to you. Can you speak a bit about what does that mean? And you talked to me a bit about it the other day.
Olivier: So, it’s a word that I discovered a little bit later in life, and that I wish I’d discovered sooner in life. But look, it’s the aspect of giving back. It’s the aspect of doing something and being a part of something that will last or that moves the ball forward. My family has always been involved in the communities, and we like to have our business leaders involved in the communities in which they serve. We think that’s just part of being a democracy is in a democracy, is being a part of it. And so that means being a good community participant.
Service in the sense of what we were talking about is, okay, I can make money. That’s fun, and it is fun. But having impact, making change, being a part of something that is bigger, that’s even more fun. And in a way, Power Sustainable is a mini, kind of trying to have impact, make money, trying to have impact, be change, and that’s how we’ve attracted really good people to come to us. A vision. Over here in service, it’s how do you give back some of your time back into the community or political system in a way? And so how do you help make our collective lives better? And I remember the conversation we had, and there’s about 1,000 different places I can go, and so I will let you guide me out with one of those thousand places we can go.
Luke: Where I’d like to start with first is that I am getting later in my life, maybe I’m middle-aged. I’m getting close to 40, and I’m going through mentally all these things of like “Okay, what am I doing this for? Because it certainly can’t be all about making money.” That is just not enough. That’s craziness. And I have two kids, I have a third on the way, and I want it to be more than that. And I’m lucky that I had very philanthropic parents and my family business is, I was raised around that, so I get all that. But now it’s starting to come to me of like, “Oh, crap. It’s time for me to actually step up and do something.” And so, I’ve been more involved in philanthropy, et cetera, but I haven’t really been involved in the broader context of the community and politics and our nation. And I’m thinking way more about that angle. So, I guess I’m trying to explore how do you view that and how do you actually provide service to your community and provide service to your nation? Because I think that is something a lot of Canadians are quite interested in, especially ones that are fortunate to be in our position. You’re part of a family business and you have a bit of a platform to start with, but how do you take it to the next level and really make sure that we keep having this incredible nation and community that we’ve been fortunate to grow up in ourselves?
Olivier: You need an informed and an engaged electorate in order for there to be a democracy. Engaged, I guess, is the idea that would be the closer part to the word service here. And for the last, call it 25-30 years, the experience of planet Earth has been up and to the right, virtually anywhere that you were. Some people got richer, some people got poorer, nations that is, but all nations are better off today than they were 40-50 years ago. Full stop. Well, during that time period, what we had is people kind of assume that government will take care of itself and I’ll go into business and try to make money. Roll the movie forward, people weren’t really participating in the political system as much. And a democracy doesn’t do well when people are not really participating. And participating isn’t just voting, but you need people in the civil service that are really good. You need to respect them. Two, you need to find a pathway of attracting more of the really good people because it is the foundation of the ideas that your politicians and the foundation of the execution that your politicians vote. You have to be able to attract good politicians, people that can be partisan for sure, but moderate or long-term vision in execution. And you need everybody that helps work with them. And you can have think tanks, you can have different systems that all help push inside a general direction, federal, provincial, but also municipal.
Municipal actually is the one where you can have the most impact, even though most people like the federal the most. But the municipal will have the most impact, and their problems are very real and very complicated to solve. Take the homelessness crisis. They need people involved in, yes, donations, but two, also putting their brain power and gathering people into, okay, well, what’s the cause? How do we bucket this down? And how do we come up with solutions to help prevent this from growing bigger? So, while we create the solutions for what it is today, how do we make sure that we’re preventing this from continuing? This requires good people, and this requires people of different skill sets, legal, business, financial, put it together, coming together around an issue to solve it, not to make money, but to solve it to have a better community to live in. And it’s fun. You get to meet a lot of very interesting people. And you’re all coming together, even though you’ve never come together, towards an issue that you all share. And you get to realize, hey, we’re all just trying to have a better life here towards solving a solution. And it’s very rewarding because you can have impact. And it doesn’t have to be gigantic to get the dominoes to start to go in the right place.
And from getting involved somewhere, you’ll meet somebody who will come and get you to get involved somewhere else. And what I’ve noticed is that a lot of people don’t know where to start. And maybe you’ll notice this, when you’re smart, if you come from a family like mine where you’ve had a patriarch that was super successful, it’s daunting to fill those shoes and can get people to not start. And the trick is you just kind of have to get over yourself and walk. And that’s how you build yourself into your own daunting individual that you will become hopefully one day. But two, that’s how you find all the allies, the weird allies along the way that will help you based upon shared goals and shared beliefs in different areas to where you can help make sure that your community will have the same benefits around safety, for one, that we enjoyed as kids for our kids. Because if we don’t do that and we go to a more Latin America model where there’s huge inequality and we got to take kidnapping insurance, not sure we’ve left our kids in a better place.
Luke: So, you say that, and you’re bang on. The reality is I have at times been frustrated with politics as I think everybody has, especially social media’s made it worse because you’re just inundated constantly in an echo chamber which can polarize you or make you become like, “I just don’t want to pay attention to this,” which is sort of the camp I’m in, is that you almost want to shut it out. But the starting point is the thing that is often like, what is the first thing to do? And how do I, because I don’t want to run for political office, that’s for sure, but I want to dip my toe in somewhere and see how I can actually positively contribute to this. And I think there’s a lot of people that are probably disillusioned, unfortunately, in today’s society that there is nothing to contribute, when in reality, that’s the opposite of the truth. We need people to be engaged, and that is going to be the solution. And it’s not going to be a silver bullet. It’s going to be many different people getting involved that will over time drive better results. So I guess, for me and the other people listening that are like me, where should I get started if I want to get more involved? Should I go and volunteer with a political party? Should I go volunteer with the local municipal council, or do you have any suggestions?
Olivier: The reality is, just get started wherever you want to get involved. If it’s federally, if it’s provincially, if it’s municipally, or if it’s just, you’re even on your own little community. Go talk to your MP or MPP, whoever, and talk to them about things and see where it is that you can help. They don’t say no to volunteers all that often. And as you start to get involved, you will meet others that are involved, and you will see that I don’t know where that journey will take you, but it will take you as far as you want to go and have the talent and time to go.
You don’t need to be the politician, the frontline officer, to have impact. There’s so many other things that you can do to help. What it does mean is you have to be ready to follow. And a funny line is, “Before you lead, learn to follow,” right? And what I find talking to a lot of people, I’m a liberal. A lot of people like me tend to be conservative because lower taxes are all they care about. No, bad joke. I know. So, I like to talk to them. And it’s funny, as angry as people might be on whatever issues, we more or less see eye to eye on call it 95-plus percent of things. The how do we get there, the where do you go, and it’s good just to have the conversation. And it’s not about the fact of they’re wrong, you’re wrong. It’s having the conversation and understanding their point of view and what it is they’re trying to say is an issue that they see. And it can help you refine your thoughts on where it is. It doesn’t mean you’re going to switch, but people have their thoughts.
The NDP, for example, or the left-wing party, a lot of conservatives would not be able, and liberals too, would not be able to fully understand how can you ever take over. But they have X percent of the vote. That means there’s real experiences that they’re talking about in our society that you have to listen to, and that you have to take into account. And good ideas can come from there. But you have to be open to listen. And the more you get involved with things, once you get over the partisanism, and if you really come at it from the spirit of service, it’s about how do we get to more or less a shared productive place in a way that benefits everybody. That’s from the political perspective, if you want. And municipality’s kind of the same thing, except way more fractured. I’m just recently getting involved in more municipal stuff, and it’s complicated. Very complicated. So yeah, maybe I didn’t understand how to get started. Just talk to people who you know are involved and go and help. Where do you want to help? How do you want to help? Don’t try to be the CEO right off the bat.
Luke: Good advice.
Olivier: Learn.
Luke: I’m sure that’s part of the intimidation too, is some people that are very comfortable in their world of business, you’re going to suddenly be inexperienced in this world. But it is great advice that you need to learn to follow before you want to lead and take time to meet people.
Olivier: And you can have impact. As long as you can think and you’re willing to try to come up with ways of solving the problem or executing upon a task that’s been given to you, you will have impact. A lot of people say, “Well, I’m not sure what value add I bring.” Sometimes just you being there is a value add because-
Luke: Yeah
Olivier: … you’re learning, you’re growing, you’re seeing, “Oh, boy, I didn’t know that the problem was this wide and vast and complicated. Oh, I should think.” And sometimes you’ll be like, “Hey, I can maybe help you with that.” Just participating is more than enough.
Luke: No, that’s really genuinely good advice, and I think it is, again, personally, that is where I’m at, is I got to take that first step. And I like your point about you’ll start to meet allies and other people that are trying to accomplish something. You have alignment in values or alignment in goals, and you can kind of feed off of that motivationally, too, and learn from what they are doing that’s working or not working. And that’s sort of general advice on life trying to do anything. But of course, it does apply to this as well. For whatever reason, in my mind, I assumed it wouldn’t. But yeah, no, that’s-
Olivier: I think our generation, call it the 40-year-olds there, we have to learn to get back involved even if we’re in business. We’re citizens. We have a voice. When did it become smart to silence our voice, and to be told that we shouldn’t have a voice? Sorry, all citizens should have a voice, and nobody should feel oppressed to have their voice silenced. It’s a society of the people, for the people, if you want, and the collective of ideas are good. And what I tell people is, if you’re being quiet and everyone like you is being quiet, how are we to know as a society that this is a thought?
Luke: Yeah.
Olivier: It’s a participatory sport. Democracy is hard, and it’s not free. It’s actually the most expensive luxury good in the world, and we need you to participate.
Luke: Yeah. Nope. Fair enough. Just being mindful of our time here.
Olivier: Oh, don’t worry. Go on for as long as you want.
Luke: Another question for you. You have children, I believe, right?
Olivier: Right. Three. Two girls and a boy. Yeah.
Luke: Awesome. I have two girls and another one, which I won’t reveal the gender of yet because they are coming this Christmas. But it’s changed my perspective on where I fit in my family, and I’m a lot less self-centered, I hope, now that I have children and I’m more in the context of where I fit in the lineage of my family. Also, the pressure not to screw it up. But I interviewed a guest at the very start of my podcasting career, if you can call it that, and their philosophy was very much so that they’re a steward of the family wealth, and their job is to basically hand it off to the next generation and ensure that it’s stronger than or better than when they found it type of thing. And that’s always stuck with me, and it certainly has naturally evolved with me as I’ve had more kids. I guess you’ve had a very prolific family legacy so far. You’re clearly taking a very mission-driven approach to how you contribute to that. But if you stand back and look at how you want your story to, I guess, be remembered at the end of it, do you look at it that way, or are you just trying to spend your time on what you care about, and that will turn out the way it turns out?
Olivier: The latter. Maybe when I was younger, I thought more about that because I was foolish. The reality is, I am what I am. I have the advantages that I have. I have the weaknesses that I have. I have where I like to spend my time. I have the things that I have to spend my time on. And the overarching goal is just to, in a funny sort of way, allow my kids to have more or less, no matter what outcome happens. So, everything blows up and they’re back on the street. Let’s go that way. And how do we make sure that that community that they’re in is as solid as possible to allow them to build themselves back up? Because to me, that is the real long-term benefit that you can give.
Put another way, this is a fun little analogy that I like to have with people. Every family loves to talk about the tree, the family tree. And one of the things that I hear from time to time is you got to prune the branches, keep the tree alive. Okay. I like to say the most important thing is not so much the family tree. Like, yeah, it’s always good. Your family should be like everybody’s family, your nucleus, you, your kids, the most important to you. But you want the soil to be as fertile as ever. Because over time, some of those trees, branches are going to be falling back onto the soil. And if that tree’s sucking up all the nutrients or you’re not putting enough back into the soil, nothing’s going to grow there, and that means that you’re going to have a lot of descendants of yours that are not going to enjoy their lifestyles or anything going forward. And so, if you’re a whatever generation, good for you, especially if you make it to seven or eight, I mean, wow. Congratulations on making it there. But if you love all your kids as much, one as much as the other, depending on the days, clearly, then making sure that the average of the society that you’re in or the community that you’re in allows for the maximum chances of getting people to get into the fortunate spot. That kind of becomes the goal because I get it that your generation has made it here. How many of you go back to the first generation are still inside the same position you’re in? And that means that play the movie forward seven years, how many of your kids do you really not care about? And so therefore it’s a different type of philosophy onto how do you, and fits into, as you can tell, the community and making sure that your society is good to allow them all to regrow. So, I don’t know if I went off on a different tangent there than the question that you asked, but-
Luke: No, no. And I- I think you tied it in beautifully to the service idea, which is, I genuinely I like the idea of the comparison of the tree and the soil. It’s a fair point, is that be less obsessive about the tree being perfectly fine and broaden your view a bit to the community and then everyone will benefit from that.
Olivier: Do both.
Luke: Yeah.
Olivier: It’s not about one or the other. If you really like all your kids, then you have to focus on the soil because bad luck happens.
Luke: Yeah. Fair. Thank you so much for coming on the show. That was very inspiring and interesting. Coming up with a mission-driven business is something I aspire to do personally. And your philosophy on what service means is something I’m definitely going to reflect a lot on. So, I really appreciate your time.
Olivier: Well, thank you very much for having me and looking forward to seeing, I guess, this podcast and looking forward to hopefully being invited again and have a conversation about something else.